A Year in Europe

by Walter W. Moore

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]

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.

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.

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.