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Title |
The Great Feud - The Campbells and the Macdonalds
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Author |
Oliver Thomson |
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Details |
Soft Cover. Sutton Publishing Ltd. 206 pages |
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ISBN |
075092800X |
Comment: A fairly
superficial romp through the struggles between the Campbells
and the Macdonalds for supremacy in the West, a good
introduction nonetheless.
Reviews:
From Publishers Weekly.
Although family feuds
can take on lives of their own, rarely are they as long and
treacherous as the rivalry between the Scottish clans, the
Campbells and the MacDonalds. This lively ancestral
adventure begins with a single ambush of a Campbell chief,
Sir Colin Campbell, in 1296 by Lame John MacDougall (whose
clan was closely allied with the MacDonalds), and spans
nearly 450 years across the globe. The opposing clans were
stalwart military and political powers, one side supporting
the reigning royalty while the other opposed it. Thomson's
enthusiasm shows in accounts of battles, such as the
infamous Massacre of Glencoe and the 1745 Jacobite rebellion
the latter resulting in such severe casualties that the two
clans' power was finally broken. Thomson also tells colorful
tales of individual acts of heroism and scandal. There is
Flora MacDonald who aided in the escape of Prince Charles
following the devastating Battle of Culloden in 1746 by
having him dress as her maid and Alastair Ruadh MacDonell, a
captain in the French Scots Brigade, who was accused after
his death in 1761 of being the English spy known as Pickle.
In the final section, Thomson follows the Campbells and the
MacDonalds as they leave Scotland, and discovers descendants
of the two clans emerging as heads of state, artists, poets,
soldiers, criminals, sports figures and even the
entrepreneurs who began McDonald's fast food chain and the
Campbell Soup Company.
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