Prisoner of St Kilda, The: The True Story of the Unfortunate Lady Grange

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In the 18th century shotgun weddings were not unusual, but in most cases it wasn't the bride that was holding the gun. So began the stormy marriage between Lord and Lady Grange, a marriage which was to end with Lady Grange's death on the Isle of Skye after 13 years in exile. The daughter of a convicted murderer, Lady Grange's behaviour, such as her fondness for drink, was so outrageous that her sudden disappearance from public life was not considered surprising. But few knew the true story of her disappearance. This book reveals, for the first time, how the unfortunate lady was violently kidnapped and transported to the remote islands off the west coast of Scotland, spending seven years on the island of St. Kilda's. Condemned to a very different lifestyle than she had enjoyed in Edinburgh, and baffled by the strange tongue of the Gaelic West, she still obstinately survived, finally dying in Skye in 1745.

Additional Information

Title	Prisoner of St Kilda, The: The True Story of the Unfortunate Lady Grange
Author	Margaret Macaulay
Binding	Paperback
ISBN-13	9781906817657
No. of Pages	192
Series	N/A
Edition	N/A
Author Bio	MARGARET MACAULAY was born in Campbeltown, Argyll, in 1934 and educated at Campbeltown Grammar School. She graduated from Glasgow University in 1956 with an M.A. Hons. in History. She worked on The Herald, as a freelance journalist, a teacher and as a bookseller. Lady Grange is her first book.
Back Cover Copy	One shotgun wedding. Two Kings. Thirteen years incarcerated. You may be sure I have much more to tell. - Lady Grange, letter from St Kilda, 1738. Married to a Scottish law lord, Lady Grange threatened to expose her husband's secret connections to the Jacobites in an attempt to force him to leave his London mistress. But the stakes were higher than she could ever have imagined. Her husband's poweful co-conspirators exacted a ruthless revenge. She was forcibly removed from her Edinburgh lodgings and carried off to the Western Isles, doomed to thirteen bitter years of captivity. Death was her only release. Who kidnapped Lady Grange? How could this prominent member of Edinburgh society simply vanish? Why did no one try to find her until nine years after her abduction? Based on contemporary documents and Lady Grange's own letters, The Prisoner of St Kilda looks beyond the legends to tell for the first time the true story of an extraordinary woman. 'The true story of this lady is as frightfully romantic as if it had been the fiction of a gloomy fancy.' - James Boswell, 1785
Reviews	'a tale of such scandal and drama that it reads almost like a work of fiction' - Catherine Salmond, Edinburgh Evening News 'this fascinating account of one of the most beguiling characters in Scotland's history... Despite the unhappy ending, it's a stunning story and Margaret Macaulay has done it full justice.' - Trevor Royle, The Herald 'Yet there's another story of human hardship in [St Kilda]'s history that's been much less analysed - not one of evacuation but of abduction. Not of escape, but of exile. A story of political intrigue, betrayal and personal tragedy.' - Sunday Post
Table of Contents	N/A
BISAC Subject	TRUE CRIME / General
BIC Subject	True crime

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