An often forgotten part of Bath's history has become the focus for a new novel called The Jacobite Murders written by local author Gary Best, a former head teacher at Kingswood School in Bath.
Set in 1744 it looks at what was happening in Bath while Bonnie Prince Charlie was invading England with his army of Scottish Highlanders.
The novel's basic premise – that the English Jacobites were using the city as a base to rally support for the invasion – is not far-fetched.
It was in Bath that the Jacobites planned the first Jacobite Rebellion in 1715. The city had a particular significance for them because it was believed that the spa waters had cured the infertility of James II's wife and thus enabled the birth of James Stewart, the man they sought to place on the throne.
Unfortunately for the Jacobites, a lowly deputy postmaster called Ralph Allen betrayed all their correspondence and wrecked their plans. That's largely why the 1715 rebellion ended up being launched in Scotland rather than the south west!
Ralph Allen was richly rewarded – he bought the Combe Down quarries with the money he acquired and set about creating the building boom that transformed the city. However, the government was angry that the Bath Corporation had not prevented the Jacobites collecting an arsenal within the city and, to help restore its reputation, the city acquired Major General Wade as its MP.
It took him, Allen, and Beau Nash over a dozen years to persuade the Hanoverian royal family that Bath was a safe place to visit. All three men were determined not to let Bath become a Jacobite centre when Jacobitism revived in the early 1740s thanks to the charismatic Bonnie Prince Charlie. When the Prince invaded it was Wade who was chosen to lead the English effort to repel the Highlanders.
Beau Nash and Ralph Allen's friend Henry Fielding are key figures in The Jacobite Murders. It's an interesting choice because it allows the author to present Nash in his declining years and contrast him with the more vigorous Fielding, who was the government's main producer of anti-Jacobite propaganda.
Gary says: "I deliberately chose to have Henry Fielding as a main character because Bath has ignored its strong links with this great writer in favour of Jane Austen, who never liked the city. A large part of Fielding's greatest book, Tom Jones, was written in his house in Twerton in the aftermath of the Jacobite defeat and Ralph Allen was the model behind the character of Squire Allworthy. Fielding's sister, Sarah, who was a pioneer of children's literature, lived in Widcombe.'
Cleverly The Jacobite Murders has Tom Jones as its hero. "Linking a fictional creation with his creator is something I like doing," says the author.
"My first book had Oliver Twist investigating Charles Dickens and my second had Wuthering Height's Heathcliff destroying the Bronte family."
Gary's previous two novels have been praised for their clever plots and this is no exception. The book effectively captures many aspects of life in eighteenth-century Bath but it is also full of twists and turns and there are plenty of murders – some set against the backdrop of Bath's most famous buildings, including Queen Square, Bath Abbey and Prior Park.
Image may be NSFW.
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