A Walk in the Park
Collision Course is a walk in the park to smell the roses compared to an all-nighter-adrenalin-rush. And the third Earl of Bute is a reluctant hero-protagonist. He’s far more interested in creating serene garden vistas than in jumping into the heart of political rough-housing.
Lord Bute is John Stuart (b. 1713), a descendant of the Stuart kings of Scotland on his father’s side and the powerful Campbell Clan on his mother’s. Branches of the Campbell Clan were still known among the fiercest highland fighters when Bute was in his twenties. The Highlanders identified as Catholics but knew little of Jesus, and I dare say, never seemed to have heard of the Bible. So, their war-like tendencies really went berserk after the Bloodless Revolution of 1688 booted the Catholic king of the UK. Whenever the banished Catholic heir, the debauched “Bonnie Prince Charlie,” felt sufficiently resentful to sail back from France and contend for the crown, he’d swing by Scotland and enlist belligerent Highlanders. On these occasions, the Campbells would take a respite from murdering the MacDonalds and bludgeoning Lowlander Presbyterians, to gleefully enlist for a bloody tromp into England.
However, by the third “Bonnie Prince” invasion in 1745, Lord Bute’s branch of the Campbell Clan had experienced a come to Jesus. Godly education had become a family priority. Since Lord Bute’s godly father had died when he was nine, his godly mother had tucked him under the wings of her two godly Campbell brothers. Bute’s Campbell uncles were entrenched in the Edinburg intelligentsia. Intellectuals were Christians. Enlightenment academics followed Christians. Bute’s Campbell family branch were Scotland’s civic leaders, innovators in banking, business, jurisprudence, and republican statesmanship in addition to their stellar reputations in science, theology, medicine, and literature.
Lord Bute’s Campbell uncles, along with his Stuart father, were instrumental in the forming the United Kingdom and in installing Protestant royalty to act in the interest of all their subjects, on the throne of England. The value of the common man was a novel idea. Bute’s uncles ran the elections for nineteen Scottish representatives to Parliament in Westminster. So, it’s really no wonder, that in the third invasion of Prince Charlie tyrants, three contingents of militia from the Campbell Clan fought for British liberty under King George II’s favorite son and commander-general, the Duke of Cumberland. Campbells fought Campbells.
It was in this third invasion that the young protagonist prince’s uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, became feared as “The Butcher” by political detractors. After Cumberland led the government’s final victory, and as the “Bonnie Prince” escaped on his ship back to France, the commander duke ran a genocide campaign of the most war-like Highlanders (including 30 something Campbells). That ended the north Britain invasions and turned thoughts to a walk in the park-like gardens. Let Collision Course begin.
