16 May 2021

Rachel

This is Rachel Chiesley. She married James Erskine, son of the noble Earl of Mar in Edinburgh - probably in 1707. Later Erskine was ennobled becoming Lord Grange so on that day Rachel Chiesley became Lady Grange.

They belonged to Scotland's  ruling elite and lived in comfort as Lord Grange  climbed the ladder of success in the legal profession, later becoming a Member of Parliament in London. Lady Grange bore nine children during a marriage that lasted for twenty five years but then things seemed to fall apart.

Not only was Lord Grange a womanising drinker he was also strongly  suspected of being in league with The Jacobites who sought to restore The House of Stuart to the British throne. Lady Grange may have been witness to some of her husband's clandestine meetings.

Undoubtedly, Lady Grange was not a shrinking violet. She spoke her mind and was not prepared to stand silently by as her husband committed his various misdemeanours - both private and political. She had been a dutiful wife,  bearing nine children to Erskine. As a consequence of this she probably never imagined that her husband would arrange for her to be kidnapped and effectively imprisoned in faraway places but that is what happened.

In those days Lowland Scotland was very different from Highland Scotland. For one thing Scots mostly spoke English in the lowlands and Scottish Gaelic in the Western Isles and Highland regions. They were two dissimilar worlds.

For six years - between 1734 and 1740 she was exiled to the remote island of St Kilda where she lived a harsh life with the islanders charged with accommodating her. At first she spoke no Gaelic  and boats rarely called there. She was very much like a fish out of water. 

Lord Grange spun many tales of his wife's unreasonable behaviour. He painted her as a madwoman and was supported by his peers. Letters from Lady Grange do not indicate that she was crazy but her cruel exile - out of sight out of mind - may have driven her to despair.

In 1740 she was transferred to The Isle of Skye and ultimately that is where she died at the age of 66 in 1745, the year before The Battle of Culloden which effectively killed off the Jacobite rebellions. In that same year Lord Grange married Fanny Lindsay, his London mistress.

I know these things because I have just finished reading  "The Prisoner of St Kilda" by Margaret Macaulay.

By the way, if I was asked to make a list of the ten places in the world I would most like to visit St Kilda would come top - above The Valley of the Kings in Egypt  and  Pitcairn Island in The Pacific. Even above Florence in South Carolina, Ludwigsburg in Germany, The Sheep's Head Peninsula in Ireland and Red Deer in Alberta, Canada.


Lady Grange on St Kilda
by Edwin Morgan

They say I'm mad, but who would not be mad
on Hirta, when the winter raves along
the bay and howls through my stone hut, so strong
they thought I was and so I am, so bad
they thought I was and beat me black and blue
and banished me, my mouth of bloody teeth
and banished me to live and cry beneath
the shriek of sea-birds, and eight children too
we had, my lord, though I know what you are,
sleekit Jacobite, showed you up, you bitch,
and screamed outside your close at Niddry's Wynd,
until you set your men on me, and far
I went from every friend and solace, which
was cruel, out of mind, out of my mind.

28 comments:

  1. The Sheepshead Peninsula is gob smackingly beautiful at times. I am a bit biased though. Maybe it's because I live there.😊

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    1. One day coachloads of Japanese tourists will return with their cameras to try to catch a glimpse of "The Keeper of the Sheep Shed".

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  2. An interesting book, YP.
    From her writings she was anything but mad, and obviously a more than a little too astute for her husband to allow her to remain in civilised society. I wonder if she died from natural causes? Her death, and the speedy remarriage of her husband must have given some cause for concern.

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    1. Being wealthy and influential, Lord Grange pretty much swept his wife's life under the carpet. He did whatever he could to discredit her.

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  3. I'm sure that you'd love St Kilda. I found it very haunting and I would have great difficulty staying there for any length of time as many people have done and still do since it was evacuated.

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    1. I am envious Graham. If you are ever stuck for something to blog about why not recall in some detail your trip to St Kilda?

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  4. Do you recommend the book?

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    1. Not really Sue. A much better book about St Kilda is "The Life and Death of St Kilda" by Tom Steel.

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  5. You would probably enjoy the fulmar egg omelettes and puffin pies on St Kilda.

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  6. St. Kilda has a romantic image, but probably the weather and lack of food would have left Rachel hungry and cold. Sometimes, this is a female speaking, what men did to women in past history is terrible, and yet similar stories exist elsewhere.

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    1. You do not need to be female to recognise that truth Thelma.

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  7. What a story! I know nothing about St. Kilda but it seems like it might be a fascinating place to visit.

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    1. Just a little research and you might be as intrigued as I am.

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  8. What a sad story. Women almost always paid a high price for having minds of their own in those days.

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    1. And this story illustrates that truth really well.

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  9. Even above Lloyd, Florida? Really?
    Unfortunately, this story was probably repeated many, many times throughout history. The patriarchy, you know.

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    1. Lloyd, Florida is an imaginary rural place invented by a well-known woman writer. She has even peopled it with believable characters. Quite an achievement but unfortunately we cannot go to fictional places.

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  10. Fascinating stuff and an Italian sonnet to boot! I much prefer this sort of post to the grumblings and trysts of Clint.

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    1. I am pleased that this post met with your approval your lordship.

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  11. Then you must go when you can - it is not too difficult to go from Harris, though probably expensive. Of course, you've got to get to Harris fist as well! So maybe more difficult than I said.. to have gone there when she did was quite an exile.

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    1. Boats from Harris often cannot land when they get there. Besides, I want to sleep there for a couple of nights. It may not happen now.

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  12. Books based on true live stories are fascinating. I have another one set on St Kilda which was given to me by a friend, it is top on my to-be-read pile and will be started as soon as I finish Obama‘s Promised Land.

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    1. In my imagination St Kilda is a very special place, sheathed in melancholy and yet alive with seabirds. Enjoy!

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  13. I only met Edwin Morgan twice.
    The first time was upstairs on the No. 20 bus along Great Western Road, Glasgow.
    Eddie was sitting on his own looking out the window. A pal of mine knew him and they started blethering. It was late Saturday night and the bus was full of drunks.
    He wrote poems about drunk men and gallus women, though very shy himself.

    The second time we met he agreed to translate some poems by Eugenio Montale for a small magazine I was editing. He was a courteous man and could write about anything.
    Glasgow and the world were his subjects. He half expected to get the Nobel Prize.

    During his long vacations as lecturer then professor of English Lit, he travelled widely and wrote poems about the moon landings and Marilyn Monroe as well as joys and horrors of Glesca life. Read his collected letters, The Midnight Post Box.

    His collection of poems *Cathures* (the old name of Glasgow) is the place to start reading him. There is a wonderful poem on Merlin.
    Eddie was an atheist who understood the city's motto:
    Lord, let Glasgow flourish through the preaching of Thy Word and the praising of Thy Name.
    Some say it was written by our patron saint, Mungo (or Kentigern as he is known).
    Haggerty

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    1. Fascinating recollections John. You have met a lot of gifted people in your life. Of the Scottish "Big Seven" I only met Norman MacCaig and once attended a talk by Hugh MacDiarmid hosted by MacCaig.

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  14. Stranger than fiction is a line that comes to me.

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  15. My dad's paternal family were Lowland Scots, from the Dumfries area. (Langholm) Although I love kilts, they never wore them and my grandfather scoffed at them.

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