Right, well, usual caveats about this sorta thing before we start:
Outlander is a work of fiction, and is therefore beholden to telling a good story before any sort of historical accuracy.
People are free to enjoy historical fiction without being badgered continually by nitpicking historians.
This sort of work can increase interest in the original subject matter and therefor lead to people becoming involved in genuine historical research. This is a good thing.
No, I haven’t read the original novels.
I know this work primarily exists for twenty-first century American ladies to enjoy fantasising about eighteenth century Scottish highlanders. That’s not something I wish to disrupt.
None of the above robs me of the right to be a bitch about this show based on the fact that;
I’m a historian of the period.
It’s my culture that’s being represented (and misrepresented).
Anyway I don’t really want this to turn into a genuine full-blown essay so let’s get to it.
The “historical” part of the first season is set in the Scottish highlands in 1743. This is, apparently, a place being occupied by England, where highlanders are flogged, raped, hung and yes, actually crucified at the roadside, by brutal invaders.
Of course this is fictitious in the extreme. Scotland in 1743 wasn’t an occupied country, it was just… Scotland. The only “British” military forces stationed there were Scottish regiments in the British Army. In fact, the total number of military personnel in Scotland amounted to only 4,000 men, most of them based in Edinburgh and the lowlands. Scotland was actually one of the most demilitarised places in Europe at the time. The ratio of soldiers-to-civilians was lower than anywhere else in Britain, and lower than Prussia, Austria, Russia etc. There was most certainly not some low-level guerilla war being randomly waged between highland clansmen and English regulars.
( ^ actually said oh ffs when this bit happened)
There was, of course, friction between soldiers and Scottish civilians. Soldiers (themselves almost always Scots), committed crimes from robbery to rape to murder. And these were crimes, which saw the perpetrators punished by the military if they were caught. Death sentences were inflicted. The army behaved no different than any eighteenth-century army did while based in its homeland. They most certainly did not enact some sort of martial law that saw them apprehending or kidnapping random highlanders and whipping or murdering them without recourse to the Scottish legal system.
Let’s turn briefly to Clan Mackenzie, who act as the focal point for our highland gang. I’ll leave aside the fact that I was deeply uncomfortable with their on-screen home, given that I grew up and live a ten minute walk from the actual seat of Clan Mackenzie.
The series so far has portrayed them as mostly Jacobites-in-waiting. In reality, as was common at the time, support for the Stuarts or the Georgians fiercely divided opinions. While a majority of Mackenzies did come out for the Stuarts, the clan chief remained loyal to King George II, as did a not-inconsiderable number of his clansmen - during the 1745 rising he formed and equipped three companies of Loyalists to resist the Jacobites. The majority of the pro-Jacobite Mackenzies were defeated just prior to Culloden by a force of highlanders (mostly Mackays and Sutherlands) loyal to King George. While I take it the clan chief in Outlander is going to back George, there’s been no sign of the wider divide that split the highlands.
On a more nitty-gritty note, costuming. Some of it’s okay. I don’t know much about eighteenth-century female clothing, to my eye some of it looked fine but I’m told it’s not great. The highland garb is too drab - I suspect if they were portrayed with a more accurate clash of tartans and colours a modern audience, in love with miserable earth tones, leathers and mud for its history shows, would think they looked silly. The British Army uniforms are a 6/10 but I do appreciate a slight degree of nuance. We have good sources for British uniforms in 1741 and in 1750, but exactly what they looked like in 1743 is less certain. I’ll post a good near-contemporary image and a photo of the cast below and you can draw your own conclusions (needless to say though, those fuckin’ hats).
To quote Shakespeare, there’s more yet if I could remember it (so many highlanders totally fluent in English, ugh), but I’ll probably leave it there for now. I’m about ¾ through season 1. I may revisit this, or I may not!
And a final note for those who think this doesn’t matter, well, yes, it sort of doesn’t, but it also sort of does. Scotland’s tourist bodies quickly realised that Outlander is an amazing moneyspinner, and consequently the past seven or so years has seen it intrude on our historical sites to a ridiculous degree. People come and visit Culloden, for example, not to learn about Culloden, but to live out their Outlander fantasies. And while it’s great that they can receive a broader education, because the sites want to make money they also pander to the historical fiction rather than the history. That’s just how the world works I guess.
I’ll let the Falkirk Herald have the final say for now.
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