The Rest Is History - 652. London’s Golden Age: The Ghosts of Culloden (Part 3)

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

What adventures occurred during Samuel Johnson and James Boswell’s journey into the heart of Scotland? How was their trip a gateway to the history of Scotland’s union with England in 1707? And, was Dr Johnson embroiled in the bloody Battle of Culloden…? Join Tom and Dominic as they travel into Scotland’s dark history, alongside Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, and discuss their fascinating and funny adventures in the Highlands. Advertise with us: [e-mail] _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Video Editors: Jack Meek + Harry Swan Social Producer: Harry Balden Producers: Tabby Syrett & Aaliyah Akude  Executive Producer: Dom Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I had desired to visit the Hebrides or Western Islands of Scotland so long that I scarcely remember how the wish was originally excited and was, in the autumn of the year 1773, induced to undertake the journey by finding in Mr Boswell a companion whose acuteness would help my inquiry and whose gaiety of conversation and civility of manners are sufficient to counteract the inconveniences of travel in countries less hospitable than we have passed.

On the 18th of August, we left Edinburgh. So that was the son of Litchfield, Samuel Johnson. And he is describing one of the great journeys in all history, one of certainly the most intrepid journeys in all history. And he's describing it in his book, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, which is actually one of the great classics of travel literature. and Johnson, the ultimate Englishman, is describing how for the first time in his life,

he ventured beyond England's borders. He goes up to the Hebrides, a journey that in the 18th century would have seemed to the average Englishman, especially a Midlander like Johnson, to be going to the very ends of the earth, into the very heart of darkness and the den of savagery, because, of course, you're going to the most Scottish place imaginable. So, Tom, the Western Islands. Have you been to the Western Islands? I have, yes.

Savage? Wet, is my chief memory of them. I won't surprise people to hear, but very interesting for all the reasons that Johnson will be discovering and Boswell will be discovering. That's good. Because you mentioned how, to the average Englishman, the Western Isles, the Hebrides, are incredibly remote,

to Scots in the Lowlands. And this is something that Johnson points out in his book. He says that to most lowlanders, they are as familiar with the Hebrides as they were with Borneo or Sumatra. And this is certainly true of James Boswell, the man mentioned by Johnson as his companion on this great adventure and whose escapades we were hearing about in our previous episode. And Boswell, too, he's an inveterate journal.

writer and the journal that he writes on this trip provides him with the basis for his book because he also gives an account of this journey, the journal of a tour to the Hebrides. And in his introduction to that book, he will spell out what the two men had been hoping to find in the Hebrides. So you summed it up as savagery. Boswell frames it slightly differently. He says that they're looking for simplicity and wildness and all the circumstances of remote time or place so near to our native Great Island, by which he means Great Britain, of course.

So before we set off ourselves to the Hebrides, for this extraordinary journey, a thrilling story, let us kick off in a place very close to your heart, Tom, Edinburgh. So Samuel Johnson has arrived for the first time in the Scottish capital. And remember, England and Scotland have only been united in one country since 1707. So if you're quite old, that's within living memory on the 14th of August 1773, which is where we kick off and we're at Boyd's Inn, which is just off the Royal Mile in the heart of Edinburgh. Yes, and Samuel Johnson's arrival there is a great sensation in Edinburgh among polite circles because he is by now one of the most famous people in the whole of Britain. The great cham, they call him the name given to tartar despot. so he's the kind of the supreme monarch of literary Britain.

And he is also, he's now 64, one of the most recognisable. And Boswell in his journal of a tour to the Hebrides prefaces it with a description of what Johnson looked like over the course of this trip. So Boswell writes, his person was a large, robust, I may say approaching to the gigantic and grown unwieldy from corpulence.

he has a convulsive twitch, we've mentioned that, he's constantly muttering to himself. And Boswell writes, in the intervals of articulating, he made various sounds with his mouth, sometimes as if ruminating, or what is called chewing the cud, sometimes giving a half whistle,

sometimes making his tongue play backwards from the roof of his mouth, as if clucking like a hen. So he's unprepossessing company, a first appearance. Yeah, I mean, he's distinctive, I think it would be fair to say. Yeah. And he's arrived in Scotland wearing his habitual brown suit, which he'd been wearing the first time that Boswell met him.

And this time he has brought boots because he suspects it's going to be muddy. It's not wrong. He's got an enormous brown great coat complete with kind of vast pockets. Boswell says he would have been able to fit his own dictionary in the pockets. And he's carrying a large English oak stick. and he also has a pair of pistols with him and a supply of bullets, and this, as Boswell observed, from an erroneous apprehension of violence. So essentially, Johnson thinks the highlands are going to be crawling with bandits,

ruffians and ne'er-do-wells. Bandits and ruffians and all kinds of people. Now, I think that Johnson's critics would not have been surprised that he'd kind of basically come outfitted as John Bull. Because his public image is very much that of a little Englander, a man who essentially judges all the world by the standards of London. You know, his famous saying, the man is tired of London is tired of life. But Boswell knows Johnson very well and appreciates that this public image does not correspond to the private reality. Because the reason that Johnson hasn't travelled is that for most of his life he's been incredibly poor.

And travel is, relatively speaking, much more expensive in the 80th century. than it is today. And Johnson, all his life, has had an incredibly frustrated yearning to see the world. So he said of Italy, for instance, that, you know, basically a life without seeing Italy isn't a life worth living. He's wanted to go to India. He has a particular thing about the Great Wall of China. Over to Nixon. Well, Nixon gets to see it.

Johnson never did. And so it's rather touching, actually, that in 1922, the first Viscount Rothermear, Dominic. So, the ancestor of your erstwhile employers at the Daily Mail. You're thinking about what to say that. I can see the cogs turning and you're thinking like you don't want to completely put yourself on the wrong side of the Rothermia organization. But equally, you don't want to put yourself on the wrong side of the listeners. What I will say in favour of the first Viscat Rothermia is that knowing of Johnson's yearning to see the Great Wall of China and knowing he's being frustrated, he presented a stone from the Great Wall to Goff House, which was the house in which Johnson had written the diction, which you can still visit to this day. a tremendous place. Oh, that's a lovely thing to have done. So it has this stone from the

Great Wall there. Yeah, great credit to Viscount Rotherma for that. I think it's the only stone from the Great Wall in the whole of London. So, brilliant. That's an interesting fact. And so Boswell knows this. And so this is why essentially he had been confident in urging Boswell to come to Scotland, because he knows that Johnson specifically had wanted to see the Hebrides, because Johnson had read about the Hebrides when he was a child. And so it's a kind of childhood fantasy to go there. So, Boswell comes scurring along to this inn off the,

of the Royal Mile, and he's delighted to see Johnson, isn't he? Yeah. He's very excited. But he's a little bit nervous because he's worried that Johnson will embarrass him by bursting out, twitching and shouting his anti-Skottish prejudices,

which would be very bad. Because Johnson is notorious for anti-Scottish prejudice. You know, he's always following. dominating that Scotland's very poor, everyone eats out, and that the Scots are forever fleeing Scotland for England. And Boswell, of course, is an example of that. So, as you say, Boswell is nervous. He takes Johnson by the arm, and so arm in arm, they walk up the Royal Mile towards his house, which is just off it. And as they go, Boswell finds himself mortified by what he describes as the evening effluvia. So essentially, the stench of drains. A zealous Scotsman would have wished Mr. Johnson to be without one of his five senses

upon this occasion. As we marched slowly along, he grumbled in my ear, I smell you in the dark. So that's not a good start. And then two days later, there is going to be more harrumphing, because it's provoked by what remains 60 foot four years on. Yeah. The single most controversial issue in Anglo-Scottish relations, and you just mentioned it, it's the Act of Union, which had dissolved the Parliaments of England and Scotland, and created a united kingdom of Great Britain. And as you said, this act had been passed in 1707, and the Scottish Act of Union is kept in the Parliament House, which stands just off the Royal Mile by St. Giles Cathedral. And Boswell takes Johnson there, and Johnson is shown the document.

And as Johnson is inspecting it, Boswell began, in his own words, to indulge old Scottish sentiments and to express a warm regret that by our union with England, we were no more. Ooh. The SMP enter the chat. Boswell knows what he's doing. He's winding Johnson up. He knows that Johnson is going to explode.

But Johnson responds in a perhaps unexpected way. Sir, never talk of your independency. Who could let your queen remain 20 years in captivity and then be put to death without even a pretence of justice without your ever attempting to rescue her? and such a queen too. So he's talking about Mary Queen of Scots and saying that because the Scots hadn't tried to rescue her from captivity in England,

therefore they don't deserve to be independent. Yeah. Which is perhaps an argument that might defeat the SMP if it gets unleashed now. I mean, who knows. And they're overheard, aren't they, by the keep of the records, or who's standing at their elbow?

Yes. And he says a thing that you actually often hear, you often see online to this day, half our nation was braibed by English money. This is basically the sort of ultra-Scottish nationalist take on Scottish history and on the Act of Union, saying that basically our elite were bribed by the English to sell our independence. And John's brilliant answer. Sir, that's no defence. That makes you worse.

I mean, it's not wrong. Yeah. Yeah. To use the word we used in the very first episode, this is all very performative, isn't it? They're basically going through the motions, having a bit of fun, playing their parts. Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's self-consciously banter, I think. Right.

And it's exactly what Boswell wanted, because then you can go back and write it up, and here we are talking about it all these years on. But I think that Johnson's devotion to Mary Queen of Scots, I mean, on one level it seems completely unexpected kind of tangent. But on the other, it's a reminder that there are actually much rorer and fresher political emotions kind of edding around in Scotland than those generated by the Act of Union. Three decades previously, so this is in 1744,

the great, great, great grandson of Mary Queen of Scots, Charles Stewart, who is better known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, he'd landed from France in Scotland. And he had raised an army in the Highlands and led them southwards as far as Derby in the Midlands. They're actually not far from Litchfield. And Bonnie Prince Charlie's aim was to overthrow the ruling British dynasty, the House of Hanover. and they were Protestants, the Stuets are Catholic, and so the Protestant establishment had essentially brought in the House of Hanover to replace the Catholic House of Stuart.

And this is why in the 18th century you have kind of waves of King George's ruling all the time. And Bonnie Prince Charlie wants to overthrow this and claim the throne for his father, King James III, as loyalists to Jacobus, as he's called in Latin. So Jacobites, think of him. Unfortunately, he can't reach London.

He retreats, he withdraws to the Highlands, and there he is cornered at Caluddin, a village by Inverness in the northeast corner of Scotland, and his army had been annihilated. Bonnie Prince Charlie had managed to escape the battlefield, but he has this completely hair-raising kind of flight across the Highlands. He gets to the Hebrides, and he only manages to get on board a ship and sail back to France by the absolute skin of his teeth. Now, three decades on, from that great adventure, the prospects of the Stuarts returning to the British throne and replacing the Hanoverians are obviously, I mean, effectively zero. But there are still those who preserve a wistful loyalty to them. And we mentioned in our very first episode how one of those

is Samuel Johnson. Boswell says all his youth, he had felt a tenderness for that unfortunate house. So the Stuarts. That's a common thing among Tories. So Tories had this kind of this sort of nostalgic loyalty to the House of Stuart, didn't they? Yeah. And Johnson, even as a young man,

would have perhaps, maybe there's a slight element of affectation about it, but this so often is with political positions. I mean, it doesn't undermine them. I mean, it's interesting you say that. I mean, I think that's true to a degree. But in his life of Johnson,

Boswell will point out that perhaps his affections might have gone beyond mere tenderness, because he writes it is somewhat curious that his literary career appears to have been almost totally suspended in the years 1745 and 1746. So those are the years that Bonnie Prince Charlie

is in Britain trying to seize the throne. But wasn't he developing the idea of the dictionary at that point? So that's why he's so quiet. He definitely was by the time Clutton comes. Earlier, yeah, it's unclear. And there are a few scholars who suggest that perhaps he was actually embroiled in the campaign. I mean, I think he's

unlikely. I mean, he's the last person you'd want on your side, shambling with his massive pockets. Yes, I think it's unlikely. But it's probable that he was lying low. Okay. He probably was known as a Jacobite and so probably thought that, you know, it was sensible not to draw attention to it. Not anymore though, right?

The King George has given him a pension and didn't he meet the king in 1767, George III, at the library? Yeah, in the Royal Library at Windsor. And so, I mean, Johnson's apologetic about this. Remember, we discussed, he's been told this is a kind of reward for doing the dictionary. You don't have to serve as a kind of propagandist for the Hanoverians. But even so, I mean, Johnson appreciates, you know, as he says to Boswell, I cannot now curse the House of

Hanover. But he says that with a smile. I think that one of the reasons why Johnson does feel fondly towards Boswell is that he knows that Boswell also shares in these sympathies. So Boswell's father, Lord Affleck, he's a wig and he's a massive supporter of the House of Hanover. All right. So, yeah. But Boswell, right from childhood, seems to have had this kind of romantic affection for Bonnie Prince Charlie. And it may be, you know, so 1745 when Bonnie Prince Charlie lands, Boswell is four years old. And so this may be the first kind of political intervention that he's become aware of. Surely, yeah.

He clearly sees Bonnie Prince Charlie as a very romantic. character and supports him, even though it has to be said, he's offered a coin by a servant if he will shout God save King George, which he takes, and he does shout it. But having pocketed it, he then goes back to his kind of Jacobite sympathies. He basically stays loyal in a kind of, as you say, slightly performative way for all his life. And actually, when he was in Corsica, he had kind of mad fantasies about maybe seeing that the Stuarts established on the island of Corsica. That completely should have happened. Should that not have happened? the Stuart Kingdom of Gorsica?

Well, of history's great, great what ifs. It would have stopped Napoleon. Yeah. So I think that obviously Johnson and Boswell do have this fascination. And by this point, it may be nothing more than that with Bonnie Prince Charlie. You know, the whole story, it's very romantic. His defeat at Caleddon, his escape across the highlands, you know, the fact he takes refuge on the Hebrides. And I think it is definitely an important, motivated.

for both of them in making this trip. And I think it also helps to explain the route that they end up taking because the obvious route to the Western Isles from Edinburgh is, duh, to go westwards. But Johnson and Boswell opt instead to take a much more roundabout route. They take the eastern road out of Scotland, up the coast, going northwards towards Inverness. and Inverness, of course, is a place that is very close to Kalluddin.

And to get from Inverness, they'll be going down, Loch Ness, and then across the hills and across the sea to the Western Isles. That is basically the route that Bonnie Prince Charlie had taken. And it's incredibly picturesque. I mean, it's ticking every box that route. Yeah. Do you think it is a sort of a Jacobite tour for them? I mean, genuinely, they've designed it accordingly. I think so, yes.

Hmm, nice. It's one of many factors. But I think for both of them, the sense of the romance in Bonnie Prince Charlie's story lends an extra patener of excitement to the scenes that they're going to be seeing in the Highlands, I think, absolutely. Excitingly for them, they will also get to visit one of my alma martyrs, whatever the plural of alma mater is. Oh, yeah, St Andrews.

So, very exciting. So they're about to set off. Johnson has had a tremendous time in Edinburgh, hasn't he? He actually liked it, despite the stench. He does. So he keeps landing what Boswell calls his pleasant hits against Scotland. But actually, he's pretty well behaved. He's genuinely impressed by the beauties of Edinburgh and its architecture.

And he's very flattered by the kind of the great host of Edinburgh luminaries who come to visit him in Boswell's house. Really enjoys their company. And of course, Edinburgh, I mean, Edinburgh is not an intellectual backwater. This is the great age of the Scottish Enlightenment. And there are lots of people who it's well worth Johnson meeting. So he, I think, really enjoys Edinburgh. They leave Edinburgh on the 18th of August, and they have with them a single servant who is absolutely massive bohemian,

very well-travelled, speaks lots of languages. Frederick the Great would have loved him, would have enrolled him in his army. They obviously want someone who's huge, because Johnson is clearly still a bit nervous about what they're going to be finding in the highlands. So they leave Edinburgh, as I say, they're heading eastwards, and they head for St Andrews, Scotland's oldest university and a city described by Johnson as once arch-episcopal, meaning there had once been an archbishop there, but the Scottish Reformation had then destroyed it. And Johnson does not approve of this at all and thinks that John Knox is an absolutely terrible man and laments it. He's treated very well again by the professors, all of whom are thrilled to meet him. but he does find the city unhappily declined.

So he writes, one of its streets is now lost, and in those that remain, there is the silence and solitude of inactive indigence and gloomy depopulation. There is something quite gloomy about St Andrews. So it's out on the east coast of Scotland, you've got nothing between you

and the kind of Siberian winds. It can be very cold. And you're a long way from anywhere. Yeah, I think for Johnson, though, it's not just that, you know, there are the ruins of, you know, bare ruined choirs and all of that. the Marx of the Scottish Reformation.

It's also that it does seem to be very depopulated. It's clearly not as flourishing as it once was. And this will become one of the great themes of his book on the Highlands, this sense that there are parts of Scotland, the lowlands that are absolutely booming. But there are other parts, and particularly the more northerly reaches that are clearly not. And the whole trip, Johnson is brooding on this. And actually, he has a lot of time to think, because the journey is quite a long one. and going from St Andrews up towards Aberdeen, you know, the coach is kind of bumping around on the roads.

And Johnson, who isn't usually a man to complain, but he is, I think, slightly feeling his age. And there's one particularly long and dreary stretch of road in the approaches to Aberdeen. He goes so far as to worry about how on earth he is going to cope riding a horse. And he tells Bosn, well, if we must ride much, we shall not go and there's an end on. and I have to say that there's an end on is one of my favourite phrases from Johnson but the next day he's cheered up and Boswell joshes him about the fact that he'd been

worrying about horses and kind of always lapsing into self-pity says, why sir you was beginning to despond yesterday you're a delicate Londoner, you're a macaroni you can't ride oh that's great banter so Johnson would absolutely despite he would I mean that would force him to ride

yes he's not going to take being called a macaroni. No, because macaronies are people who dress in exaggerated Italian fashions with enormous wigs. That's not Johnson's vibe at all. And Johnson is very indignant about it and sir, I shall ride better than you. I was only afraid I should not find a horse able to carry me. Which has to be said, is a reasonable worry because he is, as we say, enormous by this point. Yeah. So that evening they arrive in Aberdeen. They get to the inn. The inn is full. Boswell mentions his family name and immediately a room is found for them. So that's a measure of the reputation, if not of Boswell himself, of his father, Lord

Affleck. And the next day in Aberdeen, Johnson gets lionized again, and the city elders are so excited to have him in their presence that they actually vote in the freedom of the city. So Johnson is now in a much better mood. And what is more, they are now starting to approach the sublime kind of landscape that he's been hoping for, because, to quote Boswell, he always said that he was not come to Scotland to see fine places of which there were enough in England, but wild objects, mountains, waterfalls, peculiar manners. So again, there's that sense of romanticism, isn't there, the love of the kind of savage and the wildness and all of that kind of thing, you know, casting off the veneer of the city and getting into nature. Yeah, and Johnson is often thought

as a kind of, you know, classical figure, you know, his Latin and his love of London and all of that. But he has come to Scotland to see wilderness, and so wilderness he is going to see. And there's a taster for Boswell of how potentially alarming this enthusiasm for wild scenery might be, because they visit the Bullers of Buckin, which is a wild coastal walk that goes around very boiling waters known locally as the pot. And Boswell, actually, I mean, he's terrified to see the hugely corpulent Johnson kind of striding along this. rocky ledge with grim rocks and boiling waters below him. It was rather alarming to see Mr Johnson poking his way. And I guess Boswell is thinking, well, how's it going to play if, you know, the greatest

man of British letters plunges to his death? That's not going to be a good look at all. Anyway, Johnson survives it and gets in the coach and he's very happy. But Boswell, I think, reflecting on the possibility of Johnson falling to his death, he's suddenly become prey to gloomy fancies. and the landscape and the literary associations around Infaness kind of play on his fears. So by the afternoon of the 26th of August, they're driving across the heath where Macbeth was supposed to have met the three witches at the start of Shakespeare's play. Boswell finds himself shivering in terror.

And he's working himself up into an absolute state. And then, as they're rattling along across this heath, they see. they see the rotting body of a highwayman in a gibbet. The highwayman has been there for two months. And Boswell, he describes it as that strange curiosity, which I always have about anything dismal, climbs out of the coach and inspects it. And it has to be said that Boswell has quite a thing about hangings.

It isn't, I think, because he's a sadist or anything like this. I think it's actually the opposite. I think it's because he is oppressed by more. and kind of dares himself to stare it in the face. He would go and talk to people who were about to be hanged and then watch them be hanged and then inspect their bodies afterwards. And it's kind of staring the inevitability of death in the face, I think.

And so his response to this often, I mean, here it gets even weirder. Yes. Is that he would go out and have sex with a prostitute. I think to feel alive. Obviously, there's very deep waters there. But also, Boswell does that, I mean, his response to anything. I mean, his response to the death of his mum was to go to a brothel.

I mean, I know. I mean, but this I think is what makes him such a fascinating man, is that he has all these kind of, these strange takes on life, these strange approaches, these strange emotions, but he just writes them up. Strange approaches that always somehow come back to the same destination, no? Yeah, well, I mean, that is one destination, but another destination we say is this kind of this kind of enthusiasm almost for working himself up into a state. of terror and dread of death.

And that evening he is, you know, completely morbid. And Johnson either doesn't recognize it or wants to tweak Boswell's tale. So Boswell writes that Mr. Johnson did not know of my, you know, basically the fact that I was in a massive funk. Or he told me afterwards he would not have talked as he did, for he diverted himself with trying to frighten me as if the witches would come and dance at the foot of my bed. So you can imagine, you know, Johnson basically telling Boswell lots of ghost stories. Yeah. Boswell kind of gibbering in his bed. So if you're interested ghosts and death, two very exciting places to come.

So on the road to Inverness, two more big sites to look at. One of them is Macbeth's Castle, so the Castle of Cordo, and the other is the Battlefield of Collodon, which we've already heard about. So let's start with Macbeth's Castle. So they do visit Macbeth's Castle. It's own, how does that work in those days? Somebody must live there or is it ruined? It's ruined, but there's a local minister who entertains them. And they go and inspect the castle and Boswell is delighted by it,

not by the castle itself so much. It's a spectacle of Mr Samuel Johnson in this remote place with all its literary associations. And in fact, he wrote a letter to David Garrick, the great actor, that very evening. Indeed, as I have always been accustomed to view him, Dr Johnson, as a permanent London object, it would not be much more wonderful to me to see St. Paul's Church moving along where we now are. And I think you have this sense throughout the trip that Boswell is almost like a kind of documentary director. Right. He's removed someone from his comfortable surroundings and placed him in a la cal where all kinds of adventures might ensue.

and he's always kind of framing Johnson in his mind. I have a friend called Rory who once took Dennis Rodman to North Korea. Oh my God. And he stayed there, didn't he? Yeah. They hung around. It was a promotional thing for Paddy Power, I think. So improbable.

So, yeah, but no more improbable than Samuel Johnson go to Scotland. Absolutely. And so this is a crucial part of Boswell's delight in the whole trip. So they get to see the castle at Cordor. they do not go to inspect the battlefield of Kuluddin. And I think there are various reasons for this. Firstly, it's off the road. And Johnson isn't a man for taking, I think, a hike across Scottish weather.

Okay. They don't have horses that they could ride. And it's a very, very sensitive location. I mean, you know, it's a little bit like, I don't know, poking around a nuclear facility in Iran. It's probably not the most sensible thing to do if you're a tourist. but it's clear that the history of Bonnie Prince Charlie is very much on their minds now because they arrive in Inverness and then the next day they make a point of visiting this Fort George, which is this fortress that had been built in the wake of Culloden to kind of pacify the highlands.

So it's at one end of Loch Ness and Fort Augustus is at the other end of Loch Ness. They're very excited by now because they know that they are going to be following the line of Loch Ness and they're going to be heading out into a country upon which, as Johnson puts, it perhaps no wheel has ever rolled. And so they buy four horses, one for Johnson, one for Boswell, one for Ritter, their giant, bohemian manservant. Oh, yeah. I forgot he was there.

And a fourth to carry their baggage. And that evening, they're last for a while in civilised company. They're in an inn in Inverness, all kinds of, you know, as it usually happens, luminaries have turned up to have a gorp at Dr. Johnson and listened to his conversations. And Johnson is in excellent. form. And they're discussing the state of the world and the name of Joseph Banks comes up. Because the backdrop to this is that Captain Cook has just returned from his trip around the world. Their trip to Australia with the goat. Johnson had actually written the poem in Latin

saluting the goat and he's friends with Banks. And he reveals that Banks in Australia had seen a really remarkable animal which Banks terms a kangaroo. and people say, well, what does this kangaroo look like? And Johnson, this incredibly eminent, this incredibly distinguished, this incredibly heavy man, rises to his feet. He stood erect, put out his hands like feelers, and gathering up the tails of his huge brown coat so as to resemble the pouch of the animal made two or three vigorous bounds.

across the room. So the first kangaroo impersonation we've had on the rest of its history. Very exciting. But ahead as even greater excitement because we talked about one exotic and improbable creature in a kangaroo and we might just be about to meet another

because after the break, Johnson and Boswell will be going to Loch Ness. This episode is brought to you by the Folio Society and it's Tabby and Dominic here from the book club. Goalhanger's latest show. Now, Tabby, as you know, there are some books that you read once,

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All eight episodes now streaming, only on Disney Plus. Welcome back to The Rest is History. It is the 30th of August 1773. Samuel Johnson and James Boswell have left Inverness. They have left the world of stagecoaches and comfortable inns and civilised company and they are riding west into the highlands and their destination, Tom Loch Ness. So Boswell writes about it. Lockness and the road upon the side of it between birch trees with the hills above pleased us much. The scene was a remote and agreeably wild as could be desired.

Exciting. So they don't spot the monster. What? Oh, disappointing. Nobody knows the monster exists. That's so disappointing. I guess that's because the monster was invented in 1930s by the Daily Mail, no? Yes, and you can hear our episode about that.

But even though they don't spot the monster, Boswell does notice a very old woman standing outside a wretched little hovel, as Boswell puts it, made of earth. And it has a window and the way the window is. stopped is with a kind of a circle of turf. This for Boswell is amazing and his kind of documentary maker instincts kick in and he is filled with a desire to see Johnson step inside this hovel. And so they all pile in and inside it they find a pot filled with goat meat bubbling over a peat fire. And Johnson, he's like Louis Thruhe or someone. He's.

kind of interviewing this woman, even though she doesn't speak English, she only speaks Gallic or Earth, as Johnson calls it. So to quote Boswell, Mr. Johnson asked her where she slept. I asked one of the guides who asked her in Earth, i.a, gallic. She spoke with a kind of high tone. He told us she was afraid we wanted to go to bed to her. This coquetry or whatever it may be called of so wretched or like being was truly ludicrous. That's very ungallant, by Boswell. He's being very mean about this woman just because she's old and maybe not as pre-possessing as the people with him he can sort on Westminster Bridge. But maybe his reputation had gone before him. Yeah. She thinks, Jesus, Boswell's turned up. I can see he's clutching a pint

of wine. I'm in for it now. So there is a lot of banter along this theme. Johnson. Johnson makes exactly this point. Yeah. I think he's amused, but he's also embarrassed and he definitely doesn't want to hurt her delicacy. And so he refuses to go into the bedchamber. Boswell inevitably does. And he lights a piece of paper, goes in and inspects it. And he finds it's all, you know, thrillingly basic. It's everything that he'd been hoping for. They then sit down with the old woman and the old woman is incredibly hospitable.

She gives them both a dram. And then she asks in return, do you have some snuff? And they don't have any snuff. But they reach into their pockets and they both give her a sixpence. And they're chatting away through the interpreter. And she tells Johnson and Boswell that she is as happy as, any woman in Scotland, and then when they go on their way, she sends them with prayers, which she offers up in Gallic.

And Boswell writes, Mr. Johnson was pleased at seeing for the first time such a state of human life. Oh, that's nice. This is what he's been looking for, basically, in the highlands. So they continue on their way following the line of Loch Ness, southwest. And by nightfall, they have reached Fort Augustus, which is at the opposite. sit-end from Inverness, where they stay as guests of the governor. And I have to say that when you read both Johnson and Boswell's account, particularly

of this stretch along Loch Ness, there's quite a kind of great plains in the 1870s vibe. You know, remote, remote landscapes, forts, the sense of, you know, slight nervousness looking over your shoulder and everything. It reminds me of the stuff we did on stage about some Scottish visitors going. to the new world, going to the United States, in the sort of middle of the 19th century with dogs called peevish. Yes, get eaten by Native Americans. Exactly. Anyway, so they go up into the mountains, don't they? The next day. Yeah. And Johnson is really struck by the wildness. It's exactly what he expected. Everything basically is ticking. It's ticking all

his boxes, right? It's exactly as he hoped and dreamed it would be. And it's about this point that he starts thinking this would make a great book? He does, and he's still pondering this notion that he'd first had in St. Andrews, which is the contrast between all the industry and the bustle of the lowlands and the kind of the emptiness of Northern Scotland. And that evening, they've been travelling over wild, thinly inhabited upland regions. And they climb down and they arrive in Glen Morriston, which is a glen where Bonnie Prince Charles.

had taken refuge in a cave. And they look around them and they find that the glen is almost empty. It's kind of deserted of habitation. There is one place where they can stay. And their landlord confirms to them, yes, that 70 men had gone out of the glen to America. And Johnson is really struck by this. And he's thinking, you know, there is the sense here of some profound historic change and what is going on, what explains it? So he's kind of sitting there thinking it. Meanwhile, Well, Boswell's emotions are a kind of typically Boswellian mix of kind of fastidious distaste for this awful place they're staying in. But Boswell calls it a sty. But it's intermingled with a sense of romantic pride at how magnificent the scenery is and how splendid all the customs are.

So the fastidious distaste first, they're shown into their room. I mean, it's awful. It's obviously heaving with bedbugs. Johnson doesn't care. Johnson just kind of throws himself down and immediately falls asleep. Boswell lies on his kind of horrible laddress, stressing out about bedbugs, and he has this weird fancy that a spider was travelling from the windscot towards my mouth. He finally falls asleep, wakes up early, he's still very stressed,

and he began to imagine that the landlord, being about to emigrate himself, might murder us to get our money. Johnson completely unperturbed. He's lying there with a coloured handkerchief tied around his head and Boswell actually has to kind of prod him to get him up. They then go and have breakfast. And at breakfast, Boswell's mood is immediately transformed by meeting a veteran of Bonnie Prince Charlie's army, a Highlander who had signed up with the prince when he'd first landed, gone down with him deep into England, come back to Caluddin and escaped from Caluddin.

And so he relates this whole story. and Boswell, as he listens to it, repeatedly finds himself in tears and goes off on a kind of massive Scottish patriotism jag. So he writes, the very highland names or the sound of a bagpipe will stir my blood and fill me with a mixture of melancholy and respect for courage and pity for an unfortunate and superstitious regard for antiquity, an inclination for war without thought, and in shape. short with a crowd of sensations. Oh, that's nice. I mean, a crowd of sensations could be Boswell's motto. That's basically what he's all about. So he's in a very romantic mood.

And a couple of days later, so by now it's the 2nd of September, they've reached the coast and they've boarded a boat and they're being rowed across to sky. And as they're being rode, they passed the very point where Bonnie Prince Charlie had first landed on Scottish soil. And Boswell sits there and previously he said that his blood was stirred.

Now his mind is stirred. But basically he's very, very stirred by all of this. But. But, yeah. He's had a massive row with Johnson. What's going on? He has. He had a huge, I mean, they've been getting on so well.

But the day before they get taken in the boat to sky, they've had a massive bust up. So they've been coming down a mountain. Johnson is on this pony and he's so heavy that the poor pony stumbles. So the guide reaches for the bridle and he tries to calm down both Johnson and the pony. The pony is nervous. Johnson is kind of irate that the pony has collapsed under him. And Johnson is kind of rumbling away. And as he's doing this, the guide is trying to distract Johnson and cheer him up and he says,

See such pretty goats. Then he whistles and he makes them jump. And Boswell thinks this is hilarious. A common ignorant horse hireer imagining that he could divert as one does a child, Mr Samuel Johnson. And he can't stop laughing and Johnson has a massive, massive strop about it.

Yeah, because Johnson's dignity has been completely undermined by this, right? He can't ride the pony. The pony's collapsing and they're going down the hill. The bloke is treating him like he's a child and Boswell's laughing at him. It's too much for Johnson. It's absolutely too much for Johnson.

And one of the themes of this whole trip, which Boswell, you know, he'd known this, but it's repeatedly something that he's stumbling up against is that Johnson cannot bear to be made to look ridiculous. And if he does, he almost always loses his temper. And so he loses his temper now. And Boswell, after this kind of bust up, he rides ahead to kind of try and scope out their onward travel arrangements. And Johnson takes this again as a personal insult. He sees it as Boswell thinks that he can't cope with riding as fast as he can. And when Boswell comes back, he says, do you know, I? I should have soon as thought of doing as you have done as picking a pocket.

And it's only the following morning that they make up. And again, there's this brilliant phrase. Let's think no moron't. Oh, I'm glad they're made up anyway. They do make up. So what they've got to look forward to, they haven't met any clan chiefs yet. No, that's what they really want. Yes.

So there's a clan chief coming, and this is the chief of Clan MacDonald of Sleet. So Sir Alexander MacDonald. So tell me about him. Yeah, so he's married to Elizabeth Bosville, who's a distant cousin of Boswell. So Boswell knows Sir Alexander MacDonald and had actually met with him in London. And there Sir Alexander had issued a formal invitation because Boswell had said, oh, we're coming to the Hebrides. So they're very excited about this because obviously they want to meet a real Hebridean clan chief.

And they're approaching the southern tip of sky. And they're looking out and they see that Sir Alexander has come down to the sea's edge to welcome them. And what's even better, he is in full tartan. And this is massively exciting because Tartan is actually, strictly speaking, illegal. In the wake of Kludden, it had been prescribed for everyone except for Highlanders serving with the British Army. Right. And so the fact that Sir Alexander McDonald has turned up in the traditional Highland dress, this portends tremendous, tremendous entertainment. What's even better is that Lady MacDonald, who's very beautiful, she is standing at the top of the bank and she is making, quote, Bosn's,

well, a kind of jumping for joy. So everything seems set for a taste of traditional Hebridean hospitality. Except that. This is not what they get. Oh, no. So Alexander turns out to be an absolutely terrible host. He's kind of mean, he's really boring, and he's boorish. And there are no Klansmen, there are no claymores, kind of no outlander vibes in any way.

The dinner is a shocker. It's kind of undercooked. It's boring. So Alexander hasn't brought his chef with him to the island. The punch, there's almost no alcohol in the punch at all. Oh, that's the lowest thing. That's poor. And Lady MacDonald, whom Boswell remembered as being absolutely enchanting.

Yeah. It seems, I mean, Johnson says she seems cut out of the cabbage. This woman would sink a 90-gun. ship she is so dull and heavy. Oh, Jesus, that's even more disappointed than the punch. God, this is ticking none of my boxes. So that's very dispiriting. And Boswell is mortified, kind of on his own behalf, but also on behalf of Scotland.

This is exactly, he doesn't want Johnson seeing. It's not what he wants at all. Sir Alexander McDonald has let Scotland down. So he has a blazing row with Sir Alexander. Get a better wife, for God's sake. Boswell wants to leave that night. Johnson says, no, we can't. That would be rude.

So they stay there for four days. They head off to go and stay with these other people who've invited them. And from there they're going to make a crossing to the nearby island of Rasi. And they kind of arrive, they're ready to get in the boat, but then the kind of massive storm blows up and they can't make the crossing. So this is very disappointing as well. And Johnson, sensing that Boswell is bored, starts to entertain him with an impersonation of Lady MacDonald, leaning forward with a hand on each cheek and her mouth open. And Boswell, unlike Lord Affleck, his father, is a big fan of impersonations, and he thinks that Johnson has absolutely nailed this impersonation.

And he writes, to see such a beauty represented by Mr. Johnson was excessively high. But there are only so many impersonations of Lady MacDonald that can be done over the course of two days. And so by the time the storm finally subsides, they are so ready to cross to Rase. But there are only so many times that Johnson can do an impersonation of Lady MacDonald. And so they're stuck there for two days. And Boswell is just, you know, so depressed. Have all Johnson's criticisms of Scotland, you know, have they been based in fact? I mean, is he right?

Is Scotland actually a terrible place? So actually Johnson's perspective is slightly different, though, isn't it? Because he's basically struck by how much has changed in Scotland in recent years. He's almost quite mournful and quite melancholy about it. He says basically, clearly there was some romantic, you know, mist shrouded, beautiful Scotland, but it has been destroyed or it's being lost. And that's what really is on his mind. Yeah, so he was writing his book, we came there too late to see what we expected, a people of peculiar appearance and a system of antiquated life. So, Balswell is blaming Sir Alexander for their poor reception.

And I think that's reasonable enough. But I think Johnson is seeing it in a slightly deeper kind of profound. historical context. And I think he feels essentially that they've come there too late and that recent history, you know, its effects have been remorseless. There hasn't really been any resisting it because Scotland has joined with England in the Union and as a result has become richer. You know, it's joined this enormous single market.

It's become more prosperous. It's become a commercial nation, a polite and commercial nation. but only in the lowlands. And Johnson feels that the wealthier the lowlands have grown, the less prepared the elites of Edinburgh and Glasgow have been to put up with the autonomy of the clans. And the law had begun to disarm the clans. Yeah.

So Johnson writes, The chief has lost his formidable retinue and the Highlander walks his heath, unarmed and defenceless, with the peaceable submission of a French peasant or English cottager. And this is something obviously that has struck Johnson only on their to because remember he had brought his pistols with him.

But now he finds there aren't any pistols, there aren't any claymores. You know, the Highlanders have have no weapons whatsoever. And this is partly because Scottish laws have disarmed them, but it's also British state repression following the Battle of Kalluddin when, you know, the Hanoverian regime had received this terrible shock. And it's in the wake of that that the tartan had been banned and carrying weapons and all kinds of things. And Johnson writes,

their pride had been crushed by the heavy hand of a vindictive conqueror, and that chiefs had degenerated from patriarchal rulers to rapacious landlords, and that many of the chiefs, rather than stay in their ancestral strongholds, surrounded by their clansmen, that most of them have migrated southwards to the lowlands, to Glasgow, to Edinburgh. Some of them have even gone to London, and it doesn't surprise Johnson at all to learn that Sir Alexander MacDonald, had been educated at Eton.

So... Yeah, they're losing their Scottishness. Yeah, I mean, certainly they're losing their status as a, you know, a Hebridean clan chief. The clan chiefs are all going to Eton. And the Klansmen, rather than kind of choose to mouldering glens or on the aisles or whatever, are increasingly leaving for America, either to fight for the British army there or to set up as colonists. And Johnson feels that it's not really the union. that's brought this about, that it's not even Kuluddin that has doomed them, that it is actually

just the kind of the inexorable way of things, that this is how a commercializing nation, a prospering nation, that there are victims. Doesn't it go back to your parallel that you made earlier on with the Plains Indians and visitors to the Great Plains, that you could conceivably visit the Great Plains in the late 19th century and you take your pistols thinking this part of you that thinks gosh a week to be taken prisoner by the by the sue or something and you get there and it's all gone and it's all changed and and it's partly repression and it's partly the process of you know capitalism and industrialization and urbanization and all those kinds of things and this is a preview of that

no yeah and i think what johnson says about the process of immiseration that are essentially destroying the traditions of the highlands could equally be applied to the plains indians so he writes, misery is caused for the most part, not by a heavy crush of disaster, but by the corrosion of less visible evils, which canker enjoyment and undermine security. The visit of an invader is necessarily rare, but domestic animosities allow no cessation. And so this is the judgment that he delivers in his book on the Western Islands. You know, and it's a kind of somber one. It's profound one. I mean, I think that's true more generally. I mean, you could apply it perhaps to life in Western democracies at the moment if you wanted to.

Yeah. And there are people in Scotland when this book comes out who say, well, this is just because Johnson hates Scotland. I don't think this is true. I don't think actually, I think Johnson has a wonderful time in Scotland. He's writing as a man who has an instinctive sympathy for the underdog, but he is also writing as someone who in the course of his travels does actually see enough of the traditional Highland ways to feel very, very wistful for their decline.

And what he sees, he enjoys so much that he, from this point on, will always refer to his travels in the Western Isles as the pleasantest part of my life. Oh, that's nice. So, Boswell, actually, needn't have worried. Johnson isn't having a bad time. He hadn't been put off by Sir Alexander McDonald's sticking his fork into a liver pudding while his guests were kept standing. He hasn't been put off by the storms.

I mean, you know, it's Western Scotland. He's Johnson's expecting storms. And the two months in the Hebrides that follow this kind of slightly unfortunate introduction to Sky, they are a triumph. So Recy, when they finally reach it, proves an absolute ball. There's everything that they'd been hoping for from Sir Alexander MacDonald. There's fiddling, there's dancing.

And even though Johnson sits out the reels, he's absolutely in his element. and Boswell wrote in great relief. Mr Johnson was in fine spirits. He said, this is truly the patriarchal life. This is what we came to find. They come back to Sky and they travel to Kingsborough and there they meet the ultimate in living Jacobite history.

And this is Flora MacDonald, the woman who had saved Bonnie Prince Charlie. And she had escorted the wanderer, as Boswell calls him, disguised as her Irish maid, Betty Burke. And it has to be said that, according to Flora MacDonald, he didn't make a very convincing Irish maid. She'd brought him from the Outer Hebrides to Sky. And from Sky, Bonnie Prince Charlie had been taken onwards to the mainland again

and put on a ship and taken back to France. And, again, Boswell, the documentary director, To see Mr Samuel Johnson salute Miss Flora MacDonald was a wonderful romantic scene to me. And what's even more romantic is that they stay in Florida McDonnell's house and Johnson sleeps in the very bed that Bonnie Prince Charlie had slept in. So if you're a Bonnie Prince Charlie tourist, I mean, you know, this is incredible. I mean, if you're an old Tory like Samuel Johnson with Jacobite's sympathies, this must be absolutely fantastic. Absolute heaven.

Yeah. So he really is having a brilliant time. And I think the final highlight for Johnson is perhaps the most moving of all. And this, they go to Mull and then they take a crossing, a very short crossing, to Iona, which is a holy island for the Scots. And indeed, I think for any British Christian, St. Columba, the Irish monk, had founded a monastery there back in 563. commemorated as the great cradle of Scottish Christianity and Johnson feels an immense surge of emotion visiting it

and he wrote about it in a very famous line that man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plane of marathon or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona nice so for Boswell you described him a documentary maker. I mean, he's got all the shots he wanted. He's got Johnson in Bonnie Prince Charlie's bed. He's got Johnson looking, you know, melancholy and thoughtful and stirred with a

religious feeling in the ruins of Iona. I mean, he's made a tremendous film. Yeah. And so all their kind of, you know, memories of rouse about ponies and so on have ended up pretty much forgotten. And in fact, there are only two episodes during the whole tour around the Hebrides, which it would subsequently cause Boswell pain to recall. And the first of these had occurred on the 16th of September. Johnson had a cold but was otherwise in fine form, and he's talking away about a whole host of things. And he suddenly, it seems to Boswell, goes off on a mad one.

Johnson says, I have often thought that if I kept a Sorrelio, So a harrim The ladies should all wear linen gowns or cotton I mean stuff's made of vegetable substances And he's saying this because They've been talking about How linen is

kind of vastly preferable to anything with animal substances But it is a slightly Unexpected Left Field Sally And the fact that he said I have often thought That if I kept a harim

I mean Boswell finds this so unexpected that he bursts out Johnson doesn't like that. Johnson doesn't like this because he feels that he is now an object of ridicule. And in the kind of the published version of his journals, Boswell says he was too proud to submit, even for a moment, to be the object of ridicule and instantly retaliated with keen, sarcastic wit and a variety of degrading images.

And Boswell doesn't specify what these degrading images are in the book, but in his journal he had done. And essentially, what Johnson had done was to say, oh, well, if I had a, I had a, you know, Harim, you would be the eunuch. And there are some quite deep waters here, I feel, because of course, Boswell had wanted to keep a Harim for himself. He talked about that with him so. And the idea of being a eunuch to Johnson,

I mean, it just seems so wrong. It hits him on various levels because, A, Boswell is so priapic that for him to be a eunuch, to be unmanned in this way is an insult to his, to his masculinity. But also he kind of is Johnson's eunuch. already? Well, he's the attendant, isn't he? He's the subordinate figure.

Yes, he's Johnson's super fan. Yeah. So I think there's a lot going on there. And so Boswell writes, I would gladly expunge from my mind every trace of this severe retort. And you can see why. It's clearly striking him on all kinds of levels.

Then there is a second episode, which is very famous. And again, Boswell could not bring himself to relate it in full. And it takes place at the very end of their journey. they've come back from the Hebrides, they're heading down to Edinburgh, but before they reach Edinburgh, they head southwards to the one place in Scotland that Johnson had always said he'd wanted to see, in which Boswell had always longed to show him, and that, of course,

is the ancestral seat of the Boswell's Affleck. Oh, that's risky. It is risky. Because his father, his father is that, what is he, he's a wig, he's a Presbyterian, he's a Hanoverian, he's got no sense of fun or humour. I mean, I can't see him getting on with Samuel Johnson. I mean, he has got a sense of humour, but it's very sharp and bitter and kind of piercing. It's not jolly.

And Boswell knows this. And so he says, you know, if Lord Affleck had not invited Johnson, I would not have taken him there. Because, you know, he'd be fearing the worst, you know, worried about fireworks. But Lord Affleck had insisted. And so Boswell and Johnson had duly arrived at Affleck on the 2nd of November. And to begin with, everything goes well. Both men behave themselves. Johnson has a lovely time being led up by Boswell to inspect the ruins of the old castle on the, you know, on the gorge above the rivers.

And the days pass and things seem to be perfectly amiable between Lord Affleck and Johnson. But then on the 6th of November, disaster. So Lord Affleck has a collection of medals and he keeps them in the library. in his great classical house that he's just had built. And he pulls him out and he shows him to Johnson. When Oliver Cromwell's coin unfortunately introduced Charles I first and Toryism. It's like when we do a thing and we end up with George Ours, the publisher and historian. Couple loft.

And we accidentally praise Oliver Cromwell and he goes ballistic and starts shouting about Charles I. This is what happens, right? This is the essence of Toryism. the belief that Charles I should not have had his head chopped off. Yeah. Lord Affleck is, is, is,

is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, minds that they have vertebrae in their necks. Yeah. And Johnson just explodes and, and, the row goes on and on. And Boswell, he can't avoid mentioning it in his book because it's really

quite famous. The news of it leaks out. But he, he, he refuses to go into details. It would certainly be very unbecoming in me to exhibit my honored father and my respected friend as intellectual gladiators for the entertainment of the public. And you slightly feel reading that, well, I mean, nothing has stopped you doing exactly that before. I mean, Boswell only has to hear a conversation and he's transcribing it, but...

But not when they've gone head to head. No. That's the difference. These two men who are so important in his life, it kind of is his ultimate nightmare. But to reiterate, basically everything else that Johnson has said on this tour, Boswell has written down, they are there in his journal. they are ready to be used. Johnson has decided on the course of the tour

that he's going to write a book. Boswell has already, even before going on the tour with Johnson, decided that his ultimate ambition is to write a biography of Johnson once Johnson is dead. And so this is one of the reasons why he has been kind of occasionally goading Johnson.

He wants kind of good copy. Throughout the tour, he's pressing Johnson to tell him details about his life. And it's almost the case that Johnson is so busy writing up what Johnson says that he doesn't actually have much time to talk to Johnson. Johnson and Boswell have both returned from this trip with the kind of raw material for future books that both of them had wanted. And Boswell absolutely feels I do now have the material for a kind of a biography of Johnson that will be unlike any biography that has ever been written. However, even as he is plotting this, he is aware that he has a rival. Someone who actually is more familiar and certainly more intimate with Johnson than Boswell has ever been.

And this is a rival who isn't just a woman, but more than that, Dominic, a woman from Wales. Cricky, well that is a bombshell. Very exciting. If you're a member of the Restis History Club, you can get that episode right now. If you're not, and you would like to join our own depopulated Hebridean clan, then please head to the rest is history.com.

So next time, on the Restis History, a sentence I thought I would never say, we will be talking about a Welsh woman. Goodbye. Bye. Bye-bye. Getting ready for a game means being ready for any. like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember 988, Canada's Suicide Crisis Helpline.

It's good to know, just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada.