Allan Stewart (Jacobite) - Portrayal in Historical Fiction

Portrayal in Historical Fiction

In his Introduction to Rob Roy (published in 1817), Sir Walter Scott tells us of the Appin Murder, the description that inspired Robert Louis Stevenson to write Kidnapped (1886), and claimed that a friend of his accidentally met the elderly Al(l)an Stewart in Paris in 1789, just before the French Revolution, in the house of a Scottish Benedictine priest, where people had gathered to view a procession: "Some civilities in French passed between the old man and my friend, in the course of which they talked of the streets and squares of Paris, till at length the old soldier, for such he seemed, and such he was, said with a sigh, in a sharp Highland accent, "Deil ane o' them a' is worth the Hie Street of Edinburgh!" On enquiry, this admirer of Auld Reekie, which he was never to see again, proved to be Allan Breck Stewart. He lived decently on his little pension, and had, in no subsequent period of his life, shown anything of the savage mood, in which he generally believed to have assassinated the enemy and oppressor, as he supposed him, of his family and clan."

However, readers should be cautious. Scott's friend's description of the elusive Alan Breck in old age: "His eyes were grey. His grizzled hair exhibited marks of having been red, and his complexion was weather-beaten, and remarkably freckled." does not match earlier descriptions of the fugitive who is reported to have had black hair and brown eyes, and his complexion was not freckled, but pitted by smallpox (hence the Gaelic sobriquet 'breac' - 'spotted'). Scott's portrait of the persecution of Jacobites and the allegiances of clan warfare in Rob Roy gives a sense of the popular image of rebels like Stewart, and Robert Louis Stevenson based his character 'Alan Breck' in his novel Kidnapped upon the historical Allan Breck Stewart. Henry James described him as "the most perfect character in English literature", but it was a very flattering portrait, the real Alan Breck had none of the fine qualities that Stevenson attributed to him, and his guardian James of the Glen, who was hanged for the murder as Breck's accomplice, described him as "a desperate foolish fellow".

Walter Scott had got his background information on Rob Roy, the Jacobite Rebellion, and Allan Breck and the Appin Murder from one source. At the age of 15, as a trainee lawyer, Scott had traveled into the Highlands on a pony to meet one of his father's client's, an old Highlander called Alexander Stewart of Invernahyle (pronounced - Invernile). This old man had fought with Bonnie Prince Charlie, and had been wounded at Culloden, but it was Alexander's personal experience of the earlier Battle of Prestonpans (where the red-coated Allan Breck fought on the Government side) that Scott used in his first novel Waverley (1814), and Alexander's remarkable pardon was the model for Scott's hero Waverley's reprieve. Alexander knew Rob Roy personally, but Scott was mistaken when he said that Alexander had beaten Rob Roy in a swordfight, and although living on the southern border of Appin, and a staunch Jacobite, Alexander was also first-cousin to Colin Campbell of Glenure 'The Red Fox' (his near neighbour), the government factor that Alan Breck was accused of killing, so had first-hand experience on this fascinating episode in Scottish history.