powerless to save, exchanged an important Moorish prisoner for father
John Alvaro, secretary to the infante. Owing to various delays, it was
three years before Alvaro reached Portugal, but when he arrived he
carried with him the heart of Fernando, which was borne at the head of a
long procession clad in black to the abbey of Batalha, where John and
Philippa, Duarte, and a little brother and sister lay buried. On the way
they met unexpectedly dom Enrique, master of the Order of Christ,
attended by his knights, and a messenger was sent by the prince to ask
the meaning of the train of mourners.
'Senhor, it is the heart of the saintly infante,' was the answer he
received, and without a word Enrique turned his horse, and accompanied
by his knights rode on to Batalha, where he laid the casket in the grave
which awaited it.
Twenty-seven years after his death Fernando's body was obtained from the
Moors, and was carried over to Portugal. With the pomp of a king
expecting his bride Alfonso V., surrounded by his nobles, was drawn up
on the banks of the Tagus, and behind him were the bishops and abbots of
Portugal and a dense throng of people.
For long they watched and waited, and none that was present forgot the
dead silence that reigned in that multitude, more solemn than prayers,
more welcoming than the sound of guns. At length a ship came in sight
across the bar of the river; then, baring their heads, the crowd parted,
and the bones of the Constant Prince were borne to Batalha.
THE MARQUIS OF MONTROSE
Fighting was in the blood of the Grahams, and when James, hereafter to
be known as the 'great marquis of Montrose,' was a little boy he loved
to hear tales of the deeds of his ancestors, who had struck hard blows
for the liberty of Scotland in days of old. One, sir John Graham, a
friend of sir William Wallace's, had been killed at Falkirk more than
three hundred years before; another had died on Flodden field, and a
third had fallen at Pinkie, besides many who had taken part in less
famous battles. James knew all about them, and was proud to belong to
them, and did not guess that it was _his_ name and not _theirs_ which
would be best remembered through the centuries to come.
But the Grahams were not only brave soldiers; they were for the most
part clever men. There was an archbishop among them and a bishop, while
James's grandfather had held the highest offices of the state under king
James VI., and was president of the Parliament when the king was far
away in Westminster talking broad Scotch to the great nobles and
servants of his dead cousin queen Elizabeth. Montrose's own father,
however, had no love either for war or statesmanship, and after he lost
his wife in 1618 stayed quietly at home in one of his many castles,
taking care of his family, keeping accounts of every penny he spent, and
shooting and playing golf with his friends and neighbours.
James, his only son, was six years old when his mother died, but there
were five daughters of all ages, who were always ready to play with the
boy. To be sure, the two eldest, Lilias and Margaret, married early, and
before two years had passed by one was lady Colquhoun and the other lady
Napier of Merchiston. Still Dorothy and Katherine were left, and
Beatrix, who was only three years younger than her brother, and the one
he liked best of all.
* * * * *
When the great business of marrying his two eldest daughters was safely
over, lord Montrose took his little boy with him on a riding tour of
visits to his estates in Forfar, Perthshire, Dunbarton, and the
Lothians, stopping in the houses of his many friends on the way. James
loved horses all his life, and bills for 'shoes for naigs' were
constantly coming in to him. He spent a good deal of time practising
archery at the butts, and would make up matches with the boys who lived
in the different houses where he and his father went to stay; on wet
days they would get out their foils and fence in the hall, or even dance
solemnly with the young ladies. Of course, he did some lessons too, when
he was at home, probably with his sisters, but while his father only
puts down in his accounts the items of six shillings for books and seven
shillings for a 'pig [or stone bottle] of ink,' we read of nine
shillings for bowstrings and three pounds for '12 goiff balls.' As for
tobacco, the elder Montrose smoked the whole day, a new accomplishment
in those times, and an expensive one when tobacco was sometimes as much
as thirteen shillings and fourpence an ounce; but this habit was hated
by James, who never could bear the smell of a pipe all his life long.
* * * * *
After his son's twelfth birthday lord Montrose decided that his son must
go to college at Glasgow like other youths of his age and position. The
news filled the little girls with awe; it seemed to make their brother
a man at once, and they were sure he would never, never want to play
bowls or hide and seek with them again. But James, though in his secret
heart he may have agreed with them, was too kind to say so, and he
comforted them with the thought of the fine things he would bring them
from the great city, and the stories he would have to tell of its
strange ways. And, if they wished, they might even now come and see the
'stands' (or suits) of clothes that had been prepared for him.
Drying their tears, the girls eagerly accepted his offer. The mixed grey
cloth English clothes were passed by in scorn, but the bright trimming
of a cloak was much admired by the young ladies, though they would have
liked James to have been dressed in red, like his two pages and
kinsfolk, Willy and Mungo Graham. Still, even in the despised grey suit
they thought he made a brave show as he rode away from the door on his
white pony, with his tutor, master Forrett, by his side, the pages and a
valet following. Bringing up the rear were some strong, broad-backed
'pockmanty naigs,' or baggage-horses, bearing the plate, linen and
furniture for the large house lord Montrose had taken for his son in
Glasgow.
Gay indeed that house must have looked with its red and green and yellow
curtains and cushions and counterpanes. As for food, it seems to have
been simple enough, if we can judge by the bills sent in by the tutor
for bags of oatmeal and barrels of herrings. There are also, we are glad
to find, some bills for books, among them Raleigh's 'History of the
World,' only recently published, a Latin translation of Xenophon, and
Seneca's Philosophy. These last two James only read because he was
obliged to, but he would sit half the morning poring over the pages of
Raleigh, of whose own life and adventures master Forrett could tell him
much.
For a short time his little sister Katherine lived with him. Probably
she had been ill, and the soft air of the west was thought good for her;
for Glasgow was only quite a small place then, and the sky over the
Clyde was bright and clear, instead of being dark with smoke, as it
often is now. But in two years' time James Graham's life at Glasgow came
to a sudden end, owing to the death of his father, and, distressed and
bewildered at the duties of his new position, he rode swiftly away one
November morning to Kincardine Castle, to make arrangements for the
funeral.
The ceremonies attending the burial of a great noble were of vast
importance in the seventeenth century. The widow, if he had one, was
expected to spend weeks, or even months, in a room hung with black, in a
bed with black curtains and coverings, no ray of sunlight being suffered
to creep through the cracks of the shutters. The young earl of Montrose
had, as we are aware, no mother, but his sisters were kept carefully out
of sight, while he prepared the list of invitations, to be despatched by
men on horseback, to the friends and relations of the dead earl. For
seven weeks they stayed at Kincardine, every guest bringing with him a
large supply of game or venison, though the castle larders already held
an immense amount of food. Poor James must have felt the days terribly
long and dismal, and doubtless escaped, as often as he could, to take
counsel with his brother-in-law, sir Archibald Napier, who remained his
staunch friend to the end.
* * * * *
At length the old customs had been fulfilled; the last guest was gone,
and in January 1627 Montrose, not yet fifteen, set out for the
University of St. Andrews. Here he found many acquaintances, with whom
he played golf or tennis, or, what he loved still more, practised
archery at the butts. Bows instead of pictures hung on his walls, and
in the second year of his residence the place of honour was given to the
bow with which he gained the silver medal that may still be seen in the
college. On wet days he spent his free hours in chess and cards, or in
making verses like all young cavaliers, but he studied Cæsar and other
Latin authors under his tutor master Lambe and worked at his Greek
grammar, so that he might read Plutarch's 'Lives' in the original
tongue. Everybody liked him in spite of his hot temper, he was so
kind-hearted and generous and free with his money, and though never a
bookworm, his mind was quick and thoughtful and his speech ready. His
vacations he either passed with the Napiers, or in visiting the houses
of his friends in Forfar or Fife, hunting, hawking, playing billiards or
attending races; but he never failed to go to the kirk on Sundays or
days of preachings in his best clothes with a nosegay in his coat, for
he was very fond of flowers, and always had them on his table.
* * * * *
At seventeen this pleasant college life came to an end, and Montrose
married Magdalen Carnegie, whose father was later created earl of
Southesk. We do not know very much about his wife, and most likely she
was not very interesting, but the young couple remained at lord
Carnegie's house of Kinnaird for some years, till in 1633 Montrose, now
twenty-one, set out on his journey to Rome, leaving lady Montrose and
two little boys behind him. In his travels 'he made it his work to pick
up the best of the qualities' of the foreigners whom he met, and learned
'as much of the mathematics as is required for a soldier,' but 'his
great study was to read men and the actions of great men.'
What the foreigners in their turn thought of the young man with the long
bright brown hair and grey eyes, whose height was no more than ordinary,
yet whose frame was strong and spare, we do not know. They must have
admired his quickness and skill in games and exercises, and the grace of
his dancing; but his manner kept strangers at a distance, though he was
always kind to his servants and those dependent on him.
* * * * *
During the three years that Montrose spent abroad grave events took
place in Scotland. Charles I., who had already excited the angry
suspicion of his Scotch subjects by what they considered the 'popish'
ceremonies of his coronation at Holyrood, had lately been enraging them
still more by his measures for putting down the national Church and
supporting bishops throughout the country. The king, in spite of many
good qualities, could never be trusted, and was very obstinate. Also,
what was worse both for himself and his people, he could never
understand the signs of the times or the tempers of those with whom he
had to deal. The gatherings held in various parts of Scotland to express
discontent with the king's proceedings did, indeed, alarm him a little,
but not even some strange scenes that took place in 1637 taught him how
serious the matter really was. The Scottish Church then used no
prayer-book, but, by the royal commands, the bishop and dean of
Edinburgh were reading certain new prayers in the church of St. Giles'
on Sunday, July 23, when 'the serving-maids began such a tumult as was
never heard of since the Reformation.' This 'tumult' was no sudden burst
of feeling, but 'the result of a consultation in the Cowgate of
Edinburgh, when several gentlemen recommended to various matrons that
they should give their first affront to the [prayer] book, assuring them
that the men should afterwards take the business out of their hands.'
We are not told why 'the men' did not do 'the business' to begin with,
but the matrons and serving-maids seemed to have enjoyed themselves so
much on this occasion that they were quite ready for a second effort
a month later.
On August 28 Mr. William Annan preached in St. Giles', defending the
Litany, and when the news was spread about what the subject of his
sermon was to be there arose, says the chronicler, in the town and among
the women a great din.
[Illustration: About thirty or forty of our honestest women did fall a
railing on Mr. William Annan.]
'At the outgoing of the church, about thirty or forty of our honestest
women in one voice before the bishop and magistrates did fall a railing,
cursing, and scolding, with clamours on Mr. William Annan. Some two of
the meanest were taken to the Tolbooth,' or city prison, where Montrose
in after years was himself to lie.
Mr. Annan got safely to his own house, but being troubled over these
events in his mind resolved to ask counsel of his bishop. So that
evening, 'at nine on a mirk night,' he set out in company of three or
four ministers to the bishop's dwelling, but no sooner had the little
party stepped into the street than they were surrounded by 'hundreds of
enraged women with fists and staves and peats, but no stones. They beat
him sore; his cloak, ruff, hat were rent. He escaped all bloody wounds,
yet he was in great danger even of killing.'
* * * * *
This was the beginning of the struggle which was to rend Scotland for so
many years. A bond or covenant was drawn up, part of which was copied
from one of the reign of James VI., fifty years before, guarding against
the establishment of 'popery.' But now new clauses were added,
protesting against the appointment of bishops, or allowing priests of
any sort power over the laws of the country. This document Montrose
signed with the rest, and consented to act if necessary as one of the
defenders of the religion and liberty of Scotland.
Charles of course declined to give way on the smallest point, and
issued a proclamation, to be read at Edinburgh, declaring all who
opposed him to be traitors. In answer the malcontents raised a scaffold
beside the cross, and on it stood Warriston, with a reply written by the
nobles representing the people, which was received with shouts of
applause. Montrose sat at Warriston's side, his legs dangling from a
cask.
'Ah, James,' cried old lord Rothes, as he saw him, 'you will never be at
rest till you be lifted up there above the rest, with a rope.'
Strange words, which were exactly fulfilled twelve years later.
So the first covenant was read, and afterwards it was laid on a flat
tombstone in Greyfriars churchyard, and signed by the earl of Sutherland
as the first noble of Scotland, and then by others according to their
degree. During two days it was borne round the city, followed by an
immense crowd, sobbing and trembling with excitement; from time to time
they all stopped for fresh signatures to be added, and copies were made
and sent over the country, so that each man should place his mark. Next,
subscription lists were opened, taxes apportioned, and a war committee
chosen.
And Charles heard and grew frightened, though even yet he did not
understand.
However, the king saw it was needful to do something, and, as was usual
with him, he did the wrong thing. He chose the earl of Hamilton (in whom
he believed blindly, though no one else did) to go down to Scotland as
his commissioner, with leave to yield certain points when once the
covenant had been retracted, but with secret orders to spin out as much
time as possible, so that Charles might be able to get ready an army.
Yet, secret as Hamilton's instructions were, old Rothes knew all about
them, and on his side made preparations. As each week passed it became
increasingly plain that the two parties could never agree. The General
Assembly, which had been held in November in Glasgow Cathedral, was
dissolved by Hamilton, who had presided over it. The covenanters
answered by deposing the bishops, and suppressing the liturgy, and then
dissolving itself; and the earl of Argyll, soon to be Montrose's
deadliest enemy, joined the covenanters.
* * * * *
One town only remained loyal, and this was Aberdeen, situated in the
country of the Gordons, whose chief, the marquis of Huntly, was Argyll's
brother-in-law. Huntly, like Leslie, who held a command in the
covenanting army under Montrose, had seen much foreign service, so
Charles appointed him his lieutenant in the north, though he bound him
hand and foot by orders to do nothing save with Hamilton's consent.
Chafing bitterly under these restrictions, Huntly was forced to disband
his army of two thousand men, and had the mortification of seeing the
covenanters enter Aberdeen the following week, wearing their badge of
blue ribbons in their Highland bonnets.
The citizens were granted easy terms, and all pillage was strictly
forbidden. Huntly himself was given a promise of safe conduct, but was
afterwards held as a prisoner and sent with his son to Edinburgh castle.
It is not clear how far Montrose himself was guilty of this breach of
faith. The covenanters had always detested Huntly, and it is possible
that he found it difficult to act against them, but at any rate he does
not appear to have taken any active steps to stop their proceedings, and
in after days paid a heavy penalty for his weakness.
Shortly after the English army, consisting of nineteen ships and five
thousand men, arrived in the Firth of Forth, but so dense were the
crowds on both shores that Hamilton, who commanded it, saw that landing
was impossible. Suddenly the multitude gathered at Leith (the port of
Edinburgh) parted asunder, and down the midst rode an old lady with a
pistol in her hand. Hamilton looked with the rest and turned pale at the
sight, for the old lady was his own mother, who in a voice that almost
seemed loud enough to reach the vessel where her son stood, declared she
would shoot him dead before he should set foot on land.
The time was evidently not ripe for invasion, so the men encamped on the
little islands in the Forth, and spent their days in drill.
* * * * *
As often during Montrose's wars, Aberdeen was again the centre of
fighting, but again the general preserved the city from pillage, against
the express wishes, and even orders, of the covenanters. Then came the
news that a peace, or rather truce, had been signed at Berwick, by which
Charles had consented that a parliament should assemble in August in
Edinburgh, though, as he insisted that the fourteen Scottish bishops
should be present at its sittings, wise men shook their heads, and
prophesied that no good could come of the measure. Their fears were soon
justified. Riots broke out in the capital, and Aboyne, Huntly's son,
narrowly escaped violence; the people refused to allow the army to be
disbanded or the fortresses to be dismantled, as had been stipulated by
the peace, till the king had fulfilled the promise made by Hamilton at
the assembly at Glasgow of abolishing the bishops.
This he showed no signs of doing, but merely desired a number of the
leading covenanters to appear before him. Six only obeyed, at the risk,
some thought, of imprisonment or death, but neither Rothes nor Montrose,
who headed them, was given to think of peril to themselves.
The old covenanter seems to have told Charles some plain truths, and the
king in return forgot the courtesy which so distinguished him, and
retorted that Rothes was a liar. No man was present when Montrose was
summoned to confer with the king, and neither he nor Charles ever let
fall a word upon the subject; but after that day his friends noted that
he was no longer as bitter as before against his sovereign, nor so
entirely convinced that the covenanters were right in their acts. Yet,
whatever his feelings may have been, he strongly opposed the king's
desire of filling the bishops' vacant places with inferior clergy at the
meeting of Parliament, and, as might have been expected, the assembly
was prorogued, leaving matters precisely as they were.
* * * * *
After this the Scotch took on themselves the management of their own
affairs, and a Committee of Estates was formed, to which was entrusted
absolute power both in state and army. Leslie was one of this committee;
Montrose was another, and immediately he set about raising troops from
his own lands, and carried out the plan of campaign that had been agreed
on by attacking Airlie castle. On its surrender he garrisoned it with a
few men, and went away; but shortly after Argyll arrived, turned out the
garrison, and burned the castle, at the same time accusing Montrose of
treason to the covenant in having spared it. But the Committee of
Estates declared Montrose 'to have done his duty as a true soldier of
the covenant,' and the accusation fell to the ground.
Montrose, however, though entirely cleared of the charge, was not slow
to read the signs of the times. He saw that the covenanters were no
longer content with guarding their own liberties of church and state,
but desired to set at naught the king's authority, perhaps even to
depose him. So he and certain of his friends, Mar, Almond, and Erskine
among them, formed a bond by which they swore to uphold the old covenant
which they had signed in 1638, 'to the hazard of their lives, fortunes,
and estates, against the particular perhaps indirect practising of a
few.' This was the covenant to which Montrose held all his life, and
for which he was hanged beside the city cross.
* * * * *
Having as he hoped taken measures to checkmate Argyll, Montrose joined
the army, which had now swelled to twenty-five thousand men, was the
first to cross the Tweed at Coldstream, and marched straight on
Newcastle. The town surrendered without firing a shot, and Montrose sent
a letter to the king again professing his loyalty. When later he was
imprisoned on a charge of treason to the covenant in so doing, he
answered that his conscience was clear in the matter, and that it was no
more than they had all declared in the covenant, which no man could
deny. But soon another storm was raised on account of the famous bond
which he and his friends had made a short time before they were put in
prison, and the clamour was so great that even his own party was
alarmed, and gave it up to be burned by the hangman.
* * * * *
Montrose's next object was to induce the king to come to Edinburgh in
order to persuade the Scotch that he was ready to keep his word, and to
grant the country the religious and civil liberties demanded by the
covenant. Charles came, and was gracious and charming as he knew how to
be, even going to the Presbyterian service, which he hated. This pleased
everyone, and hopes ran high; but the quarrel was too grave to be
soothed by a few soft words spoken or a few titles given. Plots and
rumours of plots were rife in Edinburgh, and the king was forced to
employ not the men he wished, but the men whom the Parliament desired.
In November he returned to England, first promising that he would never
take into his service Montrose, who had just been released after five
months spent in prison, where he had been thrown with the rest of his
party after the discovery of the bond.
To one who knew Scotland as well as he it was apparent that the Scotch
Parliament and the English would speedily join hands, and he retired to
one of his houses to watch the course of events. The covenanters tried
to win him back, but Montrose felt that they disagreed among themselves,
and that it would be impossible for him to serve under them. Meanwhile
in England things marched rapidly: Edgehill had been fought; episcopacy
had been abolished by Parliament in England as well as Scotland; and
Hamilton's brother Lanark was using the Great Seal to raise a Scotch
army against the king, for, by a treaty called the Solemn League and
Covenant, Scotland was to fight with the English Parliament against the
king, and England was to abolish bishops and become presbyterian like
Scotland. England, however, did not keep her promise.