The heroine set free
Flora MacDonald was released from captivity in London in 1747, following the Act of Indemnity that pardoned many of those involved in the 1745 Jacobite rising. She had been arrested in July 1746 for her role in helping Bonnie Prince Charlie escape capture after the disaster at Culloden, and had been held first on ships, then in the Tower of London, and finally in the house of a King's Messenger in London.
Flora's act of courage had been extraordinary. In June 1746, with the fugitive prince hunted by thousands of Government troops across the western Highlands and islands, Flora disguised Charles as her Irish maid "Betty Burke" and escorted him on a boat crossing from Benbecula to Skye. The disguise was comically bad — Charles was over six feet tall and walked with a soldier's gait — but the audacity of the plan carried it off. Flora delivered the prince to Portree, from where he eventually made his way to France.
Flora's imprisonment, ironically, made her famous. London society was fascinated by the young Highland woman who had outwitted the British Army. She received visitors, was treated with respect, and her story was widely admired even by Hanoverian loyalists. Frederick, Prince of Wales, is said to have contributed to a fund for her support. When she was released under the general amnesty, she returned to Skye as a celebrity.
Flora later married Allan MacDonald of Kingsburgh and emigrated to North Carolina in 1774, where she became involved in the American Revolution — this time on the loyalist side. She returned to Skye in 1779 and lived out her days at Kingsburgh. She died in 1790, and her funeral procession stretched for miles across the island. Her grave at Kilmuir, overlooking the sea to the Outer Hebrides, is one of the most visited sites on Skye — a fitting memorial to a woman whose single act of bravery became one of Scotland's most enduring legends.