From The Contemporary Review. IN a recent drama on John Hampden, him. 323 was President of Council, and in 1604 and 1606 carried the Great Seal as one of number of oxen to his ploughs, of punForfar, and had exact ideas as to the cheons of wine in his cellars, of sacks of corn in his granaries. He was an inveterate smoker, perpetually investing in tobacco and tobacco-pipes, a circumstance which has attracted notice from shrank from the slightest smell of tothe sensitive dislike with which his son the foremost nobles of Scotland in the Parliaments held at Perth, when the nobility rode in state. This Lord, who in his youth was hot and headstrong, had subsided, long before the birth of his son James, into a quiet country gentleman, This ex post facto prophecy applies vigilantly managing his estates. He was with special force to Falkland in Eng-ties of Perth, Sterling, Dumbarton, and possessed of great baronies in the counland, and in Scotland to Montrose. "The noblest of all the Cavaliers," Montrose has been called; " an accomplished, gallant-hearted, splendid man; what one may call the Hero-Cavalier." In the crowd of striking figures that occupy the stage of the Revolution, there is no one so romantically brilliant as Montrose; no one so picturesquely relieved against other figures that move amid the sad and stormful grandeurs of the time. Those contrasted types of character which have been so well marked in Scottish history as to arrest the attention of Europe, the cold, cautious, forecasting type, the impetuous and perfervid type, never so finely opposed as in the persons of the deep-thoughted, melancholy Argyle, and the impulsive and intrepid Montrose. were James Graham, fifth Earl and first Marquis of Montrose, was born in 1612, in one of his father's castles, near the town of that name. The Grahams were among the most ancient and honourable families of Scotland. Tradition talks of a Graham scaling, in the cause of old Caledonia, the Roman wall between Forth and Clyde, and with clearer accents of a Graham who was the trustiest and best-beloved of the friends of Wallace, bacco. Lord James, as from his infancy he was six. Margaret, the eldest of his sisters, called, was the only son in a family of was married to Lord Napier of Merchiston, son of the discoverer of logarithms; and character, exerted a great influence and the brother-in-law, a man of parts sisters appear to have been younger than on Montrose in his youth. Two of his himself. He must have been a beautiful his mother and elder sisters, the heir to boy. The pride of his father, the pet of an exalted title and broad lands, he was likely to feel himself from childhood an seeds of ostentation, vanity, and wilfulimportant personage, and to have any ness which might be sown in his nature somewhat perilously fostered. His boyhood was favourable in an eminent degree to the generous and chivalrous virtues. We can fancy him scampering on his pony over the wide Mente manuque potens, et Vallæ fidus Acha-green spaces of the old Scottish land tes, scape, when roads were still few, and the who sleeps, beneath a stone bearing this way from one of his father's castles to inscription, in the old Church of Falkirk, another would be by the drove-roads, or near the field on which he fell. History, across the sward and the heather. Travtaking up the tale from tradition, informs elling, even of ladies and children, was us that one ancestor of Montrose died, then almost universally performed on sword in hand, at Flodden, and another horseback. Lord James had two ponies His grandfather was High expressly his own, and we hear of his Treasurer to James I.; then Chancellor ; fencing-swords and his bow. At Glasfinally Viceroy of Scotland. His father gow, whither he proceeded to study at at Pinkie. twelve years of age, under the charge of indispensable to men who not only play a a tutor named William Forrett, he con- brilliant part in great revolutions, but tinued to ride, fence, and practise arch-regulate and mould them, were never his ; ery. He was attended by a valet and two and we cannot be sure that, under the young pages of his own feudal following, authority of a sagacious, affectionate, and Willy and Mungo Graham. He had a determined father, he might not have atsuit of green camlet, with embroidered tained them. There is no sign that, at cloak, and his two pages were dressed in college, he engaged seriously in study. red. He and Forrett rode out together, He became probably a fluent Latinist, Lord James on a white horse. Among which no man with any pretensions to his books was the History of Geoffrey de education could then fail to be; he was Bouillon, and one of his favourite vol- fond of Cæsar, whose Commentaries he umes was Raleigh's History of the World. is said to have carried with him in his The establishment was supplied with campaigns; and he loved all books of " manchets," the white bread of the chivalrous adventure; but we hear of no period, and oatcake and herrings were study that imposed self-denial, or reimportant items in the commissariat. These particulars, gleaned by Mr. Mark Napier from memoranda made by Forrett, enable us to realize with vividness the life of the boy Montrose in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, when the Clyde was still a silvery river glancing by the quiet town that clustered round the old Cathedral of Glasgow. quired severe application. He was a distinguished golf-player and archer. There being now no heir, in the direct line, to the earldom and estates, he was counselled by his friends to marry early, and when only seventeen led to the altar Magdalene Carnegie, daughter of the Earl of Southesk. He was already the father of two boys when, on attaining his majority, he started on his Continental travels in 1633. From Glasgow we trace him to St. Andrews, where he matriculated in the University a few months before his father's For three years he remained abroad, in death. He was fourteen when the shrewd France and Italy. He made himself, say and experienced Earl, whose predomi- his panegyrists, "perfect in the acadenance might have kept him beneficially in mies;" learned "as much mathematics the shade, and exercised an influence to as is required for a soldier" (rather less chasten and concentrate his faculties, probably than Count Moltke might prewas laid in the family vault. From this scribe); conversed with celebrites, polititime Montrose appears to have been very cal and erudite; and devoted himself by much lord of himself. His was a mind preference to the study of great men. of that order which peculiarly required, Doubtless these were years of eager to develop its utmost strength, all that observation, of eager and rapid acquisiwise men mean by discipline. To devel- tion. He seems to have already imop its utmost strength; not necessarily pressed a wide circle with the idea of to develop its utmost beauty and natural his superiority, and he was prone to grace and splendour. There was no accept the highest estimate which his malice, or guile, or cross-grained self- flatterers formed of him. will, or obstinate badness of any kind, in young Montrose. He accepted, with open-hearted welcome, the influence of Forrett, of Napier, of every worthy friend or teacher, winning and retaining through life their ardent affection. The poetry, the romance, of his nature bloomed out in frank luxuriance. But the gravity and earnest strength, the patient thoughtfulness, thoroughness, and habit of comprehensive intellectual vision, which are Returning from the continent in 1636, he presented himself at Court. Charles received him coldly, and he was hurt. There is no need to believe with Mr. Napier that the Marquis of Hamilton elaborately plotted to prevent his acquiring influence with the King. Clarendon's remark respecting Charles, that he "did not love strangers nor very confident men," accounts for what happened. A dash of ostentation and self-confidence was con spicuously present in Montrose; and, as | terial elections to the Glasgow Assembly his sister Catherine was known to be at of 1638 with a particularity savouring this time lurking in London in an adulterous connection with her brother-inlaw, it may have occurred to the King that it would be not unbecoming in the young gentleman to carry less sail. to every jot of what they had written. He had no secretiveness in his nature, and could do nothing by halves. He was at this time a resolute and even an enthusiastic Covenanter. rather of paternal government on the modern Imperial type than of a government extemporized for the purpose of vindicating, as one chief thing, the freedom of Presbyteries in Scotland. This In Scotland he found himself a person fact turned up inopportunely in the As.of consequence. He was in the front sembly itself, through the awkwardness rank of the nobility, his estates were of a clerk, who blurted out the name of large, his connection extensive; and there the man whom one of the Presbyteries was a general persuasion that he was ca- had been instructed by the Edinburgh pable of great things. It was of high Tables to return. The Rev. David Dickimportance to secure such a man to the son endeavored to explain, hinting that the popular cause, and Montrose was not in-name in question had been sent down disposed to throw himself into the move- to the Presbytery through negligence. ment. The scheme of Thorough, in its Montrose would not countenance even so two branches of enslavement in Church much of pious guile. He started to his, and State, had been applied to the Scot- feet, put aside canny David's explanation, tish Parliament and to the Scottish and declared that the Tables would stand Church. Mr. Brodie, whose valuable work on our Constitutional History has been, perhaps, too much thrown in the shade by Hallam, points out the grasping arbitrariness with which, in his visit to Scotland in 1633, Charles laid his hand Partly, perhaps, with a view to humourupon the civil as well as the religious lib-ing and leading him, partly, also, because erties of Scotland. On returning from they knew that he was at heart true to the his travels in 1636, Montrose became cause, the Covenanters named him Genconvinced that both were in danger, and eralissimo of the army which proceeded with all that was best in the intelligence to Aberdeen in the beginning of 1639, to and most fervent in the religion of Scot- check the Marquis of Huntley, who was land, he prepared for their defence. in arms in the royal interest, and to chasAgainst Thorough the National Cove- tise the anti-covenanting town. He was nant of 1638 was Scotland's protest. It accompanied by General Alexander Lescorresponds, in its essential meaning, lie, nominally his Adjutant, really his though not in time, to the impeachment instructor. Montrose took his first pracof Strafford by the Commons of England. In each instance the respective nations may be pronounced unanimous. Clarendon acted with Hampden and Pym against Strafford; Montrose put his name to the National Covenant as well as Argyle, and sat upon the same Table, or, as we should now say, managing committee, of Covenanting Nobles with Lothian and Rothes. Baillie says that the Covenanters found it difficult to "guide" him; but this arose, in the earlier stages of the business, not because his Covenanting zeal was in defect, but because he would do things in a high-handed, and what appeared to them an imprudently open way. The Tables, for example, had looked after the Presby tical lessons in war with the aptitude of genius born for the field. The Aberdonians and the Gordons felt the weight of his hand, and the Royalists in the northeast of Scotland were effectually quelled; but even while enforcing the Covenant at the sword-point, he proclaimed that his zeal for the religious liberties of Scotland was not more honest than his allegiance to his Sovereign; and there sprung up and gradually strengthened in him the idea that Argyle and his party were pressing matters too far, that enough had been conceded by Charles, and that the day was drawing near when it would be necessary to make a stand for the Monarchy. In point of fact, sincere as was the dent in his devotion to his country as Argyle, had never conferred with Hampden, never imbibed from the English Puritans their invincible distrust of Charles. Covenanting zeal of Montrose, it was never so fervent as in some of the Covenanters. He was a religious man, but his religion was a very different thing from that of Cromwell, Vane, or Argyle. With them religion was an impassioned There was much also in the character energy of spiritual enthusiasm; with him of Montrose to predispose him to that it was the devout and reverent loyalty lofty but somewhat vague idealization of with which a noble nature regards the authority, that enthusiasm for the repreSovereign of the universe. If the main sentative of a long line of kings, that current of tendency in those years was reverence for the established order of religious, if the main factor in world- things, and that partly aristocratic, partly history was religious earnestness, the feminine shrinking from the coarser and circumstance that Montrose . was not a cruder associations of democracy, which supremely religious man, would account constitute the poetry of modern Toryism. for his having played a glittering rather Mr. Mark Napier has printed an essay than a great part in the Revolution. by Montrose, brief but of singular inCardinal de Retz's compliment gives the terest, in which his conception of kingly reason why it was impossible for him authority and popular freedom, and of the to be a Scottish Cromwell. Cardinal relation between the two, is set forth with de Retz pronounced him "the solitary as much lucidity as is common in writings being who ever realized to his mind of that generation, and with a certain the image of those heroes whom the stateliness and pomp of expression world sees only in the biographies of which, taken along with the touches of Plutarch." A Plutarchian hero was out of date in the age of the Puritans. Montrose aspired to emulate the deeds of Cæsar and Alexander. Cromwell sought the Lord in the Psalms of David. Add to this that, in comparison with Argyle and the best heads in the party, Montrose was deficient in judgment, in experience, in thorough apprehension of the organic facts of the revolution. His lack of judgment is demonstrated by his entire misconception of the views of Argyle and Hamilton. He took up the notion that these men aimed at sovereignty. This, as the sequel proved, was an hallucination. When Charles I. was struck down and not yet beheaded, Hamilton did not attempt to set the Scottish crown on his own head, but lost his life in an effort to replace it and that of England on the head of Charles. When Charles I. was dead, Argyle did not seize the throne of Scotland, which would have been a hopeful enough enterprise, but staked all on a hopeless attempt to regain for Charles II. the throne of Charles I. The motives of Argyle's conduct, at the period when his path diverged from that of Montrose, are sufficiently clear. Well acquainted with the character of the king, with the policy and projects of Laud and Strafford, with the wrongs of the English Puritans and their estimate of the danger threatening the liberties of the nation, he knew that it would be puerile simplicity to accept the professions of Charles as an adequate guarantee of what Scotland required and demanded. Montrose, ar poetry occurring in Montrose's verse, own. anny of subjects, the most fierce, insatia- | out of the main current of his country's ble, and insupportable tyranny in the history, and getting into a track of his world." He is prepared to go lengths in submission to the "prince" which show that he never kindled into sympathy with the high, proud and free spirit of the English Puritans, never got beyond the figment of indefeasible right in an anointed king. Subjects, he declares, "in wisdom and duty are obliged to tolerate the vices of a prince as they do storms and tempests, and other natural evils which are compensated with better times succeeding." Here were the germs of a Royalism as enthusiastic as could be found among the young lords and swashbucklers who were now beginning to cluster round Charles at Whitehall. We can imagine the effect which a personal interview with Charles, at the period when he made his first important concessions to his Scottish subjects, would have upon Montrose. They met at Berwick in July, 1639, when the King, finding it impracticable to reduce the Scots by force of arms, patched up an agreement with the Covenanters, and might well seem, to one predisposed to trust him, to have yielded all that his countrymen could reasonably expect. The "melancholy Vandyke air," the pathetic dignity which seldom forsook Charles in private, the studied delicacy With Montrose, in his political specu- of consideration and praise with which lations or dreams, were associated Napier he well knew how to act upon a young of Merchiston, Sir George Stirling of man not without his touch of egotism and Keir, and Sir Archibald Stewart of Black- of vanity, won the heart of Montrose. The hall. These had "occasion to meet latter did not come to a breach with the often" in Merchiston Hall, the residence Covenanters, but henceforward he veheof Napier, near Edinburgh, a turreted mently exerted himself to oppose by conkeep or castle, with bartizan atop, on stitutional methods the party which suswhich, in the feudal times, the sentinel pected Charles. He placed himself in made his rounds, and which, in the less frank antagonism to Argyle in the Parmartial days that now were, afforded on liament which met in Edinburgh early in summer evenings a pleasant lounge. 1640. His belief was that the King There Montrose and his friends, secure meant well and that the objects of the from intrusion, could talk politics, theo- Covenant had been secured. He was retical and practical, casting a glance at now in constant correspondence with intervals over the loveliest landscape, the Charles, but his letters contained nothing green-blue Pentlands on the left, the soft to imply that he had ceased to be a Covundulating swell of Corstorphine hill on enanter. Nay, he made bold to give his the right, while the setting sun flooded royal correspondent advice which is surwith amber glow the valley that lay be-prising for its courageous honesty. tween. At the foot of the tower, now Practise, sir, the temperate governfronted with a white dwelling-house, but ment; it fitteth the humour and disposiwhich then stood bare and gaunt, were tion of Scotland best; it gladdeth the the meadows which logarithmic Napier, hearts of your subjects; strongest is that as fond of experimental farming as of power which is based on the happiness algebra, had nursed into sap and luxu- of the subject." riance. Algebra and cow-feeding are not The position of Montrose was rapidly generally considered promotive of specu- becoming painful, rapidly becoming unlative romance, but the inventor of loga- tenable. Restlessness, agitation, peturithms gave play to his imagination in lant loquacity were the external signs of the study of prophecy, and was an in- a conflict with which his mind was torn. trepid theorist on Antichrist and Arma- Anxiously and ardently loyal, he could geddon. Lord Napier, Montrose's friend not enter with enthusiasm into the views and brother-in-law, was the son of this of those who promoted the second Scotmany-sided genius, and seems to have in- tish levy against Charles, or take any deherited his vein of imaginative enthu- light in the advance into England. It siasm rather than his sagacious intelli- was undeniable, however, that the Covgence of algebraic figures and agricul- enanters had many causes of offence, and tural facts. In Lord Napier's society as they professed, in the new appeal to Montrose found himself steadily growing arms, to fight not against the King but in that romantic loyalty which is rooted his evil counsellors, he did not come to in the affections rather than in the in- an open rupture with the Scottish leadtellect, and in opposition to the Cove- ers. He commanded 2500 men in Alexnanting chiefs. He was working himself ander Leslie's army, and dashed gallant 66 |