Mark Sutherland-Fisher
Highland Family Heritage
November 2004
Joan La Grone has written a rip-roaring adventure story, which takes the reader not
through the events of a few years but the ups and downs, highs and lows of one extended
family. Their fate was linked to the political undercurrents which formed the high and low
tides of power and influence exerted firstly by the Scottish monarchs and then, secondly,
by their British and German descendants during the 150 year period following the Union
of Crowns in 1603.
As an American with a different view on the Scottish, English and British history than
many living on these shores, whether right or wrong, Joan has expressed her views and
opinions in a clear. Strong and forthright manner, which the serious scholar must
consider, having regard to the depth of her research and academic basis on which she has
set out her position.
The turbulent lives of the Stewarts (Kings) and their descendants both Protestant and
Roman Catholic, whether living somewhere in these four distinct countries which combine
to form the United Kingdom, or France, Italy or Germany, have impacted on the lives of
hundreds of thousands of Scots and others and no better example exists than as shown
by Joan of the Edmonstone family. Some chose one route, possibly the more practical
and survived while others wore their heart on their sleeves and consequently went into
exile in the lands of America, probably never anticipating that 300 years later the dogged
determination of one of the descendants of these exiles would piece together their story
and seek to bring them back to life in 300 pages of a book. Joan's sons, who are partly
responsible for sending her on a cross-European search for her identity and roots could
never have anticipated just how far that road would lead and where.
Both as one who assisted in a small way with the research for Joan's book and more
importantly as a descendant through my Drummond great-grandmother of some key
individuals, Drummonds, MacGregors, Grames (Grahams), MacFarlanes and others who
trod the same paths through Southern Perthshire, Argyll and Stirlingshire for some 900
years, Joan not only brings to life the times and places of her ancestors, but also those of
me and others like us, who have within our veins a rich blend of saints and sinners,
rascals, knaves, kind men and stouthearted omen.
Book Review Continued...
These were the people who lived our history. We can only write about it and try to begin
to imagine what it was really like for them. By her attention to detail and leaving no stone
unturned, Joan has taken a black and white picture and introduced a rainbow of colour,
the colour that is William Wallace and Robert the Bruce and the Wars of Independence.
It is the colour of the sometimes-saintly James IV with his dynastic and fundamentally
crucial marriage to Princess Margaret Tudor and yet his string of mistresses and
illegitimate children, who met his tragic end on the blood drenched field of Flodden. It is
his equally tragic descendant Charles I, who put ideals before practicalities leading him
straight to the scaffold or his impetuous great-grandson Charles Edward Stewart, who
brought disaster on the Scottish Highlands and their way of life. No matter what, an
Edmonstone was never far away and it is to her tribute that Joan brings them all to life.