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muccamukksanguinity sent me a doctoral thesis about Scottish soldiers fighting for Great Britain/England/Not Jacobites (Scotland and the British Army c.1700-c.1750 by Victoria Henshaw), which I was hoping would be more useful than it turned out to be. The one big takeaway I have are the requirements for enlisting in the mid 1700s:In order to comply with the requirements for recruitment to the regular army, a potential soldier needed to be Protestant, not lame or prone to fits, with full use of both arms and legs, not in an apprenticeship or the militia, and be over five foot six inches tall. This last requirement was waived during times of acute need for manpower.
In justice to Short!Alan, maybe the pressures of the War of Austrian Succession lowered the height requirement. He was absolutely, indisputably Protestant, though (probably Anglican, as most Stewarts of Appin were). Multiple sources mention that wasn't optional, and was one of the reasons Catholic Scots sought service overseas. Additionally, Ogilvy's Regiment in France had two chaplains: one Episcopalian and one Presbyterian, none Catholic. (I didn't see anything about Ogilvy's excluding Catholics, either, to be fair.)
The rest of that paper was a bit about the duties of Scots Regiments in Scotland, and when roads and forts were built. So probably useful if you're writing Keith pre-canon, but not useful to Alan, who was in Lee's Regiment of Foot (55th at the time? I think?), which was English.
Which fact I came across in "Stewart of Appin's Regiment in the Army of Prince Charles Edward, 1745-46" by Major A. McK. Annand, which is a good short account of that unit in the '45, if you're looking for a summary of where they were, what battles they fought in, with what casualties, and how large the Regiment was at any given times. It also notes that the Appin Stewarts and the Camerons always fought and marched together, so it's probably useful to those interested in Camerons, too. Alan Breck gets name checked as having switched sides at Prestonpans, but he is not (as far as I can tell) ever listed as an officer with the Regiment? Though there are multiple Allan Stewarts, so who even knows. The muster rolls do have a lot of familiar names on them though!
While we're talking about Prestonpans, according to Wikipedia, Lee's Regiment and the Appin Stewarts/Camerons would've fought each other directly at that battle (Lee's was on the right, Appin/Cameron on the left), which means Alan would've been looking down his musket at a lot of blood relatives. No wonder he switched sides! Also, the Lee's uniform was bright red and yellow, which I'd have deserted to escape, lol.
Probably the biggest find from the citations in the doctoral thesis is "Rats, Lice and Scotchmen: Scottish infantry regiments in the service of France, 1742-62" by Helen C. McCorry, which has quite a bit about how the Scotch regiments were raised and staffed, including rates of pay, lists of officers, composition of regiment by national origin (they seemed to only be about half Scots or less, as far as the men went), how prisoners were handled, and who fought where. There's also some delightful silly buggers around faking the national origin of troops to get better signing bonuses. Oh and snarky commentary on people's personnel jackets. No mention of Alan at all, but of course he was enlisted.
More on needing to be noble to be an officer:
In addition to the financial privileges of rank, the concept of rank in the French Army was inextricably bound up with the concept of nobility, apart from a few officiers de fortune or roturiers, five or six of whom were allowed in each regiment. These were men who worked their way slowly through the officer ranks, although not usually above captain, and who in consequence must have been invaluable.
Which is possible for Alan, but I think he just lied about being more closely related to Ardsheal than he was, and the French never could get a handle on the Highland clan system.
There's a couple other loose ends I want to track down, but that's the bulk of it.
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Date: 11 November 2023 23:06 (UTC)the French never could get a handle on the Highland clan system.
...I would read an outsider POV of some poor French clerk trying, and failing, to do that.
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Date: 11 November 2023 23:57 (UTC)no subject
Date: 11 November 2023 23:22 (UTC)I kind of want the fic about this bureaucracy.
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Date: 12 November 2023 00:02 (UTC)no subject
Date: 12 November 2023 00:03 (UTC)That's hilarious and I am so glad I was not employed by their army.
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Date: 12 November 2023 00:16 (UTC)no subject
Date: 12 November 2023 05:50 (UTC)Add it to my other list ("Reasons Why I Am Not In The British Navy") from Hornblower fandom, lol.
Actually this is all reminding me of Monstrous Regiment from Discworld (which is obviously drawing on the same sort of history). Especially the bit about officers having to be titled in some way. (Which still seems so strange to me, coming from say Star Trek where everybody works their way up the ranks to captain or whatever.)
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Date: 12 November 2023 05:54 (UTC)no subject
Date: 12 November 2023 07:38 (UTC)It IS a terrible idea! Sooomeeetimes maaaybe a certain kind of brains runs in families, but on the whole hereditary running of anything is generally a bad plan. Especially armies! Or countries!
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Date: 12 November 2023 14:49 (UTC)(My problem with a lot of fandoms set before 1800ish: Maybe its your system of government that's the problem?)
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Date: 12 November 2023 22:18 (UTC)At least the watery tarts kept things interesting, man!
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Date: 13 November 2023 17:01 (UTC)I wonder why Alan enlisted in an English regiment. He's like the reverse of Keith Windham being an Englishman in the Royal Scots, but as a non-officer not needing to acquire a commission via whomever could provide the necessary patronage I don't know what other reason there might be. (Perhaps there were too many Campbells in the Highland regiments of the time?)
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Date: 13 November 2023 17:07 (UTC)My theories for Alan's regiment choices are A) he was drunk at the time (seems to have been very common way to get people to enlist), B) the trial notes for James of the Glens mention that every time he went home, James and Mrs James were on his case about being a bit of a wild child, so "F-you, I'mma join an English regiment!" might have been a vibe too. One thing I've never seen, and maybe it's something you've run across, since I certainly didn't read the whole trial transcript, is what year he enlisted. It would've been after 1741, anyway, as that's when the regiment was raised.
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Date: 13 November 2023 18:25 (UTC)That would make sense. I have read the whole trial transcript and I don't remember anything about exactly when Alan enlisted—I would very much like to know too!
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Date: 13 November 2023 18:28 (UTC)Someone more familiar with British army stuff could probably find him in the records.
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Date: 15 November 2023 20:36 (UTC)Additionally, Ogilvy's Regiment in France had two chaplains: one Episcopalian and one Presbyterian, none Catholic.
Interesting! From what I've read, being Protestant in France was kind of like being Catholic in Britain: you're allowed to exist, I guess, but if you practice your religion openly you will be shunned and perhaps persecuted, and you won't be allowed into universities or take official posts (in Sweden in that period, Catholics were not even allowed in the country). I've read that a lot of the Protestant exiles eventually converted because it was so difficult to live like that. So it's interesting that there was apparently an exception made for the Scots regiments and that they were allowed official Protestant chaplains. Of course the Irish regiments were already Catholic, so it was a lot easier for them...
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Date: 16 November 2023 02:12 (UTC)I imagine Alan would've converted when he moved to a French Regiment, but he was def Protestant up until then.