31 December: Bonnie Prince Charlie

Bonnie Prince Charlie was born on this date in 1720. 10 things you might not know about him:

1. His full name was Charles Edward Louis John Sylvester Maria Casimir Stuart (Charles for his great-grandfather, Edward after Edward the Confessor, Louis for the King of France, Casimir after the kings of Poland, and Sylvester as he was born on Saint Sylvester's Day. The Maria is presumably for his mother, Maria Clementina Sobieska, the granddaughter of John III Sobieski, famous for the victory over the Ottoman Turks in the 1683 Battle of Vienna.

2. His grandfather was James VII of Scotland and II of England, an unpopular king who was in exile. His father was also called James, and believed he should be King of England as James III and was known as “The Old Pretender”. Hence his son, Bonnie Prince Charlie, became known as “The Young Pretender”.

3. He was born in in the Palazzo del Re, in Rome, which is where the exiled Stuarts had established their court.

4. During his life he spent just 14 months on British soil, in 1745-6, and there was also a brief clandestine visit in 1750.

5. Was he really “Bonnie”? As a child, he had weak legs, possibly due to rickets, but a regime of exercise and dancing fixed that. Portraits of him as a young man do portray a dashing, handsome fellow, but paintings did tend to be flattering. “Charles was portrayed as a young, fair and feminine figure because Jacobite ideology wanted to show him as the renewer of Scotland: an image of youth, fertility, fecundity,” says Murray Pittock, a historian and professor at the University of Glasgow. When he entered Edinburgh in 1745, it’s said he was tall and handsome and women loved him. He was also fluent in several languages (despite having been born and brought up abroad, he reportedly spoke English without any trace of a European accent), musical and athletic.

6. He didn’t age well, though. While his death mask shows he had symmetrical features, which means he was naturally attractive, the failure of his various campaigns to take the British throne left him bitter and disappointed, which, along with the fact he was an alcoholic, took their toll. He’s also known to have been abusive to his wives and lovers.

7. He’s best known for the Jacobite uprising and his defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. Bonnie Prince Charlie fled for his life with a price of £30,000 on his head. A few thousand of his supporters tried to continue the fight but a lack of supplies and poor leadership from Bonnie Prince Charlie meant their attempts never amounted to anything. The final nail in the coffin for the Jacobites was the peace reached between Great Britain and France in 1748, with one of the terms being that Charles was to be removed from French territory.

8. The Skye Boat Song is about him. It tells of the time that he dressed as an Irish maid called Betty Burke and sailed with Flora MacDonald and five boatmen to the Isle of Skye, across the treacherous waters of the Minch, under cover of night, to escape capture by Hanoverian troops.

9. In 1753, Bonnie Prince Charlie had an illegitimate daughter by his mistress Clementina Walkinshaw. She was called Charlotte Stuart, and although Charles initially refused to acknowledge her after her mother took her away from him when their relationship soured, he did eventually legitimise her in 1784. She had children, too, and there are direct descendants of Bonnie Prince Charlie around today.

10. He died of a stroke in Rome on 31 January 1788, aged 67.

Character birthday

Bluebird, a member of the Raiders, a singer who moved to Bird Island to escape the stresses of life in Innovia. She disliked technology and on arrival there threw her tablet phone away, so did not receive any of the messages warning Innovians to leave before the nuclear test. The test opened a wormhole and Bluebird was pulled through. A few days later, she grew wings and gained the ability to fly. Not long after, she met a group of fellow Infinitans and joined them. She and three of the others formed a singing group which was moderately successful and helped earn money for the group. On return to Innovia, the group became a massive success performing songs from Earth. Bluebird is in a relationship with Wolf, one of the other Raiders.

Over the Rainbow

'We're not in Trinity anymore,' says Leonard Marx, quoting a line from an old Innovian  movie. The moon is different; the planes flying overhead are different. Nobody has any idea where they are or if it's possible to get home. 

In this strange new world, people from the highly technical Innovia and the less advanced Classica must co-operate in order to survive. In addition, travel through the inter-dimensional wormhole has given some people unusual and unexpected powers.

Innovia mourns the loss of its superhero, Power Blaster, last seen carrying a nuclear bomb to the upper atmosphere away from the inhabited Bird Island. They don't believe he could possibly have survived.  Power Blaster has survived, but is close to death and stranded in the new dimension. He is nursed back to health by a Classican woman, Elena. She has no idea who he is, only that she is falling in love with the handsome stranger.  

Shanna sets out to discover what happened to Nathan Tate, who didn't return from his hiking holiday, not knowing her life is about to be turned inside out and upside down. 

Meanwhile, Desi Troyes, the man responsible for the catastrophe, is at large on the new world, plotting how he can transfer his plans for world domination to the planet he now finds himself on - Earth. 

Available from Amazon and Amazon Kindle

Closing the Circle

A stable wormhole has been established between Earth and Infinitus. Power Blaster and his friends can finally go home.

Desi Troyes is still at large on Earth - Power Blaster has vowed to bring him to justice. His wedding to Shanna is under threat as the Desperadoes launch an attempt to rescue their leader. Someone from Power Blaster's past plays an unexpected and significant role in capturing Troyes.

The return home brings its own challenges. Not everyone can return to the life they left behind, and for some, there is unfinished business to be dealt with before they can start anew.

Ben Cole in particular cannot resume his old life as a surgeon because technology no longer works around him. He plans a new life in Classica, away from technology. Shanna hears that there could be a way to reverse his condition and sets out to find it, putting herself in great danger. She doesn't know that she is about to uncover the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious past.

Available from:

Amazon (Paperback)

Amazon Kindle