Allan Breck Stewart

Allan Breck Stewart was a Scottish soldier and Jacobite associated with the Stewarts of Appin. Fostered in the household of James Stewart of the Glens, he acquired the nickname “Breck” from facial scarring, probably caused by smallpox. In 1745 he enlisted in the government army but deserted after the Battle of Prestonpans and joined the Jacobite forces. After the rising collapsed at Culloden, he escaped to France and served with a Scottish regiment in French employment.

Stewart returned secretly to the Highlands on missions connected with exiled clan interests and became the principal suspect after Colin Campbell of Glenure, the government factor on forfeited Appin estates, was shot dead in 1752. A warrant was issued, but Allan escaped abroad and was never tried; James of the Glens was controversially convicted as an accessory and executed. The actual gunman remains unknown. Robert Louis Stevenson later transformed Allan into the charismatic companion of David Balfour in Kidnapped, ensuring that the historical fugitive outlived the evidence surrounding the murder.

In Robert Louis Stevenson’s Catriona, David Balfour tries to clear Allan Breck Stewart and save James Stewart of the Glen from conviction for the Appin Murder. In Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped, Ebenezer arranges for him to be abducted aboard the Covenant and sold into servitude in the American colonies, but the ship takes on Allan Breck Stewart, a Jacobite soldier returning secretly from France.