November 18, 2025 • 30 mins
After the Battle of Culloden, the Bonnie Prince Charlie needed to escape to safety. His salvation would come in the form of a young woman named Flora MacDonald, who would become an indelible piece of romantic Scottish history.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. If you've
watched the television show Outlander, the theme song is probably
very familiar to you by this point. It's a version
of an old tune called the sky Boat Song. I'll
(00:23):
spare you my singing, but the lyrics go, sing me
a song of a lass that is gone? Say could
that lass be I Mary of Soul? She sailed on
a day over the sea to sky. The entire tone
of the song is extremely fitting, eerie and melancholy and
(00:44):
a lass that is gone, perfect for a show about
a woman who disappears two hundred years through time. The
actual original song was slightly modified for the television show.
There have been a number of versions of the sky
Boat Song since it was composed in seventeen eighty two,
(01:07):
but the most popular lyrics come from the famous Scottish
novelist Robert Lewis Stephenson, the man who wrote Treasure Island
and created Doctor Jekyl and Mister Hyde. His poem from
eighteen ninety two actually goes, sing me a song of
a lad that is gone? Say could that lad be I.
(01:30):
It makes sense that Outlander changed the pronouns, given that
their television show is mostly about a woman. But the
Lad that Stephenson was referring to wasn't just a generic
character for a poem. He is a very specific lad.
Charles Edward Stewart or the Bonnie Prince Charlie. The sky
(01:54):
Boat Song became popular in the nineteenth century for evoking
a particular romantic event in Scottish history, Charles evading capture
after the Battle of Clawdon and sailing yes over the sea.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
To the Isle of Sky.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Charles Stewart was the grandson of King James the Second
of England, who had been deposed after marrying a Catholic
woman and having a son who would presumably be raised Catholic,
and so in sixteen eighty eight, James was cast off
in favor of his daughter from his first marriage, Mary,
(02:32):
who had been raised Protestant and would rule alongside her husband,
William of Orange. William and Mary but not everyone was
thrilled by that changeover, particularly Catholic people and people who
believed that the divine right of kings and the hereditary
right to rule was granted by God and shouldn't be
(02:56):
messed around by anything as domestic as parliament. Charles Stewart,
the grandson that we're talking about, would have been the
legitimate heir to the throne if you follow that traditional
line of succession from father to son. His supporters called
him the Young Chevalier. His opponents called him the Young Pretender. Nowadays,
(03:21):
most people casually familiar with him know him as the
Banni Prince Charlie. Charles led a rebellion to claim back
the throne of Great Britain on behalf of his father,
culminating in the bloody Battle of Clawdon in seventeen forty six.
If you've watched Outlander, then you don't need me to
(03:43):
tell you. But the battle did not go well for
Charles and his supporters, the Jacobites, named for the latinization
of James, the deposed king. It was a terrible defeat,
and only because charles advisers pulled him away from the
fray did the Young Prince survive. But surviving the battle
(04:07):
wouldn't be enough. British forces were desperate to find him trader,
who might rally another uprising at any moment.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Charles needed to.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Get away to escape the British forces and make his
way to safety, at least temporarily, until he could make
it all the way to the security of France. A
sympathetic supporter had an idea. The supporter was a local
bureaucrat who could supply papers. What if Charles took a
boat to the Isle of Sky, an island to the
(04:39):
northwest of Mainland Scotland. The supporter's stepdaughter was a girl
named Flora MacDonald. They would disguise Charles as Flora's maid,
A risky strategy given Charles's masculine stature, but it was
the best plan they had. Hearts pounding salt lea over
(05:00):
the edge of the boat, Flora and the grandson of
the former King of England and Scotland, bobbed towards what
they hoped might be salvation. If they were caught, the
price would be imprisonment, death or worse. I'm Danas Schwartz
and this is noble blood. His grandfather might have been deposed,
(05:26):
but young Charles Edward Stewart still grew up like a
young prince. He was born in Rome on New Year's
Eve in seventeen twenty, the oldest son of James Francis
Edward himself, the only son of the former King James
the seventh and second seventh of Scotland, second of England.
(05:47):
Perhaps given the fact that the entire trajectory of his
life was changed by the conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism,
there was considerable attention given to how young Charge Carles
would be raised. At one point in his childhood, his
governor was gasp an Episcopalian, which caused so much anxiety
(06:10):
in Charles's mother, Clementina, that she asked the Pope himself
to weigh in to make sure that Charles would only
ever be given a Catholic tutor. To be fair, though
it doesn't seem like it took too much to make
Clementina anxious. In a sort of heartbreaking letter from Charles
when he was just eight years old, written to his father,
(06:32):
he wrote that he promised he wouldn't upset his mother
by jumping near her. Clementina and her nervous disposition alas
would not be long for this world. She died when
Charles was a teenager, after telling her son to never
desert his Catholic faith. The basics of Charles's childhood are
(06:54):
pretty standard prince fair. He was taught sports and languages,
dancing and music, and he certainly had the personality of
an entitled young prince. When he was thirteen, he physically
kicked one of his tutors and threatened to kill him
if he tried to discipline him. But aside from that
(07:15):
notable bout of adolescent petulance, Charles grew into an incredibly
charming figure. By all accounts, he was handsome and charismatic,
so much so that pretty much everyone who supported the
Jacobite cause realized they had something here, someone who could
serve as a figurehead for their movement, and a far
(07:38):
more compelling one than his old father. And so Charles
toured around Europe, making himself and his cause known, and
England was paying attention.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
When Charles toured northern Italy and.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Was celebrated with elaborate parties in Venice, King George the
Second was so annoyed that he spelled the Venetian diplomats
from London.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
In modern terms.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Charles became a master of his own personal brand. He
realized how powerful his image was, and he made sure
to wield it to his full advantage. In seventeen forty one,
he arrived at a ball, wearing Highland dress Scottish tartan
bedecked with jewels.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
It was a very clear.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
And really compelling message, emphasizing the nobility and purity of
his cause, appealing to his supporters in Scotland, and with
plenty of bling to evoke the splendor and glory that
a monarch should.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Charles was getting impatient.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
He knew that there was support for him to reclaim
his family's crown. Support in France certainly, who would be
all too happy to see England's troops pulling back from
wars on the continent if they had to fight in
a civil war on their own island, And also support
among Catholics in Ireland and Scotland. And there was also
(09:09):
support in England Jacobites there who knew that Charles's father
was the rightful king. Charles just needed to consolidate that
support and actually, you know, fight. In seventeen forty four,
Louis the Fifteenth in France was poking around England on
a fact finding mission, trying to gauge just how much
(09:33):
Jacobite support there actually was there. If France invaded, would
English Jacobites join with them in the battle back in Italy,
Charles got word about France's support and supposed planned invasion.
What he heard was that France was definitely in to
(09:54):
back an invasion, and so he decided to take action.
In January of that year, he acted like he was
just leaving town on a hunting expedition, but that was
just to fool the British spies who might be watching him. Really,
Charles was on his way to France, acting as prince
regent for his father, taking his first steps to restore
(10:19):
their throne. Leaving Italy would actually be the last time
Charles would ever see his father again. It was a dangerous,
risky trip from Italy to France. There was first a
delay because of the weather, and as Charles was sailing
to Antibes, a British admiral saw his boat and gave chase.
(10:42):
Charles only managed to escape on luck and timing. Lucky
because the seas were rough, and he managed just in
a moment to get transferred secretly to another boat by
the French before the British.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Could find him.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
But the ruse of his hunting party that was up
the British knew that Charles was in France and that
an invasion might be imminent, and now they were on guard.
Louis the Fifteenth was furious at Charles about all of this.
For the record, he hadn't even actually planned an invasion,
(11:18):
and now this impertinent, risky target just shows up demanding
troops to join him in England. Well, maybe he would
have invaded if Charles's little escape maneuver hadn't tipped off
the British. But now that Charles was actually in France,
Louis found that he had cold feet, it would be
(11:39):
a lot less trouble for everyone. Louis thought if Charles
just went back to Italy and wasn't hanging around France
racking up debts. But that wasn't Charles's style at all. Remember,
he was a man of action, and he didn't understand
why France wasn't just ready to go along with him.
(12:01):
He began making grand declarations, saying, if France isn't willing
to send troops, I'll sail over to Scotland by canoe,
even as intelligence came back and advisers told him that
English Jacobites wouldn't really be rising up to join him
unless he had the force of French support, Charles was undeterred.
(12:24):
Despite the ambivalence of the French Crown, Charles pressed forward
and he raised enough money to equip a small expedition
to Scotland, using the crown jewels from his mother's ancestral
line in Poland to secure loans. Nothing was going to
stop Charles from acting. Even when he sent a nobleman
(12:48):
ahead of him to try to raise as much Scottish
support as he could, and then that nobleman was captured
and imprisoned, it wasn't going to deter Charles. In the
early summer of seventeen forty five, Charles set out with
two ships, a man of war called the Elizabeth and
a smaller sixteen gun privateer, but this too would prove
(13:12):
to be a challenging sea journey. A British ship, the Lion,
attacked the Elizabeth, and though Charles was luckily safely on
the smaller privateer, the Elizabeth had to return to port
for repairs, taking a lot of Charles's.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Artillery with it.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
But still Charles made it to Scotland, and though the
reception he got from local clan leaders was slightly cooler
than he might have hoped for, given that they were
expecting him to show up with the force of France
behind him, he still managed to gather some support and
man power, especially after the public bravery of a young
(13:53):
nobleman pledging his loyalty named delightfully Ranald MacDonald. Charles, a
master of his personal brand, if not a master of logistics,
began taking Gaelic lessons and support slowly consolidated, especially as
he and his troops made some progress against British dragoons.
(14:16):
When Charles entered Edinburgh, it was with twenty four hundred
men he defeated the British forces led by Sir John
Cope at the Battle of Preston Pans. Charles fighting alongside
his men on the front lines, and morale was finally
booying in his favor. Charles spent five weeks hold up
(14:38):
at Holyrood Palace near Edinburgh, waiting for reinforcements and organizing
his counselors into a formal advisory group. He issued declarations
against the British Parliament, calling it an unlawful assembly. Really, remember,
Charles's main goal here was to take back the throne
(14:59):
that he thinks belongs to his father, which means going
to England to claim it. You've got to drive out
the sitting monarchy in England for that to happen. But
among Charles's counselors in Scotland, plenty of them were content
enough to leave well Enough alone at least for the
time being, and just stay put in Scotland with their
(15:23):
consolidating power. It's a mentality sometimes referred to as quote
Fortress Scotland. Ultimately, it wasn't that great of a long
term strategy, given the fact that England has vast reserves
of money and a Royal Navy at its disposal to
implement a blockade. It was winner takes all, and marching
(15:46):
on London was the best way to win. But Charles
wasn't going to make these decisions unilaterally. He put it
up for a vote in his council, either march on
London or stay in Scotland, and it passed going to England,
albeit only with one vote. A force of about six
(16:10):
thousand men marched down to Carlisle, a city in England
in the Cumberland region. The city surrendered and Charles got
to ride high literally through the city on a white horse.
The Jacobite force should have been buoyed by optimism, but
the cracks were beginning to show. Despite early victories. By
(16:33):
the time the Jacobite force made it down to Derby,
people were losing confidence in Charles. Where were the English
Jacobites that were supposed to rise up and support them,
and for that matter, where were the French troops. Didn't
Charles promise them that French support would be coming. When pressed,
(16:55):
Charles was forced to admit, no, he doesn't actually have
any physical evidence of that commitment, and no, he hasn't
really been in touch per se with the English Jacobites
or French recently. Still, Charles wanted to continue down on
the march to London. His council insisted that despite the
(17:19):
fact that they haven't lost a battle, they need to
retreat and march back to Scotland, and so, with no
other choice, Charles acquiesced to his advisors and the Scottish
invasion force marched home. It's one of the great ironnees
of history that actually, at the time London was astonishingly undefended.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
It was defended at.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
That time only by about two thousand regulars, and had
Charles and his men marched down there probably wouldn't have
been enough time for British reinforcements to come in. If
if Charles and his men had done what Charles had
wanted and they had pressed ahead, would they have been
able to take London. It's extremely plausible, but of course
(18:11):
they didn't have that intelligence at the time to know
how undefended London was, and what ifs don't matter when
it comes to things that actually happened. Charles, now glum
and feeling powerless and a little humiliated, drank and idled
his way through the retreat. At Bannockburn, he fell ill
(18:35):
and for a week and a half he was nursed
by a woman named Clementine Walkinshaw. Ironically, she was named
after Charles's mother. In a slightly edible twist, she would
become Charles's mistress. From that point, the fire of Charles's
motivation began to slowly fade. His commanders told him that
(18:57):
there was a massive desertion rate among his army, and
so they retreated, although Charles will later discover that there
weren't as many desertions as were reported to him. Charles
feels like his council is cowardly and that they lack
his conviction.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
He and his.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Supporters will try to sieze Stirling Castle, which is ultimately
a failure, and move north. The last town they ever
occupy is Inverness, and from there they would face the
battle that has lived in infamy as the failure that
puts an end to this entire uprising, the Battle of Clawden.
(19:39):
As with any important historical battle, plenty of people have
written about the mistakes Charles made and things he could
have done differently. One big mistake was fighting on slow, boggy,
flat ground, which allowed the British clear lines of fire
and made the Jacobites soldiers slow on their charge. The
(20:03):
Jacobites also had waited a while before their first charge,
hoping the British would attack first, and that probably wasn't
a great move. Given that the British could just fire
artillery at them, it really wasn't too damaging, although two
of Charles's messengers did get decapitated by cannonballs one after another,
(20:27):
which probably wasn't great for morale. By the time the
Jacobites advanced, Charles almost certainly knew that it was pretty
much a lost cause. Another podcast or any number of
history books can give you an incredibly detailed play by
play of exactly how the bloody battle came to be,
(20:50):
but just know the basics. The messy Jacobite charge was
thinned by British canister shot, and then the British troops
closed in and sealed the deal. Charles gave a save
yourself if you can order to his supporters, and though
he tried to stay on the field and keep fighting,
(21:12):
he was ultimately pulled away by his officers, who managed
to get him to safety. Well safety for the time being.
Charles was a wanted man, a very wanted man, and
British troops were scouring Scotland trying to find him.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Charles needed to get away and quickly. There was a reward.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
For any Highlander who would turn him in thirty thousand pounds.
Who could he trust? Where could he go? This brings
us to Flora MacDonald. Though you might have expected a
heroine of the Jacobite rebellion to be Catholic, Flora's family
was actually part of the Protestant minority of the area
(21:58):
in Scotland where she lived. Her father had died when
she was a baby, and her stepfather, Hugh, worked as
basically a civil servant on behalf of the British government,
but he was also a Jacobite sympathizer, empathizing with the
romantic struggle of a valiant prince trying to evade capture.
(22:19):
The British were closing in on Charles when Hugh emerged
with an idea. Charles could sail off to the Isle
of Sky, the Scottish island to the northwest of the mainland.
How would he do it, well, Hugh said the Prince
could sail with his stepdaughter Flora, posing as her servant.
(22:40):
Flora was twenty four years old at this point, and
her stepfather had just volunteered her for an incredibly dangerous job.
When Flora first heard the plan, she was a little reluctant,
not because she was scared of danger, but because although
she was engaged, she was un married and she was
(23:01):
worried that it would be indecent for her to be
traveling with a man. Flora didn't really see what she
was doing as a grand act of Jacobite rebellion. She
said she helped Charles because.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
He was a human being in need.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Years later, she would tell Frederick, the Prince of Wales,
that she would have done the same for him because
of Hugh's position in the local government. He was able
to get the appropriate papers for Flora and for quote
Betty Burke, Flora's female servant and Irish seamstress. It was
(23:36):
a pretty risky gambit, given that Charles was a fairly
tall man with a stature that did not immediately read female,
but the disguise served its purpose well enough. The pair
landed at Trotternish and made their way to the house
of their contact, Lady Margaret MacDonald, only to find something terrifying.
(24:00):
She just happened to be entertaining a military officer in
her house who.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Just stopped by.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Flora proved herself to be not only brave, but also
excellent under pressure. Flora kept the officer occupied while Charles
could get to safety. Few days later, Charles and Flora
made it to the city of Portry on Sky, where
they said there goodbye. Charles's escape would have a few
(24:30):
more twists and turns before he eventually sailed to safety
in France, once again disguised as a lady. Charles would
sail back to the mainland and then back to Sky
to evade capture, and at one point, while hiding in
the hills around Glenfinnon. He fell off a cliff and
only managed to survive because he was hanging onto a bush.
(24:52):
Flora would be captured for her role in helping a trader.
She was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London,
but it would be an incredibly brief captivity. Almost immediately
she was allowed to live outside the tower under supervision,
and then she was fully released after the Act of
(25:13):
Indemnity in June seventeen forty seven. Fascinatingly, despite the fact
that she had aided the Jacobite rebellion, Flora became something
of a causalleb among the well to do in London. Aristocrats,
enchanted by the story of a young woman's bravery, raised
(25:33):
over fifteen hundred pounds for her, a group of aristocrats
which actually included Frederick, the Prince of Wales, remember a
royal whom Charles had been trying to overthrow. By the
Victorian era, Flora MacDonald as a figure became woven into
a romanticized ideal of Scotland, along with Mary, Queen of Scotts,
(25:59):
and the Banni Prince Charlie himself.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
She was a piece of folklore by that point.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Almost there's a Scottish Highland dance called Flora MacDonald's Fancy,
and a statue of her at Inverness Castle, which was
erected in eighteen ninety nine.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
The Victorian era.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Flora is a part of a story of heroic underdogs
set among sweeping green glens. Not to be too cynical,
but for the English it's easier to romanticize the rebels
who rose up against them when those figures are safely
in the past, posing no real threats to their status quo.
(26:41):
An Englishman could read a book or poem about Flora MacDonald,
pat himself on the back for appreciating how stirring her
small moment of history was in beautiful, windswept Scotland, and
then continue on enjoying the cultural hegemony of England. Flora
never saw Charles again in her lifetime, although it's sometimes
(27:04):
said that before they parted ways in portrait, he gave
her a locket with his image.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
If he did.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
I like to imagine her looking at it, a memento
of a moment of youthful bravery on the national stage,
holding it in her hand to remind herself during the
drudgery of everyday life. The decades to come that on occasion,
circumstance might call upon you to become a romantic heroine.
(27:35):
That's the story of Bonnie Prince Charlie's Escape to Sky.
But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear
about Flora MacDonald's incredibly eventful life after Charles. At the
time of Flora's brave boat trip, she was engaged to
(27:57):
a man named Alan McDonald, who, like her stepfather, also
served the British. After the rigmarole, with Charles settled down,
Alan and Flora moved to Anson County, North Carolina. It's
a little ironic given that Flora is most famous for
an act abetting one of history's major rebellions against the British.
(28:18):
But when the American Revolutionary War broke out, her husband
was fighting on the side of the British. It didn't
turn out well for Flora and Alan. Alan was captured
and kept as a prisoner for eighteen months, and as loyalists,
their property was confiscated. Alan would move with Flora to
Nova Scotia, then as the commander of a regiment, but
(28:41):
after his service they found that the harsh Winters didn't
agree with them.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
After all, of.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
That, Alan and Flora sailed back across the ocean again,
back to sky, where Flora stayed for the rest of
her life. She's buried there now in Kilmore Cemetery, a
fitting end after a lot of global travel, to spend
eternity in the place of which she became an indelible symbol.
(29:19):
Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and
Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me
Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick,
Courtney Sender, Amy Hit and Julia Milaney. The show is
edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producerrima Ill
(29:42):
Kali and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. If you've
watched the television show Outlander, the theme song is probably
very familiar to you by this point. It's a version
of an old tune called the sky Boat Song. I'll
(00:23):
spare you my singing, but the lyrics go, sing me
a song of a lass that is gone? Say could
that lass be I Mary of Soul? She sailed on
a day over the sea to sky. The entire tone
of the song is extremely fitting, eerie and melancholy and
(00:44):
a lass that is gone, perfect for a show about
a woman who disappears two hundred years through time. The
actual original song was slightly modified for the television show.
There have been a number of versions of the sky
Boat Song since it was composed in seventeen eighty two,
(01:07):
but the most popular lyrics come from the famous Scottish
novelist Robert Lewis Stephenson, the man who wrote Treasure Island
and created Doctor Jekyl and Mister Hyde. His poem from
eighteen ninety two actually goes, sing me a song of
a lad that is gone? Say could that lad be I.
(01:30):
It makes sense that Outlander changed the pronouns, given that
their television show is mostly about a woman. But the
Lad that Stephenson was referring to wasn't just a generic
character for a poem. He is a very specific lad.
Charles Edward Stewart or the Bonnie Prince Charlie. The sky
(01:54):
Boat Song became popular in the nineteenth century for evoking
a particular romantic event in Scottish history, Charles evading capture
after the Battle of Clawdon and sailing yes over the sea.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
To the Isle of Sky.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Charles Stewart was the grandson of King James the Second
of England, who had been deposed after marrying a Catholic
woman and having a son who would presumably be raised Catholic,
and so in sixteen eighty eight, James was cast off
in favor of his daughter from his first marriage, Mary,
(02:32):
who had been raised Protestant and would rule alongside her husband,
William of Orange. William and Mary but not everyone was
thrilled by that changeover, particularly Catholic people and people who
believed that the divine right of kings and the hereditary
right to rule was granted by God and shouldn't be
(02:56):
messed around by anything as domestic as parliament. Charles Stewart,
the grandson that we're talking about, would have been the
legitimate heir to the throne if you follow that traditional
line of succession from father to son. His supporters called
him the Young Chevalier. His opponents called him the Young Pretender. Nowadays,
(03:21):
most people casually familiar with him know him as the
Banni Prince Charlie. Charles led a rebellion to claim back
the throne of Great Britain on behalf of his father,
culminating in the bloody Battle of Clawdon in seventeen forty six.
If you've watched Outlander, then you don't need me to
(03:43):
tell you. But the battle did not go well for
Charles and his supporters, the Jacobites, named for the latinization
of James, the deposed king. It was a terrible defeat,
and only because charles advisers pulled him away from the
fray did the Young Prince survive. But surviving the battle
(04:07):
wouldn't be enough. British forces were desperate to find him trader,
who might rally another uprising at any moment.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Charles needed to.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Get away to escape the British forces and make his
way to safety, at least temporarily, until he could make
it all the way to the security of France. A
sympathetic supporter had an idea. The supporter was a local
bureaucrat who could supply papers. What if Charles took a
boat to the Isle of Sky, an island to the
(04:39):
northwest of Mainland Scotland. The supporter's stepdaughter was a girl
named Flora MacDonald. They would disguise Charles as Flora's maid,
A risky strategy given Charles's masculine stature, but it was
the best plan they had. Hearts pounding salt lea over
(05:00):
the edge of the boat, Flora and the grandson of
the former King of England and Scotland, bobbed towards what
they hoped might be salvation. If they were caught, the
price would be imprisonment, death or worse. I'm Danas Schwartz
and this is noble blood. His grandfather might have been deposed,
(05:26):
but young Charles Edward Stewart still grew up like a
young prince. He was born in Rome on New Year's
Eve in seventeen twenty, the oldest son of James Francis
Edward himself, the only son of the former King James
the seventh and second seventh of Scotland, second of England.
(05:47):
Perhaps given the fact that the entire trajectory of his
life was changed by the conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism,
there was considerable attention given to how young Charge Carles
would be raised. At one point in his childhood, his
governor was gasp an Episcopalian, which caused so much anxiety
(06:10):
in Charles's mother, Clementina, that she asked the Pope himself
to weigh in to make sure that Charles would only
ever be given a Catholic tutor. To be fair, though
it doesn't seem like it took too much to make
Clementina anxious. In a sort of heartbreaking letter from Charles
when he was just eight years old, written to his father,
(06:32):
he wrote that he promised he wouldn't upset his mother
by jumping near her. Clementina and her nervous disposition alas
would not be long for this world. She died when
Charles was a teenager, after telling her son to never
desert his Catholic faith. The basics of Charles's childhood are
(06:54):
pretty standard prince fair. He was taught sports and languages,
dancing and music, and he certainly had the personality of
an entitled young prince. When he was thirteen, he physically
kicked one of his tutors and threatened to kill him
if he tried to discipline him. But aside from that
(07:15):
notable bout of adolescent petulance, Charles grew into an incredibly
charming figure. By all accounts, he was handsome and charismatic,
so much so that pretty much everyone who supported the
Jacobite cause realized they had something here, someone who could
serve as a figurehead for their movement, and a far
(07:38):
more compelling one than his old father. And so Charles
toured around Europe, making himself and his cause known, and
England was paying attention.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
When Charles toured northern Italy and.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Was celebrated with elaborate parties in Venice, King George the
Second was so annoyed that he spelled the Venetian diplomats
from London.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
In modern terms.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Charles became a master of his own personal brand. He
realized how powerful his image was, and he made sure
to wield it to his full advantage. In seventeen forty one,
he arrived at a ball, wearing Highland dress Scottish tartan
bedecked with jewels.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
It was a very clear.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
And really compelling message, emphasizing the nobility and purity of
his cause, appealing to his supporters in Scotland, and with
plenty of bling to evoke the splendor and glory that
a monarch should.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Charles was getting impatient.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
He knew that there was support for him to reclaim
his family's crown. Support in France certainly, who would be
all too happy to see England's troops pulling back from
wars on the continent if they had to fight in
a civil war on their own island, And also support
among Catholics in Ireland and Scotland. And there was also
(09:09):
support in England Jacobites there who knew that Charles's father
was the rightful king. Charles just needed to consolidate that
support and actually, you know, fight. In seventeen forty four,
Louis the Fifteenth in France was poking around England on
a fact finding mission, trying to gauge just how much
(09:33):
Jacobite support there actually was there. If France invaded, would
English Jacobites join with them in the battle back in Italy,
Charles got word about France's support and supposed planned invasion.
What he heard was that France was definitely in to
(09:54):
back an invasion, and so he decided to take action.
In January of that year, he acted like he was
just leaving town on a hunting expedition, but that was
just to fool the British spies who might be watching him. Really,
Charles was on his way to France, acting as prince
regent for his father, taking his first steps to restore
(10:19):
their throne. Leaving Italy would actually be the last time
Charles would ever see his father again. It was a dangerous,
risky trip from Italy to France. There was first a
delay because of the weather, and as Charles was sailing
to Antibes, a British admiral saw his boat and gave chase.
(10:42):
Charles only managed to escape on luck and timing. Lucky
because the seas were rough, and he managed just in
a moment to get transferred secretly to another boat by
the French before the British.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Could find him.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
But the ruse of his hunting party that was up
the British knew that Charles was in France and that
an invasion might be imminent, and now they were on guard.
Louis the Fifteenth was furious at Charles about all of this.
For the record, he hadn't even actually planned an invasion,
(11:18):
and now this impertinent, risky target just shows up demanding
troops to join him in England. Well, maybe he would
have invaded if Charles's little escape maneuver hadn't tipped off
the British. But now that Charles was actually in France,
Louis found that he had cold feet, it would be
(11:39):
a lot less trouble for everyone. Louis thought if Charles
just went back to Italy and wasn't hanging around France
racking up debts. But that wasn't Charles's style at all. Remember,
he was a man of action, and he didn't understand
why France wasn't just ready to go along with him.
(12:01):
He began making grand declarations, saying, if France isn't willing
to send troops, I'll sail over to Scotland by canoe,
even as intelligence came back and advisers told him that
English Jacobites wouldn't really be rising up to join him
unless he had the force of French support, Charles was undeterred.
(12:24):
Despite the ambivalence of the French Crown, Charles pressed forward
and he raised enough money to equip a small expedition
to Scotland, using the crown jewels from his mother's ancestral
line in Poland to secure loans. Nothing was going to
stop Charles from acting. Even when he sent a nobleman
(12:48):
ahead of him to try to raise as much Scottish
support as he could, and then that nobleman was captured
and imprisoned, it wasn't going to deter Charles. In the
early summer of seventeen forty five, Charles set out with
two ships, a man of war called the Elizabeth and
a smaller sixteen gun privateer, but this too would prove
(13:12):
to be a challenging sea journey. A British ship, the Lion,
attacked the Elizabeth, and though Charles was luckily safely on
the smaller privateer, the Elizabeth had to return to port
for repairs, taking a lot of Charles's.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Artillery with it.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
But still Charles made it to Scotland, and though the
reception he got from local clan leaders was slightly cooler
than he might have hoped for, given that they were
expecting him to show up with the force of France
behind him, he still managed to gather some support and
man power, especially after the public bravery of a young
(13:53):
nobleman pledging his loyalty named delightfully Ranald MacDonald. Charles, a
master of his personal brand, if not a master of logistics,
began taking Gaelic lessons and support slowly consolidated, especially as
he and his troops made some progress against British dragoons.
(14:16):
When Charles entered Edinburgh, it was with twenty four hundred
men he defeated the British forces led by Sir John
Cope at the Battle of Preston Pans. Charles fighting alongside
his men on the front lines, and morale was finally
booying in his favor. Charles spent five weeks hold up
(14:38):
at Holyrood Palace near Edinburgh, waiting for reinforcements and organizing
his counselors into a formal advisory group. He issued declarations
against the British Parliament, calling it an unlawful assembly. Really, remember,
Charles's main goal here was to take back the throne
(14:59):
that he thinks belongs to his father, which means going
to England to claim it. You've got to drive out
the sitting monarchy in England for that to happen. But
among Charles's counselors in Scotland, plenty of them were content
enough to leave well Enough alone at least for the
time being, and just stay put in Scotland with their
(15:23):
consolidating power. It's a mentality sometimes referred to as quote
Fortress Scotland. Ultimately, it wasn't that great of a long
term strategy, given the fact that England has vast reserves
of money and a Royal Navy at its disposal to
implement a blockade. It was winner takes all, and marching
(15:46):
on London was the best way to win. But Charles
wasn't going to make these decisions unilaterally. He put it
up for a vote in his council, either march on
London or stay in Scotland, and it passed going to England,
albeit only with one vote. A force of about six
(16:10):
thousand men marched down to Carlisle, a city in England
in the Cumberland region. The city surrendered and Charles got
to ride high literally through the city on a white horse.
The Jacobite force should have been buoyed by optimism, but
the cracks were beginning to show. Despite early victories. By
(16:33):
the time the Jacobite force made it down to Derby,
people were losing confidence in Charles. Where were the English
Jacobites that were supposed to rise up and support them,
and for that matter, where were the French troops. Didn't
Charles promise them that French support would be coming. When pressed,
(16:55):
Charles was forced to admit, no, he doesn't actually have
any physical evidence of that commitment, and no, he hasn't
really been in touch per se with the English Jacobites
or French recently. Still, Charles wanted to continue down on
the march to London. His council insisted that despite the
(17:19):
fact that they haven't lost a battle, they need to
retreat and march back to Scotland, and so, with no
other choice, Charles acquiesced to his advisors and the Scottish
invasion force marched home. It's one of the great ironnees
of history that actually, at the time London was astonishingly undefended.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
It was defended at.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
That time only by about two thousand regulars, and had
Charles and his men marched down there probably wouldn't have
been enough time for British reinforcements to come in. If
if Charles and his men had done what Charles had
wanted and they had pressed ahead, would they have been
able to take London. It's extremely plausible, but of course
(18:11):
they didn't have that intelligence at the time to know
how undefended London was, and what ifs don't matter when
it comes to things that actually happened. Charles, now glum
and feeling powerless and a little humiliated, drank and idled
his way through the retreat. At Bannockburn, he fell ill
(18:35):
and for a week and a half he was nursed
by a woman named Clementine Walkinshaw. Ironically, she was named
after Charles's mother. In a slightly edible twist, she would
become Charles's mistress. From that point, the fire of Charles's
motivation began to slowly fade. His commanders told him that
(18:57):
there was a massive desertion rate among his army, and
so they retreated, although Charles will later discover that there
weren't as many desertions as were reported to him. Charles
feels like his council is cowardly and that they lack
his conviction.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
He and his.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Supporters will try to sieze Stirling Castle, which is ultimately
a failure, and move north. The last town they ever
occupy is Inverness, and from there they would face the
battle that has lived in infamy as the failure that
puts an end to this entire uprising, the Battle of Clawden.
(19:39):
As with any important historical battle, plenty of people have
written about the mistakes Charles made and things he could
have done differently. One big mistake was fighting on slow, boggy,
flat ground, which allowed the British clear lines of fire
and made the Jacobites soldiers slow on their charge. The
(20:03):
Jacobites also had waited a while before their first charge,
hoping the British would attack first, and that probably wasn't
a great move. Given that the British could just fire
artillery at them, it really wasn't too damaging, although two
of Charles's messengers did get decapitated by cannonballs one after another,
(20:27):
which probably wasn't great for morale. By the time the
Jacobites advanced, Charles almost certainly knew that it was pretty
much a lost cause. Another podcast or any number of
history books can give you an incredibly detailed play by
play of exactly how the bloody battle came to be,
(20:50):
but just know the basics. The messy Jacobite charge was
thinned by British canister shot, and then the British troops
closed in and sealed the deal. Charles gave a save
yourself if you can order to his supporters, and though
he tried to stay on the field and keep fighting,
(21:12):
he was ultimately pulled away by his officers, who managed
to get him to safety. Well safety for the time being.
Charles was a wanted man, a very wanted man, and
British troops were scouring Scotland trying to find him.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Charles needed to get away and quickly. There was a reward.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
For any Highlander who would turn him in thirty thousand pounds.
Who could he trust? Where could he go? This brings
us to Flora MacDonald. Though you might have expected a
heroine of the Jacobite rebellion to be Catholic, Flora's family
was actually part of the Protestant minority of the area
(21:58):
in Scotland where she lived. Her father had died when
she was a baby, and her stepfather, Hugh, worked as
basically a civil servant on behalf of the British government,
but he was also a Jacobite sympathizer, empathizing with the
romantic struggle of a valiant prince trying to evade capture.
(22:19):
The British were closing in on Charles when Hugh emerged
with an idea. Charles could sail off to the Isle
of Sky, the Scottish island to the northwest of the mainland.
How would he do it, well, Hugh said the Prince
could sail with his stepdaughter Flora, posing as her servant.
(22:40):
Flora was twenty four years old at this point, and
her stepfather had just volunteered her for an incredibly dangerous job.
When Flora first heard the plan, she was a little reluctant,
not because she was scared of danger, but because although
she was engaged, she was un married and she was
(23:01):
worried that it would be indecent for her to be
traveling with a man. Flora didn't really see what she
was doing as a grand act of Jacobite rebellion. She
said she helped Charles because.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
He was a human being in need.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Years later, she would tell Frederick, the Prince of Wales,
that she would have done the same for him because
of Hugh's position in the local government. He was able
to get the appropriate papers for Flora and for quote
Betty Burke, Flora's female servant and Irish seamstress. It was
(23:36):
a pretty risky gambit, given that Charles was a fairly
tall man with a stature that did not immediately read female,
but the disguise served its purpose well enough. The pair
landed at Trotternish and made their way to the house
of their contact, Lady Margaret MacDonald, only to find something terrifying.
(24:00):
She just happened to be entertaining a military officer in
her house who.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Just stopped by.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Flora proved herself to be not only brave, but also
excellent under pressure. Flora kept the officer occupied while Charles
could get to safety. Few days later, Charles and Flora
made it to the city of Portry on Sky, where
they said there goodbye. Charles's escape would have a few
(24:30):
more twists and turns before he eventually sailed to safety
in France, once again disguised as a lady. Charles would
sail back to the mainland and then back to Sky
to evade capture, and at one point, while hiding in
the hills around Glenfinnon. He fell off a cliff and
only managed to survive because he was hanging onto a bush.
(24:52):
Flora would be captured for her role in helping a trader.
She was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London,
but it would be an incredibly brief captivity. Almost immediately
she was allowed to live outside the tower under supervision,
and then she was fully released after the Act of
(25:13):
Indemnity in June seventeen forty seven. Fascinatingly, despite the fact
that she had aided the Jacobite rebellion, Flora became something
of a causalleb among the well to do in London. Aristocrats,
enchanted by the story of a young woman's bravery, raised
(25:33):
over fifteen hundred pounds for her, a group of aristocrats
which actually included Frederick, the Prince of Wales, remember a
royal whom Charles had been trying to overthrow. By the
Victorian era, Flora MacDonald as a figure became woven into
a romanticized ideal of Scotland, along with Mary, Queen of Scotts,
(25:59):
and the Banni Prince Charlie himself.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
She was a piece of folklore by that point.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Almost there's a Scottish Highland dance called Flora MacDonald's Fancy,
and a statue of her at Inverness Castle, which was
erected in eighteen ninety nine.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
The Victorian era.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Flora is a part of a story of heroic underdogs
set among sweeping green glens. Not to be too cynical,
but for the English it's easier to romanticize the rebels
who rose up against them when those figures are safely
in the past, posing no real threats to their status quo.
(26:41):
An Englishman could read a book or poem about Flora MacDonald,
pat himself on the back for appreciating how stirring her
small moment of history was in beautiful, windswept Scotland, and
then continue on enjoying the cultural hegemony of England. Flora
never saw Charles again in her lifetime, although it's sometimes
(27:04):
said that before they parted ways in portrait, he gave
her a locket with his image.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
If he did.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
I like to imagine her looking at it, a memento
of a moment of youthful bravery on the national stage,
holding it in her hand to remind herself during the
drudgery of everyday life. The decades to come that on occasion,
circumstance might call upon you to become a romantic heroine.
(27:35):
That's the story of Bonnie Prince Charlie's Escape to Sky.
But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear
about Flora MacDonald's incredibly eventful life after Charles. At the
time of Flora's brave boat trip, she was engaged to
(27:57):
a man named Alan McDonald, who, like her stepfather, also
served the British. After the rigmarole, with Charles settled down,
Alan and Flora moved to Anson County, North Carolina. It's
a little ironic given that Flora is most famous for
an act abetting one of history's major rebellions against the British.
(28:18):
But when the American Revolutionary War broke out, her husband
was fighting on the side of the British. It didn't
turn out well for Flora and Alan. Alan was captured
and kept as a prisoner for eighteen months, and as loyalists,
their property was confiscated. Alan would move with Flora to
Nova Scotia, then as the commander of a regiment, but
(28:41):
after his service they found that the harsh Winters didn't
agree with them.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
After all, of.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
That, Alan and Flora sailed back across the ocean again,
back to sky, where Flora stayed for the rest of
her life. She's buried there now in Kilmore Cemetery, a
fitting end after a lot of global travel, to spend
eternity in the place of which she became an indelible symbol.
(29:19):
Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and
Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me
Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick,
Courtney Sender, Amy Hit and Julia Milaney. The show is
edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producerrima Ill
(29:42):
Kali and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Dana Schwartz
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