Post by dreamy on Oct 13, 2005 20:29:48 GMT 10
Flora McDonald was born in Milton, island of South Uist, Hebrides, in 1720; died there, 4 March, 1790. She was the daughter of Ronald McDonald, of Milton who belonged to the McDonalds of Clanranald. Her father died when she was an infant, and, her mother having married McDonald of Armadale, Skye, Flora was removed to that island.
It has been said that there was a brief romance between Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) and Flora MacDonald of Benbecula during the summer of 1746. The 'romance' being in the nervous and brave adventure as opposed to long tender looks between the two chief players.
For two months Charles, being on the run, had been flitting from hiding place to hiding place in the Outer Isles before he and Flora met. Now had it not been for a Kinswoman of Flora's the two may never have met at all!
There were three ways of regarding the Prince of Scotland; there were the heart-loyal people who believed implicitly in father's divine Right to be King and were prepared to spill their last drop of blood for him; there were those who found the whole escapade frightening and unsettling after 30 years of the Hanovers and either fought firmly against the Jacobites or subscribed to letters of gratitude and hero-worship sent in their name to the man others called 'Butcher Cumberland'; the third group were honest people, content enough with the stodgy Georges who had given them a kind of peace, people who had kin serving in their armies or in the King's Government, but who would not have sent to death a bonnie Stuart beauty like the Pretender Prince, not for all the ransom money offered by their government.
Now Flora MacDonald was of the last ilk. She was not pinning away for the Bonnie Prince but deeply in love with her husband to be Allan MacDonald who was a redcoat officer throughout the campaign. As her foster-father, Clanranald, was also in command of King George's troopers on Benbecula. Flora would never have seen the Prince Betrayed though she sympathized not with the Jacobites.
It came about one day that Flora was asked to do more than just 'Not Betray' the Bonnie Prince as she was young, healthy, full of spirit and practical she seemed, to those on the inside, to be the most likely young woman on the island to guide Charles on the next perilous stage of his journey to find refuge on the mainland. When a Captain of the Troop first approached her she prudently refused.
It was decided. Flora and Lady Clanranald prepared the clothing for her big, rawboned Irish Maid 'Betty Burke'. The gowns, the petticoats, the snood, cloak and white cap were a perfect fit, all was well bar the big clumsy boots which almost gave the game away. The stage was set.
June 20th 1746 was the day that the young Prince and Flora finally met and after a week of hiding they were ready to leave. Horror struck as news reached them that General Campbell had landed on the island with orders to search for the escaping Prince, and bring him down! But whether the General was tired or unbecoming of his role as hunter, or whether he simply hated traitors no one knows, but he disregarded the advice from the local Reverend Mr Macauley as to the residence of the Prince - and did not complete his orders.
When finally the boat left, Miss Flora MacDonald - Neil MacDonald - and the strange looking 'Betty Burke' slipped away into the night across the Minch. As for General Campbell, well he was no where to be seen, or at least no where near the fleeing Prince.
And so the story ends, Bonnie Prince Charlie escaped the red coats under command of General Campbell. Some folks say, or would like to think, that a romance had blossomed between young Flora and the Bonnie Prince, but if one thing is true it is this: whether there was a love between the two, or whether Flora had converted to the Jacobite cause, simply knowing that she did indeed put her life on the line for the fleeing Prince is romance enough for most.
The part she had taken soon became known, and she was imprisoned until the act of indemnity, in 1747.
In 1750 she married Allan McDonald the younger, of Kingsburgh, and emigrating with him and their family to North Carolina, in 1774, they settled in Fayetteville. They had been preceded by many of their countrymen, after the battle of Culloden, to this region, where at one time Gaelic was spoken in six counties of the state. Afterward they removed to Cameron hill, and again to a different part of the state.
On 3 July, 1775, her husband, who, though aged, was a man of energy and influence, met Martin, and concerted with him a rising of the Highlanders. He served with the loyalists as captain, and was captured at Moore's Creek, and confined at Halifax. She then obtained a passport from a Whig officer, and, at the request of her husband, sailed from Charleston to her native land in a British sloop-of-war. On the voyage home they were attacked by a French frigate of superior force, and, when capture seemed inevitable, Flora left her cabin, and stimulated the crew to renewed exertion by her acts and courage. Her arm was broken during the conflict. She landed safely in Scotland, and never again left that country.
On her death-bed she requested that her body should be wrapped in one of the sheets in which the prince had slept at the house of Kingsburgh in 1746. She was remarkable for her beauty, for the ease and dignity of her manner, and her loyalty to "Prince Charlie" has been the theme of scores of Scottish poets.
Flora's grave is on The Isle of Skye
Flora McDonald's Lament
Words by James Hogg, published in his "Jacobite Relics of Scotland, Vol 2" in 1821.
Hoggs indicates that he had these verses from Niel Gow, as a translation from the Gaelic
and that he versified it anew.
Far over yon hills of the heather sae green
An' doun by the corrie that sings to the sea,
The bonnie young Flora sat sighin' her lane,
The dew on her plaid an' the tears in her e'e.
She look'd at a boat wi' the breezes that swung,
Away on the wave like a bird on the main
An' aye as it lessen'd she sigh'd an' she sung,
Fareweel to the lad I shall ne'er see again,
Fareweel to my hero the gallant an' young,
Fareweel to the lad I shall ne'er see again.
The moorcock that crows on the brows o' Ben Connal
He kens o' his bed in a sweet mossy hame;
The eagle that soars o'er the cliffs o' Clan Ronald
Unaw'd and unhunted his eyrie can claim;
The solan can sleep on the shelves of the shore,
The cormorant roost on his rock of the sea;
But ah! there is one whose hard fate I deplore,
Nor house, ha', nor hame in this country has he;
The conflict is past and our name is no more,
There's nought left but sorrow for Scotland and me.
The target is torn from the arm of the just,
The helmet is cleft on the brow of the brave;
The claymore for ever in darkness must rust,
But red is the sword of the stranger and slave;
The hoof of the horse and the foot of the proud,
Have trod o'er the plums on the bonnet of blue;
Why slept the red bolt in the breast of the cloud,
When tyranny revell'd in blood of the true?
Fareweel, my young hero, the gallant and good,
The crown of thy fathers is torn from thy brow.
www.famousamericans.net/floramcdonald/
chrsouchon.free.fr/flora.htm
It has been said that there was a brief romance between Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) and Flora MacDonald of Benbecula during the summer of 1746. The 'romance' being in the nervous and brave adventure as opposed to long tender looks between the two chief players.
For two months Charles, being on the run, had been flitting from hiding place to hiding place in the Outer Isles before he and Flora met. Now had it not been for a Kinswoman of Flora's the two may never have met at all!
There were three ways of regarding the Prince of Scotland; there were the heart-loyal people who believed implicitly in father's divine Right to be King and were prepared to spill their last drop of blood for him; there were those who found the whole escapade frightening and unsettling after 30 years of the Hanovers and either fought firmly against the Jacobites or subscribed to letters of gratitude and hero-worship sent in their name to the man others called 'Butcher Cumberland'; the third group were honest people, content enough with the stodgy Georges who had given them a kind of peace, people who had kin serving in their armies or in the King's Government, but who would not have sent to death a bonnie Stuart beauty like the Pretender Prince, not for all the ransom money offered by their government.
Now Flora MacDonald was of the last ilk. She was not pinning away for the Bonnie Prince but deeply in love with her husband to be Allan MacDonald who was a redcoat officer throughout the campaign. As her foster-father, Clanranald, was also in command of King George's troopers on Benbecula. Flora would never have seen the Prince Betrayed though she sympathized not with the Jacobites.
It came about one day that Flora was asked to do more than just 'Not Betray' the Bonnie Prince as she was young, healthy, full of spirit and practical she seemed, to those on the inside, to be the most likely young woman on the island to guide Charles on the next perilous stage of his journey to find refuge on the mainland. When a Captain of the Troop first approached her she prudently refused.
It was decided. Flora and Lady Clanranald prepared the clothing for her big, rawboned Irish Maid 'Betty Burke'. The gowns, the petticoats, the snood, cloak and white cap were a perfect fit, all was well bar the big clumsy boots which almost gave the game away. The stage was set.
June 20th 1746 was the day that the young Prince and Flora finally met and after a week of hiding they were ready to leave. Horror struck as news reached them that General Campbell had landed on the island with orders to search for the escaping Prince, and bring him down! But whether the General was tired or unbecoming of his role as hunter, or whether he simply hated traitors no one knows, but he disregarded the advice from the local Reverend Mr Macauley as to the residence of the Prince - and did not complete his orders.
When finally the boat left, Miss Flora MacDonald - Neil MacDonald - and the strange looking 'Betty Burke' slipped away into the night across the Minch. As for General Campbell, well he was no where to be seen, or at least no where near the fleeing Prince.
And so the story ends, Bonnie Prince Charlie escaped the red coats under command of General Campbell. Some folks say, or would like to think, that a romance had blossomed between young Flora and the Bonnie Prince, but if one thing is true it is this: whether there was a love between the two, or whether Flora had converted to the Jacobite cause, simply knowing that she did indeed put her life on the line for the fleeing Prince is romance enough for most.
The part she had taken soon became known, and she was imprisoned until the act of indemnity, in 1747.
In 1750 she married Allan McDonald the younger, of Kingsburgh, and emigrating with him and their family to North Carolina, in 1774, they settled in Fayetteville. They had been preceded by many of their countrymen, after the battle of Culloden, to this region, where at one time Gaelic was spoken in six counties of the state. Afterward they removed to Cameron hill, and again to a different part of the state.
On 3 July, 1775, her husband, who, though aged, was a man of energy and influence, met Martin, and concerted with him a rising of the Highlanders. He served with the loyalists as captain, and was captured at Moore's Creek, and confined at Halifax. She then obtained a passport from a Whig officer, and, at the request of her husband, sailed from Charleston to her native land in a British sloop-of-war. On the voyage home they were attacked by a French frigate of superior force, and, when capture seemed inevitable, Flora left her cabin, and stimulated the crew to renewed exertion by her acts and courage. Her arm was broken during the conflict. She landed safely in Scotland, and never again left that country.
On her death-bed she requested that her body should be wrapped in one of the sheets in which the prince had slept at the house of Kingsburgh in 1746. She was remarkable for her beauty, for the ease and dignity of her manner, and her loyalty to "Prince Charlie" has been the theme of scores of Scottish poets.
Flora's grave is on The Isle of Skye
Flora McDonald's Lament
Words by James Hogg, published in his "Jacobite Relics of Scotland, Vol 2" in 1821.
Hoggs indicates that he had these verses from Niel Gow, as a translation from the Gaelic
and that he versified it anew.
Far over yon hills of the heather sae green
An' doun by the corrie that sings to the sea,
The bonnie young Flora sat sighin' her lane,
The dew on her plaid an' the tears in her e'e.
She look'd at a boat wi' the breezes that swung,
Away on the wave like a bird on the main
An' aye as it lessen'd she sigh'd an' she sung,
Fareweel to the lad I shall ne'er see again,
Fareweel to my hero the gallant an' young,
Fareweel to the lad I shall ne'er see again.
The moorcock that crows on the brows o' Ben Connal
He kens o' his bed in a sweet mossy hame;
The eagle that soars o'er the cliffs o' Clan Ronald
Unaw'd and unhunted his eyrie can claim;
The solan can sleep on the shelves of the shore,
The cormorant roost on his rock of the sea;
But ah! there is one whose hard fate I deplore,
Nor house, ha', nor hame in this country has he;
The conflict is past and our name is no more,
There's nought left but sorrow for Scotland and me.
The target is torn from the arm of the just,
The helmet is cleft on the brow of the brave;
The claymore for ever in darkness must rust,
But red is the sword of the stranger and slave;
The hoof of the horse and the foot of the proud,
Have trod o'er the plums on the bonnet of blue;
Why slept the red bolt in the breast of the cloud,
When tyranny revell'd in blood of the true?
Fareweel, my young hero, the gallant and good,
The crown of thy fathers is torn from thy brow.
www.famousamericans.net/floramcdonald/
chrsouchon.free.fr/flora.htm