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Skeletons in the family closet! Gotta love them. Dearest has a goodie; a really hush~hush goodie. I'm not sure it's anything to be proud of, having Bonnie Prince Charlie in the family closet, but they still sing maudlin' tales about him in Scotland. He was, by all accounts quite charming, if somewhat deluded. The crowns of both Scotland & England slipped from his uncertain grasp & he ended his days as a drunken exile & even the pope, who recognized James as the rightful king of both England & Scotland until his death, did not recognise Charles Edward's claim.
At some point in his gallivanting about Scotland & losing a war he found time for more amoral gallivanting ~ or so the story goes. Dearest chases his ancestry back on the wrong side of the blanket. Completely unprovable of course, unless a lost Canadian cousin actually has the evidence she said she had. I think the evidence is there in the hair. I always tell Dearest I married him for his hair ~ for those gorgeous red gold tresses inherited from the wrong side of the Scottish blanket. Jossie was very red for a while too. [As Tacitus noted, there's more red hair in the British Isles than anywhere else.] The evidence is there in the dark almond shaped eyes, the sweeping brows, the long fingered hands, the small pointy chin that only Jossie inherited & the full sensual mouth.
Now I'm not a fan of Bonnie Prince Charlie. He got his subjects slaughtered & hightailed it back to France leaving his subjects to English mercy ~ which was non~existent when it came to the Jacobites. He had more than one mistress & a child out of wedlock. He was a drunkard & domestically abusive ~ & frankly cowardly. Not a fan, no ~ but an interesting addition to the family tree which includes Kenneth MacAlpin, last of the Pictish Kings, first of the Scots. And there's a rumour going round that the Scots carry more genetic markers for cannabilism than anyone else... Well, with the English on your border it would be tempting to grab a quick snack now & then, wouldn't it?
5 comments:
John Knox is in ours. Another less Bonnie Scot, of whose relationship my mother is inordinately proud!!
Ah yes, the bigoted & intolerant John Knox ~ but he got the job done. Unfortunately his bigotry & intolerance have plagued the Presbyterian church & that is a crying shame. One of the lovliest churches I've ever belonged to was the Presbyterian church in Toowoomba: the truth preached with love. Wonderful!
And what would we do if we could prove it? Bob is supposed to be descended from Margaret Tudor, sister to dear Henry VIII. She supposedly had a marriage annulled before consummation, but she stayed in a convent for awhile afterwards... Seems like she shared a tendency with her brother.
I'm reading a bio of Prince Charlie that I picked up in the Inverness airport for a pound. By 6 1/2 the boy could read, write, speak 3 languages, ride a horse and shoot both gun and crossbow with accuracy. He should have had the throne, from what I can tell, but things just didn't turn out. He was charismatic by all accounts, just not a great planner/warrior, I guess. Ill advised, according to the history we heard at Culloden.
You are kinder than I am, MamaO. Yes, he should have had the throne but then we'd all still be Catholic & goodness only knows what would have become of the Puritans.
The genetics of it merely amuses me, the way they get passed down through the generations but not everyone inherits the same things or in the same way.
Bonnie Prince Charles....one who seem to have the idea of making a country his by the way of each child being his own.
My uncle has Scottish roots, but he might be called a Black Scot, having a Spanish ancestor.
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