#keith windham

[lacnunga]

Ever wanted to print your own Keith?

[chiropteracupola]

...been thinking of this for some time now.

[cedarboots]

Quit yanking my chain

(x)

[babypilled-pomegranate]

have decided to finally started reading the flight of the heron. how is keith so horny so quickly.

[iamthemaestro]

^^ full of hatred for scotland and rigid moral complexes

[verecunda]

Found this rather delightful image of Ewen and Keith crossing swords in the 1968 TV series. I think it must be some sort of publicity shot, rather than an actual still from the episode. For one thing, I don't remember that burn running by - and for another, poor Keith is so not looking that well-kempt by this stage of the proceedings!

[kigiom]

he ran in front of executioner's muskets for ewen. He Ran In Front Of Executioner's Muskets For Ewen.

[poppaeasabina]

Pondering a Flight of the Heron au: Five ways they never met. I've come up with four of them, including a Temeraire crossover, Keith-as-a-woman, kids, and at Versailles, and now I'm trying to think of a fifth. and also decide if Katherine Windham's husband is a canon character, or OC.

[sanguinarysanguinity]

From tgarnsl: heron husbands, kiss number 7

7. Unbreakable Kiss - The type of kiss that really shouldn’t be happening, it’s a mistake, but you just can’t find yourself able to pull away.

He [Ewen] held out his fettered hands, and Keith as he took them was hardly capable of speech. “I have failed in everything,” he muttered. “But your letter—I promise you it shall go by a safe hand. I . . . I . . .”

It was impossible that this young man should go to his death uncomforted. Perhaps if Ewen's attachment to Miss Grant had survived the war, Keith would have stayed himself in the hope that she would come to Carlisle before Ewen came to the scaffold. But Keith only saw a perishingly young man, brave and resolute but deeply shaken from having written what may well be his last words to his aunt. Keith, deeply shaken himself, had no words of comfort to give. He gave Ewen his kiss instead.

A press of lips against lips, Keith's heart brimming over with his pressing need to not abandon Ewen to his grief -- and then with a sob, the pressure of Ewen's lips became fiercer. With a clash of his chains, Ewen pulled Keith into an embrace. He buried his face against Keith's neck; his arms went around him, and Keith could feel both the clutching spread of his hands and the pitiless bands of iron against into his back. Keith held him with all the fierceness in him, his face pressed against Ewen's neck in return -- the neck that pulsed so strongly with Ewen's life; the neck that would all too soon be hanged and cleaved. Then Ewen pulled back, his chains again clashing as he moved, and Keith could not bear it: he caught those manacled wrists and pressed kisses to the bruised flesh. When Keith looked up, Ewen was watching him with naked grief on his face, his eyes full of tears -- and in his frenzy of emotion, Keith took Ewen's face in his hands and pulled it down so that he might kiss Ewen's eyes. Then Ewen's hands were on Keith's own face and they were kissing again, lips to lips.

Again, the unfeeling clash of iron upon iron -- this time, the gaoler's key in the lock. Keith knew he should pull away lest he be caught kissing a rebel destined for the scaffold, but he had already insulted Cumberland for Ewen Cameron's sake. His career lay in ashes, beyond help, but Ewen Cameron trembled in his arms, alive and for the moment whole, and Keith could not have separated from him had Cumberland himself ordered it.

It was Ewen who pulled back -- Ewen, who could not fail a friend nor a lover -- stood back and held Keith's hands in his, and looked at Keith with such pity in his face that Keith's soul howled with the injustice of it. "Thank you, Windham," he said quietly. "I shall remember your kindness, always."

Then the door of the cell creaked wide, and both the light and the gaoler came in, and there was nothing more that could be said. Nothing but, "Good-bye," and so Keith said it, looking into that grave, wan face, the word choking his throat.

Ewen pressed Keith's hands. “A straight path be before you, and a happy end to your journey.”

But there could be no happy end for him, not with Ewen Cameron dead. "May God bless you and keep you," Keith said, meaning the words with a fervency that he had never before felt. Then he tore his hands away and flung himself up the stairs and into the passage. He stood there with Ewen's kiss on his lips, and the iron-bound door clanged behind him, closing on his last meeting with Ewen Cameron.

[thebaffledcaptain]

Keith Windham’s Uniform: A Long and Highly Speculative Deep Dive into the Royal Scots’ Uniform in 1745

This is something I’ve wanted to research for a while—uniformology tends to be my favorite aspect of military life, so naturally, provided with a redcoat officer protagonist who quickly stole my heart as a character, I wanted to be able to do his uniform justice in my depictions of him. Let me first start by saying that there is no shortage of excellent art in this fandom, and furthermore, most of the uniforms I have seen depicted in said art actually seem quite well-researched and accurate, especially given the limited information available. I by no means pretend to be an expert on this matter—I am much more familiar with late 18th century AWI era uniforms, and even then I am no scholar—but this time period in uniform history is surprisingly elusive, and I felt inclined to find out more by doing a bit of a (admittedly self-indulgent) deep dive. This will be a long post, intended to be something of a reference, largely for myself, detailing the specific appearance of our Major Windham’s uniform as best I can.

It must first be established, however, that information on this specific period of uniform is scant. My first “launching point” was this excellent post by Bantarleton discussing British uniforms during the Jacobite Rising (which I highly recommend checking out for more qualified Speculation), which also served to corroborate what I was already beginning to see in my research: between the years of 1742 and 1751, we lack any solid evidence as to what British uniforms may have looked like. The hypothetical image I am assembling here is based, therefore, largely on educated speculation, as are most of the modern depictions of uniforms during this time period. Take all of this with a grain of salt, as you would any other historical post by a user on Tumblr, and bear in mind once again that I am not a scholar. But with that being said, we can begin in the closest place that we do have visual evidence: in 1742.

It was during this year that the Cloathing Book was commissioned by the Duke of Cumberland for King George II, which depicts the regular soldier’s regimental uniform across the military. Here we take a look at the 1st Royal Regiment (Royal Scots, though they would not be officially called that until the 19th century) uniform, which our Keith presumably would have worn some three years prior to canon, though assumedly not as a regular, which this soldier is.

Our second concrete visual of the same regimental uniform comes from 1751, portrayed by David Morier, who was commissioned probably by the Duke of Cumberland to paint a grenadier from each regiment. Why grenadiers, we can’t know—maybe for their fancy caps—but the uniform is essentially the same as would be the regular’s, with the exception of the cap (interestingly, I discovered the flanking company “wings” would be introduced only in 1752). The officers and the battalion men would all have been wearing cocked hats similar to the one portrayed in the previous photo.

Comparing the two, we see some changes in the silhouette and the smallclothes (in 1751 the breeches change to be blue instead of red), but nothing too drastic. I for one hadn’t realized that the Royal Scots would have been wearing red smallclothes during the mid century, as opposed to the white or buff. The one thing which does confuse me is the lack of lacing on the cuffs in 1742. Take this example, from the same collection, of a soldier from the 34th Regiment—notice the split cuffs and their elaborate lacing.

The artist seems to have been very deliberate in his depiction of the 1st’s uniform to include full cuffs without that extra lacing. Unfortunately I can’t seem to corroborate whether this was intentional or not, but my best guess is that it might have been a deliberate sign of the 1st Royals’ seniority: most regiments (like the 34th seen here) wore their own specific patterned lace, but the Royal Scots (at least during the mid 18th century) specifically wore plain white lace as a nod to the fact that they were the first and oldest regiment established in the British Army. It seems not impossible that this simpler cuff design might have been intended to convey the same sentiment. However, I can‘t say for sure whether this was the cuff in use during 1745, unfortunately. I would lean more toward the 1742 uniform for Keith’s just because it’s closer time-wise, but given that new uniforms were issued every year, it’s impossible to truly know how similar it would have been.

All that being said, it is important to acknowledge that we have been discussing regular soldiers up until this point: our Major Windham’s uniform would have borne some distinctions. This is a modern (so once again, speculative) illustration of an officer of the 7th Dragoon Guards in 1745, who, while not being an infantry soldier, would still have had a comparable uniform at the officers’ level, and provides a pretty good example of what some of these officers' distinctions might have looked like.

With regard to lace, officers’ uniforms of the 1st Royals were faced with gold lace as opposed to white, including on the hat. As mentioned before, as an officer, Keith would have been wearing a cocked hat with a black cockade on the left side, unlike the grenadier in the previous painting. While on duty, it seems likely that he would have worn a gilt gorget, though in a broader kind of half-moon shape than would be seen at the end of the century, and a sash, over his shoulder and the rest of his uniform rather than around his waist. He also would not have worn the crossbelts we see the regular soldiers wearing, and instead probably only a waist belt to hold his sword. Another important distinction would have been the gold aiguillette, a decorative knot to denote rank, rather than an epaulette like we see in the later century, on his right soldier, like the one on the dragoon officer’s shoulder here. An interesting but subtle detail would have been the fact that officers’ coats generally did not have the turned-back skirts associated with regular soldiers; the idea was that those soldiers would be moving around a lot more than the officers and therefore would need the extra room.

Another thing not specific to being an officer, but simply which differs from the paintings here, is that while on duty all soldiers (officers included) would have been wearing black gaiters, and not white. While, in my opinion, they do look fantastic (especially the full length mid century ones, unlike the late century half-gaiters…), white gaiters were reserved for parade because of how easily they could get dirty. While I’m here I suppose it’s worth listing off a couple general period details I often tend to forget about the mid-18th century, as someone who mentally lives in the 1770s: for one thing, military cocked hats were almost always worn slightly off to the side with the “point” angled over the left eye (you can kind of see it in the 1742 depiction). This was so that men could shoulder their firelocks without knocking their hats right off their head, and it became so much of a fashion that not only were officers (who were not bearing muskets) doing it, too, but also some civilians (and this lasted for a long time, pretty much until the army stopped wearing cocked hats). Also, it didn’t occur to me until recently that cravats were much more in fashion than stocks were during this period, and would have been tucked into a waistcoat that might have been even nearly half unbuttoned from the top, as was the fashion at the time.

But now I’m just rambling. I had fun learning about this and if someone else learns from it too, that’s just a bonus to me. Again, I'm not an expert; this is in no way meant to “correct” any of the depictions of Keith I’ve seen, or come off at all as being in bad faith. Almost everything I’ve said in this post is stuff I wasn't sure of myself until looking into, because this kind of thing is hard to know! As I said, most of the Keiths I see actually seem very well-researched and faithfully depicted. I just happen to love uniforms, and this man happens to have one (and a very good one at that). I would lean most heavily toward the 1742 version for Keith’s canon uniform if only because it’s closer in time to anything else we have, but who can really say what it looked like in real life? Some part of me is saddened to know we’ll likely never know, but thus is history. Hopefully knowing all this I’ll be able to do it some justice.

[sailorpants]

what is the point of having little guys living rent free in your head if you know that if they were there they'd be disappointed & not particularly useful (i didnt go to film class... brain Broke that day)

[ratuszarsenal]

cat ears keith windham. what has this blog come to

[chiropteracupola]

Show me how these things are done...?

[lacnunga]

two trees etc

[mycological-mariner]

🌤️ for the fic asks!

Cutting out descriptions etc. So I know the original ask said “PIECE of dialogue…” but it’s not. This is for a short fic I came up with, just kicked around the idea. I’ve not posted it, it’s just on my laptop.

Spoilers for The Flight of the Heron.

“Has he gone?”

WHO?

“Ardroy, did he get away?”

I HAVE NOT CROSSED PATHS WITH HIM YET.

“I see. That’s good. He’ll be safe, now.” […] “May I ask, sir, who you are?”

GUESS.

“Oh. Oh, yes, I see. I suppose there are some tells. […] Was it worth it, in the end? Was it an honourable death?”

[…] FEW HAVE THE PRIVILEGE TO DIE IN THE ARMS OF THEIR GREATEST FRIEND. BUT THAT IS JUST IN MY EXPERIENCE, OF COURSE.

“Friend… […] Are those mountains on the horizon?”

I AM AFRAID SO.

“They might almost look like… like the ones surrounding Loch na h-Iolaire. They can’t be, surely?”

NO, IT IS LIKELY THEY ARE NOT.

“Well, what is beyond this desert? Surely you can answer me that.”

I CANNOT.

“I have to walk there on my own?”

YES. ALTHOUGH, I HAVE KNOWN SOME TO HAVE WAITED.

“Waited for what?” […] “I don’t know if I’m ready, just yet. It has been a long night.”

I CAN IMAGINE.

“May I wait here a little while?”

WAIT FOR WHAT?

“A friend.”

TIME DOES NOT EXTEND TO HERE. YOU MAY WAIT LONGER THAN YOU EXPECT, MAJOR WINDHAM.

“Good. I hope it is a very long time indeed. […] “I do not know what lies beyond this desert, nor do I know for how long I must walk until I have discovered it. Perhaps it is oblivion. I should like to walk alongside my friend. We never had a chance to simply walk together before…”

EVEN IF THERE IS NOTHING?

“Yes.”

VERY WELL. YOU MAY STAY HERE FOR AS LONG AS YOU WISH. AS YOU CAN IMAGINE, I AM QUITE BUSY AT THE MOMENT AND MUST LEAVE YOU. […] YOU ARE AN HONOURABLE MAN, MAJOR WINDHAM. GOOD DAY TO YOU.

“Good day.”

[verecunda]

Three-sentence prompt: Keith and Ewen, wildcat.

Yay, thank you! :D

-

Once, when he was a boy, Ewen's dog had cornered a wildcat upon the moors: a magnificent beast, which had arched its back and shown its teeth, hissing and spitting, and fetching the poor hound a great weal across his nose with its claws, so that he had turned tail with a yelp and fled.

It was this same wildcat which came into Ewen's mind when he first faced the English officer on Loch Oich side. Beneath the formality of his red coat, the man showed the same fierce, splendid spirit of defiance - a spirit which would not have shamed a Highlander, far less an Englishman - so that Ewen's heart warmed to him at once, even before they crossed swords. Three sentence ficathon!