Montrose

“ The trumpets and bagpipes, those clamorous harbingers of blood and death, at once united in the signal for onset, which was replied to by the cry of more than two thousand warriors, and the echoes of the mountain glens behind them. Divided into three bodies, or columns, the Highland followers of Montrose poured from the defiles which had hitherto concealed them from their enemies, and rushed with the utmost determination upon the Campbells, who waited their charge with the greatest firmness. ”

“ Montrose, well mounted, clad in coat and trews, with a bunch of oats in his bonnet—a whimsy adopted by all his infantry—was everywhere his keen eye told him there was need of his services. The fighting was hot while it lasted, and at one moment the left flank of the Royalists was within an ace of being turned. But Montrose brought up the horse and a fresh supply of musketeers from the right wing in the nick of time, and the Covenanters having no one to take advantage of the crisis, the danger was averted. The fifty troopers performed wonders, and the Irish fought like trained soldiers. ”

“ The followers of Montrose were men not to be daunted by the sublime, yet terrible prospect before them. Many of them were of that ancient race of Highlanders, who not only willingly made their couch in the snow, but considered it as effeminate luxury to use a snow-ball for a pillow. Plunder and revenge lay beyond the frozen mountains which they beheld, and they did not permit themselves to be daunted by the difficulty of traversing them. ”

“ From such a man at such a time a fugitive Royalist with a price upon his head had little to hope for. Montrose tried at first to buy his captor's favour, then, finding this useless, prayed at least for death rather than to be delivered alive into his enemies' hands. To prayers and bribes Macleod was alike inexorable. The great news was at once despatched to Leslie, who hurried north with a strong body of soldiers to secure the prize. Argyll had won the last move in the deadly game; Montrose was the prisoner of the Covenant. ”

“ I will not disguise from your lordship, what I have not disguised from M’Aulay,—that if Annot Lyle were born a lady, she should share my name and rank; as matters stand, it is impossible. This explanation, I trust, will satisfy your lordship, as it has satisfied a less reasonable person.”
Montrose shrugged his shoulders. “And, like true champions in romance,” he said, “you have agreed, that you are both to worship the same mistress, as idolaters do the same image, and that neither shall extend his pretensions farther?” ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ Of all the fortresses in Scotland, Lord Nithsdale's Castle of Caerlaverock in Dumfriesshire was alone held for the King. From the Border to the North Sea the Covenant was supreme, save only in that dangerous district which called Huntly lord, and against the power of Huntly the arms of the Covenant were now turned.
The command was given to Montrose. His restless and enterprising spirit marked him for the work among men whose talents appeared to lie rather in debate than in the field. ”

“ Eleven years passed, and again a vast crowd thronged the High Street of Edinburgh to witness a different scene. The King, for whom Montrose had died, was now restored to the throne of his fathers, and had decreed the empty tribute of a public funeral for the man whom he had not dared to lift a finger or speak a word to save. The scattered remains had been previously collected, and carried amid great pomp to Holyrood. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Montrose's splendid success over his powerful rival was not attained without some loss, though not amounting to the tenth of what he inflicted. The obstinate valour of the Campbells cost the lives of many brave men of the opposite party; and more were wounded, the chief of whom was the brave young Earl of Menteith, who had commanded the centre. ”

“ The men of Athole, the Stuarts, and the Robertsons, were sound at the core, but had looked in vain for a leader since the death of Montrose's friend and Argyll's sworn foe, the loyal Earl of Athole, and in the want of a leader they too had fallen under the universal yoke. ”

“ With the latter Montrose at once opened a correspondence. Rupert answered cordially, but his new duties as Admiral of the Fleet left him, he said, no present leisure for an interview. At the Hague, as at Paris, Montrose had his enemies. One friend, [Pg 197] indeed, supported him with all the ardour of a brave and generous woman. Between the nature of Elizabeth of Bohemia and the nature of Montrose there was much in common, and the warm sympathy that sprang up between these two noble spirits forms the one pleasant incident of this dark and miserable time. ”

“ Delighted, as Montrose had anticipated, with this mark of his general's confidence, the Major laid his hand upon his nose, and nodded intelligence.
"How many may there be of Ranald's followers?" continued the Marquis.
"They are reduced, so far as I know, to some eight or ten men," answered Major Dalgetty, "and a few women and children." ”

“ Montrose was made lieutenant-general of the King's forces in Scotland, and on a March morning in 1644 he left Oxford by the north road to win a kingdom for his master.
When St. Theresa, as a child, set out to convert the Moors, she was engaged in an adventure scarcely less hopeful than that which Montrose had now set himself. Where was he to find troops? The best of the old professional soldiers were with Leven. He could get nothing in the Scottish Lowlands, for on them the Kirk had laid an iron hand. The nobles and the gentry were jealous and self-centred. ”

“ Ah! how Fortune turns her wheel! This manifesto of Montrose was to remain in Lord Napier's pocket, not to be deciphered till our own time, and the Parliament for which it was a preparation was never actually to meet.
In England there had been amazement and grief over the news of Montrose's triumph. The Parliament had appointed Sept. 5 to be a day of public fast and prayer in all the churches on account of the calamity that had befallen Scotland; and on that day the good Baillie, walking in London to and from church, was in the deepest despondency. ”

“ Argyle is moving upon Inverlochy with three thousand chosen men, commanded by the flower of the sons of Diarmid.—These are my news—they are certain—it is for you to construe their purport.”
“Their purport must be good,” answered Montrose, readily and cheerfully; “the voice of M’Ilduy is ever pleasant in the ears of Montrose, and most pleasant when it speaks of some brave enterprise at hand—What are our musters?” ”

“ Of the two hostile forces the Campbells were the more formidable. Montrose knew very well that the fighting spirit of Clan Diarmaid was equal to any in the Highlands, and now that they were commanded by a skilled soldier and infuriated by the burning of their homes, he could scarcely hope to fight them at long odds. But it is the duty of a good general when he is confronted by two immediate perils to meet the greater first. Montrose resolved to fight the Campbells, but to fight them in his own way. ”

“ Montrose made no remonstrance, but with looks of high disdain which betrayed the inward workings of a proud and unsubdued mind, indignant at being thus abandoned at such a dangerous crisis, readily complied with the request of every man who asked permission to retire. The Earl of Airly, now sixty years of age and in precarious health, and his two sons, Sir Thomas and Sir David Ogilvie, out of all the Lowlanders, alone remained faithful to Montrose, and could, on no account, be prevailed upon to abandon him. ”

“ Montrose had almost famished, but that he fortuned in his misery to light upon a small cottage in that wilderness, where he was supplied with some milk and bread.’ Not even the iron frame of Montrose could endure a prolonged existence under such circumstances. He gave himself up to Macleod of Assynt, a former adherent, from whom he had reason to expect assistance in consideration of that circumstance, and, indeed, from the dictates of honourable feeling and common humanity. ”

“ But Digby, who dearly loved a hazard and could persuade the King to anything, favoured the scheme. Antrim was despatched to Ireland, and Montrose made ready for his more perilous journey to the Border. He knew his jealous countrymen too well to come before them in the character Charles wished him to assume, of Viceroy and Captain-General [Pg 131] of the Royal Forces in Scotland. On his own advice these sounding titles were conferred on the King's nephew, Prince Maurice, as whose Lieutenant-General Montrose left Oxford for the North early in March, 1644. ”

“ And, sometime during the talking, Montrose cast his spell, for presently the two forces spread out over the purple masses of blooming heather and ate together, the leaders still talking over wine and food.
And then one of the enemy leaders sprang to his feet, and Kelpie could hear his words clearly. “You’re wrong!” he shouted. “’Tis not two thousand men ye have, but two thousand and five hundred! For we’ll never be fighting against Montrose!” ”

“ This was the old raiding road out of Lorn, and Argyll flattered himself that his clan alone had the keys of it. But with Montrose were men who had made many a midnight foray into the Campbell country, and who knew every corrie and scaur as well as any son of Diarmaid. A Glencoe man, Angus MacAlain Dubh, is named by tradition as the chief guide, and he promised Montrose that his army could live well on the country, "if tight houses, fat cattle, and clear water will suffice." ”

“ Though a younger man than Montrose, he had more faith in what he could himself do with a thousand horse in England than in what any Scot could do with them in Scotland. And so, though Lord Digby, Endymion Porter, and some others still spoke manfully for Montrose with the King, he is found back in Carlisle, late in July, with only his little band of Scottish adherents. Then ensued the strangest freak of all. With this very band he set out again distinctly southwards, as if all thought of entering Scotland were over, and nothing remained but to rejoin the King at Oxford. ”

“ The snare which lured his young hot-headed relative was spread in vain for the old and cautious Napier. A true Covenanter Montrose called him before the Assembly at Glasgow. He was so; he was too true to the spirit of the real Covenant to be caught by its specious copy; too true a Covenanter to trust himself or his conscience to such keepers as Rothes, Loudon, and Balmerino. A man of his experience in affairs, nor less experienced in the temper of his own countrymen and of the King, cannot but have had a shrewd suspicion whither such a movement under such guides must inevitably tend. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The few loyalists who still stood out were mostly vain nobles who had some personal quarrel with the other side. But such was the ardour of the young Montrose that he impressed the King and his graver councillors like Hyde and Endymion Porter. He asked for little help. Lord Antrim was to raise troops in Ireland and land in the west of Scotland to keep Argyll occupied in his own country. Montrose himself hoped to borrow a body of horse from Newcastle's army in the north to help him to cut his way through the Lowlands to the Highland line. ”

“ If Montrose could strike one stout blow south of the Forth that union might yet be possible. Wherever he led Baillie must follow, or leave the Lowlands open; and Montrose had a shrewd suspicion that [Pg 171] the raw Perthshire levies might, like his own Highlanders, be unwilling to go too far or stay too long from their homes. His men were as keen for battle as their general. Till his reinforcements came in Montrose had been obliged to content himself with hovering round Perth, at one time mounting his infantry on baggage and cart horses, to convey the notion that he was strong in cavalry. ”