 The text of the song gives an account of how Bonnie Prince Charlie, disguised as a serving maid, escaped in a small boat after the defeat of his Jacobite rising of 1745, with the aid of Flora MacDonald.The song draws on the motifs of Jacobitism although it was composed nearly a century and a half after the episode it describes.It is often supposed that it describes Charles's flight from the mainland, but this is unhistorical.