Well, this is the last #HistFicThursday blog before I launch Beneath A Darkening Sky at an event in Thurso on Monday 13th . Shame it couldn't be a Friday 13th, but we can't have everything! One thing is for certain: October is the spookiest month. And not just because we have Halloween. Halloween could be a day later and October would still be the spookiest month... Look at how the light retreats at this time of the year: up here, the seasons' turning drains away the daylight at a rate of 2.5hours over the course of this month! Up here, anyway. Our ancestors knew, a long time before they tracked time using clocks, that this month we now call October was a time to look back at what has been and ahead to how we will survive the winter. Is it any wonder then that, with generations of people looking back, October became a month for souls and spectres? People we have loved and lost come back to visit our hearts, imaginations - and, perhaps, our homes - as we recall autumns of ...
#HistFicThursdays - Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound (1st Earl of Minto) - The Burden of Bridging Eras
While the technological advancements of the past century have been so rapid we've all been left with a bit of whiplash, the late eighteenth century was also a time of significant change in western Europe. For many in that generation who lived across events such as the French Revolution, they saw their understanding of the world upturned, and had to quickly learn to adapt to this new world.
Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound was one such individual.
At first glance, Elliot appears to have been one of those members of the upper class for whom everything naturally fell into place. Born to a baronet, educated to the highest standard, given post after post by those in power. But, delving a little bit deeper, there was more to him than first meets the eye...
Friendships he formed in his youth were to be shattered in later life, and he became the champion of failed attempts. The French Revolution saw him torn between early friendships and patriotic duties, and his attempts at command were perhaps hindered by his split loyalties. In all, despite his wealth and power, he was a man who lived with one foot in the dreams of what might have been and another in what he actually had - perfect for introducing into a story!
By the time he appears in book Day's Dying Glory, Elliot was an older man, just a few years before his death. By this time, holding the position of Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William (India), he had reached lofty heights. This was his swansong. In the book he is argumentative and deliberately obstructive, carrying the weight of all the ups and downs which shaped his life. Bitterness is creeping in and, when confronted by a man who had taken all the opposite choices to himself, is short to the point of rudeness.
It can't have been easy to have lived a life which bridged either side of that period of revolution. It took a certain type of person to make that transition smoothly and, tragically, there were many more who could not. Despite appearances, I think Elliot was one of the latter.
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