The most poetical chronicler would find it impossible to render the
incidents of Montrose's brilliant career more picturesque than the
reality. Among the devoted champions who, during the wildest and most
stormy period of our history, maintained the cause of Church and King,
"the Great Marquis" undoubtedly is entitled to the foremost place. Even
party malevolence, by no means extinct at the present day, has been
unable to detract from the eulogy pronounced upon him by the famous
Cardinal de Retz, the friend of Condé and Turenne, when he thus summed
up his character:--"Montrose, a Scottish nobleman, head of the house of
Grahame--the only man in the world that has ever realised to me the
ideas of certain heroes, whom we now discover nowhere but in the lives
of Plutarch--has sustained in his own country the cause of the King his
master, with a greatness of soul that has not found its equal in our
age."
But the success of the victorious leader and patriot is almost thrown
into the shade by the noble magnanimity and Christian heroism of the man
in the hour of defeat and death. Without wishing, in any degree, to
revive a controversy long maintained by writers of opposite political
and polemical opinions, it may fairly be stated that Scottish history
does not present us with a tragedy of parallel interest. That the
execution of Montrose was the natural, nay, the inevitable, consequence
of his capture, may be freely admitted even by the fiercest partisan of
the cause for which he staked his life. In those times, neither party
was disposed to lenity; and Montrose was far too conspicuous a
character, and too dangerous a man, to be forgiven. But the ignominious
and savage treatment which he received at the hands of those whose
station and descent should at least have taught them to respect
misfortune, has left an indelible stain upon the memory of the
Covenanting chiefs, and more especially upon that of Argyle.
The perfect serenity of the man in the hour of trial and death, the
courage and magnanimity which he displayed to the last, have been dwelt
upon with admiration by writers of every class. He heard his sentence
delivered without any apparent emotion, and afterwards told the
magistrates who waited upon him in prison, "that he was much indebted to
the Parliament for the great honour they had decreed him"; adding, "that
he was prouder to have his head placed upon the top of the prison, than
if they had decreed a golden statue to be erected to him in the
market-place, or that his picture should be hung in the King's
bedchamber." He said, "he thanked them for their care to preserve the
remembrance of his loyalty, by transmitting such monuments to the
different parts of the kingdom; and only wished that he had flesh enough
to have sent a piece to every city in Christendom, as a token of his
unshaken love and fidelity to his king and country." On the night before
his execution, he inscribed the following lines with a diamond on the
window of his jail:--
"Let them bestow on every airth a limb,
Then, open all my veins, that I may swim
To thee, my Maker! in that crimson lake;
Then place my parboiled head upon a stake--
Scatter my ashes--strew them in the air:
Lord! since thou know'st where all these atoms are,
I'm hopeful thou'lt recover once my dust,
And confident thou'lt raise me with the just."
After the Restoration, the dust _was_ recovered, the scattered remnants
collected, and the bones of the hero conveyed to their final
resting-place by a numerous assemblage of gentlemen of his family and
name.
There is no ingredient of fiction in the historical incidents recorded
in the following ballad. The indignities that were heaped upon Montrose
during his procession through Edinburgh, his appearance before the
Estates, and his last passage to the scaffold, as well as his undaunted
bearing, have all been spoken to by eyewitnesses of the scene. A graphic
and vivid sketch of the whole will be found in Mr. Mark Napier's
volume, _The Life and Times of Montrose_--a work as chivalrous in its
tone as the _Chronicles_ of Froissart, and abounding in original and
most interesting materials; but, in order to satisfy all scruple, the
authorities for each fact are given in the shape of notes. The ballad
may be considered as a narrative of the transactions, related by an aged
Highlander, who had followed Montrose throughout his campaigns, to his
grandson, shortly before the battle of Killiecrankie.