Essay on Flora MacDonald (part 2)

Flora MacDonald inspired songs, dances and legends, but was she really all she was ‘cracked up’ to be? Her love for life and others is certainly something that every person should admire. Also, it takes great courage to stand up for what one believes. I think that Flora does live up to her legend because she did what she felt was right without worrying about what others might do or say.

   When Flora MacDonald was very young, her father died and her mother remarried. In this remarriage, her mother was a bride abductee. Abducting brides usually refers to a man marrying secretly because his character or social status prohibits him from an open, legal wedding. In such cases the bride may be willing to marry and this is called eloping, or she may not be willing in which case it is called kidnapping. This custom was also adopted by lower classes that wished to marry but could not pay a bride price. The bride price was to be paid by the man wishing to marry to the girl’s family. This custom is slightly different than the dowry wherein a father lays aside money to pay his daughter and new son in law. In all likelihood, Flora MacDonald’s mother, Marion, and stepfather, Hugh, wanted to be married, but Hugh MacDonald didn’t have the money to pay the bride price.

   Bonnie Prince Charlie has been called The Pretender by the British, but this title was not unique to him. His father, James Stuart III, was also called The Pretender in the first wave of uprisings in 1715. After the advent of Prince Charles, however, James III was renamed The Old Pretender. The most likely explanation for this nickname was that many people believed that James III was not James II’s true son but an exchange made after James II’s real son was stillborn. James III’s two older half sisters, Mary Hanover and Queen Anne, even held to this view. Mary and Anne had reason to fear that their father, James II, was trying to reinstate a Catholic monarchy, for both were sympathetic to the Protestants.

   Flora MacDonald had a great impact on the people that she met. Many songs and poems have been written exemplifying her devotion and courage. She even inspired Samuel Johnson, the famous English writer, to such an extent that he paid the tribute that in engraved on her memorial at Kilmuir. Flora MacDonald has inspired me to positively impact every person that I come across.