A Jacobite Exile: Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden

In the winter of 1690, a young Englishman's world shatters. Sir Marmaduke Carstairs, loyal to the exiled Stuart cause, is denounced as a traitor against King William of Orange. False accusations crack like ice beneath him, and with prison or execution looming, he flees to Sweden, his son Charlie at his side. The adventure that follows sweeps them into the orbit of Charles XII, the legendary Swedish king whose relentless campaigns against Russia and Poland will test everything young Carstairs believes about loyalty, courage, and what it means to stand for something when your own country has cast you out. Henty crafts his tale with the propulsive energy of a man who knows exactly what his young readers want: narrow escapes, desperate battles, the clatter of cavalry charges across frozen plains. But beneath the adventure lies something sharper. This is a story about the fragility of reputation, the violence of politics, and what a son learns about his father only when everything falls apart. The Jacobite cause provides the emotional engine, but it's the relationship between man and boy, tested in foreign lands, that gives the book its unexpected weight.