Flawless Flora

Flora MacDonald risked her life to rescue Bonnie Prince Charlie, but where did her staunch moral compass take her next? We follow our Outer Hebridean heroine across the Atlantic

Words by JENNY ROWE

Scotland’s most famous heroine, there’s hardly a bad word written about Flora MacDonald. Her gravestone memorial, scribed by English writer Dr Johnson, says it all: “Flora MacDonald. Preserver of Prince Charles Edward Stuart. Her name will be mentioned in history and if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour.”

Born in South Uist, where a monument marks the spot, and buried at Kilmuir Cemetery in north Skye, not many people know that Flora spent almost four years living in North Carolina. Indeed, following her world-renowned rescue of Bonnie Prince Charlie – pretender to the Scottish throne – after his failed uprising, Flora’s life was punctuated with several further daring escapades, though her part in the princely plot may well have coloured how stories of her life have been subsequently told.

Flora was 24 when she met Bonnie Prince Charlie cowering on the Outer Hebridean island of Benbecula in June 1746, a couple of months after the Jacobites had been well and truly defeated at the Battle of Culloden.

Though reduced to a fugitive at this point, Flora agreed to help the so-called ‘Young Pretender’ escape, and so she did, with the help of six boatmen and a manservant (Charles’s companion Captain O’Neill), who together rowed the desperate Prince, in disguise as Irish spinning maid Betty Burke, across the Minch. They reached dry land at what is now known as Rudha Phrionnsa or Prince Point, in north Skye near Uig. The duo apparently stayed in the home of Lady Margaret of Kingsburgh, whose son Flora would later marry, and the next day, still in hiding, the pair travelled to Portree, the main town of Skye.

Supposedly, The Royal Hotel stands on the site of McNabs Inn, which was the last known meeting place between Flora and Bonnie Prince Charlie before he sailed to Raasay and on to France. He died in Rome in January 1788, but he might have died 42 years earlier if it weren’t for Flora. So, what of his fearless accomplice? What fate lay in wait for her?

CLOCKWISE, FROM BOTTOM

LEFT: Bonnie Prince Charlie’s hair, preserved by Flora MacDonald and now held at Dunvegan Castle, Skye; a portrait of Flora Macdonald by Richard Wilson, 1747; Dunstaffnage Castle near Oban; the romantic ruins of Armadale Castle on Skye

Bonnie Prince Charlie escaped [...] But, what of his fearless accomplice? What fate lay in wait for Flora?

Flora was imprisoned at Dunstaffnage Castle before she was transferred to the Tower of London

FROM LEFT TO

RIGHT: Flora’s possessions, held in the collection at Dunvegan Castle on Skye; the Flodigarry Hotel on the Trotternish Peninsula, Skye; Flora MacDonald’s grave at Kilmuir Cemetery on Skye

The wrath of the British government, as it soon became clear. The boatmen who had rowed them “over the sea to Skye”, as the heavily romanticised Skye Boat Song tells it, were apparently not as faithful as Flora herself and had spilled the beans. Our Scots heroine was promptly arrested and imprisoned at Dunstaffnage Castle just north of Oban on mainland Scotland. Reopened in August 2021 by Historic Environment Scotland after the COVID pandemic, Dunstaffnage, one of Scotland’s oldest stone castles, is the first point of interest on our post-Prince tour of Flora’s life.

For this was just the start of her story. Flora was held at Dunstaffnage for only a couple of nights before she was transferred to the Tower of London. Her fame, even then, was such that she gained sympathy among Londoners, and she was swiftly released in 1747. She wasted no time in returning to Scotland where, on 6 November 1750, she married Allan MacDonald of Kingsburgh at Armadale Castle, the seat of the Macdonalds of Sleat, in south Skye.

Writers and friends Samuel Johnson and James Boswell also visited Armadale while documenting their Journey of the Western Isles of Scotland in 1773 and they met Flora on this trip, inspiring the aforementioned memorial. Dr Johnson’s glowing testimony to her good character continues in his travel account: “a woman of soft features, gentle manners, kind soul and elegant presence.”

Unfortunately, a strong moral fibre does not equate to money in the bank, and Flora’s family were struggling financially. After a disagreement with their landlord over rent, in 1774 the couple chose to emigrate to North Carolina, along with some of their children. But shortly after they settled in Anson County on an estate near Mountain Creek named ‘Killegray’, the American Revolution broke out.

Allan, along with two of their sons, joined a regiment of Royal Highland Emigrants in support of the British. Meanwhile, Flora’s reputation had preceded her and there are various legends surrounding her involvement. One

© DUNVEGAN CASTLE COLLECTION/GFC COLLECTION/ALAMY/JAIME PHARR/SHUTTERSTOCK account, supposedly given by eyewitnesses, suggests she “urged [the Highlanders] to duty, and was successful in exciting all to a high military pitch.” Either way, in 1777 Allan was captured and Flora was evicted from their home.

For not the first time in her life, Flora, accompanied by her daughter, chose to escape by boat. But en route back to Skye from Nova Scotia, Canada, their ship was attacked by French privateers. The popular tale goes that Flora refused to seek safety below deck, instead exposing herself to gunfire while encouraging her increasingly panicky crew to hold their nerve. Amid the chaos, Flora broke her arm.

In spring 1780, Flora and her daughter arrived back on Skye after enduring quite the journey. Flora settled among her clan in South Uist, while her daughter married the tutor to the MacLeod heir and lived at Dunvegan Castle on Skye, where Flora stayed for a time. Open to the public between May and October, the castle still holds some of Flora’s most precious possessions, most notably a lock of the Prince’s hair and a pin-cushion hand-embroidered by Flora with the names of supporters of the Jacobite cause.

Allan was able to join Flora in Scotland in 1785, and they lived in Flodigarry on the Trotternish Peninsula on Skye. In 1790, at the age of 68, it is thought that Flora died in a cottage now used as accommodation by the Flodigarry Hotel. Three thousand mourners attended her funeral and between them they consumed 300 gallons of whisky. Buried at Kilmuir, Flora’s body is believed to have been wrapped in a sheet in which Bonnie Prince Charlie had slept at her mother-in-law’s, way back in 1746. Many think that Flora had saved the sheets herself, fuelling rumours that she may have been in love with the Prince. It is, however, believed that it was her mother-in-law who preserved the linen.

Indeed, as much as it might be tempting to imagine, there is no historic evidence to prove that there ever was any romance between Flora and the Prince. And while there are some southerners in the US who allege they can prove they are descendants of their illegitimate child, our heroine’s stalwart character would suggest otherwise (and considering Flora was locked in the Tower of London nine months after their supposed liaison, it is, unfortunately, highly improbable). Loved far and wide and faithful to the last, Flora may well have cherished her encounter with the Prince for the same reason we cherish her: as a steadfast symbol of hope and bravery in the face of adversity. S

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