News and Events
Wednesday, May 17, 2023 at 4 PM (ET)
Flora Macdonald: Scottish Heroine, American Loyalist and My Namesake, by Flora Fraser
Hosted by ESU Chairman, Dr. Quinn Peeper
Join our next ESU Happy Hour on Wednesday, May 17, 2023 at 4:00 pm ET hosted by ESU Chairman Dr. Quinn Peeper. Dr. Peeper will be introducing Flora Fraser, a historical biographer specializing in 18th-century women. Fraser invites you to raise a Highland Whisky or whisky-less sour to Scottish heroine, Flora Macdonald, the subject of her latest book.
The author grew up in the Highlands and was named, like many there, after this Scottish heroine. When Bonnie Prince Charlie was a fugitive in the Western Isles in 1746 after the disastrous defeat of his Jacobite army at Culloden, Flora Macdonald and he escaped from Hanoverian redcoats "O'er the sea to Skye". Author Flora Fraser will share with you, historical images of the Stuart prince dressed as Flora's Irish maidservant and of the heroine herself, painted by leading London artists.
Flora Fraser will also trace how, when a prisoner in London, her namesake's charm dazzled her captors and accounts of Miss Macdonald's humanity to the Prince in the heather ensuring her lasting celebrity. When she was released and married another Macdonald on Skye, Dr. Johnson, and James Boswell, among others, came calling to have the pleasure of hearing Flora's story from her own lips.
Economic hardship, however, drove Flora Macdonald and her family, with other Highlanders, to emigrate to North Carolina in 1774. Upon the outbreak of the American Revolution, Flora's husband and sons, like other recent Scots immigrants, signed up for the Crown, as Flora Fraser will show, with disastrous results. But Flora Macdonald met this latest adversity with determination too.
Flora Macdonald's fame justly endures to this day, in poetry, song and dance, in Outlander, and on Walker's shortbread biscuit tins. She was not born into wealth or great rank, nor did she have a superior education. Nevertheless, she managed to negotiate civil war on either side of the Atlantic and receive, in her final years on Skye, a Royal pension from a Hanoverian prince too! Flora Fraser hopes you will enjoy surveying with her this remarkable life.
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Flora Fraser is a historical biographer, based in London, specializing in archival research on women of the eighteenth century in Europe and in America. Her books include Beloved Emma: The Life of Emma, Lady Hamilton, The Unruly Queen: The Life of Queen Caroline, Princesses: The Daughters of George III, and Venus of Empire: The Life of Pauline Bonaparte. Her recent book, The Washingtons: George and Martha, won the 2016 George Washington Book Prize. Her new life of Scottish heroine, Flora Macdonald is available in the UK as Flora Macdonald 'Pretty Young Rebel' (Bloomsbury) and in the US as Flora Macdonald: "Pretty Young Rebel": Her Life and Story (Knopf). |
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Signature Drink:
Flora Fraser's Highland Whisky Sour - and Whisky less Sour!
One Highland Whisky Sour. And a Refill!:
Ingredients
- 50ml (1.7 oz) Scotch whisky – single malt if possible; I favor
- Bell's, from Blair Athol, and Glenmorangie, from Ross-shire
- 30ml (1 oz) lemon juice
- 15ml (1/2 oz) Canadian maple syrup
- 1 egg white
Directions
- Shake all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice till shaker is very cold.
- Strain contents of shaker including ice through a fine mesh sieve into a pitcher/jug.
- Discard sieve contents.
- Pour liquid in pitcher/jug back into cocktail shaker.
- Shake.
- Add ice to old-fashioned tumbler.
- Pour cocktail shaker contents over ice
Voila! One Highland Whisky Sour. And a Refill!
One Highland Whiskyless Sour. And a Refill!
Ingredients
- 50 ml (1.7 oz) previously brewed and strained Assam or other
- black tea – loose tea or tea bags
- ½ tsp of vanilla extract.
- 15ml (1/2 oz) Canadian maple syrup
- 1 egg white
Directions (as for Highland Whiskey Sour)
- Shake all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice till shaker is very cold.
- Strain contents of shaker including ice through a fine mesh sieve into a pitcher/jug.
- Discard sieve contents.
- Pour liquid in pitcher/jug back into cocktail shaker.
- Shake.
- Add ice to old-fashioned tumbler.
- Pour cocktail shaker contents over ice
Voila! One Highland Whisky Sour. And a Refill!