United States History - Southern Region, British History - Scotland, United States History - 18th Century - American Revolution, Women's Biography, Historical Biography - Britain, Historical Biography - United States, Women's Biography, United States Hist

Flora Macdonald : The Most Loyal Rebel

Name: Flora Macdonald : The Most Loyal Rebel
Author: Hugh Douglas
ISBN: 9780750920988

by Hugh Douglas

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Overview

Flora MacDonald never sought the fame that her contemporaries and history bestowed on her. She seldom spoke of the journey over the sea to Skye with Bonnie Prince Charlie and rarely used her popularity to benefit herself during her hard life. Because of this reticence and the fact that she and her husband lost everything in North Carolina during the American War of Independence, it is difficult to write a conventional biography of her. Little was recorded of the appalling suffering of women and children during this bitter war and its aftermath, despite their hardships being much worse than that of the men who were directly involved in it. Flora endured as much as anyone, but she suffered it in silence. As a result her biographers have either ignored this period or glossed over it, but Hugh Douglas has carried out research in Scotland, North Carolina and Nova Scotia to build up a picture of these "lost years". Consequently, this book is at once a biography, a social history and a detective story which is a tribute to a clan and a remarkable family within that clan.

Synopsis

Flora MacDonald's voyage over the sea to Skye with the fugitive Bonnie Prince Charlie dressed as her maid made her into an instant heroine and the subject of legend and song. The world admired her bravery, but after she returned to Skye, she and her new husband, Allan, met with evby and financial disaster. They emigrated to Carolina, but hardly settled there when the American War of Independence broke out - and again they found themselves on the losing side. Allan was taken prisoner and Flora had to defend herself alone against a hostile community.