Witness to Rebellion : John Maclean's Journal of the Forty Five and the Penicuik Drawings

"The Journal of John Maclean" is a first-hand account of the experiences of an officer of Prince Charles Edward's army from August 1745, through Prestonpans and the taking of Edinburgh, the march into England to Derby, the withdrawal to Scotland and the final retreat to Drummossie Moor near Inverness, where John Maclean was killed in the Battle of Culloden.

Illustrations are taken from a remarkable series of drawings from the "Clerk Collection" at Penicuik House, which offer a unique view of the participants on both sides of the 'Forty-Five: a Rising for some, for others a Rebellion.

No other comparable collection of images is known. These sketches were made in part as a factual record, but also as an exercise in caricature, perhaps as a diversion from the very real dangers and disasters of the time.

The result is an insight into the 'Forty-Five that is both telling and humorous.

This edition includes an introduction and commentary; and a discursive essay which sets the visual evidence of the whimsical images of Highlanders and Hanoverians contained in the "Clerk Collection" in the context of the society and attitudes which produced them.