#daring escape

The largest prison break in history: 1971 Montevideo

"On September 6, 1971, more than 100 members of the Tupamaros, the Uruguayan urban guerrilla group, carried out the largest prison break in history. This is episode 65 of Stories of Resistance.

It’s past midnight on September 6, 1971. 

Across the prison, dozens of men slip out of their beds. Bricks slide out from the walls of their cells. Bodies slip out silently. They move into a tunnel that has been chiseled and dug slowly and silently for eight months, and they creep one by one underneath the prison.

It is the stuff of movies. Or of legends. Or of cartoons. The only sound is the ruffle of their prison uniforms and the occasional scrape of knees and hands on the ground.

A total of 111 men escape from the Punta Carretas prison that night. The prison break was known as “El Abuso.” The abuse. Because that’s exactly what the prison guards felt by the escape.

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~King of the Dragonfish: Chapter 18~

Obi-Wan wakes himself up with a powerful sneeze. He groans, long and low. The sudden jerk of it sends a flash headache searing through his skull like a forest fire. As the pain fades, he realizes that everything aches, and his respiratory system feels scratchy from the back of his throat down into his chest.

Oh bother. He's caught a bug, one potent enough to overcome a jedi's natural immunity to illness. Or, equally likely, he's just that worn down.

The only good part of waking, relatively speaking, is that he's alone and somehow… on a mattress..?

Obi-Wan rolls his head to look at the situation. His vision lags behind the turn of his eyes, making him nauseous, and moving makes his scalp flare in warning. He closes his eyes and breathes for a moment, drawing the force to him in the same way a weaver might run their fingers through freshly sheared wool. It flows through him, and begins bolstering his body against the sickness.

"Compared with what, mister?"

On March 5th 1790, Flora MacDonald, the Jacobite heroine, died.

Flora is still one of the most romanticise figures in Scottish history, much has been written about her helping Charles Edward Stuart after his escape from Culloden when he was the most hunted man in Scotland.

Flora Macdonald was born at Milton, on South Uist, where you can still see the ruins of her childhood home. She grew up in the household of the chief of the Macdonalds of Clanranald, who firmly supported the Jacobite cause. When Bonnie Prince Charlie escaped following the Battle of Culloden in 1746 he went into hiding, depending on supporters to shelter him and hide him from his Hanoverian pursuers led by the Duke of Cumberland. At length, he arrived on the island of Benbecula, where it was decided that he should move on to Skye.

The island was under travel restrictions, and the prince could not take the risk of being spotted. A Jacobite supporter and distant kinsman named Captain Conn O'Neill asked Flora to help Charles escape. Macdonald herself did not support the Jacobite cause, but she was moved by the plight of the Jacobites after the Battle of Culloden, and at length she agreed. She later said that she acted from charity, and would have helped the Duke of Cumberland had she found him in a similar situation.

She obtained permission from Hugh Macdonald, commander of the local militia and her stepfather, to leave Benbecula. She was allowed to take two servants, and a crew of six sailors. Bonnie Prince Charlie was dressed as an Irish spinning maid named Betty Burke, and in that guise he sailed with Flora to Skye on 27 June 1746.

Unlike the scene made famous in the popular ‘Skye Boat Song’, the Prince did not leave baffled foes standing on the shore, and managed to make the crossing unchallenged. From Skye, he made his way at length to Moidart, where he boarded a French ship and escaped to refuge in Europe.

When Flora Macdonald’s role in the escape came to light she was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Though she had committed treason by helping Bonnie Prince Charlie, the public, even staunch Hanoverians, regarded her as a heroic figure, primarily because she was a woman, I have little doubt if it had been a man that helped the Prince in a similar way, he would have been executed.

She was released from the Tower in 1747. She married Allan Macdonald of Kingsburgh in 1750 and settled at Flodigarry on Skye, where she raised a family. In 1774 the couple and their 5 children emigrated to North Carolina. Her husband Alexander joined a regiment of Royal Highland Emigrants in the American War of Independence, where he was captured. He was released in an exchange of prisoners and took up a command in Nova Scotia.

In 1779 Macdonald returned to Scotland, braving an attack by privateers on the way, and settled on Skye where her husband joined her after the war was over. She died in at Kingsburgh in 1790 and was buried in the graveyard beside the 16th-century church at Kilmuir. Tradition says that she was buried in a shroud made from a bed-sheet used by Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Given her popularity as a Jacobite heroine, it is not surprising that a large memorial was erected by her grave, which became a popular destination for tourists. The original monument to Macdonald was destroyed in a gale in 1871. It was replaced by a new memorial designed by Alexander Ross in 1880. Ross’s design includes a 28 foot high Celtic Cross of granite, rising above a slender rectangular chest tomb, also of granite. A marble plaque was added in 1922.

The epitaph reads, 'Her name will be mentioned in history and if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour’. It was written by Dr Samuel Johnson of dictionary fame, who met her during his famous tour of the Hebrides with James Boswell.

In 1884, just 4 years after the monument was erected, the Skye Boat Song was published, and the popular ballad ensured that Macdonald’s fame would not fade.

Here is a less well known song about not just Flora by Brian McNeill, you can tell through the song that Brian has not got a high opinion of the Prince, but holds Flora in the highest esteem as a strong woman.

Pics are of Flora’s grave and the statue of the lady herself at Inverness Castle that I took in 2014.

There’s a moment of your story That has always haunted me When you set out in yon open boat To help the poor man flee Was Charlie Stuart’s future Already plain to see Did you know he’d be a waster on his days

If you did, I’d give the world to find A single tear you cried From the Cuillins tae the Carolinas You showed us one and all The courage you could call From the tears that would not fall From your eyes

And after thirty years After all that you’d been through us been marriede haven’ been a Just a memory to rue As you watched your husband putting on His coat of scarlet hue To go and fight for German Geordie’s crown

But you never tried to hide behind The dreams of days gone by From the Cuillins tae the Carolinas You showed us one and all The courage you could call From the tears that would not fall From your eyes

And there’s times I think I see you When I find that kind of face When a woman’s independence Has kept a woman’s grace Where confidence and pride Refuse to know their place Or hide behind the easy tricks of beauty

For to me your lights are like the chimes Across the stormy skies From the Cuillins tae the Carolinas You showed us one and all The courage you could call From the tears that would not fall From your eyes

It's official! The preorder for Rebels and Queens is live on the Zon. The eBook is set to release on August 8th, 2023 and the paperback will release some time in September.

It’s official! The preorder for Rebels and Queens is live on the Zon. The eBook is set to release on August 8th, 2023 and the paperback will release some time in September. (My family will be in the middle of a move during this time so I have no address to send a proof copy hence the delay on the paperback.) The eBook will be available for purchase but also available in Kindle Unlimited and all…

Deadly Escape Spanish dime, Máscara Negra (El Vengador) (Black Mask The Avenger) No. 35, circa 1925, "Desafiando a la muerte" (Challenging Death), anonymous, cover by Niel (Daniel Masgoumiery i Pena). "It was inevitable that before that accident the abyss loomed."

Britain's Outlaws: Highwaymen, Pirates and Rogues

Episode 3: Rogues' Gallery