Flora MacDonald – The Unlikely Jacobite Heroine

Flora MacDonald has become one of the most famous figures from the 1745 Jacobite rising, famous for smuggling Bonnie Prince Charlie over the sea to Skye. This unlikely heroine lived on Benbecula when Charles arrived at her door as a hunted man. He had been leading the government troops on a merry dance across the Highlands for months after the Battle of Culloden.

However, the net was closing in on the prince and he was running out of places to hide. His small group soon came to the attention of Flora’s stepfather Hugh MacDonald, the man in charge of the local government militia. Hugh was sympathetic to the cause, but it was far too dangerous for him to hide anybody on this little island.

Flora was no Jacobite, but she feared what would happen if they were found harbouring a fugitive and so reluctantly agreed to help Charles escape. She obtained a permit from her stepfather to travel from the Outer Hebrides to Skye with 2 servants and 6 boatmen. The prince needed a disguise but with his slight figure and delicate features, he would never have passed as a boatman.

Instead, Charles dressed up in a dress and cap, passing as an Irish maid by the name of Betty Burke. Once on Skye, the group travelled overland to Portree where the prince sailed to Raasay before finally escaping to France. Flora’s ruse seemed to have worked perfectly.

When the government troops caught up with the boatmen, they quickly confessed to travelling with a very strange looking maid. Flora was arrested and taken down to London where she claimed that she had only been doing her Christian duty. Her seemingly romantic story and newfound fame amongst London society ensured that she was granted her freedom.

Her part in the flight of Bonnie Prince Charlie is now immortalised in The Skye Boat Song:

Though the waves leap, soft shall ye sleep,

Ocean's a royal bed.

Rocked in the deep, Flora will keep

Watch by your weary head.