Bonnie Prince Charlie

New York: Dorset Press, 1972. First Printing (stated). Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Includes bibliography and index. Gift inscription "Merry Xmas 1990 to mother with love from Mark" written in black ink at top corner of front free endpaper. Book contains several footnotes. Moray David Shaw McLaren (1901-1971) was a Scottish writer and broadcasting executive. He was educated at Merchiston Castle School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He worked as assistant editor on the London Mercury, before joining the staff of the British Broadcasting Corporation, where he was assistant editor of The Listener in 1929. McLaren moved back to Scotland in 1930 as a BBC Scottish Region radio executive. He announced his interest in Scottish nationalism in 1931 by supporting George Malcolm Thomson's pamphlet The Kingdom of Scotland Restored. He originated a series on Scottish forensic oratory, from which John Gough's trial drama on Madeleine Smith originated. McLaren during World War II was involved in the Polish section of the Political Warfare Executive. The author's compassionate biography of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the descendant of Mary, Queen of Scots, records Charles's attempt to wear the crown his unlucky ancestress had desired so fiercely. After several bloodless victories that brought the Stuart forces into the heart of England (just three days' march from London) the undisciplined Scots were soon forced to retreat to home ground, morale plummeted, and Charles's men were decisively defeated at Culloden. The author sympathetically chronicles Charles's subsequent wanderings with his loyal Highlanders, his many narrow escapes from the pursuing British, and his humiliating return to the Continent.