A familiar face returns to Outlander tonight, but you might not immediately recognize him. In the opening scenes of this evening’s episode, actor Andrew Gower reprises his role of Bonnie Prince Charlie in a flashback, showing how he escaped to the Isle of Skye, with the help of Flora MacDonald—and a clever disguise. The scene, while hard to believe, is straight out of a history book. Indeed, MacDonald helped the Young Pretender (aka Charles Edward Stuart) escape to Skye by dressing him as her servant in women’s clothes.
“When I left the character, it was 4 years ago, 5 years ago so I did the research on what happened [to Bonnie Prince Charlie in between his appearances on the show],” Gower told Town & Country at the season six premiere. “Spending time as an outcast in Scotland for the prince was never his idea, so when you do meet him this season he’s not in a particularly good shape of mind. But there’s plenty of lovely fairy tales, stories that the MacKinnon family wrote about him when he was hiding up near Skye in Scotland so I read all of them.” (The Mackinnon family also aided harboring Charles Edward Stewart.)
But still, it didn’t require too much preparation for Gower to step back into playing the Bonnie Prince. “It feel like wearing an old glove again, getting back into the character,” he said.
Season six of Outlander airs Sunday nights on Starz.
