The Fanatic

The Fanatic
James Robertson

The impressive debut from an exciting new Scottish voice – a stunning novel about history, identity and redemption. A no. 2 best-seller in Scotland.It is Spring 1997 and Hugh Hardie needs a ghost for his Tours of Old Edinburgh. Andrew Carlin is the perfect candidate. So, with cape, stick and a plastic rat, Carlin is paid to pretend to be the spirit of Colonel Weir and to scare the tourists. But who is Colonel Weir, executed for witchcraft in 1670.In his research, Carlin is drawn into the past, in particular to James Mitchel, the fanatic and co-congregationist of Weir’s, who was tried in 1676 for the attempted assassination of the Archbishop of St Andrews, James Sharp.Through the story of two moments in history, ‘The Fanatic’ is an extraordinary history of Scotland. It is also the story of betrayals, witch hunts, Puritan exiles, stolen meetings, lost memories, smuggled journeys and talking mirrors which will confirm James Robertson as a distinctive and original Scottish writer.

The Fanatic

James Robertson

Dedication (#u8691d6e7-38a5-5c07-b5c8-7a04264223f1)

for Ange

Epigraph (#ulink_b89c67ce-bd62-5540-b8c4-e739b79a3eed)

In that same year 1670 was that monster of men and reproach of mankind (for otherwayes I cannot stile him), Major Weir, for most horrible witchcraft, Incest, Bestiality, and other enorme crymes, at first contest by himselfe (his conscience being awakned by the terrors of the Almightie), but afterwards faintly denied by him, brunt. So sad a spectacle he was of humane frailty that I think no history can parallell the like. We saw him the fornoon before he died, but he could be drawen to no sense of a mercifull God, so horribly was he lost to himselfe. The thing that aggravated his guilt most was the pretext and show of godlinesse wt which he had even to that tyme deceived the world. His sister also was but a very lamentable object … She was hanged.

—Journals of Sir John Lauder, Lord Fountainhall, with his observations on public affairs and other memoranda 1665–1676

This is the world’s old age; it is declining; albeit it seems a fine and beautiful thing in the eyes of them that know no better, and unto those who are of yesterday and know nothing it looks as if it had been created yesterday, yet the truth is, and a believer knows, it is near the grave.

—From a sermon by Hugh Binning (1627–53), minister of Govan

The wild heads of the tyme do dream,

There’s a world in the moon,

O, to deceive if I were trier,

For heir will trust me none.

—Lines from a satirical poem on Archbishop James Sharp, c.1667, Analecta Scotica

Contents

Cover (#u1f6165a1-2746-5bc2-92ae-d63e974ac34a)

Title Page (#ua5536930-291f-543a-8fc2-a0192c273e40)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

Dedication (#ubd2dfc1a-d09e-5d15-9635-5238ec17179a)

Epigraph (#u26f3f14f-a2f3-5a7e-9a55-3bc4235d0319)

Prologue (Bass Rock, March 1677) (#uc618f697-1ff5-5a90-90e6-9e275ebacfd4)

Edinburgh, April 1997 (#uac03c55b-452a-5449-a26c-dd6a89ff41fc)

Linlithgow, September 1645 (#ufe4d2d8a-bcb3-5771-9e4f-9e9e8879fe05)

Edinburgh, April 1997 (#u6e5b01c9-8219-5bab-8a9b-16efe4441e69)

Edinburgh, September 1656 (#uf14c1e67-8a88-561d-b953-bf6f33aa7a3d)

Edinburgh, April 1997 (#u7d123ea4-647f-5756-bf86-9fd616b27710)

Edinburgh, April 1677 (#u30ca9b12-c124-5f88-99ad-1f38077ee2fc)

Edinburgh, April 1997/October 1987 (#litres_trial_promo)

Bass Rock, April 1677/Edinburgh, December 1666 (#litres_trial_promo)

Edinburgh, April 1997 (#litres_trial_promo)

Rotterdam, January 1667 (#litres_trial_promo)

Edinburgh, April 1997/July 1668 (#litres_trial_promo)

Edinburgh, February 1670 (#litres_trial_promo)

Edinburgh, April 1997 (#litres_trial_promo)

Bass Rock, April 1677/Kippen, November 1673 (#litres_trial_promo)

Edinburgh, April 1997 (#litres_trial_promo)

Bass Rock, June 1677/Edinburgh, April 1670 (#litres_trial_promo)

Edinburgh, April 1997 (#litres_trial_promo)

Edinburgh, January 1676 (#litres_trial_promo)

Bass Rock, July 1677 (#litres_trial_promo)

Edinburgh, April 1997 (#litres_trial_promo)

Edinburgh, September 1677 (#litres_trial_promo)

Edinburgh, 12 April 1670 (#litres_trial_promo)

Edinburgh, 1 May 1997 (#litres_trial_promo)

Edinburgh, 1 May 1997/January 1678 (#litres_trial_promo)

Edinburgh, 10, 11 January 1678 (#litres_trial_promo)

Edinburgh, 1 May 1997 (#litres_trial_promo)

Edinburgh, May 1997 (#litres_trial_promo)