Over the sea to Skye
Flora MacDonald is one of the great figures of Highland legend. Born on South Uist in the Outer Hebrides around 1722, she lived a quiet life until the aftermath of Culloden turned her into a heroine. In June 1746, with Bonnie Prince Charlie hunted across the western Highlands and islands by Government troops, Flora agreed to help smuggle him to safety.
The plan was audacious. Flora disguised the prince as her Irish maid, "Betty Burke" — a tall, ungainly woman in a floral dress. They crossed the sea from Benbecula to Skye in a small boat, landing at Kilbride. The boatmen reportedly grumbled that Betty Burke was the worst maid they had ever seen. The disguise was thin — Charles was six feet tall with an unmistakable bearing — but it held long enough to get him to Portree and onto another boat heading for Raasay.
Flora was arrested shortly after and imprisoned in the Tower of London. She was held there for a year before being released under the Act of Indemnity in 1747. She returned to Skye, married Allan MacDonald of Kingsburgh, and later emigrated to North Carolina during the American Revolution. She eventually returned to Skye, where she died in 1790. Her funeral was the largest the island had ever seen — 3,000 mourners and over 300 gallons of whisky consumed.
The Jacobite song "The Skye Boat Song" immortalised the crossing: "Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing / Over the sea to Skye." Flora MacDonald's grave at Kilmuir on Skye, overlooking the sea, remains one of the most visited sites on the island. The view from her gravestone — across the water to the Outer Hebrides where the story began — is one of the most moving in Scotland.