Highlighting Historical Romance with Jane Stain
The Scots are feisty and fiercely independent. Have you ever wondered how England got Scotland under its power?
The story of Scotland’s surrender to England went something like this:
The Scots Parliament saw England and Spain colonizing the world and bringing home treasures imagined. They wanted in on that action.
Despite the disapproval of their king, they scoured the globe, searching for the best place to put a Scottish colony. One that would bring them wealth. One that was different from all the other colonies.
The Darien Chest held the money and documents of the Company of Scotland. Now on display in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, it has a beautiful mechanical locking mechanism.
Photo taken by Kim Traynor – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
They settled on The Darien Bay of faraway Panama. They would have their colonists dig a canal through the isthmus. Scotland’s leaders would get rich charging England and Spain’s ships for passage!
So in the 1690s, more than two hundred years before the Panama Canal was finished, Scotland started it. The Scottish leaders committed their kingdom’s wealth and almost three thousand settlers to founding a Scottish colony.
They named this colony Caledonia, the name the Romans had used for Scotland.
Scotland’s leaders failed, however, to anticipate Spain’s military response. Furious at the invasion into their declared territory, Spain blockaded Darien Bay and lay siege to Caledonia, whose settlers were already plagued by disease.
The Scots called on their allies for help. The indigenous people of Panama, called the Kuna today, came to the aid of the Scots, but they were no match for the Spanish Empire. England blockaded their other allies from sailing to their aid.
Abandoning the colony in March of 1700 to the Kuna —who still live there and call it Caledonia— left Scotland in financial ruin. Only half of the settlers made it home.
England ‘came to the rescue’ and proposed an Act of Union.
Scotland accepted, and in 1707, Scotland and England became a new nation called Great Britain.
Most of Meehall takes place in Scotland in 1706, amid the common people’s anger at their leaders’ reckless loss of life and wealth, not to mention rumors of a pending union with England.
About the Book
Sarah’s boss at Celtic University plonks an iron bracer on her desk. It brings up one of her friend’s magic druid dreams. In it, Sarah’s ex, Michael (Meehall in Gaelic), used this bracer as a time travel object and was a kilted highlander in 1700s Scotland.
At lunch, Sarah’s friends say they’re calling in sick tomorrow to attend a local fair. They want her to call in sick too.
Sarah isn’t keen on giving the bracer back. She wants revenge on Meehall for breaking up with her years ago and decides to use the bracer to have a bit of fun. She tells her friends they don’t have to call in sick. She’s taking them back in time.
“Good one!” they tell her, laughing.
Free with Kindle Unlimited or buy it here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/
About the Author
Jane Stain is busy writing more clean and wholesome time-travel romance novels set in all the historical periods of Scotland. Her Facebook page is all about the Highlands:
https://www.facebook.com/
She shares excerpts of whichever novel she is currently writing in her newsletter, which you can subscribe to at:
Oh this sounds so good. I adore time travel romances and am reading one right now, but can never get enough of them. Now I know if another author. Thank you so much