MacDonald, Flora (1722-1790), became a Scottish heroine by helping Prince Charles Edward Stuart to escape to the island of Skye after his defeat at Culloden, Scotland, in 1746. Stuart, also known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, led a group of Highland Scots called Jacobites in a rebellion that attempted to restore the Stuarts as the rulers of England and Scotland. On April 16, 1746, his army suffered a devastating defeat at Culloden Moor, near Inverness. MacDonald disguised the prince in women’s clothes and pretended that he was her maid. For her part in his escape, MacDonald was imprisoned in the Tower of London. She was released in 1747.
Flora MacDonald was born on the Isle of South Uist, in Western Isles. She married a distant relative, Allan MacDonald, in 1750. They lived in the Highlands until the early 1770’s, when they and their children immigrated to North Carolina, in the American Colonies. Allan MacDonald supported the British side in the Revolutionary War in America (1775-1783). He was captured and imprisoned for a short time, then forced to move with his family to Nova Scotia. They returned to Scotland in 1779, and Flora died there on March 5, 1790.
See also Jacobite risings .
