The Marquis of Montrose

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Preface

In the following pages I have not attempted to write a complete biography of Montrose, but to tell simply and directly the story of a career which must rank among the marvels of our history, and to provide materials for the understanding of a mind and character which seem to me in a high degree worthy of the attention of modern readers. Hence I have passed rapidly over his early years, and told in detail only the incidents from his first raising of the Royal Standard in Scotland till his death. To avoid clogging the text, all references to the voluminous authorities and discussions of controversial points have been relegated to the notes at the end of the book. Every student of Montrose is in debt to a host of predecessors, and due acknowledgment will be found in the bibliographical note on page 295. J. B.

Contents

IJ]. Tue First Covenant Wars IV. Montrose anD ARGYLL .

V. Tue Rusicon . .

VI. Tue Curtain Rises . ° VII. Tippermuir . ‘ ° VIII. AserpEen anpD Fyvir. "

Chapter I

Tue “Highland Line” in the Scottish mainland, though often determined variously by political needs, has been fixed by nature with sufficient clearness. The true battlement of the hills runs with a northeasterly slant from Argyll through the shire of Dumbarton, and then turns northwards so as to enclose the wide carselands of Tay. Beyond lie the tumbled wildernesses stretching with scarcely a break to Cape Wrath; south are the Lowlands proper around Forth and Clyde till these in turn end in the hills of Tweed and Galloway. Scotland had thus two Borderlands— the famous line of march with England, and the line, historically less notable but geographically clearer, which separated plain from hill, family from clan, and for centuries some semblance of civilization from its stark opposite. The northern Border may be defined as the southern portion of Dumbarton or Lennox, the shire of Stirling, and the haughs of the lower Tay. There for centuries the Lowlander looked out from his towns and castles to the blue mountains where lived his ancestral foes. Dwelling on a frontier makes a hardy race, and from this northern Border came famous men and sounding deeds. Drummonds, Murrays, Erskines, and Grahams were its chief families, but most notably the last. What the name of Scott was in the glens of Teviot, the name of Graham was in the valleys of Forth and Earn. Since the thirteenth century they had been the unofficial wardens of the northern Marches.

The ancient nobility of Scotland does not show well on the page of history. The records of the great earldoms—Angus, Mar, Moray, Huntly—tell too often an unedifying tale of blood and treason. After the day of the Good Lord James, St. Bride of Douglas might have wept for her children. But the family of Graham kept tolerably clean hands, and played an honourable part in the national history. Sir John the Graeme was the trusted friend of Wallace, and fell gloriously at Falkirk. His successors fought in the later wars of independence, thrice intermarried with the royal blood, and gave Scotland its first primate. In 1451 the family attained the peerage. The third Lord Graham was made Earl of Montrose, when the short-lived Lindsay dukedom lapsed, and the new earl died with his king in the steel circle at Flodden. A successor fell at Pinkie; still another became viceroy of Scotland when James the Sixth mounted the English throne. The viceroy’s son, apart from a famous brawl in the Edinburgh High Street, chose the quiet life of a country laird. He was a noted sportsman, a great golfer, and a devotee of tobacco. His wife was Lady Margaret Ruthven, a daughter of the tragically fated house of Gowrie, who bore him six children, and died when her only son was in his sixth year. The family were rich as the times went, owning broad lands in Stirling, Perth, and Angus, and wielding the influence which the chief of a house possesses over its numerous cadets. They had three principal dwellings—the tower of Mugdock in Strathblane, the fine castle of Kincardine in Perthshire where the Ochils slope to the Earn, and the house of old Montrose which Robert Bruce had given to a Graham as the price of Cardross on Clyde.

James Graham, the only son of the fourth earl and Margaret Ruthven, was born, probably in the town of Montrose, some time in the year 1612. Of his five sisters the two eldest were married young—Lilias to Sir John Colquhoun of Luss, and Margaret to a wise man of forty, the first Lord Napier of Merchiston. Their houses were open to the boy when he tired of catching trout in the little water of Ruthven, or wearing out horse-shoes on the Ochils, as the bills of the

Aberuthven blacksmith testify. There was much in the way of adventure to be had at Rossdhu, Lady Lilias’s new dwelling, and there the young Lord James may have learned, from practising on the roebuck and wild goats of Lochlomondside, the skill which made him later so noted a marksman.

At the age of twelve a certain Master William Forrett received the boy to prepare him for the University of Glasgow. To him Lord James journeyed with a valet, two pages, a quantity of linen and furniture, and his favourite white pony. He lived in the town house of Sir George Elphinstone of Blythswood ; and the avenues to learning must have been gently graded, for he had always the happiest memory of those Glasgow days and of Master Forrett, who in later years became the tutor of his sons. He seems to have read Xenophon and Seneca, and an English translation of Tasso; but his favourite book, then and long afterwards, was Raleigh’s History of the World, no doubt the splendid folio of the first edition.

In the second year of Glasgow study the old earl died, and Lord Jatnes posted back to Kincardine. Thither came the whole race of Grahams for the funeral ceremonies, which lasted some fifty days. A prodigious quantity of meat and drink was consumed, and if such mourning had its drawbacks, at any rate it introduced the new head of the family to those of his name and kin, He did not return to Glasgow, (1,744)

but presently was entered at St. Salvator’s College, St. Andrews, of which one of his forebears had been a pious founder. Master Forrett brought his possessions from Glasgow, and with his own hands bestowed those valuable items, the books, in a proper cabinet. From the papers which Mark Napier has printed we know many of the details of the St. Andrews days. He began the study of Greek, and read widely in the classics, more especially Cesar and Lucan. Nor did he neglect romances, and no doubt he began the art of verse-making, of which his books contain many examples. In sport his tastes were catholic—hunting, hawking, horse-racing, archery, and golf claiming his attention in turn. His rooms at St. Salvator’s were hung round with bows, and in his second year he won the silver medal for archery, which to the end of his college course he held against all comers. The Ear] of Argyll, who was some years his senior, had carried off the same trophy. Happy and well dowered, popular with all classes, he varied his residence at St. Andrews with visits to his brothers-in-law and the cadet gentry of his name, and with entertainments on a generous scale at Kincardine, When his sister Dorothea married Sir James Rollo there was huge feasting in Edinburgh and Fifeshire, and the young earl returned to college only to fall sick. Two doctors were summoned, who charged enormous fees and prescribed cards, chess, and dieting. The barber (1,744) 2 shore away his long brown curls, and “James Pett’s dochter” attended to the invalid’s food. It sounds high feeding for what was probably an attack of indigestion—trout, pigeons, capons, “drapped eggs,” calf’s-foot jelly, grouse (out of season), washed down by “Jiquorice, whey, possets, aleberry, and claret.’’

In those days the business of life crowded fast on boyhood. After the university came marriage as the next step ina gentleman’s education. Not far from old Montrose stood Kinnaird Castle, where Lord Carnegie dwelt with six pretty daughters. There the young Montrose had visited, and there he fell in love with the youngest girl, Lady Magdalen, The match was too desirable for opposition either from the Carnegies or the young lord’s guardians, and the two children —Montrose was scarcely seventeen—were married in the chapel of Kinnaird on November 10, 1629. According to the marriage contract, they were to spend the next four years at Kinnaird till the bridegroom came of age. They were years of quiet study, the leisurely preparation which is all too rare in youth for the necessities of manhood. The famous Jameson portrait, given by Graham of Morphie as a wedding gift to the young countess, shows us Montrose in those years of meditation, when he was scribbling his ambitions on his copy of Quintus Curtius, It is a charming head of a boy, with its wide, curious, grey eyes, the arched, almost fantastic, eyebrows, the delicate and mobile lips. Life was to crush out the daintiness and gaiety, armour was to take the place of lace collar and silken doublet ; but one thing the face of Montrose never lost—it had always an air of hope, as of one - seeking for a far country.

Early in the year 1633 Montrose, having just attained his majority, set out on a course of foreign travel. By doing so he missed the pageant of the king’s coronation in Edinburgh, in which he would naturally have played a conspicuous part. Probably the reason is to be found in the scandal connected with his sister’s husband, Colquhoun of Luss, which was then the talk of Scotland. The laird, in company with a “necromancer” of the name of Carlippis, had fled from his lawful wife, carrying with him his sister-in-law, the little Lady Katharine, who had been for a time Montrose’s comrade in his Glasgow lodgings. The malefactor was promptly outlawed, but the unhappy girl disappears from history. With such a tragedy in his memory Montrose may have welcomed the anodyne of new scenes and fresh faces.

We know little of his journey. He visited France and Italy with Basil Fielding—Lord Denbigh’s son and Hamilton’s brother-in-law—who flung in his fortunes later with the Puritan party. In the quaint old library at Innerpeffray there is still preserved a French Bible which he bought on his travels, scribbled throughout with mottoes which had caught his fancy, such as “Honor mihi vita potior” and “Non crescunt sine spinis.” In Rome he met Lord Angus, the future Marquis of Douglas, and others of the Scots gentry. He studied all the while—“as much of the mathematics as is required of a soldier,” wrote his faithful adherent, Thomas Saintserf, “but his great study was to read men and the actions of great men.” It is a phrase which aptly describes the attitude of high dedication in which the young lord passed his youth. He went gravely about the business of life, and already had made certain of renown, though careless enough about happiness. To Cardinal de Retz long afterwards he seemed like one of the heroes of Plutarch, and there was something even in his boyish outlook of the old Roman manner. The descriptions of his person and habits at this date are familiar: of middle stature, and beautifully made ; chestnut hair ; a clear fresh colour ; keen grey eyes ; a mighty horseman ; and an adept at every sport which needed a lithe body and a cool head. On his manners all accounts are agreed, and most accounts are critical. He was very stately and ceremonious, even as a young man: in no way prepared to forget that he was a great noble, except among his intimates. To servants and inferiors he was kindly and thoughtful, to equals and superiors a little stiff and hard. “He was exceeding constant and loving,” a friend wrote, “to those who did adhere to him, and very affable to such as he knew; though his carriage, which indeed was not ordinary, made him seem proud.” He knew himself destined for great deeds, and his boyish stateliness was his advertisement to the world of the part he had set himself to play.

He returned three years later in his twenty-fourth year—a figure of intense interest to the Scottish factionleaders, and of some moment to the king’s court. He was altogether too remarkable to please the Marquis of Hamilton, who was the interpreter of Scottish business to the royal ears. When Montrose reached London he appeared at court, and naturally asked Hamilton to be his sponsor, announcing his wish “to put himself into the king’s service.” Hamilton did his best to dissuade him by representing Charles as the foe of Scottish rights, and then promptly sought out the king to tell him that Montrose, by reason of his royal descent, was a danger to the royal interests, and should be discouraged. The upshot was that the traveller was received by Charles with marked coldness. The king spoke a few chilly words, gave him his hand to kiss, and turned away. It was enough to discourage the most ardent loyalist. But, indeed, Montrose was no sentimental king’s man ; he was a loyalist on constitutional not on personal grounds. He may have returned to Scotland with small affection for his monarch, but it is certain that the rebuff played little part in determining that momentous policy upon which he was now called to enter.

CHAPTER Il.

Berore we can understand the course which Montrose now followed, it is necessary to look for a moment at the storm which was slowly gathering to a head in the north. The weakness of the Reformation in Scotland was not that it was too drastic, but that it was not nearly drastic enough. It was a change of creed, ritual, and Church government, but there was no reform in morals or in society. It had the weakness of all movements engineered by an aristocracy. The Scottish nobles from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century were probably the most turbulent, rapacious, and independent in Europe. Resolute champions of indefensible privileges, they resisted all the reforming efforts of their kings, and were the death of more than one sovereign. They had not even the merit of patriotism, for if they were consistently against the common people, they were not infrequently against their own land, and Scottish history is stored with ugly tales of treason. Their prime foes were the King and the Church, and they cast longing eyes at the fat abbeys and the rich glebes of their clerical rivals, The Reformation gave them their chance. Two-thirds of the Church plunder fell into their hands, and their Protestantism grew with their self-interest. Knox complained, not without reason, that in all the Lords of the Congregation there was not one righteous man, A few no doubt were dogmatic enthusiasts, but the majority cared as little for the difference between priest and minister as for the Ten Commandments.

James the Sixth, having spent his youth in Scotland, was wise enough to leave this hornets’ nest alone. The new Kirk, though its braver leaders protested, had some difficulty in quarrelling with those who had fought with it the battle of the Reformation. Moreover, it saw in the nobility a bulwark against what it was growing to fear—the Episcopalian tendencies of the throne; for the nobles, having overthrown the authority of Rome, had no mind to set up Canterbury in its stead. The common people, living in dire poverty under harsh laws, had little means of making their voice heard. While Montrose was growing to manhood, the tithe —to take one instance only—had become a crying scandal. It had passed from the old Church to the feudal lords, who could levy it in kind pretty much as they pleased and when they pleased. The tenant could not get in his harvest till the lord had taken his toll. The bonnet-lairds and the farmers, the labourers and the shepherds, even the burghers in the little towns, groaned under a tyranny as harsh as ‘the darkest period of the Middle Ages. It was remembered by elderly folk that the old abbots with the same powers had been far more merciful in their dealings. Had the thing gone on, Scotland might have been in danger of a counter-Reformation,

If one storm centre was the nobles, the other was the Kirk. As conceived by its authors, Scottish Presbyterianism was to be a noble democracy, the sanctuary of the true Word, and not a museum of pedantries. It began its career under the egis of John Knox, a man of alert and masculine genius; and its spirit was admirably suited to his close-reasoning and independent countrymen. Unhappily, like all things built of new materials by human hands, it contained the elements of strife and decay. Seeking its warrant directly from on high, it made of the Bible a manual of government, not only for Church but for State. While it repudiated Rome, it revived the claims of Rome, and imposed a far more merciless discipline. “New presbyter,” in Milton’s phrase, was, “but old priest writ large.” The Kirk had, indeed, become possessed of weapons too terrible for plain men to use with safety to themselves or others. It sought to make rules for daily life out of the fierce ritual of early Israel. It forgot the spirit in the letter and religion in its mechanical forms. We need not blame the Scottish ministers unduly. Their fashion was the fashion of their age. Ifa man believes that his heart is desperately wicked, that he is doomed to eternal fires but for the interposition of God’s grace, and that to walk in grace it is necessary to observe half-understood precepts from the Scriptures without any attempt to rethink them in the light of new conditions—nay, that such an attempt is in God’s eyes the unpardonable sin—it is small wonder if he forge such an instrument as the seventeenth-century Scottish Kirk. To him tolerance must be only another name for lukewarmness, and reason only the temptation of the devil. If he is right, all those who differ from him must be wrong, and it is his duty to enforce his faith with fire and sword. Since God orders all things, no part of life is beyond the province of His servants, and the Kirk must rule not only in general assemblies but in court and camp and parliament. And from all this it is only a little step to a kind of Jesuitism—the belief that in the performance of so great a work a sin or two will not be remembered against the worker. Fanaticism is curiously apt to forget its original goal, and to run for running’s sake.

Scotland was thus in danger of two tyrannies—the material domination of the nobles and the more deadly spiritual and moral despotism of the Kirk. There was no Knox with his clear, far-reaching mind to see the perils, He had, indeed, laid the foundation, but it was narrower men, such as Andrew Melville, who had raised the structure. There was not even a Moray with a reasonable share of patriotism and political wisdom. The country was in the hands of men neither great nor wise—nobles desperately intent on holding what they had won, and Churchmen desperately in earnest about their spiritual prerogatives. The two sects agreed in one thing only—their stubborn conservatism. It was a very pretty powder-magazine for the inevitable spark.

The spark came from the king. Charles took up the question of Scottish reform with the sincere intention of setting things straight. But the strange fatality of his race pursued him, and he mingled in his policy what was just and sensible, and what was unjust and foolish. He undertook the business of reforming some of the feudal tenures, particularly the vexed matter of tithes, and in the most modern way he appointed a Royal Commission. The result was a genuine reform, acceptable alike to the commons and clergy of Scotland. It was far from acceptable to the nobles, but their mouths were stopped ; they bided their time till their chance came. They had not long to wait. Fanaticism always produces a counter-fanaticism, and it was the dearest wish of the king’s heart to make the worship of God uniform throughout his dominions. When he

P “4 7, SteLilirn Pallevis a came to Edinburgh in 1633 to be crowned, he and Laud arranged a ceremony which to the onlookers seemed very like the ritual of Rome. Next year he created a See of Edinburgh, filled the Privy Council with bishops, and gave the Chancellorship to a Churchman, Archbishop Spottiswoode. A Book of Ecclesiastical Canons was issued under the supervision of the Scottish bishops. Last and worst, in the summer of 1637 came Laud’s new: Service Book, ordered to be read in all churches. It was the true counter-fanaticism. Charles gave to his bishops precisely that impossible position which the Presbyterian ministers were beginning to claim for themselves—a position which in the long run makes civilized government impossible. It was a proposal as repugnant to the reasonable loyalist as to the hot-gospeller of the Kirk. “That Churchmen have competency,” Lord Napier wrote, “is agreeable to the law of God and man; but to invest them into great estates and principal offices of the State, is neither convenient for the Church, for the King, nor for the State . . . Histories witness what troubles have been raised to kings, what tragedies amongst subjects, in all places where Churchmen were great. Our reformed Churches, having reduced religion to the ancient primitive truth and simplicity, ought to beware that corruption enter not into their Church in the same gate.” © They did not beware. They were only too ready to welcome this particular corruption for themselves, but they were resolutely determined that the Episcopal Church in Scotland should be kept free from temptation.

Laud’s Service Book was the last straw. The devout women of Edinburgh rose in their wrath, and the first attempt to read it in St. Giles’s Kirk was the signal for a riot. The flame ran fast over Scotland, for the grievance was indeed intolerable. To endure such interference with private rights of worship was to stultify the whole Reformation principle. Every post to England carried a supplication or a remonstrance to his Majesty, and early in the autumn public meetings began to be held. Montrose returned from his travels with his head full of academic politics, and his mind fired with dreams of military glory, to find his country in the throes of a petty and yet vital strife. He could not avoid taking sides, and both parties in Scotland angled feverishly for his support. To the amazement of many he chose for the malcontents, and in November 1637 appeared publicly on their side. Early in the new year a Committee of Sixteen, representing the Estates of the Realm, was appointed to deal with the present discontents, and Montrose was one of them. He appeared to protest against the proclamation of the Liturgy, mounted in boyish enthusiasm upon a barrel, so that the prophetic Rothes was led to observe : “James, you will never be at rest till you are lifted up above the rest in three fathoms of a rope.” Meantime Johnston of Wariston and Alexander Henderson had drafted a document which they called a Covenant —an old device, for when the Scottish nobles chose to walk in the paths of rebellion they used to enter into “ane band.” On the last day of February 1638, in Greyfriars’ Churchyard in Edinburgh, came the reading of the protest with its solemn appeal— that religion and righteousness may flourish in the land, to the glory of God, the honour of the king, and the peace and comfort of us all.” The National Covenant had been consummated, and Montrose was sworn among the leaders.

His reasons are not far to seek. No doubt something must be set down to personal grounds, for he was little more than a boy. He had been unkindly received by Charles and snubbed by Hamilton, and such treatment may have disposed him to listen to Rothes and Loudoun when they respectfully solicited his opinion and his help. But, apart from personal feelings, there were good grounds for a man of his temper approving the principle of the Covenant. He could not see that, whatever its professions might be, its supporters made it impossible. He could not read the factious hearts of Loudoun and Balmerino, and see how little they cared for “ religion ” or “ righteousness ”” or the “glory of God.” He could not see that the Kirk was dreaming at the back of its mind of a tyranny which would annihilate all government. He looked only at the Covenant; he had not the experience to judge the Covenanters. And on the face of it the Covenant was sound policy. It protested against the despotic and illegal infliction of the Prayer Book upon people who preferred to address their Maker in their own words. It protested against the appointment of Churchmen to civil offices. Montrose, being a good Presbyterian and true to the spirit of that faith, did not like the ecclesiastic in politics. In his dying declaration he repeated : “ Bishops, I care not for them. I never intended to advance their interests.” All these views were held by Napier, his brother-in-law ; but Napier did not sign the Covenant, and Montrose did. The explanation is that Montrose looked only at the document, while Napier, older and wiser, looked at the men behind it. He knew that the letter is little and the spirit much, and he did not like the spirit. Montrose stood for what seemed to be the liberties of the Scottish people. When he found that the Covenant had become the cause of a selfish oligarchy of nobles and a tyrannical Kirk, he was to cast it behind him. Like a true statesman, he sought the reality of things, not the name.

Chapter III

Tue Covenant was an act of rebellion, and its makers were aware of the consequences of their deeds. The Tables, as the Committee of Sixteen was named, set about organizing a provisional government. Its leaders subscribed largely to the war chest, and a general tax was levied of a dollar for every thousand merks of rent. The king, who had at times no mean capacity for judging a situation, estimated the events in Scotland more shrewdly than his advisers. He looked forward sooner or later to an appeal to force, but he wished to gain time till he could make use of it conveniently ; so he sent the Marquis of Hamilton as a commissioner with power to treat with the malcontents. One thing he demanded: the Covenant, the sign-manual of rebellion, must be dropped before any concessions were made.

Hamilton set off on a task for which he had little liking. A vain, tortuous being, a diligent tramper of backstairs, and a master of intrigue, he was probably the most futile of the many schemers of his day. Scotland he hated, as he told the king, “ next to hell;” but visions of the Scottish crown and memories of his royal descent were the will-o’-the-wisp to his shallow and inconstant brain. He arrived in Edinburgh early in June 1638, and found sullen looks and little of the welcome due to a Royal Commissioner. The Tables appointed a committee of three nobles and three ministers to confer with him, and one of the six was Montrose. Their demands were simple and reasonable. They asked for the withdrawal of the obnoxious Liturgy and Book of Canons; the summoning of a free General Assembly ; and, finally, of a Parliament to decide the various questions at issue. The Scottish Church was to shape its own ecclesiastical policy, and a Scottish Parliament was to give such policy the validity of the civil law. It was a moderate assertion of a justifiable nationalism,

Hamilton hummed and hawed, promised and withdrew, and finally left Edinburgh in despair. But before he went he vindicated his character for double-dealing. He privately told the Covenanters, as we know on Montrose’s evidence, that if they took a firm stand they were likely to win. Then ensued a war of king’s proclamations and Covenanting protests. Hamilton flitted between London and Edinburgh, carrying royal concessions, till all the demands of the

Covenanters had been met. But the concessions came too late. The king proposed a new covenant of his own, the chief point of which was the abjuration of Popery; but the Covenanting leaders, whose detestation of Popery needed no advertisement, very naturally described it as a “mockery of God.” Their demands were now nothing less than the complete suppression of Episcopacy in Scotland. Everywhere except in Aberdeen the National Covenant had been enthusiastically received. Montrose was sent with a bevy of ministers to convert those northern burgesses; but the preaching of Mr. Alexander Henderson, Mr. David Dickson, and Mr. Andrew Cant was without effect. His future visits to Aberdeen were to be to better purpose.

On the 21st of November the General Assembly met in the old cathedral church of Glasgow. Laymen were admitted as members in accordance with the law and spirit of Presbyterianism. Hamilton and the ministers opposed this admission—the latter with some justice, for they saw that laymen meant nobles, and they knew well enough the motives of these gentry in their interference with Church affairs, The scene must have been a curious one. Hamilton sat uneasily on a high chair of state, with the Privy Council below him. Opposite him sat the Moderator, Henderson, with Wariston as his clerk. Then came the Covenanting nobles, and then, in a confused mass, the clergy and the other lay delegates. Baillie, an extreme Covenanter, (1,744) 3 was so shocked at the pandemonium that he observed that his brethren “might learn from Canterbury or the Pope, or even from Turks or pagans,” for the members “made such a din and clamour in the house of the true God that if they minded to use the like behaviour in his chamber he would not be content till they were down the stairs,”