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Flora MacDonald was probably the most well known female Jacobite of any time. Her name is still revered in Jacobite Society and she is looked upon with love and great affection for the part she played in Charles Edward Stuarts cause for truth and justice. She had been and ordinary Scottish woman asked to do an extraordinary task. Who could forget the stories of her escapades with the Prince in the heather and the comings and goings to Skye? What of the famous ‘Betty Burke' The Princes alter ego to see him safely away? Flora MacDonald was a truly remarkable young woman and a proud Jacobite.

John MacDonald was one of the last poets who wrote in the classical Gaelic. He had been a contemporary of Mary MacLeod. He was exceptionally good at descriptive work in his poems. He was famous for his piece about the battle of Inverlochy in which he attacked the Campbells for the deceitful way they had murdered the young MacDonald Chief. Much of MacDonalds type of terseness and economy of style would be lost to Gaelic Poetry at the start of the eighteenth century. He was a staunch supporter of the Jacobite Struggle for truth and wrote many works about this.

Rob Roy MacGregor, the name conjures up Highland warriors and great glens, a wee bit of sheep stealing and cattle rustling. Running through the heather and over the hills to freedom and another great adventure for the famous Rob Roy. What was the reality of Robert MacGregor's life to the romantic picture penned by the great writer Sir Walter Scott? Rob Roy was an outlaw and a thief, which was how Highlanders survived in those days. Rob Roy lived through the time when to be called MacGregor was a criminal offence and he was forced to change his name to Campbell, who were his nearest kin and neighbours. What kind of people would make a name illegal? Well that was the type of people Rob Roy dealt with on a daily basis.

People all over the world should be grateful to Charles Macintosh. Well people who live in a wet climate should be maybe a little more appreciative to this Scottish inventor. He was the man who with help from another inventor produced wet resistant clothing so that people could go about in our climate in comfort. The Scot had been trying to find uses for the waste products of the gasworks, where he worked which were now springing up in industrial Scotland .

Charles Rennie Mackintosh was born in Townhead Glasgow, and was one of eleven children His designs are known all over the world, and people are still drawn to Glasgow to see dazzling examples of this amazing Scottish architects work. There are still plenty of places in and around Glasgow where you can view Mackintoshes creations and some of them are still used on a daily basis.

Alexander MacKenzie was born in Stornaway in the Outer Hebrides off the North West coast of Scotland . He became a famous explorer and adventurer. The great MacKenzie River , which runs for a thousand miles through Canada was charted and used for fur trapping by this amazing Scotsman. He recorded every inch of its length from the ‘ Great Slave lake ' until it hits the Freezing waters of the Artic Ocean . After immigrating to North America, MacKenzie began his own trading company in the city of Montreal that later amalgamated with the North West Company to become a serious, and main rival to the Hudson's Bay Company, which up until that time had no competition worth bothering about. MacKenzie and his crew of twelve men started their great expedition in the year 1789; they set off in three small boats, and managed to set up trading post at Fort Chipewyan on Lake Athabasca .

Sir George Mackenzie, (Bloody MacKenzie) as he was known by the Covenanters who suffered torture and death at his hand. He had been born in the city of Dundee and educated at St. Andrews , Kings College , Aberdeen , and Bourges . He was a lawyer and became an advocate in the year 1659; He was also elected a Member of Parliament in 1669, and then went on to become Lord Advocate in 1677.

The very first true geological map of any part of North America and one of the earliest such maps compiled was the work of William MacLure. He was born in the town of Ayr on the west coast of Scotland, MacLure became very wealth when he set up and import/ export business. He had travelled to New York for a short time but soon returned home. After another brief stay in the United States of America , where he became an American citizen, he returned to Europe to indulge his new love of geology. MacLure wanted to travel throughout the continent to collect geological specimens from all over and textbooks on the subject.

Following service with the British army in India , North America , the West Indies and of course Europe , Lachlan MacQuarie who was born in Ulva, Argyll, was appointed Governor of New South Wales, Australia in the year 1809, He replaced the notorious William Bligh, of ‘Bounty' fame who had been overthrown by the New South Wales Corps. MacQuarie was very concerned with the rights of convicts, The Scotsman immediately began a program of public works construction and town planning, working closely with the Emancipists (freed convicts) whose cause he took up. The ex-convicts liked and respected him for he was the first person to show any concern for their plight.

Richard Maitland was an outstanding Scottish poet lawyer and Statesman. He had Jacobite tendencies and served both James V and the more famous Mary Queen of Scots, in several different capacities. Sir Richard Maitland was also known as Lord Lethington, and he lived to the ripe old age of ninety, which was remarkable in that time period. Sir Richard had unfortunately started to turn blind at the age of sixty one, but he kept himself busy as a Judge and with his penning and collecting of Scottish Poetry. People tended to call him “Manly Maitland” and in the year 1828 there was a club founded in appreciation of this great Scottish poet, and to promote the poetry and literature that Maitland himself had written

William Maitland was another person who was known as “Of Lethington” He was a staunch supporter of the Jacobite struggle for truth and right and supported Mary Queen of Scots to regain her stolen crown. He was always loyal to Mary but sometimes would go against he wishes if he thought it was for her own good. His main ambition was to have Mary replace Elizabeth on the throne.

William Murray Mansfield is from the famous town of Scone near Perth in Scotland . This place was the town where Kings were made. The famous Stone of Scone which the English King Edward I, thought he stole many years ago and which was returned recently, was used to crown the monarchy of Scotland . Mansfield was Chief Justice of the Kings bench in the years 1756 -1788.

John Erskine Mar, there are few more illustrious names in the annuls of Scottish history. The family of Mar have held the title Earl of Mar from the mid sixteenth century. This John Mar was to play his part in the downfall of Mary Queen of Scots in favour of her son James VI of Scotland , First of England, who in the year 1603, was to become King of Great Britain.

John Erskine took over from his father as guardian to the young James VI in the year 1578. He had grown up with the child King in Stirling Castle and the two knew each other very well. John mar felt that he was facing a challenge in his influence to the King and so he moved James to Ruthven castle near Kingussie, but unfortunately for John Mar, James escaped and it was John, who had to go into hiding, eventually running to England and the court of Elizabeth the first. It was known that the young King missed his childhood friend and in the year 1585 John Mar returned to Scotland and his old friend James VI. He was appointed one of his royal ministers and guardian to his own son, Prince Henry. James VI of Scotland First of England eventually succeeded Elizabeth to the throne of Great Britain .

John Erskine mar became known as ‘ Bobbing John' because of his frequent changes of allegiance to the differing political parties at the time. He carries a very prestigious name in Scottish history, but unfortunately for his family and for Scotland he was not a great ambassador for the name Mar. He had supported the ‘Old Pretender' and had fought at the battle of Sheriffmuir, but had been easily defeated by John Campbell, Duke of Argyll and opposition to the rightful rulers of Scotland , in the year 1715. He was at the least not a traitor to the Jacobite King as were a few other Scottish Clans. When the struggle for truth and right collapsed for that time period, Bobbing John, headed back to France , but alas his intrigue and double dealing saw him fall out with the court of James, and he was banished from it forever.

The infant Queen Margaret was the last ruler of the house of Dunkeld. Scotland had been in turmoil with the death of Alexander III, and was left without an obvious heir. Margaret after some lies about being also pregnant from her Step-grandmother Yolande, the infant grand daughter of Alexander III, was now Queen of Scots, with a regency of six people. She had some powerful opposition in the form of two great Scots namely John Baliol, and the most famous of Scotland 's freedom fighters Robert the Bruce. The Scottish nobles watched the prancing and parading of Balliol and the Bruce, and decided that they would try to avoid a civil war by asking Edward I of England to mediate. This suited the shrewd and evil Edward and he gladly done their bidding constructing the ‘Treaty of Brigham' which promised the Queen in marriage to his son Edward and that also Scotland during all this would remain independent.

Mary is the most famous woman ever to come out of Scotland , and is a major part of Scotland's history. Who does not know the story of the Queen of Scots? Mary was an enigma, a woman of many passions and a heroine to most. She cuts a tragic figure through the portals of time and people can still feel the sadness of Mary when they visit certain places she frequented. The historical question which will be asked forever is; did Mary kill her Husband? Nobody will ever truthfully be able to answer that. In her lifetime George Buchanan would hound her about the murder right up until the time of her execution. Mary had been born at Linlithgow Palace in 1582; she was daughter to James V, and became Queen when she was six days old because her father had died. During this time known as ‘The Rough Wooing' it was thought prudent to send Mary to France for safety.

Perhaps the name of John McAdam is as well-known throughout most of the world as any other Scot, for he was the inventor of the road surface named after him. After returning to Scotland in the year 1783 from New York City , where he had made a considerable fortune employed by his uncle who was a merchant in that city, McAdam bought an estate at Sauhrie, Ayrshire. He was to become a road trustee for his district and on surveying all the roads , he decided that everyone of them needed repair as they were in a dangerous state. He started experimenting with various elements to see what he could develop.
In 1798, McAdam went to live in Cornwall where a government appointment allowed him to continue his experiments. He was Surveyor General in the year of 1815, in Bristol , England . His solution was simple enough: roads should be raised above the adjacent ground for good drainage.

William McGibbon, became Scotland's leading native born composer of violin music in the first half of the eighteenth century, he born in Edinburgh, in the year 1695. McGibbon was greatly influenced in his early career by the Italian maestro Archangelo Corelli; both becoming as famous for their playing as much as for their compositions, which were also exquisite.

James McGill was born in Glasgow , and decided that his future lay elsewhere so he took himself to the wilds of Canada . He became a fur-trader and merchant. The next part of his life was spent in Politics, within the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada; James McGill was to represent the westward of Montreal . This was in the years1792-1796, and also 1800-1804. He was a loyal type of person and took Britain 's part in the War of Independence with the Americans. He became an honorary Colonel in the Regiment of Montréal Infantry Volunteers.

Andrew Meikle, was from Houston Mill, near Dunbar in south east Scotland , where he spent most of his life as a millwright. Meikle helped change the face of agriculture forever, with his dynamic new invention. Since the beginning of time, man had separated the husks from grain by beating them by hand, and it was thought there was no other way to do this.

Andrew Melville succeeded John Knox as the leader of the Scottish Reformed Church, He had been born in Baldovie, Angus. Melville was intent on taking it one step further than the sword-wielding reformer by replacing its bishops with local presbyteries. When he reached his early twenties he had mastered all the great languages of the world. In The year of 1574, he set out to reform its schools.

In late eighteenth-century Scottish politics, Henry Dundas Melville, was such an amazingly powerful figure, that he was able to control the elections in thirty-six of the fifty-five Scottish constituencies. Henry was born the son of Robert Dundas, Lord Arniston, President of the Court of Session, he was even jokingly referred to as "Harry the Ninth, uncrowned king of Scotland."

We have thousands of information about the Scottish Church reformers in the revolution that took place during the mid-16th Century.

Thomas Mitchell was a surveyor and in the year 1827 he moved to the great new colony of Australia and was appointed Surveyor General. This title meant he was responsible for the laying out of bridges, roads, and even whole towns. He was an ex army man who was also known as a bit of a hothead Mitchell was a very talented artist, and he spent a lot of his spare time pursuing his hobby, he also wrote poetry. He was a qualified geologist and botanist. Mitchell wrote books about his journeys and these were very popular.

Robert Moffat, was born in Ormiston, East Lothian , He was father-in-law to Scotland 's most famous missionary explorer David Livingstone, of Blantyre , but his own efforts in Africa as bible translator and missionary deserve mention. Settling in South Africa , Robert lived for 49 years in the Kuruman region, southeast of the Kalahari Desert . There Robert Moffat built one of the most well known and best-organized Protestant missionary communities in the whole continent of Africa . It was also there that he translated the Bible into one of the local tribal tongues, Tswana in 1837. His other works published are ‘Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa ' this was in the year 1842 and ‘Rivers of Water in a Dry Place ‘(in the year 1863). These works did much to spur missionary interest in "the Dark Continent ."

James Burnett, Lord of Monboddo, was born in October 1714, at Monboddo of Kincardineshire, Scotland . He received his rudiments of education at the parish school of Laurencekirk . And then he studied at King's College, Aberdeen . He graduated in 1729. He studied civil law and was admitted to the Scottish bar in 1738. In 1767, he “was raised to the bench by the title of Lord Monboddo.”(James Burnett).

Writing in Lowland Scots, poet Alexander Montgomerie was a personal favourite of King James V, but his pro-Catholic zeal to establish a Spanish garrison on a Scottish island brought him into disgrace. Montgomerie's most well known poem The Cherrie and the Slaye, was first printed in the year of 1597. The title refers to the poet's dilemma of whether to struggle toward the noble cherry tree or to remain with the less noble sloe bush at his feet.

James Graham was the 5th Earl and 1st Marquis of Montrose, he was a loyal Scottish man and loved his country. He earns his place, not because of any lasting influence he had upon Scottish affairs, but because of his series of victories as leader of the Scottish loyal men allied to the unfortunate Charles I of England , by which he may have turned the tide against the eventual regicide which was planned for Charles..

Glasgow-born John Moore, died at La Coruna , Spain , fighting against the French armies of Napoleon Bonaparte, in the Peninsular War. John Moore, had successfully avoided a trap set by Marshal Soult's French corps in northern Spain and managed to get his troops to the waiting ships by taking them over the snow-covered Cordillera Mountains and holding off the French attack by his sheer fighting and strategic abilities. During the battle, Moore was fatally wounded, but he had delayed the Napoleonic conquest of Spain for one year. A true Scots hero, Moore had served in many areas where Britain had felt the need to send its armies. As a commander of a corps in Kent , England he had earned the respect of his men in his training methods. He turned an undisciplined rabble into a highly mobile, efficient fighting force that proved its worth in the harsh conditions of the Iberian peninsular. He was a truly great Scotsman.His statue stands in Glasgow's George Square.

After his troops had taken Berwick-upon-Tweed in 1318 and inflicted further humiliating defeats upon English armies south of the border, Moray persuaded Pope John XXII to recognize the Scottish king, and lift the excommunication order which hung over Scotland for many years. He later played a major part in the negotiation of the treaty by which the King of England recognized Robert as King of Scots.

The spectacular Murchison Falls on the lower Victoria Nile River in Uganda is one of the most famous waterfalls in Africa . It is named after the Scottish geologist Roderick Impey Murchison, from Tarradale, Ross-shire, who was the first to establish the geologic sequence of Early Palaeozoic strata. Roderic had trained as a soldier but left the army to pursue his career in Darkest Africa, Murchison retired from active duty, turning to science on the advice of his long time friend and companion, Sir Humphrey Davy the noted British chemist.

After joining the Geological Society in London in the year of 1825, Murchison undertook scientific journeys in England , Scotland , Wales , France and the Alps . He worked closely with the British geologists Adam Sedgwick and Charles Lyell.

Most buildings in Scotland were being lit by gas lamps turned on in the evening and off in the morning by the official lamp-lighter. For over one hundred years, coal gas was the main source of fuel for illuminating the world's cities. It was the product of the inventive mind of William Murdock, from Auchinleck, Ayrshire.

From Huntingtower, Perthshire, George Murray fought bravely for Prince Charles Edward in the Jacobite struggle for truth and right in the years of 1745-6. He was made Lieutenant General of the Scottish forces by the Bonnie Prince; Murray 's skill won him an important victory over the English forces at Prestonpans in East Lothian , in the year 1745 when the defeated English General Cope, left the Battlefield so early that it was himself who gave news of his own defeat.

As Governor, Murray opposed those who undertook repressive measures against the French-Canadian citizens of Quebec and it was this conciliatory policy that had him charged with partiality. He was found innocent of all charges, but Murray decided to leave Canada in the year 1768, six years later becoming Governor of Minorca.

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