Sea to Ayr to Highlands

Rather than mortify my family by snoring on the ferry ride from Belfast, I bought a delicious bottomless coffee and read about my "cousin" Mickey Mantle's 1956 season, eventually arriving to a dark Scottish night.

Courtesy of Jay's iPhone playlist routed through our Fiat's stereo USB port, upbeat rock music cranked over the speakers, keeping us alert as the one hour drive to Ayr raced by.

 

Loch Cluanie, In Highlands Between Glenfinnan and Skye

Jay did an outstanding job navigating us through dark streets directly to the Old Racecourse Hotel, where we'd eaten Sunday afternoon dinner less than a day and a half earlier. It sure seemed like we had been gone longer, but I've often found that time warps.

After checking in, we immediately headed back downstairs to the beautiful pub off the dining room at 11:20 PM, but despite a sign indicating the pub served until 11:30 PM, we were turned away by the bartender in the othewise empty venue.

Instead, the kids settled down with their iPhones in the miniscule lobby of the lovely hotel to message and Skype their friends on the free wi-fi, while Julie and I turned in. Our rooms were nice and roomy, but we just changed clothes and slept, rising for a full Scottish breakfast in time to be the first ones in the dining room when service began.

With no time to spare in Ayr, we hit the road, but after a few miles realized it was the wrong one, requiring us to double back to Ayr. It was our only unintended detour of the trip, which is an outstanding record based on my prior experiences navigating strange environs, which usually include frequently repeating some variation of the phrase, "Stupid map!" Needless to say, to Ayr is human. 

Jay navigated us back through Ayr, giving us our first chance to see its bustling downtown, and then down the right road. 

Fort William

Other than the occasional restroom breaks at places like Costa Coffee, where we felt obliged to buy cappuccinos which resulted in requiring another restroom break an hour later, we just drove and soaked in the scenery, not breaking for lunch until we reached Fort William.  I must confess that contrary to my previous claim of only buying ice cream at McDonalds on this trip, I bought a McChicken and burger in Fort William for the girls to justify using their restrooms, but that wasn't our primary reason for stopping.

Fort William is one endpoint for the Harry Potter Train.  We wanted to verify it left Mallaig on schedule so we could watch it pass a few miles down the road, at the historic Glenfinnan Monument, which has been unoffically designated as a viewing spot for the Harry Potter Train that passes maybe a half mile away a couple of times a day.

 

Mind you, no train actually goes to Hogwarts, but the movie producers used this train to represent the one Harry took to school, so we headed to Glenfinnan to see it.


Amy and Jay at Glenfinnan Monument

Based on the number of tourists we found there staring at the distant viaduct, waiting for the train to pass, it seems most of the people who paid 2 pounds to park their cars were more interested in Harry Potter than the brave Scots who helped Bonnie Prince Charlie during the Jacobite Uprising of 1745, and their monument for which the lot was established. 

Those who took the time to walk over to the monument would have learned about the Jacobite Uprising, designed to put the Stuart family back on the throne. 

 

Loch Shiel at Glenfinnan

More tourists understand the phrase Deathly Hallows than Jacobite. The latter refers to the Latin word Jacobus, which means James, leading to Jacobitism or supporting James.  Why Latin? Because the underlying cause was linked to the Catholic Church.

In 1685, Catholic King James II of England (he was also King James VII of Scotland) succeeded his Episcopalian brother, King Charles II, who had restored the Church of England.

 

Glenfinnan Monument

James II was already over fifty by the time he ascended to the throne, and he had two Protestant daughters, so his opposition chose to bide their time until he died.  However, in 1688, his young second wife, Mary of Modena (Italy), gave birth to a son, Prince James, who was immediately baptized Catholic. As the first son, Prince James would immediately become heir to the throne, and the young wife meant more backup heirs could be in the offing.



No longer content to wait, the "Immortal Seven" (no relation to the Magnificent Seven) supplanted James II with his daughter Mary and her husband, William of Orange. 

James II and his family fled to France.

The Benevolent Reign of William and Mary

The Williamites (supporters of King William) defeated the Jacobites when James II tried to reclaim the throne, and also rebuffed his son, James "the Old Pretender" several times. 

The Jacobite cause was hurt by the general benvolence, tolerance of religious diversity and acceptance of emerging democratic ideals in the Kingdom of William and Mary, including their approval of an English Bill of Rights and greater co-operation with Parliament.  Another recurring theme in history is that those who rule justly are not overthrown easily.

Nonetheless, the Old Pretender's son Charles Edward Stuart, young and vigorous at age 25, was game for leading one more foray to win back the crown for the Stuart family in 1745.



Charles Stuart Welcomed in Edinburgh

The challenge from "the New Pretender" failed in 1746, but the legend is remembered romantically by the Scots.



The MacDonnell Clan, presumably related to the MacDonnells who defeated the MacQuillans in Ireland,  were on the losing side of this confrontation.  They backed the Jacobite claim, as did several other prominent Scottish clans, including Camerons and MacDonalds.  About 1,500 men gathered at Glenfinnan to follow Charles Stuart into battle.



While there were times when the uprising seemed destined to succeed, the Jacobites were outnumbered by government forces. France declared war on England but never sent troops to assist in the Uprising of '45.  In fairness to the French, their fleet had been decimated when, in a failed invasion in 1844, ships carrying 10,000 troops as well as the necessary supplies and equipment sank in a terrible storm on the way to invade England.



Battle of Culloden Chess Set



If Jacobites had recaptured the throne, an alliance with France instead of decades of war could have dramatically changed history. Under this alternative history, some claim England would not have increased taxes on the colonies to pay for their long war with France, and the colonies might not have felt compelled to rebel, leading to peace and prosperity. Based on what we know of history, however, it seems more likely the Jacobites would have been in control only until the power behind the throne, France, found an excuse to take control for themselves, opening an entirely new set of ramifications.  You can't change one thing without changing everything. 

 

Satirical Wanted Poster Offering
Very Real Reward of 30,000 pounds

After the Battle of Culloden in April of 1746, facing sure defeat in his quest, Bonnie Prince Charlie, as the New Pretender came to be called, fled to Skye. Despite a huge bounty of 30,000 pounds, which was literally a king's ransom, Highlanders who knew well his identity refused to turn Charles in. 

Dressed like a girl, Charles was eventually smuggled to France, thanks to the heroic assistance of Flora MacDonald of Skye. Bonnie Prince Charlie returned to his birth city of Rome, Italy, to live out the rest of his life in exile.

Honoring brave men defeated in a noble pursuit is as natural in Scotland as for Americans to celebrate champions in victory.

After political tensions of the Jacobite Rebellion receeded, Alexander MacDonald of Glenaladale (that's MacDonald, not MacDonnell, and Gleanaladale, Scotland, not Glendale, California, where Lester and Opal McQuillen moved to raise their family) built the Glenfinnan Monument, a tower topped by a kilted Scottish Highander, designed by Scottish architect James Gillespie Graham. 



Harry Potter Train at Glenfinnan Viaduct

It's hard keeping track of who's who in history when so many names are similar, whereas in the Harry Potter saga, there's only one Harry. Maybe that, combined with his story's happier ending, helps explain why so many tourists arrived to watch a train go by. Then again, we do love our fiction.

We were soon off to Skye, like Bonnie Prince Charlie, although we all wore jeans. 

 

Isle of Skye and Its Sheep

Sheep by road to Dunscaith Castle

"As for the Highlanders, I comprehend them all in two sorts of people: the one that dwelleth in our mainland that are barbarous, and yet mixed with some show of civility; the other that dwelleth in the Isles and are all utterly barbarous." ---King James VI of Scotland



Dunscaith Castle Ruins

Clan MacLeod's Dunvegan Castle  is a sharp contrast to Dunscaith Castle, the ancestral home of Clan MacDonald.

Dunscaith has a far lovelier natural setting than Dunvegan, though I recognize that preferring more greens of trees and pastures to the brown hues of moorelands is a personal bias. The fact that Dunscaith is in ruins, however, cannot be denied.

Sheep On the Road to Dunscaith Castle

As we drove the deteriorating one lane road to Dunscaith, sheep wandered aimlessly across the road in our path. What might have once been family farmland is now overgrown. 

Beautiful, to be sure, but also a feeling of something lost.

Footpath to Dunscaith

We hiked along a rugged path to the gorgeous site that held ancient rubble. 

Amy reached the castle before me and was teetering on a six inch edge of what I assume used to be a bridge over a hallway, but the wood had rotted away centuries earlier.

Amy Enters the Castle

Taking hand holds where she could on the wall of eroded boulders, she made it across, to my relief.

Jay took an equally perilous way, climbing higher to a ledge a foot wide where he stood and walked across, leaping down at the other side.

I took a third route, on the opposite side from Amy where I thought I could get a better hold of the top of the five foot wall, wondering as I edged along how I would get back if I fell and broke my legs.   

Jay Takes a Picture of Amy Atop the Castle

The fall would have been over twelve feet to jagged rocks, and for Jay actually another five feet more.

We made it safely to the panoramic view atop the castle, imagining what it would have been like as a seat of power hundreds of years ago. We gazed at the loch by which the stone outcropping was perched and surrounding pastures, taking it all in.



Jay's Picture of Amy Atop Dunscaith Castle

Unfortunately, we found no other way back down, so back we went to creep along the edges, grasping the rock wall. Jay had his 35 millimeter camera dangling from a strap around his neck, and he realized trying to protect it made either climbing back up to the wall he walked across or edging along the narrow ridges even more perilous. He sat the camera on top where he walked previously, and then creeped along the edge. Then he jumped back on the wall, walked over to where the camera was, leaned down to pick it up, and then walked backwards across the wall. We were all happy he made it back without breaking his crown and laughed about his double derring-do to protect his camera.

Back to history, Clan MacDonald had absconded from Dunscaith about 100 years before the Jacobite Uprising of 1745, so it wasn’t backing the wrong side that cost them this particular castle. In fact, at one time, Clan MacLeod had won and occupied Dunsquaith, but the MacDonalds took it away. The tides of history don’t always flow in the same direction.

Based on the Glenfinnan Monument to Highlander loyalty to Bonnie Prince Charlie and his quest to have his family line restored to the throne, you might well assume some longstanding mutual admiration. The Highlanders undoubtedly felt Scottish pride when King James VI of Scotland, the son of Mary Queen of Scots, became King James I of England, but as the quote above indicates, he viewed them with the sort of contempt that often seems to be leveled at the modern day Tea Party by those in the American government.

Mary Queen of Scots

King James V’s daughter, Mary Queen of Scots, on the other hand, would have preferred to live out her reign in the Loire Valley had her husband, King Francis II of France, not died as a teenager. She was not thrilled to be forced to return to Scotland after having lived in splendor on the continent.

Nonetheless, life goes on. Mary married her first cousin, Henry Stuart (Lord Darnley), and they soon had a son, James. A few months later, Lord Darnley was murdered, and Mary was imprisoned and forced to abdicate, based on specious charges, to their son, James VI of Scotland, who at the time was 13 months old.

James VI grew up under royal guardianship with a considerably different mindset than his namesakes who spoke Gaelic as at least one of their languages and respected Highlanders, who at the time were the majority of the population of Scotland.

James VI proclaimed Highlanders to be crude and terribly flawed.

He derided Gaelic as “Erse,” or Irish, and as such foreign to Scotland. He proclaimed it as a cause for Highlander shortcomings, and Parliament tried to abolish it as a language.  Essentially, Highlanders were treated worse than illegal aliens in their own country, where their direct ancestors had lived throughout history.  Apparently by the time of the Jacobite Uprisings, these insults were forgotten.

King James I of England

King James VI of Scotland became King James I of England, and though he wanted to combine the crowns, that would not come until later.  He did, however, rule England and Ireland as well as Scotland under separate crowns in what became known as the Jacobean Era.

Despite what he said about Highlanders, he wasn't all bad.

We all know of at least one accomplishment. The King James English translation of the Bible was completed under his watch.

Under his rule, the Golden Age of Elizabethan Literature continued, with the magnificent literary contributions of William Shakespeare.  James was an excellent scholar himself, writing several books.  And in an age without Fox News, perhaps the Highlanders never knew what he really thought of them.

Following plenty of succession drama, his ancestor King James II (King James VII of Scotland) was replaced by his half-sister Mary and her husband William, leading to the Jacobite Rebellions.

In 1689, they declared that Catholic King James II (aka VII) had “deserted” the kingdom and proclaimed that no Catholic could ever again become king, because “it hath been found by experience that it is inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this protestant kingdom to be governed by a papist prince.”  This more than any particular action by any James probably spurred Highlanders to the Jacobite cause.

While some Highlanders like the MacLeods were loyal to the official government and curried favor, Highlanders in general were held in contempt as backwards and worthless by the elite in the new government, a belief stoked by Highlander support of the Jacobite Rebellions. It’s natural to paint enemies in an unflattering light.



"The Commons" Painting of the Highlander Clearances

However, the government also knew that Highlanders had proven themselves to be the most loyal, tough and gallant soldiers of the British military.  

Because they were such valiant warriors, the government justifiably feared they may rebel again after the '45 Rebellion was suppressed, and so when Bonnie Prince Charlie skirted off to France in 1746, the Parliament passed the Act of Proscription designed to crush the clan system. This basically put teeth in the Disarming Act of 1715 which had not been strongly enforced.

The Dress Act made it illegal to wear a kilt or tartan in Scotland, with the only exception being for soldiers in the Black Watch Regiment of the British Infantry (Royal Highlanders), which still does to this day.

It also made it illegal for anyone in defined parts of Scotland to keep and bear any “broad sword or target, poignard, whinger, durk, side pistol, gun, or other warlike weapon." Obviously this stands in stark contrast to the U.S. Bill of Rights which asserts the right for law abiding citizens to keep and bear arms, and the framers of the Constitution undoubtedly knew about this precedent.

Farm With Pastureland Near Dunscaith Castle

Around the same time that the Jacobites struggled to regain the throne for their Catholic King, other big changes were afoot.  

In the era of clans, “crofters” worked the lands controlled by the clan chiefs very much like share croppers. These small farms produced enough food to allow the farmers to feed themselves and provide some excess to the clan. Starting in the 16th Century, the Scottish Government began requiring clan chiefs to come to Edinburgh once a year to post a bond for the people under their control.  

Each generation, clans grew larger and more like towns than families, which made clan chiefs feel more like landlords and tax collectors than father figures. They started finding that raising livestock and droving herds to sell in the lowlands was more profitable and easier than handling landlord problems and collecting the estate's share from the crofters.

Talisker Distillery on Isle of Skye

With the advent of the industrial revolution and excitement about immigration to the colonies, some of the more industrious risk-takers left the family farms to seek fortunes elsewhere, either in city factories or claiming lands of their own to farm in the Americas or Australia, but the change wasn’t happening fast enough for clan chiefs and others seeking to maximize profits.

Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand was forced into an iron glove.

Clan MacLeod “experimented” with clearing out crofters starting around 1732, and what became known as the Highland Clearances shifted into high gear in 1762.  Clan chiefs brought in factors and other outside experts in sheep farming from the lowlands to help increase efficiency.  

Some clans found it easier to sell out completely, allowing other landholders to become more powerful.

On the Scottish mainland, the Duke of Sutherland came to own 1.5 million acres in the Highlands, and the level of his wealth can be described in a quote from Queen Victoria upon visiting his estate. “I have come from my house to your palace.”

Painting of the Highlander Clearances

Needing more grazing lands, landowners evicted crofters, sometimes burning their thatched roofs to hasten their departures. This forced population exodus was euphemistically called “necessary improvements” by wealthy landlords.

Families were left to freeze and starve without their means of livelihood. Immigration to the colonies seemed the best choice for most, and there are now more descendants of Highlanders in North America than in Scotland.

In 1840, 30,000 non-English speaking Highlanders were forced to move to Glasgow, where very few spoke Gaelic, to work in factories.  Not all could find jobs in the city.



Portree Harbor

As Americans on holiday, we drove from the ruins of Dunscaith in our Fiat 500L several generations after the Clearances, and sheep looked at us as if to ask what we thought we were doing on their roads. There still seem to be more sheep than people on the Isle of Skye.

We meandered into the village of Portree, which still survives as a central marketplace,  and we visited the Talisker Distillery, indicating the whiskey industry has prospered.  Tourism certainly now plays a huge role in the economy, but most of the island is sheep country. It’s a lovely place to visit, but I don’t think I’d want to live there.  

On the Statue of Liberty, which has become an international symbol for welcoming immigrants to the USA, there’s a bronze plaque featuring “The New Collosus” by American Poet Emma Lazarus, including this excerpt:

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

A Welcome Sight for Displaced Hihglanders in the USA

These words were not an invitation to a welfare state but a challenge to prove the class systems of the old world was wrong in pushing them out of their former homelands.

In the long run, the Clearances proved to be a blessing for future generations of Highlanders who grew to their potential under our freedoms, as well as for America, which benefited from their strengths.

Before moving on, let’s consider an alternative viewpoint of the Highlander situation. We can understand why the emerging British Empire gradually uniting England and Ireland with Scotland would require assimilation of Highlanders. They certainly didn’t want to simply put up a wall like the Romans when they saw a sort of manifest destiny for their mainland to be united similar to that expressed by the western expansion of the United States from the original 13 colonial states.  

Statue of Economist Adam Smith In Edinburgh

Modernization in all its forms, including science, technology and economics, was coming regardless of whether the Highlanders preferred to stay in feudal times or not. Feudalism relies on subservience rather than freedom, and freedom leads to greater happiness and prosperity in the long run.   

Squabbles and outright battles among clans were counter-productive, and like it or not, those who want to be successful in business in Western Civilization speak English, not Gaelic. 

As the old saying goes, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. And man does not live by haggis alone.

Maria Theresa and the Habsburgs, Pt. 4: Bavaria

It was the Duke of Bavaria, Charles Albert, who succeeded Maria Theresa's father Charles VI as Holy Roman Emperor, breaking the Habsburg succession streak that had started fifty years before Columbus discovered America.

Charles Albert, a Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, had a very good claim to becoming Emperor over his cousin Maria Theresa's husband, Francis Stephen.

Charles Albert was also the son-in-law of a Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph I, who himself was a Habsburg.

Joseph I was Charles VI's older brother and had actually preceded Maria Theresa's father as Emperor.

Charles Albert's great-great-grandfather was Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand II, just as was the case for Maria Theresa, whereas Francis Stephen was Ferdinand II's great-grandson.

So, while Charles Albert, who became Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII, was officially from the House of Wittelsbach, you can see that even this short detour from the House of Habsburg succession didn't stray too far from those bloodlines.

The biggest difference came down to the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, which allowed Maria Theresa to inherit the Habsburg kingdoms and prohibited dividing those lands and thereby diluting the Habsburg holdings.

Charles Albert never signed the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, because he realized it edged out his claims to Habsburg kingdoms in favor of Maria Theresa and her husband Francis Stephen.

Emperor Charles VI had spent his lifetime gathering signatures for the document that allowed Archduchess Maria Theresa to inherit his kingdoms, undivided, but in fact he had years earlier signed a contradictory Mutual Pact of Succession written by his father, Emperor Leopold I, when the senior line of the House of Habsburg, King Charles II of Spain, died without a direct male heir.

That Mutual Pact of Succession specifically gave the heirs of Joseph I, not Charles VI, precedence in claims to the family leadership if neither had a son.

Enough Prince-Electors agreed with this legal argument to elect Charles Albert King of the Romans, and the Pope subsequently crowned him Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII.

Shortly after Charles VII's coronation as Holy Roman Emperor, Maria Theresa's Austrian troops, now revitalized under her firm, resolved leadership, counterattacked to capture most of his Bavarian holdings.

In short, Charles VII and his allies had overplayed their hands, expecting Maria Theresa to fold, but she drew to her own strengths instead.

While militaristic Prussia fielded an impressive army roughly equal in size to that of the Austrians at the time Maria Theresa came to the throne, Austria was a much larger country with far greater resources.

Prussia itself had 2 million citizens versus 16 million in Austria.

In addition, as mentioned earlier, Hungary had sent 60,000 troops to supplement Austria's 82,000 soldiers.

While France was also a powerful ally to Charles VII, the French motivation was primarily to cause trouble for Great Britain's allies so as to weaken their long time enemy elsewhere.

Great Britain's King George II, however, was actually born and raised in northern Germany and was also a Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, so he wasn't going to just sit idly by and let the future of Europe be decided without him.

Realizing French power would increase if Maria Theresa lost power, King George II not only sided with Austria diplomatically but actually sent troops and personally commanded an Anglo-Allied army to help turn the tide.

However, in late 1744 Prussia and France managed to reclaim Bavaria for Emperor Charles VII.

In a rapid twist, Charles VII died three months later at the age of 47, and Maria Theresa's husband Francis Stephen succeeded him as Holy Roman Emperor nine months after that, taking the name Francis I.

As the War of Austrian Succession continued, France became involved in attempting to remove King George II from the British throne by assisting the Jacobite movement to re-instate the Stuart line in Great Britain and crown Bonnie Prince Charlie as their King.

This pulled King George II's attention back to his homeland.

By 1748, France and England decided to resolve a lot of their spats all over the world with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which among other things confirmed King George II's House of Hanover succession in both the UK and Germany and allowed Maria Theresa to keep most of her Habsburg holdings, but notably allowing Prussia to keep Silesia.

Spain and Italy also received some scraps of Habsburg territories, but for the most part, Maria Theresa came out on top in the War of Austrian Succession.

Maria Theresa would continue to refer to Frederick the Great of Prussia as "that evil man," but the reason France and England allowed Prussia to keep Silesia was the realization that Prussia could be a powerful ally, so neither wanted to be the one to antagonize Frederick by taking away his conquest.  Perhaps more to the point, at the outset of the War, Frederick had offered to recognize Maria Theresa as legitimate heir to the House of Habsburg if she would let Prussia keep Silesia.

Nonetheless, just as in the twentieth century's World Wars I and II, Great Britain's side clearly won in Europe, which must have made the unexpected loss to their American colonies 35 years later all the more shocking.

Within a few years after the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, America would become a major battleground for France and Great Britain in the French and Indian War, during which young colonial George Washington gained battle experience as a British officer.

In Central Europe, however, Empress Maria Theresa had successfully reclaimed what she considered her family line's rightful position, which she would pass on to her children, two of whom would go on to become Holy Roman Emperors.

All photos in this post are of Regensburg.

Sizergh Gardens

It turned out to be sunny and quite hot for northern England as we began the guided tour of Sizergh Gardens, which for many people may have greater appeal than the castle itself.

I can't claim to remember too many details about its horticulture, but our stroll through the garden was a pleasant experience.

Our guide mentioned that like most great gardens, Sizergh is planted to provide different blooms as seasons change.

Over the centuries, the gardening philosophy itself has adapted with different generations.

According to the guide book Jay gave me, "The oldest part of the garden is the terraced lawn that extends south-westwards from the house, bounded on one side by a brick-faced fruit wall and on the other by a stone retaining wall."  The brick wall was built in 1739.

I would guess that in medieval times, the practical Stricklands would have used gardens for growing food almost exclusively, and of course raising "stirkes" (cattle) rather than ornamental flowers.  Much of the garden today remains dedicated to herbs, fruit and vegetables.

Regardless of whether they indulged in croquet and flower gardens before the mid-18th Century when the lawn was laid out, they would have undoubtedly been forced to cut back on frivolity when Parliamentarians made Oliver Cromwell essentially a dictator of England following the execution of King Charles I, for whom the Stricklands sacrificed so much to defend.

Despite paying substantial fines that put the family deeper into debt, the Stricklands managed to hold onto their ancestral home.

Upon Cromwell's death, King Charles II returned from nine years in exile in France to claim his throne in 1660.

The Stricklands tied their fate to the Catholic younger brother of King Charles II, who himself had no sons.  When Charles II died in 1685, that younger brother became King James II.  He was married to Mary of Modena, princess of very Catholic Italy, and soon Protestant plots sprung up to depose him.

When King James II had a Catholic son in 1688, Lady Strickland was present, indicating how close they were.  She was honored to be named Under-Governess for the Prince of Wales, who would be King James III, if all went well.

Concern over a now very Catholic dynasty prompted the Anglican (Protestant) opposition to encourage Mary, the older sister of King James II, and her husband William of Orange (Orange is in modern day France near Avignon), who already ruled what's now known as the Netherlands, to usurp the crowns of the British Empire from James II and Queen Mary of Modena.

The coup worked, and while William and Mary turned out to be benevolent rulers, that was a disaster for the Stricklands, who subsequently followed King James II and Mary of Modena into exile in France.   King Louis XIV of France also considered William of Orange a threat, so he generously accepted the deposed monarchs and their entourage as his guests at his Chateau of Saint-Germain-en-Laye until they could re-claim the crown.

This contingent of British royal ex-patriots became known as Jacobites.

While the Jacobites were never destined to rule the British Commonwealth again, the Stricklands returned to their ancestral home in the Lake District, which had been cleverly protected by putting it in trust with two of their servants rather than allowing it to be seized.

The Strickland family's love for the exiled monarchs is revealed by the treasured portraits of the Stuart family members still on display in Sizergh Castle.

Decades later, Francis Strickland, who as a younger brother was never in charge of Sizergh Castle, joined the Stuart Court in exile in Rome.  Francis was one of only seven men present with "Bonnie Prince Charlie" in Moidart, Scotland, when the disastrous Jacobite Rebellion kicked off.


The Strickland family somehow managed to navigate through all the political intrigues of the centuries with one dramatic comeback after another, returning to true prominence by the 20th Century.

In the 20th Century Baron Gerald Strickland (1861 through 1940), was a Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom but also had an international career that included stints as Governor of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean, Tasmania, Western Australia and New South Wells, as well as Prime Minister of Malta, the Mediterranean island nation where he was actually born and died.  He did return to Sizergh Castle periodically, including on one occasion when a newsreel was filmed.

When Great Britain's top marginal tax rates reached 99.25% following World War II, however, the family couldn't pull enough strings to avoid turning the estate over to the National Trust in 1950.

That gambit, however, allowed Sizergh Castle and the Strickland family history to be preserved for posterity while still allowing his ancestors to reside there with the government caring for the castle and gardens.  All factors considered, not a bad deal.