Under Winter Skies: The Last Journey of the Great Marquis

In this fascinating and moving collection, Henry Marsh once again uses his exceptional poetic gifts to take us to the heart of one of the most difficult periods of Scottish history. His feeling for place and for the personalities involved is such that we feel we are there – living through the religious wars and tribal wars of seventeenth century Scotland, at the side of the Marquis of Montrose, one of the towering figures of the time. Henry Marsh’s poetry brings those times to life in a way in which prose simply cannot: here is the feeling, the passion, the sheer color of events in which, as the poet reminds us in his introduction, we can find features sometimes evident in our own troubled times. This is a book for those who wish to know what it was like to be of that time, and that place. It is a great and echoing poetic achievement.