This week, we finally managed to install our new (not new ) item of furniture - a mid-18th Century grandfather clock. It's not bright and shiny like more modern ones, but a dark oak with a warm patina which the beeswax polish is drawing out. In order to set it up, we had to do a certain amount of research - how to hang the pendulum, where the weight went on the endless chain - and it got me thinking... where and when did certain divisions of time come from? The time periods which I have written either had household clocks or didn't, I have not written novels from the time of their invention. Clocks have been around for a long time, and the obsession with measuring time in an ordered fashion dates back to at least the ancient Sumerians. It was they who established a circular reading of time and, I imagine, the sixty seconds/minutes came about as much because it was an easy way to divide a circle as anything else. But it wasn't until much later that the precision of seconds ...
I'm running behind schedule today! But here is the #HistFicThursdays blog...
This year, I will be sharing a post every month which looks at a real person who appears in one of my books or who was an inspiration for it.
January's person is John Mackay.
Here's who he was:
John Mackay was an Ensign in the small militia which was based in the Northern Highlands during the 1745 Jacobite Rising. This was a little bit akin to being a freelance worker today. Because he was in the militia rather than the army, there is very little documentation to be found of him. The Book of Mackay has his deeds at Littleferry listed, and then he promptly disappears!
Events at Littleferry were swift and decisive, with Ensign Mackay winning the day against the Jacobite forces. Many of the men in the Jacobite ranks were Mackenzies, including their leader, the Earl of Cromartie. Many men were forced back into the sea at Littleferry and left to drown. Cromartie was later pardoned, but the other leaders were executed. John Mackay had led the attack for the government forces and, as a result, he was awarded £50 for having confronted the enemy and secured the Jacobite gold they had been carrying.
And then that's the end. The Book of Mackay has Ensign John Mackay listed as being from Moudale, a farmstead to the west of Altnahara, but it gives away next to nothing about what manner of man he was, nor what his peacetime occupation was.
Here's who he is in the book:
Ensign John Mackay is the man who sets James Og on his path towards becoming Caledon. Why? Because he is the threat James is fleeing from when he accidentally stumbles across his new purpose. Mackay has a deep-seated hatred of the Mackenzies, and he is determined to rid the Northern Highlands of the clan. In the first book, we don't find out where this hatred comes from, but he remains vehemently against the Clan of Caledon.
In The Stealth of Caledon, Mackay finds himself falling in and out with the Clan of Caledon, the phrase "an enemy of my enemy is my friend", best describes the mutual hatred and need which the two parties have for one another. Throughout the series, he continues to work for the Earls of Sutherland, often from Golspie and sometimes from Moudale, constantly looking for one-upmanship over the Mackenzies, both those of the name and those of the clan.
Here's what made him a great person to include:
Looking at a blank page when you're about to start a new novel is simultaneously exciting and nerve-wracking! To me, the characters (usually!) come first, and I knew I wanted James and his clan to have a worthy adversary. A quick exploration into the events immediately before James' sorry arrival at his uncle's house, showed Mackay as being a surprising victor. This made him perfect: an unlikely hero needed an unlikely antagonist!
The fact he played such a major role in these events but then disappeared meant that I could write his next chapter with comparative free reign. I could prolong his stay in Golspie, and build on his supposed hatred of the Mackenzie Clan. I could also toy with his relationships, and drop him seamlessly into the fantastical events of Caledon. He was known enough to be of importance, but overlooked enough to make him a pliable character.
And, because he's a real person, he was easy to make three-dimensional. The more the books unfurl, the more it becomes apparent that there is nothing evil about him - instead he is only very human. He is not a bad person for his adherence to duty, but rather a blinkered one.
So having fifteen minutes of fame is not a bad thing - it actually makes you a fascination to future historical fiction writers!
You can find Caledon here!
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