The Scottish Prisoner Chapter 4 starts up John’s reason to go to Ireland. It is connected to the papers that direct everyone to the corruption in the Army.
Of course, this isn’t going to be all that easy. It turns out that a member of the Twelvetrees family is listed as a defendant for Siverly. This is sure to cause problems when it’s the Grey family that has brought up the allegations through Carruthers.
One thing that the chapter does is set up the reason for John to head to Ireland. He will need to make a stop on the way.
Breaking down The Scottish Prisoner Chapter 4
There are a lot of connections to other short stories in this chapter. The first is the connection to Carruthers. This has started the journey to speak to the adjutant of the 35th, Major Siverly’s Regiment. John needs to wait for Hal, and he talks to Hal’s adjutant, Mr. Beasley, while he waits.
This leads to the revelation that Edward Twelvetrees is named in the document of possible defendants. This is sure to cause problems. As we know from Chapter 2, Nathanial Twelvetrees had an affair with Hal’s wife Esme and then Hal killed him in a duel. It’s Nathanial’s younger brother named in the papers for the court martial.
On top of that, we have a connection to a previous short story. Edward’s older brother Reginald was the colonel on the board of inquiry when it came to the exploding cannon. We know that someone was covering something up in that book, and it now makes more sense why Twelvetrees grilled John so much.
There’s another connection to Siverly in this chapter. The Duke of Cumberland, who is the uncle to King George III, the current king. This makes the situation even harder. Hal wants to make sure Siverly faces a general court martial instead of a regimental one, making sure it’s public. Will others want that out in the open?
Well, they need Siverly first. That means John needs to head to Ireland to bring Siverly back, as it turns out that he has important connections and an Irish family and is known to be there.
Could this chapter be used in a TV series adaptation?
If The Scottish Prisoner is developed into a TV series, we would need to see this chapter used. It sets up the story for John to go to Ireland, and we need that. After all, the whole point is for John to get Jamie and for the two of them to deal with their Irish-set storylines.
I would also love to see the more personal elements of the story included. We need to learn more about the Grey family, and we need to see how connections work in the upper class. This chapter allows for that with connections to the Twelvetrees family. It could be a lot of exposition, though, so it would depend on how it’s done to make it work for TV.