The Battle of Prestonpans takes place during Outlander Book 2, Chapter 36
Chapter 36 is the longest chapter from Outlander Book 2. However, it’s also an extremely important chapter in Jacobite history. It’s time to get into our breakdown.
This chapter is all about the start of the Jacobite cause, including the events at Prestonpans. Of course, as the chapter is told from Claire’s point of view, we don’t see what actually happens at Prestonpans. We see the aftermath with the injuries and hear Jamie’s story of events at the very end.
However, there are still some important moments mixed in. One of those is getting to meet a certain Englishman who becomes important to Jamie and later Brianna.
It was certainly used for the TV show, but not in the same way. After all, we had to see some of the battle take place. There also needed to be something that would connect to viewers, especially those who hadn’t read the books. Characters we’d already come to know and love were included in the Prestonpans episode, even though they weren’t included in the novel. I’ll get to why this was important in the adaptation part of the chapter.
This is going to be a long breakdown, especially for focus on the chapter. It was an almost-three-hour chapter, after all!