ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am deeply thankful for the interest and advice of the representatives of the Menzies clan. Special thanks go to Robin Menzies Bentzen, Executive Director of Development for the Menzies Clan Society of North America, whose counsel helped at numerous points, and whose enthusiasm extended even to trekking about the castle grounds with camera and notebook to answer some final questions. I am also truly grateful to George Menzies, Esq., Trustee and History and Legal Advisor to the Menzies Charitable Trust, for checking the manuscript for historical accuracy and discussing some thorny points with me; to Rory Menzies, Menzies Clan Society President and Chairman of the Menzies Charitable Trust, and Neil Menzies, Secretary of the Menzies Charitable Trust, for kind permissions and approval of the project; and to David Henderson, Castle Menzies Manager, who cheerfully poured information into my head during my visit to the castle.

Many thanks also are due to the late Drue Heinz for the Hawthornden Castle Fellowship. A month in a castle in Scotland with nothing to do but write, research, and nurture the muse was a gift beyond all praise, and laid the groundwork for this book. And I also warmly appreciate Kathleen Coskran and the Malmo Arts Colony for providing a winter retreat where further progress on this book was made.

My heartfelt thanks to my perceptive editor, Christy Ottaviano; my terrific agent, Stephen Barbara; to friend and colleague Heather Bouwman for her excellent critique; and, as always, to my dear husband, Bill, first reader and most enthusiastic of supporters.

Finally, and most of all, I remember with profound gratitude my beloved grandfather, James David Menzie. He took me on his lap when I was small and told me enthralling stories; he read me poems from his worn copy of Robert Burns; he showed me a picture of Castle Menzies and said, “There is the tree under which Bonnie Prince Charlie once played.” He fired my imagination and planted the seed for a story. It sprouted and grew, and half a lifetime later this book is the result. Under this tree, I played for many years.