After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - The Real Outlander

Episode Date: April 2, 2026

The book and TV series "Outlander" has introduced millions of fans to Scottish history and the story of the Jacobites.One of those fans is Maddy Pelling! Maddy is back (in a pre-recorded episode) to delve into the tragic story of the Bonnie Prince Charlie and his army.Joining her today is Dr. Alexandra Dold, expert and scholar in all things Outlander, to take you back to the 18th century Scottish uprisings.Edited by Hannah Feodorov and Anna Brant. Produced by Stuart Beckwith.You can now watch After Dark on Youtube! www.youtube.com/@afterdarkhistoryhitFor tickets to see Anthony and Maddy talking about her new book, Hoax, click here: https://www.conwayhall.org.uk/whats-on/event/hoax/Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Looking for more shady and sinister stories, sign up to History Hit. You can join us to explore the tragic life of the Bronties or discover the chilling story of Burke and Hair. Plus, with your History Hit subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe to start exploring the past. Hello everyone. It's a very tired and sleep-deprived Maddie coming straight to you from maternity leave. I am really missing Anthony and the entire After Dark family and I can't wait to come back to the pod, which will be very soon, rest assured. But in the meantime, before I went away to have this sleepless baby, I recorded some special episodes of After Dark just with me.

And this is the first of them. It's all about. outlander, the real history behind it, and my love of the TV show. So enjoy. Also, before you go, I want to let you know that Anthony and I will be live at Conway Hall in London on the 7th of May. We're going to be celebrating the launch of my new book, Hoax, Truth and Lies in the Age of Enlightenment. Tickets are on sale now. The link is in the show notes. The date is April 16, 1746. Kalloden Moore is a freezing sodden. hopeless grave waiting to be dug.

A relentless, freezing wind soaks the kilts of 3,000 Highlanders. They are hungry, exhausted, and deployed on ground that neutralises their only weapon, the charge. Across the field, the well-fed, disciplined, British army stands ready. Their artillery zeroed in, their bayonets glistening. Yet, under the grey sky, hope still flickers. They see Bonnie Prince Charlie on his charger, they hear the final desperate cry of their chiefs. With a roar that defies the cold and the cannon smoke,

they draw their claymores. This is their final, impossible gamble for a free Scotland. And in 40 minutes, the dream of freedom becomes a blood-soaked nightmare. The Scottish Highlands were a powder keg, and the fuse burned to its end. an empire prepared to make an example of Scotland. Today, we delve into the true, terrifying history behind Outlander. The Jacobite rising and the moment when Scotland's fight for independence

became a death sentence. At its centre is Bonnie Prince Charlie. Young, magnetic and catastrophically unprepared for the war he unleashes. This is their final impossible gamble for a free Scotland. and in 40 minutes, the dream of freedom became a nightmare. From the Morlands of Scotland, this is After Dark. Hello, welcome to After Dark. Today, it's just me, Maddie.

Anthony's not here. He is, as you will know, if you've been listening recently, holding down the fort while I'm on maternity leave. But we pre-recorded this episode before I left. If you're hearing it now, I'm probably at home with a baby, covered in sick and crying. So think of me for a second. in today's episode, I can't believe I'm getting to do this. I'm so excited. We are talking to someone

who is a doctor of history, but a doctor of Outlander. Oh my God. We are joined today by Dr. Alexandra Dold. Alex, welcome to After Dark. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. I'm so excited to have you. I'm going to have to calm myself down a little bit before we started recording this. We've been talking all things Outlander and our mutual shared love of it. How does one go about getting a PhD in Outlander, please? There'll be plenty of people who would like to follow in your footsteps. Well, first of all, I'm not the only one that has a PhD in Outlander, but I'm the only one that has it in all nine published novels.

The other people have looked at things like feminism or genre, politics. There's someone else who got theirs this year from the University of Glasgow. Someone else is finishing next year. So we're all like a big community. quote each other and we've all met at the Outlander Conference at Glasgow University in 2022. And I mean, you're being quoted as well about Outlander. That's like my, honestly, my dream, when I got to write academically about Outlander, that was, I sort of thought, have I lost the plot at this point? Because not, I didn't really, wasn't aware that other people

working on it at that time, because this was something, you know, project I started a long time ago with a, with a friend with a co-writer. And yeah, it was, what a delight to be able to write about that as your job is. It's just so cool. I mean, I got to do it because I met one of my lecturers during a semester abroad in Inverness. So I'm originally from Germany, did a semester abroad in Inverness, met my supervisor. And he was like, oh my God, I love that essay about Outlander. If you ever want to do a peach, he, come back. And you're like, say no more. Exactly. Like, I went back to student accommodation. I remember phoning my parents and was like, I think I might have to move to Scotland. And they were like,

ha ha, of course you will. And I did, I did finish. my master's, which was also on Outlander, Scottish identities and how it's represented in Tartan and the Kilt on the show. And like, I finished that in May and I moved to Scotland in September 2019 and I've been there ever since. Wow. And the rest is history. The rest is history. The rest is Scottish 18th century history. For those who may not have seen Outlander, and I can't believe there's anyone left on the planet who hasn't, apart from our producer Tom, who has admitted that he doesn't, he's never seen it. So for the benefit of Tom and maybe a handful of others,

can you give us a sense of broadly what the story is when it's set? And we'll talk a little bit about the main characters, but if you can just give us a little bit of a sketch. Right. Okay. So it's about combat nurse Claire, who goes on a honeymoon or second honeymoon after the Second World War with her husband Frank after being apart because of the war.

So they want to reconnect a little bit, which is kind of the way the story that, goes on as well, lots of love, lots of connecting with each other. There's a lot of intimacy. There's a lot of intimacy. But I think that's part of the appeal. So the history kind of is a background that is also playing a part.

Claire and Frank are on their honeymoon in Inverness and Claire goes exploring and magically gets transported back in time through standing stones, which is like a really cool thing and you'll now see loads of people in Scotland touching random standing stones hoping to travel back in time.

Yeah, you see everyone's Instagram videos of like, I hope I don't go back in time and meet a hunky Scottish man. Exactly. Yeah, so Claire. We've all done that. We've all been to the standing stones in various places in the British Shiles

and done that, of course. If you haven't, you should go. I can confirm that it doesn't work at Stonehenge, sadly. It also doesn't work at Clavacherns, which is an Iron Age burial ground near Venice. I've tried that one. But maybe someone else finds a different place. Yeah, yeah.

We'll tick everywhere off on the list of prehistoric sites. Okay. She goes back in time. So she time travels, depending on if you read the American or the British version, she time travels from 1945 or 46 and then ends up in 1743, which is the middle of the Jacobite Rebellion, where she, as an English woman with a strong English accent, is immediately recognized as you're not from here. And in order to protect herself, she joins this kind of war band of Scottish men. that look out for her and lots of different things happen. You see lots of clan life,

especially in the TV show, but in the novels as well. There's loads of descriptions. I will say, though, not all completely historically accurate. But I don't think that matters. We just, we get this idea of what Claire's life is like. As a combat nurse, she uses lots of herbs to treat patients even in the 18th century. And for her protection, she unfortunately has to marry a very handsome it's just terrible for her. Yeah. So Jamie Fraser, he's like, he actually gets referred to as the King of Men

by fans. He's the hero of us. He's the hero. He's played by Sam Hune in the Outlander television show. Fans love him. Great effect. It's fantastic. Yeah, and Claire and Jamie kind of travel through Scotland and eventually America as well. In what

I would refer to as a Forrest Gump style. Oh, so they go anywhere or anywhere they go, they will somehow meet famous historical people. They will end up in historical situations that then end up depending on them. And all the while, it's this big romance love story between them. Because don't forget, Claire still has that husband in the 20th century. So we have a bit of a love triangle as well, even though, spoiler listen. Don't like, don't listen. I think it's safe at this point to give a spoiler. Yeah. Claire falls madly in love with Jamie, who by the way is seven years younger

than her, I think. It's either seven or nine or something. So she's the experienced person in the relationship. He is the younger virgin as well. So I think that's quite like a good feminist angle in there. It's an interesting dynamic, isn't it? Yeah. And it's very good. It sort of defies genre, doesn't it? I don't know how you would define it. But it's, it is as you say, this great kind of romance, but it's also a historic epic really, the fact that they go through all this Scottish history. And we're going to talk today about some of that Scottish history and how the real life history plays into the plot, how it has been altered maybe for the story, what the effect in our contemporary times has been of that and how we understand Scottish history in this particular moment,

but also the fact they go to America and, you know, like you say, I think at one point, do they meet George Washington or something? There's, you know, there's so many people like that who kind of come and go from the story and it's very intertwined with real history. But it is also a time travel story. So it's sort of sci-fi but not really. It's all of these things. There's a treasure hunt in it. There's warfare at sea.

Yes. You can literally any genre you're interested in, you will come across at some point. So I think Dana Gabaldon herself, who's the author of the Outlander novels, she doesn't want to put it into a category. I think the most fitting one is historical fiction, which is what I

specialize in and what I'm personally most interested in. The fact that you read these books and I can guarantee you 100%, you will not go away and have not learned something. Even if it is just something about witchcraft, you go away and look it up and realise not 100% accurate in the books, but you go away and you read about it and you realise what happened to women burned as witches in Scotland, or you learn about George Washington, for example. Yeah, and I'm always really interested in the distance between so-called historical accuracy, which of course is always hard to achieve in any kind of period drama or costume drama anyway,

and whether it's costuming or prop or set design, whatever it is. You know, it's never actually possible to recreate that world. But also in terms of a novelist prerogative, I suppose. And we had Philippa Gregory on this show, you know, talking about her work as both a historian and a novelist and where that gap lies and how you can play with it and how that's the most interesting element, actually. So we're all for a little bit of historical inaccuracy in this context. I think you have to kind of put the historical accuracy aside because if you want historical accuracy, you read actual history books.

Yes. But I think the main audience that reads or watches Outlander is not the type of academic historian who really just wants the nitty, gritty of the history. We want the love between Claire and Jamie. We want all the kind of family dynamics that develop. up, what's going to happen with like the kids in the story? Are they going to grow up? And are they time travel as well? And do you know, all this. We need this for the history kind of to be brought across. So I think that historical accuracy, and I say that very firmly, my PhD thesis is not about historical accuracy because you can never look at a piece of fiction. It's literally called fiction,

right? So you can't look at it and say this is true or this is false. I think as well, outlander does this great thing of bringing people to history that they can then go and read about elsewhere right it brings it to life it brings this period to life and i remember before i had encountered outlander i wasn't necessarily as familiar with Scottish history in this period as i am now even as an 18th century as this wasn't something that i specialized in and really the story brought me into this world and i then started to become interested in how how the story used how it picked up bits of that history particularly jacobite history which we'll talk about now but also whether it's American history or history in the Caribbean or in France, you know, they go to all these places,

or how it makes history work for the story, but also for its audience and what, we can maybe talk about this towards the end of the episode, I suppose, but the contemporary impact that Outlander has had in terms of our understanding of Scottish identity, Scottish history, we know that it, you know, aired close to the Indian referendum initially in, what, 2014, I think? Well, it was supposed to be 2014. and then with the WikiLeaks situation it came out that it was stopped from airing in Scotland and it didn't come out until 2015

when the end of referendum was done. And Scotland did not vote for independence because there was the big fear that people would be so much into this television show that their voting could be kind of swayed. Yeah, absolutely. And having seen and loved the show for so long, I can absolutely see how that might be the case.

for those who are maybe not familiar with Jacobite history, which forms the cornerstone of the whole of the Outlander series, but particularly the first TV series, let's say, is that's the main focus that Claire is transported to this moment when the final Jacobite Rising is happening. Yeah, sorry, it's the first three books. So it was originally proposed to the publisher as a trilogy of Jacobite fiction. And then it kind of goes on from there.

And yeah, so I think like that is like the central part. That's also what fans love the most, the history that is set in Scotland with a beautiful scenery. Absolutely. And a particular version of Scotland that is sold to us, which we can talk about. But for people who maybe don't know who the Jacobites were, can you give us a sense of what it meant to be a Jacobite in the 18th century, who were the Jacobites and what their cause was?

Right. This is where I go like, I'm not a historian for Jacobitism. Yeah, so Jacobitism is based in the idea that they want a James on the throne of England and Scotland, who had been united at that time, the Union of 1707. So the Jacobite rebellions, the big ones, were 1715, 19 and 45. There were smaller kind of quarrels about, and it was also really strong in Ireland, interestingly. People kind of forget that. So in November 1688 there was a glorious rebellion where James II of England stepped down as king and chose exile.

He was replaced with his Protestant daughter, Mary, the second of England, which is a really important part because the Jacobites tend to be mostly Catholic. And they want a Catholic king on the throne. And the person that they would like for it would be basically James to come back. So the goal of Jacobites is to get the House of Stuart back as the ruling monarchy. And instead, it is the Hanoverians at that point. The person that is supposed to win this big rebellion is James II's son, Charles Edward Stewart, that we lovelingly call Bonnie Prince Charlie in Scotland. Bonnie meaning nice, but also pretty.

Yeah, okay. So we have these kind of two warring dynasties. We have the stewards who are, you know, James is exiled, and there's this great love for him that's left, you know, when he leaves this void and support for him as a Catholic king as well. And then, as you say, we have the Hanoverians coming in from 1714 onwards. These German outsiders who speak no English initially. And, you know, even in England, let alone in Scotland, there is great frustration. When George I first comes to the throne, there are riots in the street. People burn effigues of him.

You know, he's not necessarily that popular. This cause, this desire to get James Byte, really escalates through a series of rising. So you mentioned we have this 1715 rising. And then there are a few others before we get to 1745 into 1746, which is where Claire, the main character of our story, finds herself. And what I think is so interesting. So the 45 to 6 rising is sort of seen as the end of the Jacobite cause in terms of it being militarised, I guess, it's fair to say.

and also this kind of catastrophic end of Highland culture when it's put down. And this is something that's debated among historians of the extent to which this was actually the case. But what I think so interesting is in terms of the outlander universe and how this moment is portrayed, Claire, as someone coming from the 20th century, has this sense that the Jacobite cause is a doomed one. And so from the beginning of entering this story and entering this history, you're not following it in the hope that it might succeed. you know as the reader or the viewer that this is not going to go the way that they wanted to.

What you don't know is is clear able to change the past and what would happen. So we've seen this in, I think it's the man in the high castle that toys with this idea what if history turned out differently. Outlander doesn't do that.

So the time travel rules that they kind of follow along is you can change smaller events such as save someone from the flu that they might have died of or something, but you can't change the overall big history. So as a viewer and reader, we always know, like, at some point, it's going to come to a head.

And if you know Scottish history, you'll know that it is the Battle of Culloden. Let's talk about Scotland in the 18th century then. So we have this backdrop of Hanoverian rule across the British Isles and Ireland, and we also have the Jacobite rebellion, which is certainly before these pockets of rising, happen. It's kind of underground. This is a thing that's communicated through symbolism, things

like the White Rose, through music often, through sort of secret codes. But it is bubbling away under the surface. And it comes to a head in Scotland where there's a huge Catholic population, huge support for James. But what is the environment like? How is the Scottish land organized? How do people understand it? I'm thinking, particularly of the highlands and the lowlands. What is it like to live in Scotland in this moment? I think the main big thing is that we either romanticise it or we make the Highlanders specifically into barbarians without any culture. And I think that is something that Outlander kind of saves a little bit. I think they go a bit too much into the romanticised direction. It's a very Walter Scottian approach, right? Definitely, definitely. But yeah, so really important,

I think, for people when they talk about the Jacobite Rebellion is to not say it was the Scottish versus the English. because it was like, like you say, kind of pockets everywhere all throughout the country. It was like the Western Isles were quite involved. The lowlands, not so much, even though there were people supporting it. There were Germans and French people supporting the Jacobite rebellions. And there were plenty of Scots serving in the British Army against Jacobites as well. There's, I think, like, very big was the Monroe clan that was fighting for the government army. And there were a few like, the.

the old Fox Fraser who kind of jumped in between the two, whichever one worked better for him, which is an opportunist. Very much so, yes. I think when we think of the highlands in the 18th century, we tend to think of people that live in very primitive huts with not that much intelligence or something. And I, from what I've researched, this is completely wrong. At the time that Outlander is set, more people were literate in Scotland, about 75% in comparison to England, which were only down to, I think, 56% or something roughly.

People were also multilingual. They spoke Gallic and English. Loads of people also French. I mean, I said before, Jamie Fraser is like the King of Men. He speaks, I think, seven languages that get mentioned in the book, which isn't that wrong. There's someone from my university, from the University of Highlands and Islands, Professor David Worthington has done research into a Reverend James Fraser who, who, spoke 11 languages. No relation to Jamie from the books. No relation, unfortunately. And David has had the honour of giving Diana Gabaldon an honorary doctorate. And he mentioned his research and said that every time he says he researches Reverend James Fraser, who lived about 20 years

before the fictional Jamie Fraser. People listen up until they realise it's the wrong Jamie and then kind of lose interest. But yeah, so the Reverend James Fraser was multilingual. He travelled everywhere. he was really interested in understanding other cultures as well. And we have evidence of this one person because he was a reverend. There was notes taken or letters sent. So if we know that one person was as educated, surely there were others. Yeah. And I think, you know, the Highland culture is often, as you say,

sort of primitivized or simplified in some ways, but it's this incredibly rich culture. And of course, exists in terms of the sort of societal structure. You know, there are different clans. There is sort of fealty being sworn to these different groups. And I suppose one of the interesting things that Outlander does is not only does it make Claire as an English woman, the outsider in that environment, but also, I suppose, the reader or the viewer, coming into this world with its own very strict rules that seem slightly alien to us. We don't know quite what the etiquette is, how things work, how these alliances work. what happens when those are betrayed or broken down?

And, you know, that's a sort of local culture happening within this context of Jacobism as well. And this kind of bigger clash of these dynasties that's taking place in the fight for the heart of the land, I suppose. I think something that they've done really well in the television show in the first season is that they don't translate the Gallagic and they don't provide subtitles. So we as the viewer feel the exact same way as Claire. what are these people talking about? Are they excluding us on purpose? Are we missing important bits of the story here? Because Claire doesn't know.

So we're kind of, we follow along her. And I think that's reflective of what happens in the books because the books are told, told from a first person narration. So all we hear is everything that Claire experiences. And we know that people can be unreliable when they tell their own stories. So, yeah, I think that's done really well in both mediums so that we feel the, the alienation, but with Claire becoming part of everything, so do we. And we get really close to it. And I think that's why we feel so strongly and why the indie ref might have been influenced. Yeah, that's so interesting,

isn't it? And I think there's something there about, you know, not subtitling the Gallic conversations between characters, that we are challenged, that it's our own shortcoming, that we don't speak Gallic, that we can't be included in that part of the story. And it invites people, you know, into that world and to say learn about this, you can come in and learn about it, but it exists and you have to find it for yourself. Interestingly, Outlander had this

massive effect on Gallic as well, which I think like obviously Gallic existed beforehand. There were Gallic schools and everything. It was coming up anyway, but then Outlander brought in this big interest in this language that was perceived as dead by many and not

like people don't speak it in their everyday life anymore. And there was a Duolingo Gallic course that was taken by hundreds of thousands of Americans because they were so interested in learning about it and learning about their own ancestry because their relatives might have come over from Scotland to America and now they're kind of looking to reconnect and one of their ways was Gallic. Yeah, it's just one of the ways that Outlander constantly has these interesting legacies and these ways that people engage with this particular history.

We've talked a little bit about some of the characters who appear in the books, some of whom are completely fictional and made up, and some of whom are, were real people. So obviously, Jamie Fraser, the king amongst men, does not exist. He is fully fictionalised for our pleasure and all the better for it. There were, however, I think five Jamie Fraser's or James Fraser's at Collodon Battlefield. I've spoken to someone at the Battlefield Museum who said that loads of people come in and say, like, so where during the battle, where was Jamie? And they're like, well, there are multiple options.

Well, there's multiple options, but the one you're talking about isn't a real person. But they use it then to turn the interest and go like if he was, you know, from a higher standing, he would have been here. And it's really, it gets people into it. But yes, Jamie Fraser, completely fake person doesn't exist. So is Claire. I mean, the time travel narrative probably gives it away that this isn't a real thing. At least you and I haven't experienced it. like we said. Not yet, Touchwood. But there are characters, aren't there? Like Simon Fraser,

the 11th Lord Lovett, who was kind of infamous for, he's kind of known as like the infamous double dealer, isn't he? He's someone who kind of, you described him as the old fox, someone who sort of picks aside and then subtly changes, depending on which way the wind is blowing in this moment. So he was real, wasn't he? And he just featured in the story. Yes. And there's close to Mreness, there is a mausoleum that he had built to be buried there, which is really interesting because he was killed in the Tower of London and never made it back. However, there was, well, there were some rumours about loyal Jacobites and people loyal to Lord Lovod, stealing his corpse back and bringing it back to Inverness. And there was an unidentified body in the crypt and they've

done some research on it. Unfortunately, I have to tell you, it was a woman. So it could definitely not be Lord Lovid. Some people have the idea it might be it might be Anne Boleyn because somebody could have just stolen a body. None of this has been proven, but there's like definitely conspiracies for it. We're heading into Dan Brown territory now, not so much Diana Gabbledon. I love that. That's so interesting. Of course, Bonnie Prince Charlie as well features in the show completely brilliantly and it's a really interesting portrayal of him actually. So this is Charles Edward Stewart who is, becomes in the 1745, the young,

hope for the Jacobite rising. He is, you know, the Bonnie Prince who is going to take up his place. And what do you think of the portrayal of him in Outlander? Because he's shown as someone who is weak and vain and not very well informed. And we know that, you know, this is a young man who spent his life growing up in the Royal Courts of Europe. He had not spent any time or certainly not very much time in Britain itself and, you know, arrives on Scottish shores, hoping to lead this great Jacobite army and does not lead them to victory. Is the Outlander version of him fair? How does that? I think he functions a little bit as a comedic relief. Something like that. So he has a catchphrase. He always says, mark me. Yes, it gets quite tiresome after a while,

doesn't it? It does. And it's like, it gets translated into different languages as well when Outlander is dubbed and there's, it's quite fascinating what each language does with it because this is like a big element of the character in the show. I think they've kind of again made him too dumb. It's like, so I think he, there must have been something about him because he managed to lead this many men. He might, he probably had intelligent men advising him as well, but he certainly had, he was a persona and he did get people to believe in the cause. He arrived in Scotland in July 1745. Funnyly enough, next to the Glenfinnan Viaduct where Harry Potter

was from Scottish icon. So this is like a two-fold situation now for people coming to visit. There's a statue of Bonnie Prince Charlie and next to it the Jacobite steam train goes past which is that Hogwarts Express. The Hogwarts Express. It's funny how this kind of...

The layers of fictionalisation is so interesting. Yeah, yeah. But I think loads of people don't realise it so they will go to Glenfinnan Viaduct to see the train and then realise, wait, there's Bonnie Prince Charlie as well. So it might be like, a child that's wanting to see the Harry Potter train. And then the mother or the dad might have read or watched Outlander and realizes, you know,

this is actually connecting me to this story. Yeah. And it's so interesting, isn't it? Thinking about how we come to heritage within the landscape, heritage tourism and how Outlanders really fueled that along with other things like Harry Potter. There's a scene in, I think, series two of Outlander where Claire, and this is another spoiler alert, Claire has had to come back to her own time after the Battle of Collodon. so that she doesn't die in that scenario. She comes back to the 20th century.

And as part of that time in the 20th century, I think we sort of jumped to the 1960s, maybe, end of the 50s. And she goes to Collodham Battlefield and a fictional version of the museum, which is presented as looking very dated. The museum that is there now is this brilliant. Absolutely fantastic. And what it does so well is it tells the story of the Jacobite Rizings

from the British perspective and the Jacobite perspective. and sort of interweaves them, doesn't it, as you go through the space? And it's, you know, you can sort of turn one way and read one perspective and then the other. And it's a really remarkable way of doing it. The best thing about this is that there's slats on the wall. So the English ones are always completely straight and look properly aligned. On the Scottish side or the Jacobite side, the slats are kind of crooked and mixed because it was different clans coming together and they were not like one unit of the army. Oh, I didn't realize that.

There's no, the last time I was there, there was no notice sign explaining this. It was just because somebody that was giving me a tour, explained that to me. And I think that's absolutely brilliantly done. And the part of the exhibit that you get to where they're kind of ending up at Culloden Battlefield, you have to take a turn. And because of the way that the climate control is built into the building, it's colder there. And it's so brilliantly done because it was bloody freezing. on that battlefield in 1746 when kind of

Highland culture got destroyed. Yeah, I really recommend it for anyone who hasn't been. It is really incredible. But in Outlander itself, Claire goes to this fictionalised version in the 60s, and she stands in front of a wax work

of the Bonnie Prince. And, you know, there's someone else in the museum who's saying, oh, wasn't he a great leader of men? And she's sort of, she's quite frustrated because, of course,

she's been in the past, she's met him and she says, no, he was rubbish and, you know, a very weak man and all this. And it's such an interesting scene that, again, kind of Outland's always playing with our idea of how we tell history, how history is this constantly changing thing that we make work for us in different moments and that a figure like Bonnie Prince Charlie can mean something in his own time, various things to various people, in fact. And they can be reinvented again and again and that these histories have such complex and potent afterlives. And I actually, I actually, I just love that about Allander, that it's constantly engaging with the history that it's telling in a way to say, this is one version.

It's absolutely brilliant. I love that you've started talking about this because two of my chapters and my PhD thesis are exactly about this. Oh, wow. So we learn about how historians, or like, there are historians represented in the novels. So we've got like the traditional historians, Frank Randall and Roger McKenzie, that do research by looking at papers. then we have kind of the hobby collector, Reverend Wakefield, who just literally goes out and about in the Highlands and collects anything he can, birth records. I don't know, like whatever book he can find, he'll just keep it. And there are so many historians or people doing history as a practice in the story itself.

Like so many people are doing it. Claire is a historian, but just by, first by association, because their husband is a historian. And then she becomes one by travelling. And there's one scene in the books that didn't make it into the series, but it kind of reflects what you said about the scene at Colloden, where Claire says that the problem is the artists and the writers because they can take a sot and make him a king. And that's one of the parts where I read this scene, like, reread the book and I read this scene and I was like, I need this in my thesis because this is such a big thought in this that in a historical fiction, they're criticising how history is written, which makes it even funnier. It's so funnier. It's so interesting. Let's talk a little bit about some of those those different interpretations and those different artworks that Claire has maybe

referring to. And let's let's go to the 45, the famous rising of 1745. So as we said, there are various risings of the Jacobites before this point. So we have 1689 the year after the glorious Revolution. We've got 1715. Then we have 1719 as well, which is interestingly Spanish-backed and the Spanish fleet are scattered in a storm and it all kind of goes a bit tits up and doesn't really work out in the way that it's supposed to. But we get to the 45 and this time we have Bonnie Prince Charlie supposedly charismatic, although not in outlander. I think this is based in historical research though. There are some sources. was that claim that he was like that.

I've read someone quoting an older historian who had said that Charlie brought an entire picnic set to the Battle of Caledon. And that has been refuted. And people are saying like it's just it didn't happen. But how interesting that somebody thought this was like a good thing to write down about him. Yeah, well, we have the silver service that he used for taking tea in the National Museum of Scotland. And I think there is an idea, right, that he took that on the battlefield with him, that that was part of his sort of campaign furniture that he took around with him, which, I mean, we all have a good cup of tea, so, you know, good for him if he did.

And that is depicted, of course, in Outlander, this sort of slightly pompous. I think flamboyant is a good word for him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sort of someone who is interested in sort of performance and ritual and staking his claim to the throne through how he conducts himself and how he sort of. sends himself to people, rather than through the actions of a leader at wartime. But he lands in Scotland. We have this whole campaign and we maybe don't have time to go all over here,

but there's various battles that happen in the lead-up to Collodon. And Collodon is really the climax of this campaign in April, on April 16th, in 1746. And it's the last pitched battle fought on British soil. It's incredibly bloody. I have a painting over here, and I'm going to describe it. So this is a painting called An Incident in the Rebellion of 1745. It's an oil on canvas. It's painted by David Morier.

It's a sort of iconic version of Collodon. It's the version that we have been sort of given, certainly in England. The canvas is divided into two halves, and we have on the left-hand side a band of Highlanders who are romanticised to a certain extent, but are shown, as sort of shabby. They're all wearing different clan tartans. There's no unity in how they are moving in terms of how they're organised. They are largely armed with with dirks and long swords. They are not clean shaven. They have sort of mad hair flying under their bonnets. It's all a bit chaotic. There are several of them who are on the ground already. And then on the

right, we have the Hanoverian troops, the red coats, and they are moving in unison. They have more advanced weaponry. They've got bayonets, fixed rifles. They seem from this painting more organised, more capable, more quote-unquote civilized in this 18th century enlightenment way. And we know that the narrative that pervades really from the moment the battle is won, and certainly for the decades and centuries afterwards, is, is that the sort of ragged romantic Highlanders who had no organisation skills meet their end against the might of the British Army

and the organisation of the British Army who are better equipped, more advanced, tactically, in terms of weaponry. And as a result, Highland culture is destroyed and disappeared. So how accurate is this reading? Because this is something that Outlander really challenges. Yes. I mean, I love this painting.

specifically because from what I have researched for my both master's dissertation and PhD thesis, this painting wasn't painted like at the time. So it's from maybe the 1750s, 1760s. Okay. So a generation afterwards. Yes. And it was commissioned. So somebody paid to have it depicted exactly this way. Okay. There is, well, people are saying that it might have been the Duke of Cumberland. who was the opponent to Bonnie Prince Charlie at the battle. And he's the son of George II. And he's known as Butcher Cumberland because of the brutality at Colophonism. So I think we have to put this into perspective a little bit because the Jacobites at the battle and the time after they lost between 1,500 to 2,000 people.

Whereas the English or the government army lost definitely 50 dead. That's how many they recorded. and I think about 270 or something that were wounded, many of whom would have probably died as well. But it's like we're looking at a number of about 300 versus up to 2000, which is an incredible massacre that happened on that battlefield. So to then pay someone to have it painted. And there's this rumor. It's not really clear if it's true or not, but that the painting was made with the head. with the help of imprisoned Jacobites.

So they were taken out of prison to pose for this. They weren't given actual weapons. They had maybe like sticks or something to present it. Interestingly, when you look really closely at this painting as well, there's up to 18 different kinds of tartan,

which is a lot for this small amount of people. My favourite Highlander is the one that is on the ground. He's got his legs stretched out quite in the middle and you can kind of almost see a bum cheek there. Yeah, you can. Yeah, and it's sort of this humiliation of, you know, look how uncivilized they are. They don't even underwear on under those kilts.

So it's a fantastic piece of art. And my favourite fun fact about this is the Portuguese publisher of the ninth book of the Outlander novel decided to use this book, this painting for the cover. Oh, no. Having not read the novel at all, presumably. Having not read the novel, because the ninth book, we're deep in the American Revolution at that time,

has absolutely nothing to do with the Jacobites anymore. And also, I don't think it's a very tactful choice because people that read Outlander are naturally assuming the perspective of the Jacobites. So to then have this like commissioned really deeply degrading painting as a cover. This piece of Hanoverian propaganda is actually. Definitely, yeah.

So if you want to see that piece of art, it's in the lobby of Hollywood House in Edinburgh. So you can go and have a look at it. I haven't, but it's like it's on my list of places to go and things to see. And again, that's so interesting thinking about how we engage with history at different tourist sites and the fact that this is the narrative that's presented at Hollywood is actually really interesting. This is, you know, the version of Collodon that's told there. In terms of the aftermath of Collodum, there's a sense that there was the destruction of Highland culture.

So we know, for example, that, you know, there are prisoners like Lord Lover who are taken in the aftermath, a lot of Jacobite prisoners are either taken or executed, I think I'm right in saying. So the immediate aftermath is incredibly bloody as well as the actual battle itself. But then there are lots of different governmental acts that come in to ban things like the We have the disarming act in 1746 at the same year as Collodon, which bans the possession of weapons, which effectively removes the ability of the clans to defend themselves in the highlands. there's also the prescription of Highland dress and culture so now there's this idea that you can't necessarily wear tartans

that you can't dress in the sort of cultural armour of your clan or the community that you come from there's also the banning of the speaking of Gallic isn't there? Yes, so you've mentioned so many different things. I want to go back to the very beginning of what you said. So the aftermath, like the immediate aftermath of Kalluddin, So people, once it was clear that the Jacobites were defeated, prisoners were taken and they were put into prisons. They were also put into a couple of churches in Inverness that had previously held government soldiers imprisoned by Jacobites.

So they did a bit of a switcheroo there. And the Jacobites were imprisoned there. You can see that in Outlander in Season 3, I think the beginning of Season 3. Jamie is in some sort of farmhouse with lots of other Jacobites. He isn't executed because of the good connections that he has, but loads of other people are. And we assume that there are possibly more people executed. I'm not 100% sure about this, but they were more executed afterwards than in the actual battle. One of my favourite places to go to in Inverness.

I used to live up there because I studied there is the old high church in Inverness. It's located right on the River Ness. and you have a beautiful view onto the kind of the city from there but the thing that is really kind of chilling about it is that this is where Jacobite soldiers were executed and the government army were exceptionally good in making records of everything so they wrote down names, we know how many people were executed there and they used very specifically two gravestones that you can still see today

one that is kind of a bit of a heart shape where you could put the musket so that it wouldn't wobble and then exactly across is another stone where soldiers would be propped up against and trot. And it's the exact distance you need to shoot a musket, clearly and you don't miss your target. There's also musketball holes in the tower of that church. So it's really, it's chilling and it's like kind of history to touch. You can go there and imagine this hole potentially was made by something that killed a person. Even kind of more gruesome is the fact that across on the other side is Balnaen House, after the Battle of Kuladna, it was at hospital.

So British government soldiers would have been treated in that hospital. So there's this like story. I don't know again if that is true or not. But it's told that they cheered every single time they heard a shot on the other side of the river. Which is really, I mean, I'm getting goosebumps just telling you about it. It's really scary of how many people lost their lives because of their ideas and their convictions. And then after that, the act of prescription that you've mentioned, it's also called the Disarming Act. It's the 1st of August 1746 that it comes into being. And interestingly, it says the following, no man or boy within that part of Britain called Scotland, other than such as shall be employed as officers or soldiers in His Majesty's forces, shall on any pretext whatever, wear or put on the clothes commonly called Highland Clothes. That is to say, and then it goes on and summarises

what exactly that includes part in all these clothes. So for a long time, lots of historians were saying that women weren't included in this at all, which I find hilarious. But there's another part that says, if the person convicted shall be a woman,

she shall over and above the foresaid fine an imprisonment till payment, suffer imprisonment for the space of six calendar months. Wow. So the women, were not treated as harshly as men, but they were definitely part of it. And I think it's really telling that this

has to be pointed out specifically as much as it says no man or boy. But they really, they went the save road. They just mentioned every single person there. Because, you know, if you just say a man, you know, your son could potentially wear it. Yeah. And it's interesting as well because I think Outlander does such a fantastic job

of bringing a female perspective to this history and we see so much of it, exclusively through Claire's eyes, but so much of her experience as a camp follower in the campaign leading up to Collodden, her role as a healer, as a medic on the battlefield. Within that, you know, we see what women experienced alongside the men. Is it fair to say that this very official and strategic and efficient way of curtailing Highland culture, if not destroying it completely, in... the middle of the 18th century,

is it fair to say that that then leads into the Highland clearances that come later in Scotland's history? Is there a connection? Yeah, I think it all kind of like, it kind of starts rolling with the Jacobite Rebellion and then it just kind of goes into it. And there's, Inverness has the Highland Archive Centre and they house loads of really interesting documents.

I personally found 15 there in which they all talk about the defiance of the act of prescription. So people were actively rebelling against this. And I think because people were not just taking it lying down, it kind of became harsher and harsher. So I can give you an example. In 1750, a man called Grigger Macpherson, and this is a quote now, had been guilty of wearing any part of the Highland dress contrary to the act of parliament. And he was then taken into custody at the Tobeau both in Inverness And there's another letter there that goes with it that asks for his release

because he does not Like there's no proof apparently And it doesn't really tell us if he got off or not But there's definitely another person Interestingly a Fraser So maybe some relation to Jamie Fraser So this is Hugh Fraser So there's the Governor Collingwood

Since writes in his letter that Fraser was taken into custody and gives a really detailed description of the circumstance under which he was caught. Namely, on the 1st of July 1752, two soldiers caught Hugh Fraser wearing a fillaback, so a small kilt with his waistcoat.

When the soldier seized him and took him onto a boat to be transported for trial, Hugh Fraser just undressed, threw it in the river. I was like, well, you know, you don't have anything there. Unfortunately, there were obviously witnesses to that. So I assume he went into prison for at least six months.

But how brilliant is it that we have these records to know, like, people didn't just take it? Yeah, it's amazing. And it kind of goes against that narrative that Colloden was the end of Highland culture and that was that. And the British kind of squashed it. That's not necessarily true. There was resistance against it, which is interesting. But also it speaks to the absolute importance of material culture, particularly clothing, but also things like the weaponry that was part of that.

Highland uniform essentially. And, you know, the language as well, these things were incredibly important tools of resistance and as a way of asserting that particular identity. And that is something that Outlander is so interested in. You know, viewers of the show will know how much store is placed by objects, be that the costumes of the characters or items that they are given as gifts or inherit from characters who are, you know, distant ancestors who don't appear in within that Outlander world, at least not in that series.

You know, there's such a kind of, there's such a power in material within that moment. And then you think about that kind of in terms of the artistry and the depiction of all this that comes later and how that, the reality of those items and what they stand for and what they mean to people becomes sort of blurred and manipulated and altered in different versions. And of course Outlander is just one iteration of that.

still doing that. It's still manipulating. Like we've said in the beginning, it's not fully historically accurate. Clan tartans did not exist at the time of Outlander. The tartan that we see on the show is completely made up for the show. Because you can obviously, you can sell merchandise with it. You can buy fake Fraser tartan as a scarf, which I obviously have because you need to, right? Well, the tartars from Outlander were entered in the, what is it, the National Tartan Registry that documents the official Tarantons of Scotland.

Sam Houn has made his own tartan and I think it's called Assassanac tartan. So you can come up with your own tartans as much as you want. But at the time that Outlanders said, there wouldn't be like, oh, so you must be Clan McKenzie because you're wearing this tartan. However, the fact that I think it's season three when the Jacobites are imprisoned at Artsmere prison, there's one piece, like a scrap piece of tartan that is kept. It's not about the fact that this is like the family tartan. because that is wrong.

I think it's more about the fact that this, like, this piece of clothing connects you so much to your heritage and your home and what you've just gone through. It's not about like, I love this piece of cloth, right? It's, it's the deep, deep sadness about the massive loss that people have just experienced. And it's just, it's like on screen.

It's personified by a scrap piece of cloths. Yeah. Absolutely. Let's talk briefly before we end about how the story of Outlander takes us from this world of the Jacobite Rizings and this very tense political climate, this very violent climate that's happening in the British Isles. And it takes us away to America, to North America and life on the frontier. What kind of history do we encounter there? How do we see Jamie and Claire moving forward in the 18th century? Right.

So they're not being displaced, which is something that happened to lots of Scots. They leave Scotland in order to rescue Jamie's nephew Ian, who has been taken, and they don't know where he's been taken. But basically, they need to get him back. It's a long story. It's a long story. If you haven't seen it, just watch it. I find season three personally quite slow. It's my least favourite one.

But I love the third book. So every series corresponds to what? one book up to kind of the end point where we're at now. And the book three is so fantastic because it gives us an insight into Scotland's involvement in transatlantic slavery. Yes. In Jamaica specifically, for example, there's a character that is at a plantation called Rose Hall, which is an actual plantation. It was at no point ever owned by anybody called Abernathy. but we kind of like we see that this is like a real place

that owns slaves that sold slaves and everything so Claire and Jamie are kind of involved in that not because they want to but because it was the history like what was happening at the time and they couldn't really find a way out and it complicates that history you know in the in the first seasons when we're dealing with the Jacobite risings where the version of Jacobitism that we're given is very much

that they are the oppressed and that it's the British Hanavarian forces who are the oppressor. Yes. And yet in season three we see this legacy of Scotland and migration from Scotland intertwined with slavery and these ways that are completely undeniable. And I think it does such a good job of sort of

nuanced that and complicating it and yeah, showing the extent and the breadth of those legacies as well. Definitely. There's one part, one of, like when Claire already said this, she's back in 1960 at some point, she decides to become a doctor and she studies and she's the only woman at university and she makes friends with the only black man of the class and his name is Abernathy

which is a Scottish surname that back in time again it was Claire's friend Galis's last name who owned the plantation so the black man still carrying the last name Abernathy without any relation to Scotland is probably because he has ancestry that or men women that were slaves and then the last name was passed on because the plantation owner had it. These are like the really small details that I don't think you notice until you're like me absolutely obsessed with going over it multiple times. But I would definitely encourage readers even more so than viewers to just like try to pick up on these little things. Look at what people are reading. What kind of quotations are people giving? All these things like that's where the

history is we're not talking about like the really big like we're not just throwing the battle of Kalludan into it. It like it leads up to it with loads of smaller things. And transatlantic slavery is something that especially Glasgow as a big place where ships were built, Glasgow had a massive influence on transatlantic slavery and they're only in like the past kind of 10 years. They've started kind of working through this and acknowledging it. And if you think about the fact that Outlander Novel 3 was published in, I think, 1996, maybe 98. Definitely, like, it was published in the 90s. It was way ahead of any research that we're doing nowadays.

And I think you need to acknowledge that and say that there is something there. We just need to pull it out. That's really interesting. Before we wrap up, there's one person that we haven't spoken about who is Claire adjacent in the real history of Scotland, and that is Flora MacDonald. And she is someone who helps the Bonnie Prince to escape after Collodden supposedly. And her story is very heavily mythologised. I was in the National Portrait Gallery the other day and I saw the painting of her that's,

you know, so striking and she really meets your eye. And of course, the song Sky Boat Song, which is adapted as the theme tune for Outlander, is about her and the escape with the Bonnie Prince to the Isle of Sky. But her husband, in terms of real history now, Alan McDonald, leads a loyalist militia during the American War of Independence, which is an interesting parallel with what happens to Claire and Jamie's story. And I wonder how much you think Claire, as a completely fictionalised character, how much she borrows from Flora McDonald, the real life figure in this moment.

Hmm, interesting. I think Claire actually meets Flora McDonald at some point in a chapter called Flora's Barbecue. It's a chapter title. Yeah, and in the TV series, her and Claire smoke a joint together. I have no recollection of this. I need to go back and watch this. Yeah, I think it is for Jakasta Cameron's sore limbs or something

and they just all get high together, which is a funny interpretation. I don't know if it would have happened this way, but again, maybe for comic relief or something. Yeah, so I don't really know, I know that Diana Gableldon does lots of research. She's got lots of books. she's just donated all of her research materials to a university in Texas to be stored alongside

like archives by definitely George R.R. Martin is there as well and like really big American fiction writers and she's like once she's done with the show all of her stuff will go there so we'll know more than what she has done as research. I don't necessarily think that Flora was that much of an influence. I don't think she's the blueprint. I think she's just one of the really strong female characters that existed in history. And I think just the fact that we have those kind of people in real life influence Claire a lot. Yeah. Alex has been such a pleasure to talk about this. And Outlander is so, as you say, so layered. There's so much real history threaded through there. There's so much playfulness in terms of how it's interpreted and so much self-awareness in terms of

the fact that Outlander itself is telling a version of this history that is packaged a certain way for a certain audience. If people are interested in the real history and how that relates to Outlander, where would you recommend they go to to read more about that? Do you obviously you have your own work? Because that's probably a good place to start. Are you talking anywhere soon? You mentioned the conference as well that takes place? Yes. So there was an academic conference we're hoping to have one again at some point. Unfortunately, Outlander Studies is not a thing yet, but that's where we're trying. That's where we two, like both of us, we're going to make our mark somehow.

There is a book that just came out this week, but if you're listening to it now, it came out in December. And it's called Outlander in Scotland Touchpoints and Signposts. And it is a collection of essays that were written by academics that spoke at Lee Outlander conference. So I've contributed two parts to it. Nothing about history. One of my chapters is about the translation of the titles into German and what you can expect when you read the book in a different language. And then the other one is on how smaller communities deal with the influx of visitors, the Outlander effect. And we, me and the other two authors, we bring kind of smaller, like a fan group in Bernice Outlanders who did a free walking map for people.

people. So that's kind of what my part in this book is. But there are works by historians that kind of look very specifically at Jacobitism as well. There's one of my friends, Dr. Robin Irwin wrote about Outlander as a couples therapy tool. Oh, wow. Which is really cool. So if like there's there's loads of different things. So I think a book like this is a good starting point to read up on like not necessarily super academic texts. So it'll be fun to read the texts. And otherwise, I think Google is your friend, to be honest. As long as you find some sort of text that isn't Wikipedia,

you can find loads of great books on there. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much. And thank you very much for listening along at home or watching our YouTube channel. If you have any ideas for future episodes, including maybe something more on Jacobitism, something on more historical fiction or more outlander

yeah or more outlander I mean we're always open to that then you can get in touch after dark at history hit.com until next time