Midwinter

Midwinter September 11, 2003

I read a good bit of Buchan while in Cambridge, and here is a short analysis of one of his best historical novels, Midwinter .

Midwinter is an historical novel set in England during the mid-eighteenth century effort of the Jacobite supporters of Bonnie Prince Charlie to place their leader on the throne of England. Alastair Maclean, head of his Highland Scottish clan, is the principal character. He is an agent of the Prince who is traveling through England and Scotland enlisting the support of English nobility disaffected with the Hanovers and willing to put their support behind the Scottish prince. He falls into a number of misadventures, spends a good deal of his time with Samuel Johnson, falls in love, meets Gen Oglethorpe, and has finally to deal with the disappointment of the Prince’s humiliating defeat. Along the way he enlists the help of the Spoonbills, the mysterious and ever watchful members of the nameless class, who are always available to help a friend in need, and who are led by the magnetic Mas’r Midwinter. They are the “naked men” without titles, without political loyalties; but they make up the backbone of old England that never changes.

Buchan’s first chapter, and his evocation of Midwinter, is the most haunting piece of writing I’ve read in some time. His characterizations are all fine: deft, quiet, unobtrusive. Samuel Johnson comes off as physically large and oafish but with a mind and heart as large as England; the brief chapter where the disciplined but kindly Oglethorpe appears is wonderful, and Oglethorpe is instantly a moral barometer for the whole book, as he raises to Maclean the question of whether the Bonnie Prince will help the poor and hungry — a question Maclean in his ambition for his Prince, clan, and himself, has never considered.

The book is exquisitely structured. Early in the story, Maclean is visiting Lord Cornbury, trying to enlist this gentle nobleman to his cause. He goes riding into the countryside with Cornbury’s sister, Lady Queensbury, who tells him that the world is divided into the garden and the wilderness, gently insisting that her brother is made for life’s garden not its wilderness. The choice of garden/wilderness is related to the choice that Midwinter presents to Maclean, politics and ambition v. nakedness and communion with nature. This choice is presented starkly to Maclean later in the book, as he is forced to make a complex decision: first, whether he will ride to meet the Prince at Derby and encourage him with reports of aid from English nobility or whether he will ride to chase down the treacherous Sir John Norreys; second, whether, should he chase down Norreys, he should kill him — thus ensuring justice for a cheat and traitor, and giving Maclean a chance to court the lovely widow, with whom he has fallen in love — or should spare him; third, if he should spare him, whether he should reveal Norreys’ treachery to his bride or maintain her illusion that her husband is completely faithful to the Cause. Johnson assures Maclean that if he tells her the truth she will never recover trust in anyone. In short, he must choose between the Cause and preserving the delicate balance of a trusting soul; he must choose between the garden and the wilderness.

As it turns out, he chooses for the garden, chooses to save the beloved. And he chooses to do so by saving her husband. He chases Norreys down, but releases him on the promise that he will never again involve himself in politics. Lady Norreys is never informed, and therefore never is disillusioned. By making this choice, however, Maclean’s arrival at Derby is still further delayed and by the time he gets to the region, the Prince is in retreat and only straggling barefoot Highland plunderers are to be seen on the roads. Maclean had the intelligence that could have saved the Prince’s invasion, but his choice of pursuing Norreys prevented him from getting to Derby on time. He saves Lady Norreys’ illusions at the price of his own; his idealized view of the Prince’s conquest of England and of the Cause is swallowed up by a memory of the crude Highlanders in retreat and the mocking songs coming from English pubs. Near the end he confides in despair to Johnson and Midwinter that he is a naked man, stripped of ambition, of pride, of hope. One can hardly imagine a more natural way of setting up a decision between gaining the world and losing a single human soul, and this is the way Johnson explicitly states the issue.


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