Outlander Book Club: Book 2, Chapter 37 breakdown

Just the Outlander chapter

We start with Prince Charles asking Claire to see him. Charles isn’t a fan of Claire, fearful that she is La Dame Blanche. He is extremely superstitious, and it’s only Jamie that keeps her safe. And maybe the fact that she is a skilled healer.

However, he doesn’t want to see her for him. There’s a Scottish laird who needs to see her. That laird is Colum MacKenzie.

Here’s there for a couple of reasons. He wants to know if it’s worth sending his men to fight for Charles’s cause and wants help to die on his own terms. Claire can help with the latter, and she gives him cyanide to help with that—the same thing that Geillis used to kill her husband.

During the chapter, Jamie goes to see his uncle. Part of this is a goodbye, but it’s also to share his words of wisdom. It seems like if Jamie had changed his name to MacKenzie, he would have likely been chosen as the next laird of the MacKenzie clan. If Dougal hadn’t been a problem, Jamie would have been the one to lead the clan, possibly with Colum knowing that Jamie would step aside for Hamish when the time came.

Jamie makes it clear to his uncle that he shouldn’t get the men to join Charles’s cause. There’s a chance that this is all going to end in failure, despite so far the Jacobites securing victories. Claire knows how all this ends, even though they are trying hard to stop it. Putting Hamish’s inheritance on the line doesn’t make sense.

It goes against Charles’s wishes. Of course, Charles shouldn’t find out about this, but Charles needed the MacKenzie clan. This is one of the largest clans in the Highlands. Securing them could have helped to secure victory.

At the end of the chapter, Claire learns that Colum has died. He has died of natural causes and not the cyanide that she gave him. He is now no longer in pain, but it leads to uncertainty for the clan. Dougal will now be in charge while Hamish comes of age. Did Colum get a note to his men in time to prevent Dougal from going against his wishes? Does that even matter now?