James Montrose

“ James Graham, the first Marquis of Montrose, began his marvellous career at the age of thirty-two, and crowded into two years the campaigns which made him master of Scotland. He died on the scaffold when he was only thirty-eight, leaving behind him the reputation of perhaps the greatest soldier ever born north of the Tweed, and certainly one of the purest and most chivalrous figures in his country's annals. Few men have ever covered country with his lightning speed, and the whole tale of his exploits is a tale of escapes and hurried journeys. ”

“ After the invasion had been crowned with success, Montrose still continued to cherish his now hopeless policy. On the 27th of May 1641 he was summoned before the Committee of Estates charged with intrigues against Argyll, and on the 11th of June he was imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle. When Charles visited Scotland to give his formal assent to the abolition of Episcopacy, Montrose communicated to him his belief that Hamilton was a traitor. It had indeed been alleged, on Clarendon’s authority, that he proposed to murder Hamilton and Argyll ”

“ The Legend of Montrose was written chiefly with a view to place before the reader the melancholy fate of John Lord Kilpont, eldest son of William Earl of Airth and Menteith, and the singular circumstances attending the birth and history of James Stewart of Ardvoirlich, by whose hand the unfortunate nobleman fell.
Our subject leads us to talk of deadly feuds, and we must begin with one still more ancient than that to which our story relates. During the reign of James IV., a great feud between the powerful families of Drummond and Murray divided Perthshire. ”

“ The two bodies of horse and foot now mustered and armed by Montrose were composed of men entirely devoted to him, and more or less antagonistic to the MacGregors, at whose hands they had all suffered severely. They wore the duke's livery—blue coats faced with red, with trews of the Grahame tartan, and each wore in his bonnet a laurel leaf. There was not a man among them but had something to revenge, in the shape of a farm burned, a kinsman slain, or a herd carried off ”

“ And all the while Charles knew well that the one inevitable condition, whatever else might be taken or left, without which no basis of an understanding with the Covenant was possible, must be the dismissal of James Graham from his service. Elizabeth of Bohemia, who knew her nephew's disposition too well, had always foreseen this risk. "I pray God keep the King in his constancy to you and his other true friends and servants," she had written to Montrose ”

“ Thus, after Sir Andrew Wood had related that his embassy to Flanders had proved futile in clearing up our quarrel with the sturdy citizens of the Swyn, the Sluice, and the Dam, and that all trade with them would still be interdicted, the loyal and venerable Duke of Montrose said, in a most impressive manner,
"I grieve to say that complaints against the nobles have been pouring in to your majesty, and everywhere the people murmur against their oppression and misgovernment. ”

“ Rumours of their great strength made the few faithful nobles who adhered to James doubtful of victory and fearful for his safety; thus, the good old Duke of Montrose desired Sir David Falconer to bear a message to Sir Andrew Wood, who was still anchored off Alloa, requesting him to have his boats along the beach and near the Carse, to take off all fugitives and wounded men of either party who might pass that way. ”

“ It was secretly embalmed and enclosed in a little case of steel, made from the blade of that sword which Montrose had drawn for King Charles at the battles of Auldearn, Tippermuir, and Kilsythe. This case she placed in a gold filigree box that had been presented by the Doge of Venice to John Napier, of Merchiston, and she enclosed the whole in a silver urn which had been given to her husband by the great cavalier marquis before the Civil War. She sent this carefully guarded relic to the second marquis, afterwards first Duke of Montrose, who was then in exile with her husband ”

“ The good marquess died in 1669, and was succeeded by his son James, 3rd marquess of Montrose (d. 1684) . The 4th marquess, son of the last mentioned, who was also named James (d. 1742) , was lord high admiral of Scotland in 1705, and lord president of the council in 1706. He was an ardent supporter of the Hanoverian succession; he also favoured the union of Scotland with England, for his services in regard to which he was created duke of Montrose and marquess of Graham in 1707, becoming in the same year one of the first representative peers of Scotland in the parliament of Great Britain. ”

“ Sir Thomas reined up alongside of the three generals, whom for several miles he bored with musty maxims, obsolete tactics, and strange advice, anent the superiority of Sweyn's feathers over the screwed dagger (or bayonet) , and furiously condemned the slinging of carbines in budgets in lieu of shoulderbelts, as in the days of Montrose—expatiated on the method of forming square with the grenadiers covering the angles, and making the bringers-up (or third rank) entirely of musqueteers. ”

“ The direction of their flight had been betrayed by the discovery of Montrose's star and sword, and word sent into Assynt to be on the watch, with promise of reward to whomsoever should take James Graham alive. The fugitives were discovered in [Pg 212] the last extremity of hunger and brought to the Laird's house at Ardvrech. The Macleods of Assynt had long been followers of the Earls of Sutherland with whose family they were connected by marriage, and Neil Macleod, the present Laird, had been recently appointed the Earl's Deputy-Sheriff of that district. ”

“ It was doubly unfortunate for him that the candidate he opposed should have been his brother-in-law young Carnegie, and that his opposition should have led to an unseemly display of temper between him and his father-in-law Southesk. The dispute did Montrose no good with either party. The Covenanters were annoyed to find [Pg 53] so young a man disposed to take too much upon himself against the wiser counsels of his elders; and Hamilton was, as will be seen, enabled to speak another bad word for him in the King's ear. ”

“ The House of Gordon, said his kinsmen, could not be left without a head at such a crisis. Lord Lewis, the third son, was too young, and it devolved therefore on him to play his father's part, [Pg 68] and to keep the King's flag flying in the midst of traitors and rebels.
Montrose reached Edinburgh on April 20th. On May 1st Hamilton anchored in the Firth of Forth with nineteen sail, five thousand men, and some munitions of war. He came too late. Leith had been fortified. Fife and the Lothians were in arms to a man. ”

“ Among their fellow-captives, but not companions for no intercourse was permitted them, were Keir himself and young Lord Graham with his tutor. Their imprisonment was close, but their condition was easy compared with that of Crawford, Ogilvy, and the other Royalists, who suffered the treatment of the lowest criminals in the Tolbooth. To this time, too, belongs the only trace of Montrose's wife that history vouchsafes between the records of her marriage and her death, in a warrant of the Committee of Estates entrusting her with the care of her third son Robert. ”

“ In spite of all that had passed Charles still believed that in the Scots he would find a counterpoise to the rebellious English, and Hamilton, for purposes known only to himself, encouraged him in the belief. Montrose knew better. He knew, from his own past experience, how good was the secret understanding between the two Parliaments. He knew that the army, now again mustering under the new Earl of Leven, was never destined to waste its strength on Irish rebels. He knew that the Covenant was only biding its time to join hands with the English Parliament ”

“ The spirit of the city rose high. All ranks swore to stand their ground to the [Pg 76] last; and women, bringing meat and drink down to their gallant defenders, moved about unshrinking amid the storm of shot and the shouts of the combatants. All day the fight raged, and when the sun fell the Covenanters were forced to own themselves as far from Aberdeen as ever.
But his countrymen had now to learn that Montrose was one whose courage and resource only rose higher in the face of defeat. ”

“ We are told, and may believe, that the few and enforced pauses in his short tumultuous career were relieved by study; but no man turns to that solace in his hours of disappointment who has not felt at least some touch of its enchantment in his youth. We may therefore conclude that he found some time amid the gaieties of St. Andrews to read the books that had been bought for him.
Among the houses that Montrose visited was Kinnaird Castle, the seat of Lord Carnegie, his nearest neighbour in Forfarshire. ”

“ Otherwise, he knew that he would have the whole chivalry of Europe crying out upon the deed; and that was a voice which even he durst not resist.
"'Tis unfortunate, indeed," he said, "most unfortunate; but my father having fixed it early, and at my request, too, it cannot be changed. But do you feel sure, quite sure, that within one week you could bring forward proofs to exculpate yourself, and to show the guilt of this wretched man?"
"As surely as I live," replied Hugh de Monthermer. "I have the word of one who never failed me yet--of one who speaks not lightly, my good lord." ”

“ No wilder project was ever hatched in mortal brain than that on which Montrose was now bent. It was clear even to him that the game for the present was up in the Lowlands; but the Highlands were still open. There, among his own people, he might at least wait in safety for Antrim's promised succours, which must surely now be on their road, and there he might hope to find the loyal hearts which had ceased to beat south of the Forth. ”

“ It is possible, indeed, that the enthusiasm of these new Royalists was in some degree due to the feeling that it would not be forced to submit to the dictation of a man whose ways were not theirs. Only among the Highlanders could Montrose have found allies, and among their mountains was his only battle-ground. They knew nothing of Kirk or Covenant, of Presbyterian or Independent. The men of Macdonald bore no grudge against the destroyer of the Campbells; the men of Athole would have heard without a murmur that every Mackenzie had been put to the sword from Kintail to Loch Broom. ”

“ Of the two Drummond was readiest to push his doctrine to its last conclusion, as the man of theory always will be. Resolved on no consideration and in no extremity to suffer himself to be dragged into the vortex of politics, in the solitude of his beautiful home on the wooded banks of the Esk he could weave his fairy fabric without any disturbing sense of its impracticability. Montrose, with his active experience of men and things, could not quite blind himself to the possibility of a king under whom passive obedience might be only another name for tyranny. ”

“ From a story told in the appendix to the Hamilton Papers, it would appear that he attributed his kinsman of Menteith's disgrace to the favourite's jealousy. It is clear at any rate that they bore no goodwill to each other from the first, as indeed was natural enough, considering the temper of the times and of the two men. Both were young and both ambitious. Hamilton was cold, cunning, and jealous; Montrose was eager and impetuous, and jealous too, though in a more open and generous fashion. When flint and steel come together the sparks are apt to fly. ”

“ The gallant Airlie and his son, Napier and the young Master, Crawford and Douglas and Nathaniel Gordon, fought like paladins at their General's side. It was of no avail. A force that had been detached to cross the river above Selkirk broke in upon the right wing from the rear. Man after man the Irish were falling in their ranks; horse after horse broke riderless from those desperate charges. But still Montrose fought on, as though determined to die on the field he could not save. ”

“ When Montrose summoned Aberdeen on the morning of September 12th, he had at his back only fifteen hundred foot, fifty horse, and the few field-pieces taken at Tippermuir.
The Covenanters were two thousand strong in foot, with five hundred horse. Two of Huntly's sons were among them. It is idle to search for the causes which placed these scions of a loyal House in the ranks of their sovereign's enemies. One cause was undoubtedly jealousy of Montrose, whose treatment of their father they had not yet forgiven. ”

“ At one end of the scaffold stood the chief magistrates of the city, at the other a group of the inevitable ministers. Beside the hangman was a bench on which were arranged in ghastly order the implements of butchery. A space was kept clear round the scaffold by a strong force of soldiers. As Montrose walked down the High Street from the Tolbooth, surrounded by his guards, in the same rich dress that he had worn before the Parliament, all were struck with his calm and noble bearing. ”

“ The brave Airlie, for all his sixty years, and his sons alone stood by him, and Nathaniel Gordon, who, though he left his leader, left him on the King's service. Montrose let the recreants go without a word, and turned to the Highlanders. They too deprecated a descent on the Lowlands, but for a different reason. These Macdonalds and Camerons were ready enough to fight under the royal banner, but they must fight against their own foe. They hated King Campbell more than they loved King Charles. ”