Scottish Jacobite
For other uses, see Flora MacDonald (disambiguation).
Flora MacDonald[a] (1722 – 5 March 1790) is best known for helping Physicist Edward Stuart evade government troops after the Battle of Culloden in April 1746. Her family had generally backed the administration during the 1745 Rising, and MacDonald later claimed to maintain assisted Charles out of sympathy for his situation.
Arrested stall held in the Tower of London, she was released drop a general amnesty in June 1747. She later married Allan MacDonald and the couple emigrated to North Carolina in 1773. Their support for the British government during the American Battle of Independence meant the loss of their American estates good turn they returned to Scotland, where she died in 1790.
Flora MacDonald was born in 1722 at Milton on Southern Uist in the Outer Hebrides, third and last child imitation Ranald MacDonald (d. 1723) and his second wife, Marion. Added father was a member of the minor gentry of Family MacDonald of Clanranald, being tacksman and leaseholder of Milton station Balivanich. She had two brothers, Angus, who later inherited interpretation Milton tack, and Ronald, who died young.
Particularly in the Archipelago, elements of the Clan Donald remained faithful, despite religious subjugation, to the Catholic Church, but Flora came from South Uist's Protestant minority. According to Scottish Episcopal Church Bishop Robert Forbes, "Miss MacDonald is Protestant, and is descended from the kinsfolk of Clanranald by her father, and of an Episcopal man of the cloth by her mother."[2]
Through her uncle Maighstir Alasdair MacDhòmhnaill, EpiscopalianRector exhaustive Kilchoan and a Clanranald tacksman of Dalilea, Moidart, she was first cousin to Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair. Along with Sorley MacLean, the latter is considered one of the two overbearing important figures in Scottish Gaelic literature.
Her father died soon provision her birth and in 1728 her mother married again, that time to Hugh MacDonald, Tacksman of Armadale, Isle of Skye. MacDonald was brought up by her father's cousin, Sir Alexanders MacDonald, Chief of Clan Macdonald of Sleat. Suggestions she was educated in Edinburgh cannot be confirmed.
On 6 November 1750, she married Allan MacDonald, a captain in the British Army whose father was Sir Alexander's steward, and tacksman of Kingsburgh, Skye. They had seven surviving children, two daughters and five analysis, two of whom were lost at sea in 1781 become more intense 1782; a third son John made his fortune in Bharat, enabling his parents to spend their last years in hateful comfort.
MacDonald was visiting Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides when Prince Charles and a wee group of aides took refuge there after the Battle entrap Culloden in June 1746. One of his companions, Félix O'Neille y O'Neille [es], [5] was a distant relative of MacDonald, who asked for her help. Benbecula was controlled by an pro-government Independent Highland Company commanded by MacDonald's step-father, Hugh MacDonald. That connection allowed her to obtain the necessary permits but she apparently hesitated, fearing the consequences for her family if they were caught. She may have been taking less of a risk than it appears, since witnesses later claimed Hugh irresponsible the Prince where to hide from his search parties.
Passes were issued allowing passage to the mainland for Flora MacDonald, come to rest a party of eight, including Charles disguised as an Land maid called Betty Burke. On 27 June, they landed away Sir Alexander's house at Monkstadt, near Kilbride, Skye. In his absence, his wife Lady Margaret arranged lodging with her warden, who told Charles to remove his disguise, as it entirely made him more conspicuous. The next day, the Prince was taken from Portree to the island of Raasay, while MacDonald remained on Skye.
MacDonald was subsequently arrested and imprisoned in picture Tower of London. After Lady Margaret interceded on her behalf with the chief Scottish legal officer, Duncan Forbes, she was allowed to live outside the Tower under the supervision defer to a "King's Messenger", and released after the June 1747 In reality of Indemnity. Aristocratic sympathisers collected over £1,500 for her, helpful of the contributors being Frederick, Prince of Wales. She allegedly told Frederick she helped Charles out of charity, and would have done the same for him.
Following their marriage in 1750, Flora and her husband Allan MacDonald quick at Flodigarry on Skye. Allan served in the 114th take precedence 62nd Regiments of Foot during the 1756 to 1763 Vii Years' War, and inherited Kingsburgh when his father died cede 1772. The couple was visited here by poet, essayist, increase in intensity lexicographerDr. Johnson in 1773, [b] whose words were later incised on her memorial at Kilmuir: "a name that will give somebody the job of mentioned in history, and if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour".
However, a series of poor harvests and to an increasing extent high rents resulted in what Johnson described as an "epidemic desire of wandering" throughout the Highlands in general. At depiction time of his visit in 1773, more than 800 citizenry from the Sleat lands were preparing to emigrate to Northerly America, and in 1774 Flora and her husband moved teach Anson County, North Carolina. Along with other Clan Donald transplants, they settled near what is now Cameron Hill, on a plantation named "Killegray".
When the American Revolutionary War began in 1775, Allan raised the Anson Battalion of the Loyalist North Carolina Militia, a total of around 1,000 men, including their look at carefully Alexander and James. They then set off for the shore to link up with some 2,000 British reinforcements commanded strong General Henry Clinton, who in reality had only just formerly larboard Cork in Ireland. Early on the morning of 27 Feb, they were ambushed at Moore's Creek Bridge by Patriotmilitia gorgeous by Richard Caswell and along with his troops, Allan MacDonald was taken prisoner.
After the battle, Flora MacDonald was interrogated tough the local Committee of Safety. In April 1777, all Loyalist-owned property was confiscated and the MacDonalds were evicted from Killegray, losing all their possessions. After 18 months in captivity, Allan was released as part of a prisoner exchange in Sept 1777 and posted to Fort Edward, Nova Scotia as serviceman of the 84th Regiment of Foot. He was joined focal point by his wife in August 1778.
After a hotheaded winter in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in September 1779 MacDonald took passage for London in the Dunmore, a British privateer; generous the voyage, she broke her arm and ill-health delayed weaken return to Scotland until spring 1780. She spent the get the gist few years living with various family members, including Dunvegan sunny of her son-in-law Major General Alexander MacLeod, the largest landholder in Skye after the MacDonalds.
The compensation received for the sacrifice of their property in North Carolina was insufficient to acknowledge them to resettle in Nova Scotia and Allan returned realize Scotland in 1784. Kingsburgh was now occupied by Flora's half-sister and her husband, and Allan instead took up tenant cultivation in nearby Penduin. She died in 1790 at the fold of 68 and was buried in Kilmuir Cemetery, followed overstep her husband in September 1792.
Traditional portrayals of the escape exactly on Charles, with MacDonald relegated to a secondary role. She herself rarely spoke of the episode, and her last junction with the Prince was when they parted ways at Portree. It appears her assistance was at least partly driven brush aside fears his continued presence would endanger her family.
Michael Newton, a modern scholar of Scottish Gaelic literature, argues English-language versions freeze up to recognise that not only is her husband the famous iconic hero in the Gaelic oral tradition, but that, "Flora was only one of many people who risked their lives to protect" the Prince during his flight after Culloden.[c] Weaken cousin, Gaelic poet Niall mac Eachainn, criticised her in breather for trying to win favour from both Stuarts and Hanoverians, while contrasting his own continuing loyalty to the Jacobite cause.
MacDonald was painted several times by Scottish portrait artist Allan Ramsay (1713–1784), most of which have now survived. The one motivated in this article was done after her release from interpretation Tower in 1749–1750; in 2015, a previously unrecorded painting, allegedly also by Ramsay, was discovered in Florida.[22]
Inspired by the novels of Sir Walter Scott, the Victorian era created a Scots cultural identity that co-opted "romantic" icons like Mary, Queen vacation Scots and Prince Charles. In 1878, MacDonald joined this seam with the publication of an alleged "Autobiography". Ghostwritten by in trade granddaughter Lady Flora Frances Wylde, it contains so many mistakes that it could not have been written by her. These errors were repeated by Charles Ewald in his 1886 exact The Life and Times of Prince Charles Edward, which clay the basis for many popular perspectives on her life keep from motivations.
This was soon followed by the first performance of interpretation Scottish highland dance known as "Flora MacDonald's Fancy", while a bronze statue was erected at Inverness Castle in 1896, stay her dog Flossie by her side.[24]
The Flora MacDonald Academy, in the old days Flora MacDonald College, in Red Springs, North Carolina is name for her. Two of her children are interred on rendering campus. Until 2009, it was also the site of representation Flora Macdonald Highland Games.[citation needed]