Thursday, June 7, 2018

Who Was Flora Macdonald?

 
 
My birth Mother went there when it was a college. Some of the picture links do open. 


Flora Macdonald, Jacobite heroine, was born in 1722 to Ranald Macdonald of Milton on the island of South Uist in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, and his wife Marion. Her father died when she was a child, and her mother married Hugh Macdonald of Armadale, Skye.

She was brought up under the care of the chief of her clan, the Macdonalds of Clanranald and was partly educated in Edinburgh. Throughout her life she was a practising Presbyterian. During the Jacobite Risings, in June 1746, she was living on the island of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides when Bonnie Prince Charlie took refuge there after the Battle of Culloden. The prince's companion, a Captain O'Neill, sought her assistance to help the prince avoid capture. After some hesitation, Flora agreed to help the prince escape the island. The commander of the local militia gave her a pass to the mainland for herself, a manservant, an Irish spinning maid, Betty Burke, and a boat's crew of six men. The prince was disguised as Betty Burke.

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