Podcast

Transcript

Three voices: male voiceover [MV]; Jackie Bird [JB]; Tom Devine [TD]

[MV]
Love Scotland – brought to you from the National Trust for Scotland. Presented by Jackie Bird.

[JB]
‘Upon Thursday, the day after the battle, a party was ordered to the field of battle, to put to death all the wounded they should find upon it. Which accordingly they performed with the greatest despatch and the utmost exactness, carrying the wounded from several parts of the field, where they arranged them in due order and instantly shot them dead.’

Those chilling words are from an eye-witness account of the aftermath of the battle of Culloden, the last pitched battle to be fought on British soil, in 1746. This civil war pitted clan against clan, and even brother against brother. Today, visitors to the battlefield, which is in the care of the Trust, can see stones commemorating the fallen and their proud clan allegiances. Its outcome was to change a way of life that had existed in Scotland for centuries.
Welcome to the Love Scotland podcast, and to the second part of the history of the Scottish clans. I’m pleased to say that I’m joined once again by Sir Tom Devine, Professor Emeritus of Scottish History at Edinburgh University. Welcome, Tom. Are you ready for our next epic leap into clan history?

[TD]
I’m absolutely frantic to get started.

[JB]
In the last episode, we ended at a bloody point in clan history: the Massacre of Glencoe. However, as we’ve just heard, there was more violence to come. So, in terms of the clans, how do we get from the massacre in 1692 to Culloden?

[TD]

The storyline of course, the historical line, is bound up with the history of support or opposition to Jacobitism – that is the restoration of the Stuarts. Because the Massacre of Glencoe was bound up with an attempt to destroy Jacobitism at Glencoe. And the final battle you just referred to, Culloden, was the final stand of the Jacobite forces against the new regime of Hanoverianism, the new regime of Protestantism, Presbyterianism if you will. So, that is the linkage. Let’s not forget that between 1692 (the first Jacobite rising) and the final one in 1745/6, there were no less than four others between the two. In other words, five all together.

[JB]
So, what part were the clans playing in these uprisings, in terms of the division of their loyalties?

[TD]
They were on both sides. The classic example again is the Campbells, who were root-and-branch committed to the Hanoverian state; their whole fortunes were locked up in that loyalty. On the other extreme, you have clans who were pro-Jacobite in their allegiances. But, the thing to bear in mind is the numbers of people on both sides who actually came out during those Risings varied enormously. Because the Jacobite leaders, the clan chiefs for example who had loyalties to the Jacobite cause because of James VII and II, they had to calculate every time the opportunity occurred – is this now the best opportunity available? Should we throw our weight behind this? Because remember for failure, and if they were caught, they were going to experience the terrible death in English treason law of a traitor.

[JB]
Is it possible to tell how many clans there were? We’re talking early 1700s.

[TD]
We’re talking somewhere in the order of – because you obviously have cadet branches of clans – but I would say between 45 to 50 at that particular period.

[JB]
Was this peak clan, or post-peak clan?

[TD]
In my view at least, between 1707 and the last Jacobite Rising, you’re beginning to see aspects of clanship fading away. The most important one is chiefs are already in the process of limiting their connections with their people and becoming more interested in a materialistic way of life, perhaps even sometimes in Edinburgh or London.

[JB]
Yes. Mentioning Edinburgh, because we’re talking a lot about the Highlands here, but the density of population was even then still the Central Belt. What interaction, if any, did they have with the clans? Did they know that this existed up there?

[TD]
Of course. Right down to the mid-18th century, there was a great fear in Lowland Scotland of Highland clanship and indeed of the Highland population. They were regarded as thieves and demons who wanted, above everything else, to steal cattle in the fringes of the Lowlands. Plus, it was the last part of Scotland where there was still a Catholic minority in certain parts of the Highlands. I mean, Charles Edward Stuart was known in the folklore of the rebellion of 1745/6 as the ‘limb of Satan’ – Satan of course being the pope. And of course, Episcopalianism, ruled by bishops, was also in conflict with Presbyterianism.

[JB]
What effect did the Union of the Parliaments in 1707 have on the clans?

[TD]
It helped for example to increase commercial traffic and trade between the Highlands and the Lowlands, especially the cattle trade. Because, as the Union allowed for more opportunity into the English market and to sell beef for the Royal Navy’s salt beef, that also became very important. The whole of Scotland was affected by this. There was one very interesting aspect to it, however: Jacobite clans opposed the Union because they thought the Union, if it succeeded, would strengthen the anti-Jacobite cause, would strengthen the position of those who had evicted the Jacobite king in the late 17th century.

[JB]
And on the death of Queen Anne in 1714, the last of the Stuarts, what effect did that have on the clans?

[TD]
Well, of course it made it more imperative and pressing for those who continued to hope for a Jacobite counter-revolution to try to ensure that the remaining kinspeople of the Stuarts in exile in Europe, would eventually come back and succeed. And that would be their only hope of a Jacobite counter-revolution. There were still people who could be potential figureheads for a pro-Stuart movement living in exile.

[JB]
So, power was shifting as far as the pro-Jacobite clans were concerned. And they had to make a big move, perhaps their final move – and this takes us of course to 1745.

[TD]
One of the questions about the ’45 is why, more than 40/50 years after the Stuarts lost their crown in Scotland, why was that still something that many clans – and not simply clans, people in Lowland Scotland, especially the North-East Lowlands – wished to achieve, to bring back the Stuarts? And one of the reasons is, as I think you indicate, it had to be a last gamble. This was the very last chance there had to be. Of course, there was also the strong sense that French support in 1745 might be, at the end of the day, once and for all, forthcoming.

[JB]
And it didn’t just pitch clan against clan. As I said in the lead-in, brother against brother, husband against wife. Because I read about a particular lady – Anne Mackintosh – an ardent Jacobite who raised 300 men to fight, but her husband fought for the Government.

[TD]
Yes, and he found out about his wife’s behaviour much to his chagrin. Because not simply did this happen, but she was a superstar in terms of the Jacobite side. They used much propaganda to emphasise this significant thing of a family split, and the wife actually coming over to the cause.

[JB]
Spoiler alert: we know how that ended on the battlefield of Culloden, and I think one of the reasons why that has echoed in history is the barbaric nature. You heard my quotation at the start of the episode. We’ve touched on it but tell us more about the barbarism of the victors. Why?

[TD]
You’ll notice, for example, that you don’t find the French troops who fought at Culloden or the Irish mercenaries who fought at Culloden treated in this way. They were treated as prisoners of war. The problem with the Jacobite army, mainly civilian and therefore not an official force, their position was that they were regarded as rebels and therefore had to be treated as such. You’ve also got to think of the attitude of the English army and perhaps also a lot of Lowland Scots to the Highlands: a primitive society, a society of savagery and therefore had to be dealt with accordingly.
And of course, the other and final point to make is Jacobitism had come too close to success in the march as far south as Derby. Now it was time to end this problem forever. Cumberland actually thought of a plan to emigrate, to transport the majority of the Jacobite clans to North America and the Caribbean before it was decided it was going to be far too costly.

[JB]
What was the death toll at Culloden, in terms of the Jacobites?

[TD]
We can’t be absolutely certain because we’ve got a rough reckoning that something like 1,000–1,500 possibly died in the battle. But as you’ve already indicated, there were also people dying of their wounds or even being slaughtered in the two days after the battle itself. So, I would reckon we’re going to go up to about 2–2,500.

[JB]
Simplistically, it’s widely believed that Culloden did for the clans. But as you’ve hinted at, they were coming under stress after the Union and the rise of commercialism – would that be fair?

[TD]
Correct. Trade and commercialism and also the appetite of the landed classes, namely the clan elites, for a different way of life based on income, based on money and the expenditure that went with a luxury way of life. In other words, they were being much very influenced by the culture of their fellow elites in Lowland Scotland and even indeed in England.

[JB]
But in legal terms it did seal the fate of the clan system because it was effectively banned?

[TD]
It was. There were laws to ensure that clanship was basically outlawed. The Disarming Act prevented them from bearing arms. You can’t actually have a warrior society that’s not allowed to bear arms. That was quite clearly one of the most obvious effects there. It is a law, said one Whig lawyer or official in London, for ‘disarming and undressing those savages’. In other words, that was the law to ban plaid and tartan because that was regarded as the badge of disaffection.

[JB]
And even children’s education – they weren’t allowed to be educated in ‘rebellious principles’.

[TD]
Put it this way, it was a full-frontal, extensive assault on every aspect of clan culture – political, economic, military, familial – that was planned in such a way that it would have effect. It wasn’t simply an uprooting of the warrior ethos, and the control and pacification of the area; it was also to change the mindset. That is why they cracked down heavily on Roman Catholic chapels and also on Episcopalian churches, because they regarded these two religious formations and identities as the ideology of disaffection, the ideology of anti-Government feeling and anti-Hanoverian feeling.
But then historians have got to stand back and say: this is creeping up on the clans because, after Culloden, why did clanship disintegrate so rapidly? Well, my argument would be because it was already under pressure and eroding before that. And the second major reason is, two to three decades after Culloden, Highland society was hit by the impact of the Lowland Industrial Revolution, in terms of demand for Highland cattle, wool, linen and kelp (that’s the manufacture of seaweed). So, that whole impact of Lowland industrial and English industrial demand destroyed any infant growths of industrialism there were in the Highlands and at the same time ensured that the way forward was peaceful, because you can’t have economic development without peace.
So, there’s two aspects therefore in my own thinking; and not everyone will necessarily agree with one historian’s perspective. A) Clanship was already dying, although not dead, by 1746. And secondly, you’ve got to look at the entire history of the impact of these other historical forces on the Highlands and clanship in order to understand why by the time Dr Johnson visited the Highlands in the 1770s he noted that the clans had lost almost entirely their history of savagery and had been, in his view, civilised.

[JB]
From kinship to capitalism. [Correct.] This is a huge question. We’ve not got long because I really need to take a break now, but before I go – migration (voluntary or otherwise) that also plays a part.

[TD]
You’re beginning to see the first evidences of significant migration – obviously the Highlands had always haemorrhaged people – but you’re beginning to see the first evidences of it from about the 1760s. It is indeed caused by the new commercialisation, because we know from the evidence of the 1760s and 1770s that a principal reason why people are deciding to cross the Atlantic and transport their way of life there was because of rent increases and the other aspects of commercialisation. It’s the early stages which then reached a climax in the 19th century on expulsive clearance.

[JB]
But, as we know, the clans didn’t disappear. We’ll find out what happened to them in a moment.

[MV]
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[JB]
Welcome back to the Love Scotland podcast. Before the break, we had explored the fall of the clan system after the battle of Culloden. And you might have thought that the clans would gradually fade into obscurity but, Professor Sir Tom Devine, they didn’t. How did the tide turn?

[TD]
Well, the tide turned obviously for a number of reasons. Ironically enough, Jackie, one of the reasons was that old Highland clanship (if you want to call it that) had been comprehensively destroyed during and after the battle of Culloden and its subsequent changes. And therefore, because Jacobitism was no longer a political force, all its potency had gone, it could be sentimentalised. Therefore, the pacification of the Highlands was the essential pre-condition for what I term Highlandism – that is a romantic interest in everything to do with the Highlands, from traditional clanship to the old literature of the Highlands, which was apparently rediscovered in this period, and at the other extreme the impact that the formation of the Highland regiments – I call it neo-clanship – caused from the Seven Years War of 1756–63. If you look at that date, it is very shortly after Culloden that we begin to see Highland soldiers, but this time under Government pay, dressed in tartan and steadily becoming world famous in the British empire by the mid-19th century.

[JB]
Fascinating change there. And also, equally fascinating is even the view of the landscape, which previously had been described as a bit dreich and uninteresting. That took on a new life.

[TD]
The Highland landscape in the previous period was to be feared because it was seen to go alongside the kind of society it was – a barbarous society, a society of threat in that particular period. But then you have an aesthetic revolution in landscape. It doesn’t simply affect Scottish society; it affects Western Europe. Mountains become attractive; they become not daunting as they used to be, but they become places of beauty. What you’ve got to recall of course in this period is you’re beginning to see, in these later stages of the Enlightenment, a view taken that primitive peoples retained certain positive characteristics that the new modern era, the new era of industrialisation, was losing. And where to go and see this? One of the very few places in the whole of Europe, certainly in Britain, you could go to see it were the Highlands of Scotland, which had retained so much of the characteristics, including the landscape, of a past era.

[JB]
And clans? The perception of clans?

[TD]
Well, the statement always made by government ministers once they started to recruit Highland soldiers was that a) they were descendants of the clans therefore must be good warriors; and b) that they were now in government employ. And in fact, they were increasingly used by the early 19th century. The late 18th and early 19th century was a period of almost continuous warfare: the Seven Years War, the American War of Independence, the French Revolution wars and then the long period of the Napoleonic wars. And more and more Highland not only regiments but volunteers dressed in tartan were being used in this. One lady novelist and painter of the late 19th century put it: ‘they’re so beautifully pictorial’, meaning men dressed in skirts. The Highland regiments with pipes and drums led the march into Paris after the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. They became superstars. That also helped with one aspect of the development of Highlandism, because for the first time they wore coordinated kilts. Before that, plaids were extremely confused – there was no sett or pattern. But with the glorification of the regiments, the military authorities had to ensure that there was one sett for one particular corps; another sett for another particular echelon. And a very famous firm in Bannockburn became the art producer of these tartans. And it’s a very short step from that to clan tartans, which didn’t exist in the previous period, and family tartans.

[JB]
Ok, because that’s very important that it didn’t actually exist in previous periods as you would have thought.

[TD]
It only existed when it was no longer of any great significance.

[JB]
Because we know that in the 1780s and beyond, we have things like the Repeal of the Dress Act, and I suppose popular history would have us believe it was all down, latterly, to Sir Walter Scott?

[TD]
I think Sir Walter Scott was in a sense – I mean obviously his literature became world famous – the most influential Scot, even including the inventors and all those famous names of the 19th century. He was probably the most famous Scot by name of the whole 19th century period. The extent to which his books, especially the series dealing with the Highlands Waverley, had the most extraordinary sales. We cannot underestimate the Scott influence. But these other influences that I’ve described are also equally important. Scott was able to attract an international audience because they were already becoming interested in the old Highlands, even if some of that interest was actually confection, was actually spun and not necessarily close to reality.

[JB]
Talk to us briefly about this famous visit by King George IV to Edinburgh.

[TD]
Again, orchestrated …

[JB]
By Sir Walter!

[TD]
The arch-impresario. But it’s very interesting and this is why I think we should not over-emphasise Scott. Because George wanted to see Scots as Highlanders.

[JB]
This is 1822?

[TD]
1822

[JB]
It’s said that whenever George was in Edinburgh, the dress code was to wear your own ancient clan tartan. This goes back to what you were saying before. Your ‘own ancient clan tartan’ led to a stampede to the shops of Edinburgh of various landed gentry saying ‘I want a tartan and I want it now’, which gives the lie to this idea of your own family ancient tartan!

[TD]
Yes, and my clan tartan … the vast majority of these were members of the Lowland aristocracy and the Lowland gentry class, with no connections at all to what was going on. But that event, because it was so publicised and because it involved a reigning monarch, made Highlanders legitimate.

[JB]
And the Victorians took this and ran with it!

[TD]
They took it even further. Then, with the extraordinary expansion of the British empire, with the Highland regiments as the shop troops of empire, national heroes, no longer rebels.

[JB]
Those clan warriors had been rehabilitated.

[TD]
They had been rehabilitated to the extent that they were regarded as traitors, villains and (worse) papists in the mid-18th century. By the mid-19th century they were national heroes, much to the discontent of many other British regiments including Scottish regiments. In the early 1880s, even what became the King’s Own Royal Scottish Borderers, a Lowland regiment, were forced into not Highland kilts but into trews. The victory of Highlandism, as I say in one of my books when I mention this, was complete.

[JB]
And while we’re shattering these myths, what about (we’ve touched on it before) this idea of lineage, that someone called MacGregor today is a direct descendant of the MacGregors?

[TD]
It’s obviously nonsense, but it’s harmless nonsense. And it’s not just the Scots who are doing this. My last graduate student at Edinburgh was German, called David Hesse. He has written a book based on his PhD called Warrior Dreams. He’s calculated there were nearly 600 (this is in 2010) organisations in Europe, from Moscow to Stockholm, with pipe bands, military enactments and Highland games. Hardly any of these individuals had even been to Scotland. There is something …

[JB]
Yes, what is the reason for this? Why are people captivated by it?

[TD]
When I was told about the early stages of David’s findings, I said maybe we should get as a second supervisor, a social psychologist or a psychiatrist to explain because one cannot do it. There’s no doubt about it, what it has done in terms of that extraordinary co-mingling of legend, of history, of Scottish landscape, of the attractions of that part of Scotland. What it has done is produce an alchemy that few can resist. And of course, that’s shown by the global appeal of this new development, this new dynamic adding to this. My favourite book reviewer, Diana Gabaldon, who wrote a review of one of my books – the Clearances book – …

[JB]
Diana who wrote the Outlander series, which has been phenomenally successful.

[TD]
Correct, globally. And it’s given a tremendous new impetus to Highlandism. The Scottish Tourist Board thought Highlandism was beginning to perish as a consequence of the behaviour of historians bringing us the reality rather than the romance. They have been soundly vanquished in this, because this is probably, since Scott, the most important literary influence and now television influence on this continuation of the Highlandist obsession. Fascinating.

[JB]
What is the legacy of the clan system?

[TD]
The lineage runs right through people today. Very happy, not least the Scottish Diaspora, as a way of connecting to the homeland. And it’s usually the second, third, fourth generation – it’s the multi-generational group, not the first migrants to the USA a few years ago, or to New Zealand or South Africa. It’s the multi-generational group who use Highlandism, and neo-clanship as I would call it, as a way of associating with the land of their forebears. As many professors in the USA in particular have said, in terms of our academic analysis we can try and demonstrate that a lot of this is bogus, but very very few countries in Europe would not envy the fact that the Scots have this ‘badge’ of history, of landscape, of scenery and lore. It seems to have a tremendous influence, this alchemy of all these things, on human spirit and the human imagination.

[JB]
The irony that this way of life and the people who were described as savages and looked down upon, have now become emblematic globally of Scotland as a whole.

[TD]
Exactly. And also, don’t forget, Jackie, a Scotland which is one of the most urbanised societies on Earth, has selected a part of the country – they haven’t done it consciously because of historical trends and forces – but one part of the country which is the badge, the culture, the landscape which Scotland is happy to show to the world.

[JB]
That’s a great place to end, I think. Professor Sir Tom Devine, thank you.

[TD]
My pleasure, Jackie, and I’ve been very impressed by your incisive interrogation and questioning.

[JB]
Oh! Thank you! Well, it has been a fascinating romp through the history of the Scottish clans. And to put Highland history into Scottish context, look out for two of Sir Tom’s many best-selling books, notably The Scottish Clearances: A history of the dispossessed and The Scottish Nation: A modern history.
And if all of that has stirred your interest in either the Culloden battlefield or maybe your own clan history, there’s a wealth of information at the Culloden Visitor Centre. You may be interested to know that the National Trust for Scotland has set up a Fighting Fund to help protect the battlefield from unwelcome development. For details of that and for many other Trust places which have links to clan history, do head to our show notes or of course to the Trust website: nts.org.uk.
Thank you for listening. Until next time, goodbye.

[MV]
Love Scotland is brought to you by Think and Demus Productions, on behalf of the National Trust for Scotland. Presented by Jackie Bird. For show notes and more information, go to nts.org.uk and don’t forget to like, subscribe, review and share.

Transcript

Three voices: male voiceover [MV]; Jackie Bird [JB]; Flora Fraser [FF]

[MV]
Love Scotland, brought to you from the National Trust for Scotland; presented by Jackie Bird.

[JB]
Hello and welcome to the first episode of a new series of Love Scotland. Between now and December, we will be releasing weekly episodes of the podcast and I’ll be discovering even more about Scotland’s rich history, heritage and wildlife.

[Music plays and water laps against a boat]

The music you can hear – ‘The Skye Boat Song’ – may have given you a clue about our subject matter. We’re journeying back to 1746, just weeks after Prince Charles Edward Stuart’s forces have been routed at the Battle of Culloden. The Prince’s hopes of claiming the British throne from the House of Hanover have been dashed, and the Jacobites have scattered to the winds.

Charles spends the next five months a wanted man, hopping from one Hebridean island to the next. My interest today lies with one journey: a perilous crossing from Benbecula to Skye. And particularly with one person: Flora McDonald. Aged just 24, she is an unlikely Jacobite heroine and is only remembered now for her part in that daring escape.

But little is known of what happened to her in the immediate aftermath. And as it turns out, her entire life is a compelling story of a woman with connections to two of the biggest conflicts of the 18th century. Here to tell us all about it is another Flora, Flora Fraser, the historical biographer and author of the recently published Pretty Young Rebel: The life of Flora MacDonald. Flora, welcome to the podcast.

[FF]
Thank you, Jackie; great to be here.

[JB]
You are a hugely successful historical biographer, and many of your subjects have been women across the centuries. But Flora MacDonald, I think I’m correct in saying, has been with you since birth.

[FF]
Yes, I was named after her. We were quite local to the ’45 story, and Culloden was 10 miles away, the other side of Inverness. Flora MacDonald was everywhere when I was growing up. She was on tartan boxes, and Bonnie Prince Charlie was still primarily a romantic story. And then, of course, John Prebble and others actually started unpicking the horror of the ’45 for those who fought in it. But although Bonnie Prince Charlie’s reputation is not what it was, Flora’s has remained unsullied – the courageous heroine, and that was how I knew her when I was growing up.

[JB]
As your career as a writer progressed, were you always going to write about her or did something pique your interest?

[FF]
It was looking at images for my last book, a book about the marriage of George and Martha Washington, and looking at images of American revolutionary characters, Alexander Hamilton – of course, Hamilton is now beyond famous. And I suddenly found among all these generals, the Allan Ramsay portrait of Flora MacDonald – and I thought, why is this portrait, which was made in either London or Scotland in the 1740s, featuring in the 1770s in America?

And then I remembered that when Dr Johnson and Boswell make their famous Highland tour in 1773, they visit Flora, now a matron wife and mother of seven, on Skye. And she says, effectively, you were lucky to catch me because I’m off to America.

[JB]
There’s a lot to unpick here. Let’s go back to the beginning. Give me a flavour of what Flora’s early life was like.

[FF]
She is what I would call a Highland gentlewoman. She had grown up in the Western Isles and had recently moved with her stepfather and mother to Skye. She is part of the MacDonald of Clanranald family, based if you like on Uist. She’s going about her business. She’s never left the Hebrides apart from one trip to cousins on the west coast.

She’s an unknown person and would be unknown to history, although I’m sure dearly loved by her immediate family, except at midnight, she’s looking after her brother’s herds on South Uist. And at midnight, she’s awoken by a cousin who’s outside and he says ‘the Prince is with me. He needs your help’. And Bonnie Prince Charlie, or Charles Edward, has been on the run since April, when the Jacobite army was pulverised by the Redcoats at Culloden. These Hanoverian officers and men are within a mile or so of Charles Edward, and he looks a total ruffian. He’s covered in midge bites, he’s unshaven. He’s a mess and he’s been sleeping in the heather; hasn’t slept in the bed since Culloden. And Flora says, ‘help him?’

[JB]
I think it was Flora’s stepfather, wasn’t it, who masterminded this plan?

[FF]
Yes, he’s a fascinating character.

[JB]
But it wasn’t just inherently dangerous perhaps in the crossing and making a crossing at night, but in Flora, potentially being captured, could she have refused her stepfather’s request?

[FF]
She absolutely could have, and she initially baulks at this midnight request, not least because the request was that she take the Prince dressed up as her Irish maid, Betty Burke, over the channel, the Minch, 30 nautical miles to Skye and announce to the militia who were guarding the coast, ‘Oh yeah, I’m just taking this Irish spinster or spinning woman to my mother on Skye’!

The whole thing was so dangerous. The Prince had an incredibly distinctive face, this very long pale face, even though he was sunburned and midge-bitten! And he was very tall – extremely tall for a woman. But above all, as she said, my character would never survive effectively being in the company of a man. And by that she meant that she’s a bachelor woman, and in the 18th century her whole future – if she has a future and isn’t arrested, transported – depends on, as it did for the majority of women, being virtuous, by which virginal was meant. Otherwise, marriage would not follow; and without marriage, your lookout was far less favourable.

[JB]
Which is a completely different way of looking at it. What I got from your book and your research was that so much of the narrative has been debunked. The romantic narrative of Flora as a rampant Jacobite sympathiser, willing to risk her life for her Prince: not the case. And also the fact that the Prince was 6ft tall dressed as a woman fooled no one. Everyone thought she was trying to smuggle someone, but they just didn’t know who.

[FF]
Exactly. Because there were so many people involved. These were small populous islands, both Benbecula and South Uist. In the 18th century, the whole of the Western Isles was known as the Long Island. When not under water, it’s so connected. People were just all around, going about their daily business; the same on Skye.

So, when she finally acceded to her cousin’s request, and to the Prince’s request, she was asked by somebody, ‘Why did you put your character on the line in this way?’ And she said, ‘I would have done the same for you, had you been in distress.’ So it was, and I do believe this, honestly it was an act of clemency to help the Prince. Many of these Chiefs or lairds simply wanted to pass him on because they didn’t want him to be taken on their land. Even if they were sympathisers to the Stuart cause or not, it would be a dishonour to the clan to have him taken while he was on their land.

[JB]
Another aspect that was unknown to me is that so many other women were involved in the plot – to help make an outfit big enough for a ‘6ft-tall Irish woman’, who help hide him. There was a network of intelligence, and that’s particularly interesting because when we read of women in history, they often come across as one-dimensional, as quiet and complacent, but of course, that wasn’t the case.

[FF]
No, no. The network of women – it was Lady Clanranald, the Chief’s lady who helped Flora sew this costume for the outsized maid, but they used this network. A MacDonald lady was going to Skye ahead of Flora and the Prince. She went to Lady Clan, as she was called, this wonderful Clanranald woman, and Flora asked her to warn Lady Margaret MacDonald, who was the wife of another clan chief, that the Prince was coming.

Both Lady Clan and Lady Margaret on Skye had kept the Prince when he was in hiding for nearly a month, before the officers came near and he had to scarper. But they sent him shirts, as they called it ‘supplies of linen’; they sent him the London newspapers. You just find these women all the time doing this marvellous thing of lying through their teeth. And Flora does this too, absolutely lies through her teeth about never seen the Prince, never, never; until they know that he’s been passed on to some other place and that he’s not in danger nearby, and then they say, ‘oh yeah, sure he was here, he was here’.

[JB]
So what actually happened on the night of the escape?

[FF]
Well, contrary to some people’s belief that Flora rowed the Prince 30 nautical miles in the middle of the night in storms over to Skye. There was a crew of five, who were told of course that this person – they could see it was a man – but they were told it was a Jacobite rebel who needed to escape, and that was happening all over the Highlands at this time. The King’s son, the Duke of Cumberland, was at headquarters at Fort Augustus on Loch Ness, and he was sending out these parties to root out the rebels. So, that was a perfectly good excuse.

Flora at all points – and we don’t know that she insisted on this – but the fact is throughout the week that she was with the Prince, and I think it probably felt to her like a year, she was at all points chaperoned by her cousin Neil – that was the cousin who came and told her the Prince was outside or by a local lady. So, she was actually never alone with the Prince.

[JB]
Do we know how the two got on, or what she thought of him, or indeed what he thought of her?

[FF]
Well, when he was with her for that week, he treated her as if she was a royal princess. He called her my lady. He got up, he treated her with the utmost care and respect on the voyage, and it was very stormy. He’s intensely grateful when they finally part. He says, ‘Madam, I hope to see you at St James’s, which is the royal palace in London where indeed the royal families still receive, but it was then where court was held. So, he was saying, I hope the Stuarts are restored to the throne. Actually, he never came back to Scotland again. We don’t know that he ever thought of her again.

[JB]
And what did she think of him?

[FF]
She remained – I believe absolutely, and maybe in some ways despite herself – devoted to him all her life. I think a large part of it was this was something that many Scots of that time felt. The Stuarts had been on the throne in Scotland since the 14th century, and the Hanoverians had come in 1714. There was a sense in which the Stuarts for them were the true kings and queens of Scotland.

[JB]
So, the escape goes to plan. Charles is offloaded to sympathisers and eventually heads to the Continent, but what I didn’t know is that Flora is betrayed and captured. And it’s at that cliffhanger, we’re going to take a short break.

[MV]
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[JB]
Welcome back to the Love Scotland podcast. I’m joined by the renowned historical biographer Flora Fraser and we’re talking about her book, Pretty Young Rebel: The life of Flora MacDonald. Just before the break, Prince Charles Edward Stuart has made his escape from Scotland and Flora was heading back to her ordinary life in the Highlands. Or is that how it worked out? Flora, you can take up the story.

[FF]
Well, Flora, having said goodbye to the Prince at Portree, heads to her stepfather’s house at Armadale in Skye, and she’s there for only a few days, not telling anyone at home what’s happened over the course of the last week.

[JB]
What a secret to keep!

[FF]
I know, isn’t it extraordinary? Her mother knew nothing. And then the summons came for Flora to report to a local militia officer; a militia that is set up in the government interest.

[JB]
How did they find out that Flora MacDonald was involved?

[FF]
They were just tracing the Prince. They did trace his footsteps all the way, but it was the boatman. They were threatened with this hideous instrument of torture, the Barisdale, which involved a spike from above or from below, about to pierce your throat – at which point, I’m not surprised they gave up the information.

[JB]
Flora was brought in for questioning. They eventually discovered that Betty Burke was actually Prince Charles Edward Stuart; she was in deep deep trouble.

[FF]
Yeah, she was in serious trouble. Everybody who had facilitated the escape of the Prince were all brought down to London to stand trial.

[JB]
And that includes Flora.

[FF]
That includes Flora. Her first captor, General Campbell, was very much a government man and officer of distinction, and he’s on this ship. When she’s brought on board, he examines her, interrogates her if you like. But he treats her like his daughter, as she later says. She has some quality about her, Flora, and the captains of these ships treat her like a very great lady. She’s given a cabin of her own when they stop in Leith. She’s like a Jacobite rockstar – all the Jacobite ladies in Leith and Edinburgh rode out to dine with her. The captains put everything at her service, their servants, they send for clothes.

[JB]
I think this is where the title of your book comes from, doesn’t it? Pretty young rebel? That’s how she is described by one of her captors on that ship, who it seems was absolutely captivated by her, but in a very fatherly way. She was taken to London. Was she imprisoned?

[FF]
It’s always been said she was in the Tower of London, which she wasn’t.

[JB]
Was she facing a death sentence?

[FF]
It was very unclear. I don’t think they would have done it. She was already well-known, featuring in the papers and there were engravings. She was, if you like, under lock and key, but in the house of a King’s messenger. It was curious … it wasn’t parole but it meant she wasn’t in a jail.

[JB]
What I find surprising is, as you mentioned earlier, that her alibi, if you like, was that she would have helped anyone in similar need. And what is equally surprising is that they seem to buy this!

[FF]
Yes. And it was General Campbell who wrote from home in Argyll to a London friend. ‘When I asked her why she did it, she said I would have done the same for you had you been in distress’.

[JB]
And the newspapers and the periodicals of that time, they leapt on the story and, as you alluded to, she became something of a celebrity. But what astonishes me reading the book, and perhaps it shouldn’t, is the amount of fake news that surrounded the entire tale. What they didn’t know about Flora – and they were so hungry for information – they made up.

[FF]
Absolutely. They said she was a great heiress; she had literally no money. They said she and the Prince stayed alone in a cottage where she cured him of the itch.

[JB]
Lots of salacious stuff as well.

[FF]
Cartoons and engravings, which were the equivalent of photographs in the tabloids. These prints, these engravings were sold everywhere.

[JB]
Flora herself, she realised that she had captured the public’s imagination and she played along with it.

[FF]
Yes, she certainly did. Rather than complain, she makes friends with her captors. Eventually, when there’s a general amnesty later in 1747, she does become a great social catch for everyone who wants to see this phenomenon: the girl who it seems captured the Prince’s heart, brought the Prince to safety. Didn’t matter if they were strong Hanoverians, it was a very romantic story.

[JB]
Basically, luck is on her side, the authorities are a bit fed up and their finances are depleted – and that’s what leads to a general … Pardon may not be the correct word, but they back off and Flora is allowed to go back to Scotland. Is she a heroine or is she a villain for putting others in danger?

[FF]
She heads back notably with a purse of £1,500 collected for her by English Jacobite supporters. Now, they didn’t come out to finance or to help the Prince and the Jacobite Army. Some have argued that this was a sort of guilt money, but the great thing is that Flora got this vast sum of money and she goes back to Skye and she marries. He’s young, he’s handsome and he’s the son of the factor (or land agent) for the MacDonald of Sleat estates on Skye. He’s been educated by the chief in Edinburgh in the expectation that he will succeed as factor, which he indeed does.

[JB]
How old is she at this time, roughly?

[FF]
She’s 28.

[JB]
So, she’s in her late 20s, she goes on to have seven children, the last I think in her mid-40s?

[FF]
Yes, it’s 1766; she must be 44, I think.

[JB]
So, she lives a life – she’s known, she’s a bit famous. She has a bit of money. She has her children, she’s intent on providing for her children and giving them a leg up in life. So, she plays on her past fame and her connections, to get them positions as she grows older.

[FF]
Absolutely. Alan, I think it’s fair to say, is not the man his father was.

[JB]
He’s not the brightest bulb in the box, is he? He may be good-looking and all of that …

[FF]
Oh, he’s very good-looking. You can’t say he’s feckless, because he tries; the trouble is he gets it wrong, everything.

[JB]
He’s not great with the family finances, is he!

[FF]
He sure ain’t. I feel bad because it’s her money that she collected through her canniness in the South.

[JB]
Ultimately Flora, who’s now around 50, her husband and some of her family, they leave Scotland. They head to America to try to make another fortune, but their timing couldn’t have been worse. They emigrate straight into the early stages of the American Revolution.

[FF]
Flora’s son-in-law, who’s an experienced marine officer, doesn’t unpack interestingly nor does he buy a home. He rents one, because he sees that this is really serious and then it all erupts.

[JB]
It all kicks off. And sadly old Alan MacDonald doesn’t. He ends up leading Highland troops on behalf of the British government – there’s an irony for you – against the Revolutionaries. There are claims that Flora herself was involved in the various battles, and at one stage rallied the troops herself. Is this just invented?

[FF]
Flora, according to some accounts, rode up and down the line of the Highland army as it set off for the coast, on a white palfrey, urging them on. I don’t think so. I can’t say she didn’t, but there is a really, really detailed narrative of the Highland army every step of the way until misfortune greets them on a creek near the coast. And there is no mention of Flora.

[JB]
So, let’s jump forward. The revolution doesn’t go well for Alan and the government forces. Flora comes back to Scotland. She’s in her late 50s, she’s in ill health, but then there’s another twist – her fame is rekindled. How does this happen?

[FF]
Well, Boswell publishes this extraordinary and detailed account of him and Dr Johnson staying with Flora in the house – Kingsburgh – and publishes this lengthy description, so funny, of Flora and Johnson having good crack together. She comes off as what they call in America ‘having real street smarts’. She’s witty and enjoying it – never forgetting I think Presbyterianism is in her soul, in every bone – but she’s a lot of fun, I think. And you see that in Boswell’s description.

[JB]
Then bizarrely, she receives a pension from the Hanoverian Prince of Wales because of a connection of her son Johnny. How the heck does that come about?

[FF]
Well, it’s networking. One of Johnny’s superiors, who’s a McPherson of Skye acting as Governor-General in Bengal. Sir John comes back to see family in Skye. Scots, both Highland and Lowland, supplied the Empire with officers, with administrators and so that wasn’t surprising. Flora’s son-in-law had been 23 years old a marine officer all over the world – Manilla, Ponticelli – but he talks to Flora and is rather shocked at her reduced state, both health and financial. He asks her to write a memorial of her sufferings after helping the Prince, and her sufferings after losing their steading in North Carolina. And she writes this extraordinary account in 1789 of these events.

The ’45 is 40 years earlier and yet she tells it like it was yesterday. And a memorial was specifically to elicit financial aid. So this was to elicit financial aid. John is an intimate at that time of George, Prince of Wales; later George IV. He gives it to the prince and the prince says, give her a pension of £50 from me a year. So, Flora gets a pension, but apparently the Prince of Wales, munificent as he was, forgot to pay Sir John back!

[JB]
So, what were her final years like?

[FF]
This memorial that she wrote, two memorials, were almost the last that we know of her. She wrote them in 1789, which of course was the year of many things: the French Revolution, George Washington’s inaugurated as the first president of the United States. All these things connect in a way to her public life, but she dies quietly.

[JB]
How old was she?

[FF]
She was 68. Rheumatism was her terrible affliction.

[JB]
Why do you think her story endures? Is it just the romance of it all?

[FF]
I think it’s her character. Yes, of course it’s a romantic story, especially when it’s simplified. When it’s simplified, it’s an act of courage. I don’t think her story will ever go away because I think it’s her character that endures down the centuries. She had no control over the Prince appearing outside the sheiling. She had no control over Alan losing her money, sadly. She had no control over the rent hikes on the estate. She had no control over the American Revolution. But I think it’s her response to whatever is thrown at her – she responds in the same quick, canny and ultimately intelligent, more than intelligent. She actually, I think it’s not wrong to say, that she responds with a strong moral sense to what’s thrown at her.

[JB]
It’s an incredible tale about an incredible life. Thank you so much for telling us all about it. Flora Fraser, thank you.

[FF]
Thank you so much, Jackie; a pleasure to talk to you.

[JB]
And Flora Fraser’s book, Pretty Young Rebel: The life of Flora MacDonald, is out now. If you’d like to find out more about the Jacobite uprising of 1745, then be sure to visit the National Trust for Scotland website. You’ll find information about the Culloden Battlefield site, which is open to visitors year-round, in the show notes. You can also discover other Jacobite linked locations, including the Glenfinnan Monument which acts as a tribute to those who died fighting for the Jacobite cause. Or if you’d like to listen to more episodes about the Jacobite uprising, scroll back through your Love Scotland feed to find our 2020 episodes about Culloden and the Glenfinnan Monument.
But that’s all from this edition. I hope you’ll join me next time. Goodbye.

[MV]
This episode of Love Scotland is a Think production in association with the Big Light Studio. Presented by Jackie Bird.
Music and post-production by Brian McAlpine; producer for the Big Light is Cameron Angus MacKay. Executive producer is Fiona Whyte; research by Ciaran Sneddon.
For show notes and more information, head to nts.org.uk