INVERNESS AND MEMORIES OF FLORA MACDONALD.
PERTH, _September 6, 1902_.
Our farthest north on our European tour was Inverness, the capital of
the Highlands, which we reached from Oban by way of the magnificent
route through the Caledonian Canal, and which we left by way of the
railroad that runs southwards through the battlefield of Culloden,
where the Young Pretender was defeated, and the cause of the Stuarts
finally overthrown in 1746. The town has twenty thousand people,
is well built of substantial materials, a fresh-looking pink stone
predominating, and is the cleanest city we have seen in Great Britain.
It has a fine situation, its business portion occupying the more
level ground on both sides of its broad, clear river, while handsome
villas stretch along the terrace which rises above the valley. At a
short distance from the town there rises, from the level plain on the
riverside, a strikingly beautiful wooded hill, on the summit and sides
of which the people of Inverness have made their cemetery, one of the
loveliest of all the lovely cities of the dead.
[Illustration: STATUE OF FLORA MACDONALD--INVERNESS.]
From elevated points, and especially from the Castle Hill in the midst
of the town, one gets a very fine view of richly diversified scenery,
comprising, besides river and firth and valley, a wealth of hills, some
wooded and others gay with purple heather and green ferns. This central
hill, on which the handsome castellated county buildings now stand, was
the site of Macbeth's Castle, concerning which Shakespeare represents
King Duncan as saying, "This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
nimbly and sweetly recommends itself unto our gentle senses." Just in
front of the buildings which now occupy this celebrated site stands
a graceful statue of Flora Macdonald. She is represented as a comely
young woman, with her left hand lightly holding her dress skirt, and
her right raised as though shading her eyes, while she gazes intently
across the water. A very finely executed Scotch collie at her side
looks up into her face.[3]
[Sidenote: The Career of a Royal Adventurer.]
Being a native of North Carolina, and having most pleasant memories of
the Highland Scotch communities of the Cape Fear country, and the fine
old town of Fayetteville, where Flora Macdonald lived during a portion
of her maturer life, I was delighted to be thus reminded that I was now
so near the scenes connected with the romantic incidents of her younger
days, when, at the peril of her own life, she saved the worthless life
of Prince Charles Stuart, the Young Pretender to the British throne.
Students of that period of English history, or readers of _Waverly_,
that immortal romance, which, as the first venture of its then unknown
author in this line of literature, gave its name to the whole series of
those unrivalled historical romances which were put forth thereafter in
rapid succession by Sir Walter Scott, and which have given a greater
amount of wholesome pleasure to the world of readers in general
than any other series of books that were ever written--students of
history and readers of _Waverly_, I say, will remember, that after the
Pretender's delusive victory at Prestonpans, near Edinburgh,
and his disappointment at the failure of the Roman Catholic population
of western England to rise in support of his cause, he fell back to the
northern part of Scotland, and there, on the desolate moor of Culloden,
four miles from Inverness, he was overwhelmingly defeated by the Duke
of Cumberland, and his army of devoted Highlanders cut to pieces. Over
that bloody field the star of the Stuarts, a race which had so long
been a curse to Great Britain, sank to rise no more, and the Protestant
succession has never since been seriously called in question.
[Sidenote: A Fugitive in the Hebrides.]
The Pretender, with a few faithful friends, fled through the wild
country to the southwest, and, after many hardships and hairbreadth
escapes, reached the Outer Hebrides, and was concealed in a cave there,
on the wet and windy island of Benbecula. But the fact that he was on
this island soon became known to the government, and then his position
became perilous in the extreme. By sea and land every precaution was
taken to prevent his escape, every road, pass and landing place being
guarded, and the whole coast being patrolled by government vessels in
such numbers that no craft, however small, could approach or leave the
island unobserved, except perhaps under cover of darkness by special
good fortune, while some two thousand soldiers made diligent search on
shore; in addition to which a prize of one hundred and fifty thousand
dollars was offered for his capture. In this crisis of his affairs it
was agreed that a final attempt for his rescue should be made through
the agency of a young lady of the neighborhood, Miss Flora Macdonald,
then twenty-four years of age, two years younger than the Prince
himself, but whose selection for his perilous office argues a prudence
and strength of character far beyond her years.
[Sidenote: A woman to the Rescue.]
This remarkable young woman was well born, being the granddaughter of
the Rev. Angus Macdonald, known throughout the Isles as "the strong
minister," on account of his extraordinary physical strength. She
was also well bred, and well educated, having enjoyed not only the
advantages of her own home, and of the other respectable families of
her native island, but also the benefit of long residence in the home
of her kinsman, Sir Alexander Macdonald, of Monkstadt, in the Island
of Skye, and of three years in the Ladies' Seminary of Miss Henderson,
at Edinburgh. Sir Alexander was loyal to the house of Hanover, and
had refused to take any part in supporting the pretensions of Prince
Charles. Flora also was indifferent to the claim of the Stuarts, and
saved the Pretender's life out of pure compassion. Indeed, afterwards,
when she had been released from her imprisonment at London on the
charge of treason, and the Prince of Wales called on her and asked her,
half jocularly, how she dared to assist a rebel against his father's
throne, she answered with characteristic simplicity and firmness that
she would have done the same thing for him had she found him in like
distress.
[Sidenote: Feminine Courage and Resource.]
The plan adopted, and successfully carried out, for the escape of
the Pretender from Benbecula to Skye was this: Our heroine, having
expressed a strong desire to visit her mother, then living in Skye,
procured a passport for herself and two servants from her stepfather,
Captain Hugh Macdonald, who, though in command of a body of the King's
militia on Benbecula, shared the general compassion for the beaten
Prince, and the general desire that he might escape with his life.
One of these servants was Neil Macdonald, a faithful, intelligent,
and pretty well educated youth, who had spent several years in Paris,
and, therefore, spoke French fluently, and who, after the adventures
with which we are here concerned, followed the Pretender to France,
and became the father of the celebrated Marshal Macdonald, Duke of
Tarentum, one of Napoleon's great generals. The other, ostensibly
an awkward and overgrown Irish girl, was in reality Prince Charles
himself. With the principal member of the party thus disguised, and
armed with the passport for use in case of need, these three, with
a picked boat crew of six, set out on a dark night when the rain
was falling in torrents, and, after an exceedingly tempestuous and
perilous voyage, arrived safely in Skye, where the coolness, courage
and resourcefulness of Flora Macdonald baffled the King's officers,
overcame all difficulties, and eventually accomplished the desired
end of getting the Pretender to the mainland, whence, after three
months more of severe hardships, he got aboard of a French vessel, and
so reached the continent. That he was utterly unworthy of the great
service rendered him, is clearly shown by the fact, that though he
lived for more than forty-two years after he parted with her on the
beach of Portree, he never acknowledged, by letter or otherwise, the
dangers to which she exposed herself in order to save his life. At his
death his body was appropriately laid in St. Peter's Cathedral at Rome
with the rest of his Romish kindred.
[Sidenote: Flora Macdonald as Prisoner.]
Flora Macdonald's part in the escape of the young Pretender could not
long be concealed. As soon as it became known she was arrested, and
taken on board one of the King's vessels, and by General Campbell sent
to Dunstaffnage Castle, on Loch Etive, his note to the governor of the
castle referring to her as "a very pretty young rebel." After ten days
of imprisonment there, she was taken to Leith, the port of Edinburgh,
and placed on board the _Bridgewater_, where she was detained for
nearly three months, being lionized the while by the aristocracy and
professional men of the Scottish metropolis in a way that would have
turned a weaker head. An Episcopal clergyman of the place wrote of her
as follows:
"Although she was easy and cheerful, yet she had a certain mixture of
gravity in all her behavior, which became her situation exceedingly
well, and set her off to great advantage. She is of a low stature, of a
fair complexion, and well enough shaped. One would not discern by her
conversation that she had spent all her former days in the Highlands,
for she talks English easily, and not at all through the Erse tone. She
has a sweet voice, and sings well; and no lady, Edinburgh-bred, can
acquit herself better at the tea-table, than what she did when in Leith
Roads. Her wise conduct, in one of the most perplexing scenes that can
happen in life--her fortitude and good sense--are memorable instances
of the strength of a female mind, even in those years that are tender
and inexperienced."
In November, 1746, the _Bridgewater_ sailed, with our heroine and
others, to London, where they were to stand trial on charges of
treason. Her popularity, however, was so great, and public sentiment
so strongly opposed to the infliction of any stern penalty upon a
young and attractive woman for the performance of a self-sacrificing
act of humanity, that, after a short confinement in the gloomy Tower
of London, whose walls have enclosed so many heavy hearts in the
course of the centuries, she was turned over to friends, who became
responsible to the government for her appearance when demanded, and,
after remaining a state prisoner in this mitigated manner for some
twelve months, she was set at liberty, under the Act of Indemnity
of 1747. The first use she made of her freedom was to solicit as a
special favor that her fellow-prisoners from the Isles should be given
the same liberty as herself, and the request was granted, one of those
thus released being her future father-in-law, Macdonald of Kingsburgh.
[Sidenote: Her Marriage.]
Some three years after her return to her native islands, she was
married, in 1750, to Allan Macdonald. Boswell, in his _Journal of a
Tour to the Hebrides_, thus describes the man to whom our heroine
yielded her heart and hand:
"He was completely the figure of a gallant Highlander, exhibiting the
graceful mien and manly looks which our popular Scotch song has justly
attributed to that character. He had his tartan plaid thrown around
him, a large blue bonnet with a knot of black ribbon like a cockade,
a brown short coat, a tartan waistcoat with gold buttons, a bluish
philibeg, and tartan hose. He had jet-black hair, tied behind, and was
a large, stately man, with a steady, sensible countenance."
[Sidenote: She Entertains Dr. Johnson and Boswell.]
It was in 1773 that Boswell and Dr. Samuel Johnson were entertained at
the hospitable home of Allan Macdonald and his famous wife. The great
lexicographer and moralist was delighted with his hostess and describes
her as "a woman of middle stature, soft features, gentle manners, and
elegant presence." He asked her, as a special favor, to let him sleep
in the bed which had been occupied by the unfortunate Prince, a request
which she readily granted, adding, to his immense gratification, that
she would also furnish him with the identical sheets on which the
Prince had lain, and which, by the way, she kept till the end of her
days, taking them with her to North Carolina and back, and in which, at
her own request, her body was wrapped after her death. Before leaving
the house next morning, Dr. Johnson laid on his toilet table a slip
of paper containing the pencilled words, _Quantum cedat virtutibus
aurum_, which Boswell renders, "With virtue weighed, what worthless
trash is gold."
[Sidenote: She Moves to North Carolina.]
Through no mismanagement or extravagance of his own, but in consequence
of losses incurred by his father, by the part he had taken in the
Pretender's cause, Allan Macdonald had become seriously embarrassed,
and so, in the hope of mending his fortune, he determined to emigrate
to North Carolina, where many other families from Skye had already
settled. Accordingly, in 1774, with his wife and their nine children,
he sailed for Wilmington, and, after receiving various attentions
there, whither the fame of his wife had preceded them, they went up the
Cape Fear River to Cross Creek, now called Fayetteville, and after some
months in Cumberland county, where they were regular worshippers in the
Presbyterian Church, purchased a place on the borders of Richmond and
Montgomery counties, which they named Killiegray.
[Sidenote: Misfortunes in the New World.]
Their life in America was a sad one. Two of their children died,
a bereavement made the more trying to the mother because of the
absence of her husband, whose duties as a military officer required
his presence elsewhere. The Revolutionary War was on the point of
breaking out, and Governor Martin, seeing the honor paid to Allan
Macdonald by the Highlanders, made him brigadier-general of a command
of his countrymen, which became a part of the ill-fated army that was
defeated by the American patriots at the battle of Moore's Creek. He
was captured and committed to Halifax jail, Virginia, as a prisoner of
war. With misfortunes thickening around her, her husband in prison,
her five sons away from home in the service of the King, her youngest
daughter enfeebled by a dangerous attack of typhus fever, and her
adopted country in the throes of war, Flora Macdonald resolved, on the
recommendation of her imprisoned husband, to return to Scotland, and,
having obtained a passport through the kind offices of Captain Ingram,
of the American army, she went to Wilmington, and later to Charleston,
whence she sailed in 1779.
[Sidenote: Her Return to Scotland and her Last Days.]
During this voyage she had the last of her notable adventures, in
a sharp action between the vessel on which she sailed and a French
privateer. She characteristically refused to take shelter below during
the engagement, but appeared on deck, and encouraged the sailors,
assuring them of success. She had an arm broken in this battle, and was
accustomed to say afterwards that she had fought both for the house of
Stuart and the house of Hanover, but had been worsted in the service of
both.
When peace was restored between Britain and America, her husband was
released from his long imprisonment, and returned as speedily as
possible to Skye, where they continued to live comfortably and happily
for eight or nine years. She died on the 5th of March, 1790, and was
buried in the churchyard of Kilmuir, in the north end of Skye, her
funeral being more numerously attended than any other that has ever
taken place in the Western Isles.
FOOTNOTE:
[3] Three or four months after our visit to Inverness, I had the
pleasure of meeting the sculptor of this striking statue, Mr. Alexander
Davidson, of Rome, and of talking with him at large about the heroine
of the Highlands.