The battle of Loch-nan-Uamh – the most serious naval clash of the ’45 – did at least buy Charles Edward some time. Cumberland was convinced that his cousin and rival had made good his escape in the two French privateers, along with Elcho, Perth and the rest.113 Just to be sure, he strengthened the naval patrols in the western isles. The battle-hardened trio of Greyhound, Terror and Baltimore, having repaired the damage sustained in Loch-nan-Uamh, were joined by powerful reinforcements: HMS Furnace (under Captain Fergusson), HMS Scarborough and Glasgow and three sloops: the Raven, Trial and Happy Janet.114 Cumberland now had nine ships of the Royal Navy to scour the Scottish coast. Most of their captains were of the Hawley stamp and as such recommended themselves to ‘the Butcher’. The names of Lockhart, Ancram, Scott and Fergusson were soon to join the roll of dishonour.115 Captain Fergusson showed how he meant to go on by burning down the house in Arisaig where the prince had lodged, together with a couple of neighbouring villages.116
It was this naval pressure that finally brought the prince’s peaceful sojourn at Corradale to an end. Learning that troops had landed on the Long Island and threatened to hem them in, Charles decided that his hideout could not remain secure much longer.117 He particularly feared the pincer movement of the Skye chiefs’ men on South Uist and Fergusson on Eigg.118 It was time to depart.
In the days to come the prince was to look back on his time at Corradale as a halcyon period. It was as well that he had no inkling of what was to come. He had been tired and hungry already during his flight. He was now to face new privations and to end up fighting for his life.
20
Over the Sea to Skye
(June–July 1746)
HEARING THAT THE enemy were on Barra in force, the prince and his companions sailed in the opposite direction. They held on in a northerly direction and came to the island of Ouia (or Wiay), to the south-east of Benbecula.1 Here they huddled for three days while the searching cruisers zigzagged the Little Minch around them.
It was as well for the prince that Cumberland’s bloodhounds knew only that he was somewhere on the islands. At this stage they could not even be certain he was on the Long Island. Playing a hunch, Commodore Thomas Smith, Royal Navy Commander in Chief in Scottish waters, sailed the Furnace, Terror, Trial and a number of other ships to St Kilda. On that desolate rock they found no prince, only some benighted islanders, to whom Europe’s wars were as remote as the Roman Empire to the Chinese. The bewildered people knew only that the laird of Macleod had been at war with ‘a great woman abroad’ and had been victorious.2
After three days of indecision, the prince crossed to Rossinish with O’Neill.3 But things were no better there. Militiamen in boats were scouring the shores and coves while their comrades combed the hills above.4 After three more anxious nights, O’Sullivan and Donald Macleod came over from Ouia to Rossinish beach in the boat. The prince had more bad news to give them. There was a very strong rumour that 5,000 Frenchmen had landed in Caithness; alas, further investigation had shown it to be untrue.5 There was also a false report that the Brest fleet was heading for Scotland; in fact its destination was Louisbourg in north America.6 After a hurried consultation, they decided to return to Corradale, reckoning that by now it would have been searched.7
On their way south a violent storm blew up. They were forced to scramble ashore at Ushinish Point, a couple of miles north of Corradale.8 They found refuge a little north of here, in a cleft of a rock at Acarseil Falaich.9 In this niche they were pelted with rain, but dared not stir, since patrolling warships were constantly passing to and fro.10 A break in the bad weather enabled them to get to Kyle Stuleg.11 It was night-time when they arrived. Neal MacEachain aroused a known Jacobite family and brought back butter, cheese and brandy for the prince. Charles was all in. ‘Come,’ he said wearily, ‘give me one of the bottles and a piece of bread, for I was never so hungry since I was born.’12 After the improvised supper, they finished off the remaining brandy and fell into a sound sleep.
On 15 June they stayed hidden during the day and sailed for Loch Boisdale at night, in hopes of getting assistance from MacDonald of Boisdale. They soon discovered that he had been taken prisoner.13 Moreover, there were now fifteen enemy sail around Loch Boisdale and parties of militiamen in the neighbourhood. They entered a creek and camouflaged themselves among the rocks. The prince lay down inside the boat and a canvas was stretched over it.14 So he spent the day of 16 June. At night they finally entered Loch Boisdale and took shelter in an old tower ‘in the mouth of the island’.15
The game of cat and mouse was now on in earnest. General Campbell of Mamore, whom Commodore Smith had sent to St Kilda, returned with his forces, straddling the area from Barra to South Uist.16 Fergusson meanwhile was preparing to scour the island from north to south. For a while the prince and his comrades tacked to and fro in the little boat, backwards and forwards to Loch Boisdale.17 Since the enemy warships were far out to sea, and the smaller craft were farther inland, Charles was able for a while to cross the loch mouth unobserved.
But this tactic of manoeuvring, waiting for a chance to break out, brought him close to disaster. As they came in to land, the party was met by a wildly gesticulating Highlander, who told them the enemy was approaching. They backed water rapidly and got under way just as a party of militiamen came over the skyline, heading for the exact spot where they had tried to land.18
Further information about Boisdale’s arrest at his home now came through via the network of Jacobite sympathisers strung along the prince’s trail. The problem was that Boisdale was one of the principal organisers of this royal chain. His capture was a grievous blow, for it meant there was now no hope of remaining on the Long Isle. The heart of the Jacobite underground movement on South Uist had been cut out.19 In a panic, the crew holed the boat and sank it. Begging only the sails from them, the prince dismissed them, with orders to meet him with another boat at the most northerly part of the island.
The prince and his companions skulked up and down the loch, sleeping in open fields at night, using the boat sails as shelter. In the daytime they would dart in and out of caves, dodging the militia patrols and living off the local bread which they all found nauseating.20 The area around Loch Boisdale was the wildest part of South Uist, barren and parched, rugged and rocky: ‘not a tree, not a dwelling place of any sort, not even a shepherd’s hut was to be seen. None of the necessities of life were forthcoming.’21
The prince was already in a dreadful physical condition. He described himself later as living ‘like a roe on moors and mountains’.22 The reality was grimmer. He could bear having his legs cut open with briars while he skulked, but found the clouds of midges intolerable. Drawn to his pale skin and reddish colour, the insects bade fair to eat him alive.23 The prince was unable to resist scratching at their bites; they became infected and flared up as boils and welts. Ever afterwards the prince bore scars from his encounter with the midges.
But there were worse perils than insects. The prince was in deadly danger now, with his living space becoming daily truncated as the Hanoverian net tightened. The last straw was the landing of Captain Caroline Scott – another of Cumberland’s desperadoes in military uniform24 – barely a mile from his hiding place. This was a moment of supreme jeopardy. Not surprisingly, there was further panic. The prince was convinced that he was surrounded.25 According to the stories of hostile critics, it was at this point that he contemplated surrender to General Campbell.26 This is unlikely. It does not square with the prince’s personality. Much more authentic-sounding is O’Sullivan’s tale that he refused to flee before he had packed up his meat supply and taken it with him – an echo of the obstinacy he habitually displayed over the artillery and baggage in the ’45 campaign itself.27
It is difficult to exaggerate the peril the prince found himself in. He could not escape by sea, Scott was on top of him, and Fergusson was combing the island. There were redcoats to the south and black-coated militiamen to the north. The prince decided to h
ead north, taking only O’Neill with him as companion and Neal MacEachain as guide. At first they would skirt the coast and risk being seen from the sea by the cruisers. Then they would strike inland, hoping to break through the cordon with the help of MacDonald sympathisers.28
Hugh MacDonald of Armadale, in command of the government militia in South Uist, was one of these secret sympathisers and had already engaged his stepdaughter Flora MacDonald to help the prince. In clandestine messages he had suggested to Charles Edward a possible means of escape to Skye.29 Hitherto the prince had not thought himself to be in grave enough danger to fall in with Armadale’s far-fetched proposal. Now it seemed to be his only chance.
The prince, O’Neill and MacEachain crossed the moor on the night of 21 June.30 At this time of year in the Hebrides there were no more than five hours of darkness. This night there was also a full moon. At Ormaclett, three miles from Milton, on the west side of South Uist, they came to a summer shieling where the twenty-three-year-old Flora MacDonald was waiting.31 The prince’s identity was revealed to her. She set a dish of cream before him on the table. Then O’Neill explained her stepfather’s plan to get the prince safely over to Skye. This involved his dressing up in women’s clothes and pretending to be Flora’s servant.32
It seems that Miss MacDonald was at first taken aback by the audacity of the scheme and declined to be involved. The prince won her round. Though the best efforts of romantic novelists have not been able to work up anything remotely sexual between Charles and Flora, it is clear that the famous magnetism once again did its work.33 With wit and charm the prince patiently explained the sheer plausibility of the idea. Flora already had a passport to go to Skye and she was known to be returning within days. The authorities would certainly become suspicious if she asked for a passport for a manservant to accompany her, but would not jib at a female attendant. Finally persuaded, Flora set out for the Atlantic shore of Benbecula to enlist the help of Lady Clanranald.34 The prince and his comrades meanwhile skulked on a hill three miles from Corradale.
The start of Flora MacDonald’s errand of mercy did not augur well for its future success. She and her servant were stopped at a ford by a militia patrol and detained until morning for questioning by the senior officer. Since she knew this was her stepfather, Flora kept her head and waited patiently for his arrival.35
When Hugh MacDonald came to the ford, he immediately released his stepdaughter and made out the necessary passports, one for MacEachain, the other for a maidservant called Betty Burke. Flora then continued her journey and reached Lady Clanranald’s. There she explained her mission. The two women set about preparing ‘Betty Burke’s’ clothes.36
The delay at the ford meant that the message Flora had promised to send the prince did not arrive. Charles Edward grew anxious. At eight o’clock on the evening of 22 June he sent MacEachain to find out what was going on.37 MacEachain was also detained at the ford and then released at MacDonald of Armadale’s orders.
As he lay concealed under a rock, the prince’s anxieties mounted. Finally MacEachain made contact with Flora. It was arranged that she would meet the prince at Rossinish.38 MacEachain returned to the hideout. A mightily relieved Charles Edward broke cover and came running to meet him.39
The prince had not, as he feared, been betrayed. But now he faced the prospect of getting to Rossinish across closely-guarded country, with a price of £30,000 on his head. A small fishing boat in Loch Skipport took the prince and his two companions back to Ouia. Finding no one there, they spent an uncomfortable night, then persuaded the fishermen to row them at first light across to the nearest point of Benbecula.40
Once landed, the prince and O’Neill fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. Neal MacEachain took a walk and found that they had been landed on a tidal island; there was an arm of the sea between them and the rest of Benbecula.41 In some alarm he went back to rouse the prince and give him the bad news. This provoked all Charles’s latent paranoia. He raged at the boatmen who, he claimed, had deliberately marooned him on a desert island to die of starvation.42
MacEachain calmed him down and offered to swim across and bring back a boat. At this moment they spotted a rock protruding from the middle of the water, indicating that it was possibly shallow there. Just as MacEachain began to take off his clothes ready for the swim, with rain pelting down on him, the tide began visibly to ebb. In less than three quarters of an hour it was possible for them to walk across to the main part of Benbecula without even wetting the soles of their shoes. It is indicative of Charles Edward’s state of mind that MacEachain describes him as being as pleased about his escape from the tidal island as if he had got clean away to France.43
They waited until nightfall before pressing on to Rossinish, taking temporary shelter in a hut, pushed to the extremes of hunger and tiredness.44 They got some milk and cheese from some of Clanranald’s tenants by telling them that they were Irish refugees from Culloden. The hut was singularly uncomfortable, so low and narrow that once again the prince had to creep into it on his belly.45
Once night came down, they started along the trail to Rossinish. The rain and wind were driving in their teeth, and they could see no more than three yards ahead. Charles himself lost his footing at almost every other step in some ditch or mire. He was forever losing his shoes in the boggy ground; the luckless MacEachain then had to fish them out.46
Their ordeal was not ended when they reached the rendezvous point around midnight. There was no sign of Flora and Lady Clanranald, but the countryside was stiff with militiamen. Again the prince raged at his bad luck. A cow-herd took pity on the dirty, bespattered figures and lodged them in his bothy a mile or so away. The prince sent O’Neill on to Nunton to find out what had happened to his two would-be female deliverers.47
At dawn they were rousted out by the cow-herd’s wife with news that the militiamen were coming to the bothy to buy milk. The day that followed was one of the worst in the prince’s life. All that morning he lay in the partial shelter of a rock, while the rain teemed on him and the midges gnawed at him. The prince emitted hideous cries of agony: ‘it is almost inexpressible what torment the Prince suffered under that unhappy rock which had neither height nor breadth to cover him from the rain which poured down on him so thick,’ MacEachain related.48
At the end of a long morning, the cow-herd’s child brought word that the militiamen had moved on. The prince returned to the bothy. A roaring peat fire was made up. The prince was stripped of his clothes, which were hung up to dry. His spirits revived as he sat down by the fire in his undershirt, ‘as merry and hearty as if he was in the best room at Whitehall’.49
The pitiful meal he now sat down to showed the prince in typical form: irascible, feeling victimised one minute, humorous and compassionate the next. The cow-herd’s wife set before him something she described as cream but was in fact scalding milk. In his voracious eagerness, the prince burnt his hand on the hot liquid. Charles jumped up angrily, berating the woman for a vile witch who had burned him deliberately. MacEachain, still unused to the violence of the prince’s mood swings, offered to paddle the woman with an oar that was lying handy. At this the compassion in Charles Edward at once surfaced, and he forbade MacEachain to do any such thing.50
While the prince slept on the floor in his plaid, a message arrived from O’Neill: rendezvous at Flora MacDonald’s house in North Uist.51 This plan was changed almost as soon as it was suggested because of the reluctance of her kinsman Baleshair.52 Impatiently the prince summoned O’Neill to him. He promised to come next day with Flora and Lady Clanranald.
On the morning of 27 June two MacDonalds arrived with a boat.53 The prince set out for Rossinish. That afternoon he finally met up with the two Jacobite ladies, escorted by O’Neill.54 In the bothy where he had stayed on his first night in the Long Island, the prince and the two young MacDonalds cooked hearts, liver and kidneys for their guests (also present were Lady Clanranald’s daughter Peggy and Flora’s brother Milton MacDonald).55
> Half-way through supper the alarming news came in that General Campbell had landed not far from Nunton with a force of 1,500 men. With him were Captains Scott and Fergusson. The supper party fled to the boats in great confusion. Crossing Loch Uskavagh, they finished their meal at sunrise in another bothy.56 At 8 a.m. Lady Clanranald went home to face the wrath of General Campbell.57 Shortly afterwards she and her husband were arrested for harbouring ‘the Pretender’s son’.58
In the bothy on Loch Uskavagh, O’Neill – whose conduct had not been entirely pleasing to the prince – finally got his marching orders.59 Flora’s passport specified one manservant only. Since MacEachain knew Gaelic and O’Neill did not, the Irishman was the obvious choice to be dropped from the party.60 Charles Edward went through the motions of pleading O’Neill’s case, but Flora, who had apparently been the object of some effusive Irish gallantry, was adamant. O’Neill departed with the intention of rejoining the prince in Skye. In circumstances not entirely easy to follow, he fell into the hands of the brutal Fergusson. Lucky to escape a flogging at the barbarous captain’s hands, O’Neill was taken prisoner to Edinburgh Castle.61
The party that departed for the legendary passage ‘over the sea to Skye’ thus consisted of the prince, Flora MacDonald and Neal MacEachain.62 The prince donned his ‘Betty Burke’ disguise before they pushed off into the Minch. Stripping to his breeches, he put on a light-coloured quilted petticoat, a calico gown and a mantle of dull camlet, together with suitable shoes and stockings and a whig and cap to cover his entire head and face.63 He wanted to carry a pistol under his petticoat, but Flora objected. If he was searched, such a weapon would give him away. To which the prince replied in high spirits: ‘Indeed, Miss, if we shall happen with any that will go so narrowly to work in searching me as what you mean, they will certainly discover me at any rate.’64
Bonnie Prince Charlie: Charles Edward Stuart (Pimlico) Page 37
