Montrose sent his proposals to the King, but had no chance against Hamilton and the Queen combined. If Montrose’s reports were true, then Hamilton’s were false. That seemed impossible to Charles, who knew Hamilton intimately, and not at all. As for that odd business at Holyrood, Hamilton had explained everything. Charles could not uproot the convictions of years, and at a time when his inflexible mind was already jostled and overcrowded.
So Montrose was thanked for his offers and went home. Hamilton was made a duke and went back to Argyll, with whom he was more friendly than ever. Scotland, who four years ago had fired the first shots of that war that had since broken out all over England, now held aloof.
But she still had her army of Covenanters ready, raised fresh forces in it – in case they should be wanted against the Papists in Ireland, Leslie said – and was sought as an ally in turn by both King and Parliament. Argyll considered, argued, bargained, with both sides, for a Presbyterian England as reward for his services.
The King began to grow desperate, and wrote: ‘Hamilton, this is a time to show what you are.’
Hamilton showed it by betrothing his daughter to Argyll’s son, and ignoring Argyll’s negotiations with Parliament.
And Argyll, who seemed to dread the thought of Montrose as an enemy as much as Montrose had disliked having Argyll for a friend, again urged the offers he had already made, to give Montrose the highest command in the army, and to settle all his debts incurred by his imprisonment, if he would join them.
He begged Henderson to do what he could in the matter, that good and wise man who was Montrose’s friend, ‘and, I hope, mine,’ said the soft Highland voice – its hesitation giving the curious charm of diffidence to the man who held absolute power-in Scotland. But diffidence lay deep in him now, a secret fear that he himself could not explain, urging him to bind to his side the young man who had done all he could to break him.
It would be hard. Montrose was too apt to despise those whom he did not love, said the master of understatement. But if he had the sole command of the army – ‘Tell him that, Henderson – and that I can acknowledge him as a better soldier than I am ever likely to be.’
That much-praised modesty rang more true than Henderson had ever heard it. The man’s hands were trembling as they pushed the papers on his table this way and that. Never did he look so little like a great Highland chieftain. He had taken to wearing a black skull-cap in his study, for he was subject to neuralgia. It somehow made him look like a spider; he would not have minded the comparison, he liked to think of himself as at the centre of all this intricate network of plans and politics, a man so great that he could afford to give the appearance of power to others while he himself manipulated all from the background.
So Henderson went hopefully with Argyll’s offers to Montrose; and with him Sir James Rollock as an appropriate mediator, since he had been Montrose’s brother-in-law, and now, after Dorothea’s death, had married a sister of Argyll’s. All believed that even Montrose’s pride was bound to be satisfied with this offer of the highest command in the army of the Covenanters.
But he refused it.
He preferred to go back to England, where his services had already been rejected. He parted from Henderson amicably; there was no bitterness between them. But his refusal shook the minister’s confidence in his own cause to its foundation. He saw that they had miscalculated the measure of this young man’s pride, that it was too high to be personal. He preferred to serve, even to have his service scorned, than to command where he could not respect.
‘So he has turned his coat, and gone over to the enemy,’ said Sir James Rollock, when they knew the result of their parley.
‘No,’ said Henderson, ‘he stands fast to his grounds, and does not rise and fall with success – that brittle square of human actions.’
Chapter Twenty-six
He joined the King’s Court at Oxford.
The Queen was at Merton College, the King at Saint John’s; the Court ladies walked on the lawns reserved only for Fellows; church bells rang sleepily through the soft air; the King’s nephew, Prince Rupert, rode out with his troopers on forays into the countryside; the whole quiet city of dons and scholars hummed with the unaccustomed bustle of Court and camp. Like the mayflies and dragonflies skimming over the placid surface of the Cherwell and Thames, these ephemeral love affairs and intrigues, rumours and plots of war, skimmed over Oxford, to sink and drown in the steady stream of academic life.
Montrose could get no one to listen to his warnings of what was happening in Scotland, not even when he told of Argyll’s offer to himself.
‘One thing at a time,’ was the popular opinion; ‘Settle England first, then we can see about Scotland.’
They would soon settle England, their enemies were nearly all base-born tailors and tradesmen, and as the war was costing Parliament £30,000 a week, for that reason alone it could not possibly last more than three months. So they never saw that those armies were rolling up like thunderclouds in the north, never heeded that Leslie, the new Lord Leven, had now been given their command, which Montrose had rejected. Scotland was a great way off, and the Scots were a pig-headed, self-important race, and no doubt the Earl of Montrose was just like the rest of them.
In any case, he was very unlike everybody here, quite out of it, in fact; their slick, easy manners made him seem old-fashioned – ‘stately to the point of affectation,’ said someone who had felt his familiarity snubbed by that grave courtesy. Another impression was that he ‘moved as if in a romance’.
So that while he felt that he alone could realize what was happening, he was looked on as a visionary. Many had never heard of his victory of the Brig o’ Dee, and few felt they need even trouble to be polite to him.
But those few were of importance. That rising barrister, Mr Edward Hyde, now tutor to Prince Charles, walked with him in the groves of Magdalen, threading their way through the heavy guns that were parked under the academic trees, and told him how he pinned all his moral faith on the Law, and all his rational belief on the necessary swing of the pendulum. Reaction, he said, was bound to come from any violent movement, such as this present. ‘What were your own words, my lord, for the King told them to me, and very sound I thought them – that “the people love change, and expect from it a new heaven and a new earth – but, being disappointed, are as desirous of a re-change to the former estate.” ’
He walked on the lawns at Merton with the King, and looked out over Christ Church meadows, and saw heads, low down, drifting past along the line of the pollard willows which marked the course of the river – heads that kept so still, one would have thought them the progression of a dream, if one did not know that they were the heads of undergraduates in their boats.
And Charles talked of his plans with a free and hopeful courtesy that should have cheered Montrose, but that they seemed to slip along, like those heads below, too easily to be quite real.
As in the grey, neutral light of dreams, where everything that occurs or is said is of equal importance, so everything was of equal importance in the grey light of Charles’ mind. His young nephew, Prince Rupert, had made a fierce charge at Powick Bridge; Prince Charles showed promise at his lessons, but refused to take his medicine; the Parliamentarian leader, Lord Essex, was popular with the London citizens because he was always seen smoking a pipe; the Saint John’s dons wanted to put up a statue of the King over the quadrangle, and Charles thought an equestrian one would be the most impressive – did not Montrose think so? (He knew that he looked his best on horseback – one did not see then that his legs were rather too short.)
Never did anything so rugged as a fact or reason stand out in his talk and give Montrose a chance to catch hold of it at any point and say, ‘But this, and this is what must be done.’
But he said it; and every day had less justification to do so; as his chance of raising Scotland for the King grew less and less, while Argyll prepared his forces up in the north, collecting clan after cl
an, family after family, to his side; and Hamilton did not stir; and Traquair coquetted on the Border, doing nothing in particular; and not a hand was raised for the King.
And down here in this sleepy place, more and more yellow eaves drifted with the green leaves downstream, as summer slid nto autumn, and autumn passed, and all the leaves were brown.
On a winter’s afternoon. Montrose rode out of Oxford up to Headington, and looked down on the city that lay in the misty plain like a grey cloud, carved into towers, lying in a watery sky – a city so unsubstantial that it might at any moment float away and leave the surrounding country to its primaeval marsh. Could seven centuries of mental endeavour, raising the mind of man from that of the savage to the present furthest pitch of human learning, even now disappear, and ‘leave not a rack behind’?
He was looking down on the stronghold of the King’s cause – a cause that he himself felt was losing day by day, and he powerless to prevent it, as he wandered useless as a ghost, from the future rather than the past, since he alone seemed to discern where this present time was drifting.
After green leaves, yellow leaves; after yellow, brown. After rebellion, chaos; after chaos, the rule of One – and who would that be, and what would he do to this land?
Tradition, learning, the pride of the mind and the delight of the eye, they were enemies to this new spirit that had as yet no name nor history, that raged through England and Scotland, burning only to cast the ancient kingdoms into another mould. Once he too had been caught up by it, had burned to make the government of his country perfect, and so, in time, that of the whole world. But the spirit had led him only into a tangle of conflicting wills and personalities, all seeking their own ends; the spirit, he cried to himself, had withered and died; and it had left nothing but confusion and war.
The city below had gathered itself into the twilight and vanished.
He rode down into it, and met Prince Rupert on Magdalen Bridge. That gigantic youth reined in his horse on seeing him, and said, ‘My lord, there is news for you.’
‘Good or bad, Your Highness?’
‘Both. The Parliament have agreed to Argyll’s terms. Parliament has promised that if they win, England shall be a Presbyterian country. Argyll has sent Leslie with eighteen thousand foot and two thousand horse on the march against us.’
‘In God’s name then, what is the good news after that?’
‘That the King my uncle is angry with Hamilton at last, and has recalled him. He will be impeached.’
It was the first friendly sign that Montrose had had from the young Prince; even now, in giving this welcome news, there was no smile in Rupert’s sulky, girlish mouth and beautiful eyes. The tower of Magdalen loomed like a huge shadow behind him in the river mist, and mistily the light of the lamp on the bridge flickered up and down on his face, as he looked gravely at the stranger from Scotland.
He wore no collar, but had knotted his lace handkerchief round his throat; even his slovenliness had an air of magnificence, for the handkerchief was very becoming. His horse was fidgeting, and he bent to pat its neck; in the shadow behind his stooping form, Montrose saw that of his inseparable younger brother, Prince Maurice, only a little less in stature.
The King asked for you,’ said Rupert at last, with difficulty, like a bad-tempered child who has made up his mind to be good. And as he spoke, he wheeled his horse round, and was beginning to canter away with Maurice, when Montrose called after him, ‘Come with me then, Your Highness.’
The brothers went with him to Saint John’s.
‘You were right,’ the King told Montrose as he entered the room; his tone made the longed-for words the most heart-rending that the young man had ever heard. At last Charles realized that the scales were turned against him.
‘What then is to be done?’
It was not a question, but a statement of despair. The martyr note was creeping into his voice. It was interrupted by an unexpected answer.
‘I shall not require very much from Your Majesty’s hands. A small body of troops from Ireland, landed on the west coast of Scotland, a party of horse to enable me to cut my way through the Lowlands and join them – lastly, some arms and ammunition from abroad. Your Majesty’s affairs will at any rate be in no worse case than they are at present, even if I should not succeed.’
‘Let me go with him, and a thousand of my horse,’ said Rupert, ‘Maurice can stay here to command the rest.’
The King’s eyes anxiously sought those of Montrose across the little low college room. Rupert flatly refused to believe what everyone else knew, that Maurice was not near as good a soldier as himself. There was now a note of defiance in his voice; and he could give serious trouble when in one of his moods.
But Montrose steered past the difficulty. Neither of the two princes could possibly be spared from the King’s side at this juncture; he would collect his horse from the Marquis of Newcastle as he went north.
All the Scots mercenaries had followed Leslie; and the Covenanters had garrisoned all the fortresses along the Border. They would have to plan where he might break through. The four men brought chairs up to the table, pulled out maps and lists of regiments. Others were called in in consultation. Some sort of supper was brought them where they sat, as informal as if they were even now on campaign.
The King told Montrose he would appoint him Lieutenant-Governor of Scotland, and Commander of all the Royalist forces there. But Montrose would have no such titles; he had learned the harm that jealousy could do; in proportion as he had won success, so had his following decreased. Let him earn his title first, he said; then, as they looked disappointed, he had an inspiration – let Prince Maurice wear it, and he be his deputy, the King’s Lieutenant of Scotland.
The suggestion pleased all of them, but most, Prince Rupert, as Montrose had known it would. He was glad to have that youth his friend.
The Prince’s white poodle, Boy, strolled in and jumped up on the King’s chair when he had left it for an instant, and there sat turning its long nose right and left to the company as if in imitation of His Majesty, while the two grave brothers went into absurd fits of laughter over him. They seemed on a larger and simpler scale than the rest of Charles’ Court – half foreigners, but more strange than foreign.
Rupert had earned the name of the Wizard Prince among his enemies, and not only because of his terrible cavalry charges, which none of them could withstand. It was believed that he ate children, sacrificed to Satan; that he fed Boy on the flesh of his enemies; that he took the white dog everywhere about with him because he was his familiar spirit who whispered to him the instructions that made him invincible.
A keen interest in scientific experiment and knowledge of chemistry greatly helped this evil reputation. He gave proof of them now as he touched on war material with Montrose. In his opinion, they were only at the beginning of their discoveries in gunpowder, he was certain it could be increased to ten times its present strength.
As they sat and discussed their plans, a couple of drunken undergraduates returning from some athletic supper party went reeling past under the windows, forgetful that they were the King’s, groaning out a dreary comic song from a play that had lately been fashionable at Court.
‘But did he take the fair Lucrece by the toe, sir?’
‘Oh no, no, sir!’
‘And did he somewhat further go, sir?’
‘Oh no no, no no, no no, sir!’
‘Come on, you old Orpheuses, you’re both as blind as Homer!’ shouted an admonishing voice, further off.
‘But did he take the fair Lucrece by the thigh, sir?’
‘Oh fie, fie, sir!’
The last echo of the supper party and the silly, sniggering little song faded gently into the damp night.
At four o’clock the King went to bed, suddenly observed Rupert’s odd neck-gear on his way to the door, and reproved him for his untidy habits, yawning while he patted the poodle and pulled his ears. Affectionate, avuncular, easy, he had quite
forgotten his despair earlier in the evening. Montrose was going north to win back Scotland for him; it was a pity he had not thought of letting him do it before, but how could he tell, since he had naturally thought Hamilton was to be trusted? It had not been his fault, but Hamilton’s; and anyway Montrose would make everything right.
So he went, contentedly, confidently; and Montrose worked on, with Ormonde now, discussing Antrim’s forces in Ireland, many of whom were the Scottish Macdonalds of the Isles who had ben driven out of their homes by Argyll’s clan, and would be in a fever to return and fight them.
Ormonde was very grave; he thought the enterprise a desperate one; and Montrose himself knew well that he had been entrusted with it probably six months too late, or still more probably nearly a year too late, as he remembered the high hopes with which he had rushed down to meet the Queen in Yorkshire early last spring.
But by now it was also too late to question his conditions. Had he ever intended to do so, he would never have joined the King. He must use what cards were dealt him, how and when he might.
Yawning, but well content, he went out from Saint John’s into the white dawn and the sound of bells. Through the shrouding mist there showed the shapes of towers and walls of crumbling stone, that so soon acquired their look of immemorial age. The quadrangle was astir with undergraduates hurrying to chapel, their black gowns flung anyhow across their shoulders.
The air for all its penetrating damp was mild as milk, suggesting not winter but the softest days of spring. An almond tree was already in flower, its topmost branches peering over the wall of Saint John’s gardens, where King Charles loved to walk and discuss the rare plants with the gardeners.
In the porch, Montrose stared sleepily at a notice that was headed with the name of his own University of Saint Andrews. It offered hospitality to any undergraduates of the Oxford and Cambridge Universities that might wish to extend their studies at Saint Andrews, in Saint Salvator’s hall, the official residence of that University. A sudden homesickness for his old college swept over him; he saw his rooms round him in all their gay colours, and his trophies on the walls.
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