The objections that ‘all decent folk’ had declared against a general who could use Irish troops in Scotland now suddenly vanished. All the nobles and great families were either hurrying in person or sending representatives or repeated letters, urging their loyalty and longing to help the King’s cause both with their purses and with every man on their estates. The Earl of Tra-quair, who had wobbled so long in his stately fashion, now showed the way the wind was blowing by sending his eldest son and heir, young Lord Linton, to pay his court to the conqueror, with the present of a troop of horse, and promises of more.
Most powerful and important of all these, and well aware of it, as of the ridiculous aspect of all these proud lords tumbling over each other in their anxiety to acclaim the winner, was the Marquis of Douglas, who had shown the sights of Rome to his young compatriot a dozen years before. He had been Lord Angus then, an amused and amusing youth, whose cheerful sophistication had since developed into a shrewd cynicism. If he felt at all abashed at having waited till now to declare himself, he was not going to show it.
He was no knight-errant, as he had always known Montrose to be – ‘Knew it even that night we dined at the English College, do you remember, and that pleasant golden Roman wine? It does not travel well, that’s the pity. No, I cannot say the Bloody Heart still beats very strongly in the Douglas race, but then it’s three hundred years since my ancestor thought fit to take the heart of the Bruce to the Holy Land. One does not do those things now. But my lands of Dumfries and Clydesdale are wide, and full of recruits, and your Lordship’s success has convinced me I can employ them in no better cause than that of your army’.
It was the opinion of all, though generally less frankly expressed. Montrose’s camp had become a Court, attended by the chief nobles of Scotland. The Earls of Annandale and Linlithgow and Hartfell, the Lords Fleming and Erskine and Seton, Towers of Inverleith, Charteris of Amisfield, Stewart of Rosyth, all crowded round him, eager to pay homage.
Alasdair was sent to repress any of the new Covenanting levies that had so lately been formed in the West; and found none. Everywhere he was greeted with cheers and protestations of loyalty, and nowhere so eagerly as at Loudoun Castle, the house of that fierce Covenanter, the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who was most conveniently not at home. But he left his wife, Lady Loudoun, to do the honours, which she did most heartily, as well as sending her major-domo, John Halden, to Montrose, ‘to present her humble service to the King’s greatest servant.’
Alasdair sang her praises on his return in florid burlesque of their interview – ‘And isn’t that the grand old lady – took me in both arms, she did, and gave us all a feast that would have made Lucullus hang out his tongue, “and my old buck,” says she, or some other such words, signifying approval – “it’s a great thing you’ve done for Scotland,” says she, “for we’re all of us sick to death of this God-damned Solemn League and Covenant,” says she, “and to hell with the bloody ministers,” says she – and I’ll swear to you if I’d have given the time to stay another day to convert her, it’s “Up with the Pope” she’d be spouting now over her glass.’
There was no holding Alasdair these days. But Montrose was determined to keep his army in restraint. After only two days at Kilsyth, he had marched upon Glasgow, thinking to meet Lanark’s new army coming from there. But Lanark’s new army had all dispersed, and their leader fled out of the country.
Montrose warned Glasgow of his approach, to make ready provision for his army, and to keep the citizens within doors. The town council promised him £500 sterling for his soldiers, if the city were left undisturbed; and he made clear to the Highlanders and Irish that any attempt at sack or loot would be punished instantly by death.
They could not believe he really meant it, and they victorious over all their enemies, and the fair city of Glasgow the richest booty that ever they had set eyes on, with shops and booths and market places displaying everything that the most extravagant wish of man could desire.
But he showed that he meant it. One or two houses were looted and burned, and he had the offenders promptly hanged.
‘He can afford to slight his old followers, now he has got these fine Lowland lords to eat out of his hand,’ said the grumblers.
But now he was Governor of Scotland, and would have to govern. He moved the army out of temptation’s way by making his camp up the river at Bothwell, half a dozen miles from the city, leaving his praises to be sung in a spate of Latin verse by the local poets.
From that armed court he wrote to the old Scots poet, William Drummond, arranging for the publication of his last poems and pamphlets, which had failed to win the approval of Warris-ton, that rigid literary censor.
‘I am glad to be in time for that, for he is very old,’ he said, as he sent Colonel Nathaniel Gordon eastward on this pacific message; Drummond’s familiar lines were in his mind, urging him to make good use of what was left to them of life’s wasting day.
Thy day posts westward, passéd is thy morn,
And twice it is not given thee to be born.
The old friend of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson wrote his majestic congratulations to the Viceroy of Scotland, that His Majesty’s crown was re-established, the many-headed monster of rebellion all but quelled, and ‘by the Mercy of God on Your Excellency’s victorious arms, the Golden Age is returned.’
A golden age it was, in the valley of the Clyde, with the seagulls wheeling white against the dark woods on its banks, in that high August sunshine. It lasted until the end of August.
By the 1st of September, Nathaniel Gordon had returned from his mission, and from another, which he had had first to carry out, and that was the releasing of the royalist prisoners in Edinburgh. The Tolbooth had been crowded with them in hideous conditions of semi-starvation, rats and disease. Those in the Castle were mostly in far better case, but the Castle, outside the city, had not yet surrendered itself to the new government, and Montrose would not take his army anywhere near it, for the plague was now raging in Edinburgh. So he had told Colonel Gordon to exchange his prisoners for those in the Castle.
But one prisoner flatly refused to be exchanged, and that was young James, now Lord Graham. Fully realizing his importance, he objected that his release would mean his father having to forgo, from among his prisoners, ‘a more valuable officer than myself.’
The forethought and unselfishness of such a decision from a boy not yet twelve years old was cited in amazement – the heroism, devoid of glamour and excitement, of preferring to remain in prison in time of plague, seemed positively unnatural.
But James always knew what he wanted. He was very comfortable where he was, thank you, he told Colonel Gordon, and at last had time for all he wanted to do, which he had never had before. The Governor was a very interesting man, and knew all about shipbuilding, which was James’ particular hobby at the moment. He did not want to be a sailor or explorer or anything like that, but just to plan ships and watch them being made; in the meantime, while waiting for a dockyard, he was making models of them with the Governor.
As for the plague, he argued with good reason that it made very little odds what one did about it. Two girls of gentle birth called Bessie Bell and Mary Gray had gone away from the city that summer and lived up on the hillside in a hut made of branches and bracken, so as to escape from all danger of infection. They were heard singing as they rambled through the woods; then the singing was heard no longer; someone went and peeped into their nest, and there they lay dead in each other’s arms; now the woman who washed James’ clothes sang a song about it.
Short of such a retreat as their ‘bower on yon hillside’, Edinburgh Castle suited James as well as anything.
But through his hermit-crab detachment, his determination was giving him a happy pride and confidence. He, who had always longed to be as brave and strong and tall as Johnnie, who had so envied his brother that glorious brief winter of his life beside his father, was now getting his own chance. In his passive way, the
way which best suited him, James could now also be a hero; and not even the prospect of seeing his old friend Alasdair again could tempt him from it.
So Nathaniel Gordon came back without him on that golden first day of September, when he rode into the camp on the river side with his hundred and thirty rescued captives – haggard, pallid men, bearing the marks of rats’ teeth on their bodies, who stared bewildered at the sunshine and the unfamiliar faces of men, and moved strangely among the liberties of this victorious army.
Another visitor rode into the camp that day, and was greeted with great acclamation and ceremony. This was old Sir Robert Spottiswoode, the King’s Secretary of State for Scotland, bearing letters from the King, and a patent that created the Marquis of Montrose Lieutenant-Governor of Scotland. Montrose was now invested with all the powers and privileges which had been formally bestowed on Prince Maurice. He had the power to summon Parliaments, and at once prepared a proclamation to be issued to the chief towns, summoning a Parliament to be held in Glasgow in October.
‘And this is the very day, God be with it,’ said Alasdair, ‘that we first smashed the rascals at Tippermuir a year ago. Can your Lordship believe it?’
Nobody could quite believe anything. Like the released prisoners, they went about dazzled with their glory. Only Montrose took it for granted that he had won, that all the other nobles of Scotland were glad of it, and eager to join him.
Colonel Nathaniel Gordon wished he did not take it so much for granted. He knew the temper of those men better than did Montrose, who was too ready to judge others by himself. He still hoped for Huntly’s alliance, never seeing, as did even Huntly’s friends, that he ‘could not endure to be a slave to his equal’; nor that this was the normal attitude of the nobles, whenever one of their number was raised up over them.
Nor could he believe that Alasdair should really hanker after the loot of Glasgow; that Aboyne should really be jealous of the praise given to the Ogilvys. They could not be thinking of those things, now that the kingdom had been won for the King.
But where was the King?
Montrose had fulfilled his promise to him, made six months ago at Inverlochy. ‘I doubt not before the end of this summer I shall be able to come to your Majesty’s assistance with a brave army.’
But the King had never kept his to Montrose, made last April, that he would send cavalry under Sir Philip Musgrave, and would himself join him with all the speed he could. He and his secretary, Lord Digby, had planned this together; but since then the battle of Naseby had been fought and lost, and the King’s army had had no chance to come north. All this last year he had been losing ground in England, as fast as Montrose had been gaining it for him in Scotland.
But now Digby’s hopes, dashed by Naseby, had been revived by Kilsyth. Now could all the disasters and muddles in the south be retrieved, and he felt more assurance than he had done since the war began, of ‘God’s carrying us through with His own immediate hand, for’ – so Digby wrote privately to a friend and in no compliment – ‘all this work of Montrose is above what can be attributed to mankind.’
Such praises Sir Robert Spottiswoode now repeated to his new master, the Governor of Scotland, while he handed him the letters that contained the King’s thanks, though indeed Charles ‘would not so injure words as to put upon them what they are not capable of.’ He had less difficulty in giving his instructions that Montrose should march south to the Border, and there join forces with the Border earls. The most important of these, Home and Roxburghe, had already written several times urging Montrose to come to Tweedside, telling him the numbers of men they would add to his Standard.
So he wrote to the King, telling him he hoped in a few days to cross Tweed with at least twenty thousand men for His Majesty’s service – and where should they meet with His Majesty? He asked this of Spottiswoode, who could not answer.
For Charles was paying a visit to the Marquis of Worcester, who entertained him sumptuously at Ragland with banquets and hunting parties. There he wrote graceful apologies to Montrose for his own misfortunes, which were the cause, he said, ‘though it is the more for your glory, that “shall be” is as yet all my song to you.’
It was Charles’ chief misfortune that ‘shall be’ was all his song through life. Never was his loathing of the here and now, that goading need to decide and act on the moment, so deep as at this present. All his fortunes in England had slipped from him, and his only hope to reclaim them lay in another country.
Yet he lingered at Ragland, craving only for the sad drugging of his soul in furiously active inaction. On horseback he was King indeed, and had won at an early age to that kingdom against odds that would have defeated most men. To lead the chase, to forget in the throb and rhythm of his horse, in his confident and daring guidance of it, in the keen rush of the air against his cheek, in the baying of the hounds, and the whole wild flying scene beneath the indifferent sky, that he had lost one kingdom, and might, while hunting here, be losing another – this was his way to prove himself a King.
So, ‘in melancholy feasting and hunting,’ he let time slip past him – and more than time slipped past.
The Covenanting army in England, led by David Leslie, a greater soldier by far than his family connexion, old Sandy Leslie of Leven, had had news from Argyll at Newcastle, as fast as he could send it, of the defeat of the Covenant at Kilsyth, together with commands and entreaties that Leslie should hurry back and defend its cause in their own country, rather than go on fighting the battles of the insolent and ungrateful English Parliament.
So Leslie threw up the siege of Hereford to march north against Montrose, and with him went five thousand cavalry, the bulk and best of the Covenanting army in England. He intended to pick up about a thousand and more from the garrisons of Berwick and Newcastle, and there also to join with Argyll.
Had the King been on the watch, he could have intercepted this army and prevented it ever reaching the Border – indeed, as David Leslie himself admitted later, there was a moment when Charles’ armies could have utterly smashed him.
But that moment was the present.
Charles missed it, and Leslie went past him on the road that he had left clear to Scotland.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Two days after Sir Robert Spottiswoode’s arrival, Montrose called a grand review of all his troops in Bothwellhaugh. There, in that flat marshy meadow by the river, beneath the scarlet of the Standard, he was presented with his royal commission as Viceroy. As the first act of his sovereignty, he knighted Alasdair before all the army, proclaiming him Captain of the clans in the service of the King, and gave a speech in his praise that made the Macdonalds burn to prove themselves greater heroes than ever.
But Alasdair had decided that the best way to do that was to march back to the Highlands, to a campaign where booty was the rightful reward of victory, and no man would be hanged for taking it. His highest motives also impelled him; his father had summoned him; the homes of his clan were being harried; and, he told Montrose, he would be no true Highlander if even the King’s cause came before that of his own blood.
Montrose could not urge commands or threats to the ally he had just knighted, who looked on himself as the representative of a foreign power. All he could do was to take the departure of his allies with the most charming grace he could command, so as to encourage their swift return. That, Alasdair devoutly promised, when he returned thanks for his new honours in a speech expressing passionate friendship for his commander. His promise convinced himself, but not Montrose.
As he saw that red-headed giant march up round the bend of the river and into the north at the head of his clan, with all his pipers playing the march of the Macdonald men, and a bodyguard surrounding him picked from the finest of the Irish troops, Montrose did not think he would ever see him again; and he did not.
The most marvellous year of Alasdair’s life, as of many others, was over.
Away he marched with his men towards the distant shapes of t
he mountains; their kilts and the tails of their plaids swung with a jaunty criss-cross movement; the shrill skirl of their pipes came ever thinner and more faintly mocking through the bright, late summer air.
Away they went from history, and the march of great events. Colkitto of the snow-white beard and glittering eyes had beckoned them back into that older, other world to which they belonged; a world of legend; a world of personal loyalties and enmities as simple as in childhood, and as free and irresponsible; a world of personal combats, hand to hand, as in those days when there were giants on the earth; of hunts that lasted for days, while at night the hunters slept in the forest; of feasts where heroes in their cups and in the songs of their minstrels could see themselves as gods.
Their plaids melted into the heather, their music into silence; the clouds came rolling down from the hills like a heavy curtain, closing on that world which was to last them for just another century – until, exactly a hundred years later, the great-grandson of the King they had been fighting for in that annus mirabilis, 1645, would arrive alone in Scotland, as Montrose had done, and once again would band the Highlands together to fight for him, and once again would lead them into history, this time to their destruction. Then would they pay the penalty for refusing to march with the times; the roads and bridges, that they had refused as effeminate luxuries, were made by others, the Highlanders destroyed as a nation, and only then made part of the changing outer world.
For one year Montrose had been able to absorb them into his larger purpose, and make history of the stuff of fairy tale. But he too had to pay the penalty, when with their help he attained a position that no man would have thought possible a year ago. With their help he reached the foot of the rainbow; but the fairy gold that lies there was melting between his hands.
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