Broadside ballad entitled 'Flora's Lament for her Charlie'

Commentary

Verse 1 begins: 'It's yon bonny banks, and yon bonny braes, / Where sun shines bright and bonny'. It was published by Robert MacIntosh of 96 King Street, Calton, Glasgow. Above the title a woodcut of clipper ship has been included.

Flora MacDonald, born on South Uist in 1722, is now the most famous heroine of the Jacobite cause and one of its most romantic stories. Bonnie Prince Charlie was fleeing Scotland after his Culloden defeat. When the situation became perilous on the Isle of Skye, Flora was persuaded to participate in her foster-father, Clanranald's, plan to help Charles' escape. After this she was tracked and was imprisoned by the Hanoverians and she spent a year in the tower of London. She was eventually released in 1747 and died in 1790.

Broadsides are single sheets of paper, printed on one side, to be read unfolded. They carried public information such as proclamations as well as ballads and news of the day. Cheaply available, they were sold on the streets by pedlars and chapmen. Broadsides offer a valuable insight into many aspects of the society they were published in, and the National Library of Scotland holds over 250,000 of them.

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