Montrose, the Captain General

by Nigel Tranter

Genres: Historical Fiction; Sagas

Synopsis

A brilliant leader, a renowned strategist, a talented moderate in a bigoted age: James Graham, the Marquis of Montrose, is a man of great charm and steadfast loyalty. Devoting his life to King Charles I leads him to reluctant involvement in national affairs: to intrigue, violence, treachery and battle. With all Scotland almost in his grasp, his most hated enemy defeated and discredited and England and Oliver Cromwell next on the list, Montrose looks set to triumph. But that is to reckon without the hand of fate . . . 'Through his imaginative dialogue, he provides a voice for Scotland's heroes' Scotland on Sunday

Release date: August 30, 2012

Publisher: Hodder

Print pages: 429

Sample

The thin slanting sunlight of a March forenoon was sore on eyes that had not closed all night, and James Graham frowned. Some ridiculous corner of the man’s mind was even grateful that he could so frown and narrow his eyes unashamedly; it might not be perceived that the King’s Lieutenant-General and representative in Scotland was in fact fighting to keep the tears from spilling from those narrowed eyes, the firm lips from quivering under the luxuriant moustache and above the trim little pointed under-lip beard. Bare head high, frowning straight into that level dazzlement, and seeing nothing at all, he sought not to hear either, hear the dread words of the Gordon minister of this remote northern parish of Bellie where mighty Spey spreads itself over wide marshlands before reaching the sea; those words, of dust unto dust and ashes to ashes, that signified the end of the earthly journey of one who had barely started along it. Somewhere in the same numbed mind, the man was trying to pray, seeking to assure himself that this was indeed but the beginning, the start of an infinitely fuller and finer and more rewarding journey, for Johnnie Graham, a journey on which, one day, his father would join him again and they would continue together towards a goal of unimagined fulfilment. For himself, that day could not come sufficiently soon.

James Graham was not aware of it, but there were many eyes, other than his own, damp and strained and narrowed, that March morning of 1645, hundreds, it might be thousands, the eyes of harder, fiercer men than he, tough Irish kerns, proud Islesmen, bare-shanked West Highland clansmen, veteran Athollmen, Grahams and Drummonds from Strathearn, Ogilvys from Strathmore. If the serried ranks of Gordon cavalry were dry-eyed enough, it had to be remembered that they had but newly joined the royalist army, and had neither known Johnnie Graham nor yet come to love the father whose slender and so upright figure in the black, rusty half-armour, thigh-length, mud-stained riding-boots and tartan plaid, stood alone beside the open grave – and all but broke other men’s hearts. John, Lord Graham, titular Earl of Kincardine, aged fourteen, had served with his sire, and these others, all through the most savagely taxing winter campaign of Scottish military history, and choked to death in his own blood, in his father’s arms, the day before, worn out by his privations. Now he lay there in the new-dug earth, beside the little parish kirk, wrapped in the same Royal Standard which had flown over the stupendous victory at Inverlochy a month before, and which he and his father had taken it in turns to carry, wrapped round their persons, in snow and rain and mist, across flooded rivers and ice-bound passes, through screaming storms and freezing nights in the heather. Now they would lie together, the thin, great-eyed boy and the King’s banner both, on the curlew-haunted flats of Speymouth; and father and army would march away and leave them there, to win Scotland back for its feckless, high-souled monarch, without his flag.

As the minister’s harshly vibrant voice died away, the darkly swarthy hatchet-faced man who stood a little way behind the Marquis, and was his aide, kinsman and closest friend, Black Pate, Colonel Patrick Graham, Younger of Inchbrakie, raised a hand to the trumpeter near by, who lifted his instrument and blew a simple high reveille, clear, sweet, a little tremulous, its last pure note long-maintained, almost insupportable.

In the quivering silence that followed, Montrose took a single hesitant step forward to the very lip of the grave, his upright carriage drooping suddenly. He stared down into it, lips moving. So he stood for long moments, while, ranked outside and around the little riverside kirkyard, 3,000 men waited motionless, hushed. Then, turning his back on his son, the man straightened up, squared his shoulders and swung round to face the vast array, sun behind him also now. Head high, he raised his hand.

‘Pate – have the March sounded. We have work to do,’ he called, clear for all to hear. ‘Advance in column.’

Even as the trumpet rang out again, this time in the stirring, cheerful bugle-notes that commanded forward in order of march, Montrose paced briskly between the table-stones to the group of officers who stood near the long, low thatched-roofed church of St. Ninian, a motley group, some in the extravagant magnificence of Lowland cavaliers, some in the tartans and calfskins of Highland chieftains, some in sober broadcloth, some in dented and dulled breastplates and ragged nondescript captured clothing – the veterans, these.

‘My friends,’ he said, and sought to keep his too expressive voice even, businesslike. ‘Time we were amove. To your stations of march, if you please. My lord of Gordon – you will ride with me. The Master of Madderty and Sir David Ogilvy command the rearguard.’ He held out his hand. ‘My lord of Seaforth – I bid you a good day and God-speed. May you find your lady fully recovered, at Brahan Castle.’ That was James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, An Greumach Mor, gentleman, to the man who less than a month before had led an army against him.

George Mackenzie of Kintail, chief of the name and 2nd Earl of Seaforth, blinked little pale eyes, and bowed low. ‘My lord Marquis – you may rely on me to hold the North secure for you . . .’

‘For His Grace, King Charles,’ the Graham amended, but courteously – even though, at his back, somebody muttered ‘Treacherous Hielant tod!’ sufficiently loud to be heard by all.

Seaforth elected not to hear it. He was not in a position to do anything about it, having come in from the North with only one or two of his chieftains two days before, to submit himself to the King’s Lieutenant – but leaving his army of Mackenzies, Macleods, MacRaes and Rosses safely behind, unblooded, in his own glens. Inverlochy had convinced him that he was temporarily on the wrong side. But an equivalent defeat would as swiftly detach him again.

Montrose turned to the old Earl of Airlie, who was sitting on a tombstone, wrapped in a borrowed ragged plaid. ‘My good lord,’ he said, in a very different tone, ‘we part, for a space. You have been beyond all men faithful, splendid. It is my pride to have served and striven at your side. You will regain your strength at Strathbogie. There to act my recruiter, to send me more Gordon horse. And when you are fully well, to come to me again.’

The Ogilvy chief shook his grey head. ‘It grieves me sore, James. To leave you thus. With so much still to win. But, God pity me, I but hold you back. I am a done auld carle, and by with it. But – come the good summer days and I’ll be with you again, lad. And . . . and meantime, you have my sons.’

The other spread his hands. Sir David Ogilvy had already taken leave of his father to go with Madderty to command the rearguard. Sir Thomas lay dead in Inverlochy Moss. And the eldest, the Lord Ogilvy, lay rotting in Edinburgh Tolbooth’s darkest pit, there long months, bought from Cromwell for gold by Argyll, to humiliate and use as weapon against his father. The old earl had indeed served his King to the full, and broken his own health in winter campaigning in the process.

‘I will lift Jamie out of Argyll’s pit for you, my friend, never fear,’ the Graham assured. ‘And I will look to Davie’s safety – if I may. God knows you have paid sufficient price. My thanks – and we shall meet again, with the King’s cause triumphant . . .’

So they went their ways, Seaforth north, Airlie west to the Gordon hills, and Montrose and his ragged army east by south, with a kingdom to conquer.

Through South Moray, Banff and the uplands of Buchan they went, in predominantly hostile country. This was the land where the Committee of Estate’s General, the Lord Balfour of Burleigh, had been lurking for many months, hiding his Covenanting army out of harm’s way. They had been safe, if inactive, supported by the majority of the local lords and lairds. Now it fell to the King’s Lieutenant to teach these Northern gentry that it did not pay to forsake their allegiance to their monarch and maintain His Grace’s enemies. Montrose was in stern mood, as well he might be, and forced himself to unrelenting severity in spelling out this lesson, burning many a laird’s-house and tower and granary, levying fines, requisitioning food, horses, gear, in a wide swathe south-eastwards. None put up more than token resistance. He was, however, equally stern with his own people, that there should be no bloodshed, rapine, savagery. He was a mild, almost gentle man for a great captain, but only deceptively so where principle was concerned. He had hanged men in the past for such conduct, and assured that he would do so again, be they heroes or none. His army was a wild one, mixed, of Irish kerns, Islesmen, Highland clansmen, Gordons, Angus lairds, few loving the other; under a less sure hand they would undoubtedly have run riot. But in coming to love this handsome, courteous, warm-eyed man, tested and tested again in the fiercest fire, who never asked his men to do anything that he would not, or could not do himself – they accepted this firm hand surprisingly well, with even the ungovernable giant major-general, Alastair MacDonald, Younger of Colonsay, showing a sort of reluctant respect. The Gordon cavalry was new, and less biddable; but they obeyed their young chief; and the Lord Gordon, now that he had at last made up his mind where his allegiance lay, was attentive to James Graham’s word.

They reached Turriff on the 9th of March, without any major clash of arms, with no word of Burleigh, or where he might now be hiding himself. It was six years since Montrose had last been at Turriff, when as Covenant lieutenant-general himself he had thrown down the gauntlet before Huntly and his Gordons. It would have been a bold prophet who would have forecast the changes and realignments which had taken place since then, and that King Charles’s throne should now be tottering in England and Scotland both.

At Turriff further proof of Inverlochy’s profound effects was demonstrated in the arrival of a deputation from the city of Aberdeen, no less, seeking the Marquis of Montrose and pleading that he would not again descend upon their much-fought-over town. Burleigh was not in Aberdeen, they declared, and all Covenant forces had been sent away. The citizens were at heart still loyal to King Charles, and all they wanted was to be left in peace.

James Graham was only moderately responsive. Although an honorary burgess of the city, Aberdeen had latterly shown him little but ill-will. They had cherished his and the King’s enemies, had welcomed Argyll and accepted a Covenant garrison for long months. Why should they expect clemency from the King’s Lieutenant?

The Irish, they quavered – the Irish . . .! Like so many Lowland Scots, the Aberdonians conceived Colkitto’s Catholic Irish – and the West Highlanders and Islesman likewise – to be little better than barbarian savages and fiends of hell. Their descent upon the city after the Battle of the Bridge of Dee, six months before, was being called the Sack of Aberdeen, and ever becoming, in retrospect a greater nightmare.

Montrose yielded so far as to assure that he would not let Colkitto’s men nearer than Kinellar, nine miles from the city. He himself, however, must and would take over Aberdeen, in the name of King Charles. He required that the Provost and magistrates had the keys of the city ready to hand over, with all cannon, weapons and ammunition, and the citizenry orderly and well-behaved for his entrance in, say, four days’ time. With this the emissaries had to be content. The Graham sent them away hoping that they did not really recognise how tiny and ill-equipped was his force, and that the train-bands and burghers of Aberdeen could overwhelm them by sheer numbers – if they plucked up the courage for the attempt.

Three days later, at the little grey town of Kintore on the lower Don, Montrose encamped, and ordered forward an advance party of Gordon cavalry, some eighty strong, to show the King’s standard and make due arrangements for the entry of the royal representative on the morrow. He would have sent them under their own chief, the Lord Gordon; but that young man was not a little self-conscious about his change of sides – for the last time that he had been in Aberdeen it was as leading a cavalry brigade against Montrose; moreover, he was very well known in the town. So he asked to be excused. Instead, Colonel Nathaniel Gordon was sent. But Nat was something of a wild character, and liable to do rash things. So the reliable and level-headed Donald Farquharson of Braemar, whom all men respected, and was also a familiar figure in Aberdeen, was chosen to accompany him.

That evening, in the Manse of Kintore, with most of his officers happy to seek what amenities and facilities even a little town had to offer those starved of such modest delights for long, James Graham found himself alone with George Gordon for almost the first time since their reunion. Armies on the march offer little opportunity for private converse. His back to the minister’s well-doing log fire, he considered the younger man thoughtfully.

‘You are less than happy, I think, my friend, over your change of allegiance? You still are anxious about your father?’ he asked. ‘That he will be much angered. It distresses you?’

‘My father? No – I have won past that. I have known for long that my esteemed sire is blessed with but poor judgment. For himself, or his family, that might be of little consequence. But as wielder of the Gordon power, it is of great account. I had to take decision of myself – since he has washed his hands of all leadership. No – it is not my father’s frowns that trouble me now.’

‘What then, George?’

The other leaned forward, slight, dark, still-featured, but with deep-set glowing eyes. ‘You will not understand, my lord. But . . . I fear to hear men call me turncoat!’

‘Turncoat! And you think I will not understand? I, whom so many have called that same. Have I not grieved over it?’ Montrose shook his head. ‘Too well I know your trouble, friend. But a man is no man, a poor creature indeed, who cannot change his mind. When issues change, when he gains new light, when he learns better. The man who truly uses the wits God gave him, must change his mind. Frequently. All men err. If they never may change, they are of God’s creatures the most pitiable.’

‘Aye – but to lead men, on one side, in a great cause. And then so soon, to lead them on the other! I see the fingers pointed at me, too clearly. You did, yes. But you are Montrose. Of the stuff of greatness. I – I am but one of Huntly’s brood, who has now changed sides twice . . .’

‘And both times on my account! At my pleading.’ Montrose nodded. ‘I know it, lad. And recognise my responsibility in this, as in so much else. I changed – but I did not change lightly. Nor lightly besought others to do so. Mine was the first signature on the National Covenant. I helped set up the Tables and the Committee of Estates. I was the Covenant’s lieutenant-general. And believed that I did well, in the sight of God and of honest men. And then, when we had won what we sought, the freedom to worship as we believed right, the reform of government in Scotland – when I learned that many of those with me were not content, that they fought indeed for other ends, to pull down the King’s Grace and set themselves up to rule in his stead . . . this I could by no means stomach. To seek to dethrone the Lord’s Anointed! Charles Stewart made errors amany, and had to be shown it. As one of the earls of Scotland it was no less than my duty to show him the error. But I am the King’s loyal subject, always was and always will be. When the ministers turned against the King, in their overbearing spiritual arrogance, I could no longer walk with them. And when they allowed Archibald Campbell of Argyll to use their cause, and mine, for his own evil ends, and make himself master of this kingdom in place of his liege lord – then I had to draw my sword against them, and him. And to urge others to do likewise. As their simple duty. You, George, have done so. If this is to be turncoat, would God there were more of the breed!’

‘You speak truth,’ the Gordon admitted. ‘All this I know. Have told myself many times. But . . . I have not your strength. I am weak, foolish. Too concerned with how men think of me . . .’

‘I would not think that! Of George, Lord Gordon? With a mind of his own. When I remember the long months when my chiefest thought was how to change that mind of yours! On King Charles’s behalf . . .’

‘And I in a misery of remorse, indecision, hating myself! You have won a sorry lieutenant, my lord Marquis.’

‘I have won the man I wanted most to win,’ the other declared simply. ‘And not merely on account of the Gordon cavalry.’

Almost hungrily the younger man stared at him. ‘If I could believe that . . .!’ he said.

‘It is plain truth, man. Since the day we first met, at Strathbogie, I have known that one day we would be brought together. It was fated.’ James Graham smiled faintly, ruefully. ‘Although I near cursed you thereafter. For you it was who made me first to doubt. Really doubt. Doubt my Covenant cause. You who asked if religious freedom meant freedom for all – or only for the King’s Protestant subjects. Forced me to admit that a Catholic is equally entitled to a conscience. And then, later, at Inverurie, not five miles from this place, told me that you had decided that I was on the wrong side in this conflict. I, and the Covenant both. Do you remember? George Gordon’s well-considered opinion!’

‘And you were!’

‘And I was.’

They considered each other, these two, so dissimilar, the assured, nobly-handsome man of thirty-three, looking older, thin, worn with fierce campaigning and personal sorrow, yet with an air almost of gaiety in the high purpose he emanated; and the twenty-seven year old, looking so much younger, diffident, slight, lacking poise but with a great sincerity.

Slowly, wordlessly, the Gordon nodded, rather as though a binding agreement had been contracted.

‘You ride at my side into Aberdeen tomorrow, then?’ the other asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Praise be for Gordon!’

George Gordon drew a long breath. ‘Before you say thanks for Gordon, I would warn you. To my sorrow, I fear that you cannot altogether trust my brother. Lewis. He has his virtues. He will make a better captain of horse than ever will I. But . . . he has much of our father in him. Although more fierce. He is not wholly your man, I think. As I am. Do not rely on him too heavily, my lord.’

‘You say so? I have never esteemed the Lord Lewis to be of your calibre, friend. Headstrong – but spirited. He would never betray us?’

‘Not betray, I think. But he might fail you. In a pinch.’

‘In a pinch, I might fail myself! But – would he let you down, and the Gordons likewise?’

‘He might see it otherwise. His mind works differently from mine. And he might carry some of the Gordons with him. He has done, before.’

‘You think that your father might work on him?’

‘I do not know. It is a sorry business when a man cannot trust father or brothers.’

‘We live in sorry days, with house divided against house. Civil war is of all evils the most grievous, I believe.’ Montrose quelled a sigh. ‘But you trust Aboyne, at least.’ The Viscount Aboyne, second of Huntly’s sons, had been fighting for the King for years, since his late teens, and was even now beleaguered in Carlisle, besieged by General David Leslie.

‘Aboyne always gangs his ain gait. So long as you go that gait . . .’

The calm acceptance in the younger man’s estimation of his family’s failings was somehow moving. Huntly had eleven children, and had let them grow up wild, professing more interest in his dogs. Lady Huntly, with the last of them, had gone to her reward.

Montrose, whose own family life held its problems, changed the subject to that of logistics for the morrow’s entry into the third city of the kingdom. With man-power so low, all would have to be most carefully stage-managed.

In the event, it was not stage-management that was called for, but something sterner. In the early morning Nat Gordon came back to Kintore at the gallop – but with only some thirty of his eighty troopers. And minus Donald Farquharson.

The roused royalist camp heard with mixed sorrow and fury what had transpired. The advance-guard had been well enough received by the city fathers, and suitably entertained, arrangements for the next day being agreed upon with every appearance of amity. But while this proceeded, couriers had been sent hurriedly southwards into the Mearns – whether with official knowledge or no was not clear. The Earl of Balcarres, Master of Horse to the new Covenant commander-in-chief General Baillie, was in the Mearns, protecting the flanks of Baillie’s army, which was based on Perth. And with Balcarres was Sir John Hurry, or Urrie, of Pitfichie, an Aberdeenshire laird turned professional soldier, impartial as to his loyalties and methods, but effective and swift in their execution. Hurry, with a couple of squadrons of cavalry, had made a dash northwards from Conveth, reached Aberdeen that same evening, and fallen upon the unsuspecting Gordons – or such as were not bedded down with the ladies of the town. No quarter had been given. Donald Farquharson had been cut down where he stood, along with most of the advance party. Where Nat Gordon had been during this interlude was not specified – but he had managed to gather together what remained of his company and escape from the city, northwards, even as Hurry and his dragoons dashed away southwards again.

Montrose’s heart sank within him at the news. Aberdeen seemed fated to destroy his good reputation and character. The major stain on his name hitherto had been its so-called sack, when after the treacherous killing of his Irish drummer-boy, under a white flag mission, he had allowed his angry troops to teach the city a lesson. He had never ceased, since, to regret that relaxation of discipline – even though probably he could not have prevented it in any case. The trouble was, he was not really a soldier at all, however successful at times he appeared at the business; he was a partisan, an enthusiast, a strategist and tactician, a would-be righter of wrongs, God forgive him – and he could not bring himself to accept the inevitable concomitants and horrors of war.

George Gordon took the blow hard, conceiving the blame as in some measure his own, since he had brought these men out but had failed to accompany them into the city. But he did not rant and rave like his brother Lewis, who immediately demanded that he should be given the rest of the horse to descend upon Aberdeen and demonstrate the price to be paid for assailing Gordon. Refusal of this demand was not well received.

Montrose laid down his programme in more assured and certain terms than he felt. He would enter Aberdeen as planned, swords sheathed. He would take steps to discover who was responsible for sending for Hurry, and deal with them. He would recover the bodies of the slain, and give them due and proper burial, with military honours. He would ensure that the city paid their dependants an ample sufficiency. And he would impose a collective fine for the King’s cause, on account of Aberdeen’s harbouring of the King’s enemies. But there would be no reprisals, no looting, no savagery. This was no conquered city, but one yielding to the King’s peace.

The growls of dissent were undisguised and general amongst his officers. Here was no way to deal with rebels and traitors. The blood of slain men demanded better than this, he was told. The King’s cause must be vindicated.

‘It is the King’s cause that I am concerned with,’ James Graham asserted, though reasonably. ‘Aberdeen is a large city. We cannot garrison it, or hold it. When we pass on southwards, as we must, on the King’s behalf, I would have behind us a city thinking well of us rather than hating us. To ride through its streets, shooting and slaying and burning might draw some of the hurt out of you. But it would serve King Charles nothing, for these are his subjects, as are we. Until I have five times so many men as I have today, I will not make Aberdeen more my enemy than it is now.’

Only a few agreed with him. It was ironic that one of those who could have been relied on to support him in this was Donald Farquarson of Braemar. George Gordon’s support was dutiful rather than whole-hearted.

‘I could use this evil circumstance to clear me of my promise to keep the Irish at a distance,’ Montrose went on. ‘But I shall not. No good would come of it, and much ill might. But you, Alastair, and you, Magnus, and some of your officers, should come with me, I think. You the citizenry will not fail to recognise – and so perhaps also recognise what they are escaping!’

His gigantic major-general snorted. ‘A God’s name – I’d have Aberdeen praying on its stiff knees that it would never see me or mine again! They would recognise me, to be sure!’

‘No doubt, my friend – if afterwards you survived, with a great and hostile city at your rear, and the rest of Scotland to conquer!’

‘I’d take my chance on that, whatever!’ Colkitto shrugged bull-like shoulders. ‘Soldiering, I’d sooner be feared than loved!’

A murmur of approval ran through the company.

‘But more than soldiering is required of the King’s Lieutenant, Alastair, I’d mind you of it. All of you . . .’

And so, that March afternoon, only a token force of about five hundred marched by Bucksburn and the Forest of Stocket, into Aberdeen, watchful, wary, grim, but with swords in their scabbards and at least a superficial aspect of peace. They were met at the city gates by the Provost and his anxious-looking magistrates and chief burgesses – but with no ministers, it was to be noted – with the keys, and urgent protestations that they had had nothing to do with General Hurry’s attack, had no knowledge that he was coming, and greatly deplored the bloodshed and slaying. They prayed that the Lord Marquis would not hold the city in any way responsible . . .

‘You may not have been responsible, gentlemen, but you did nothing, I think, to halt this shameful killing in your streets. Nor to detain Hurry thereafter,’ the Graham replied, at his sternest. ‘You have train-bands, guildry, thousands of able-bodied citizens. Yet you interfered nothing. You cannot escape responsibility, sirs. Keep your keys. I prefer to hold this town, in the King’s name, by my own strength than by your leave.’ And, as the municipal eyes were busy counting the numbers of men he had behind him, added, ‘Major-General MacDonald’s Irish and Highland Brigades are rather nearer than the nine miles I spoke of to you. But they will remain outwith the city, as promised, unless there is occasion to call them in.’

‘One blast on my horn, and they will be here, by the Mass!’ Colkitto roared, coming in on his cue. ‘And Donald Farquharson shall be avenged!’

Hastily, fervently, the city fathers assured that that would not be necessary, that Aberdeen was the King’s loyalest town in Scotland, or England either, that all was at the disposal of the Lord Marquis and his officers, every soul and stick and stone.

‘Very well. I will hold you to that. I accept this city in King Charles’s name, and require its due adherence to His Grace’s rightful cause. So long as this is forthcoming, the citizens may go about their lawful occasions in peace. Now – I want discovered to me the identity of those who sent for Hurry. And I want the bodies of my friends slain . . .’

There was little or no trouble thereafter, on either side. They buried Hurry’s victims at the great church of St. Nicholas next day, with an impressive and dignified service unflawed by incident – although there were one or two tense moments in the kirkyard. It was almost unbearably poignant for James Graham, who read the Lesson, so soon after that other funeral at the little kirk of Bellie; he realised that every such that he attended hereafter would amount to a re-burial of his own son. He had to remind himself that it was the souls of Donald Farquharson and forty or fifty Gordon troopers that he was praying for, not Johnnie Graham’s.

Any sad preoccupation with Johnnie’s present situation was rudely shattered that evening, when a rider arrived hot-foot from Kinnaird and the Marchioness of Montrose. John Hurry had not halted again at Conveth on his southward flight, it seemed, but had gone on to Kinnaird, on his way apparently to Dundee. And from there he had forcibly taken Jamie, the new Lord Graham and Earl of Kincardine, despite his mother’s, and the Earl of Southesk’s entreaties, declaring him necessary hostage for his father’s better behaviour, and moreover in need of proper upbringing and schooling. The boy was now aged twelve.

Montrose had been learning, for long now, how to control his passions, hurts and angers, learning the hard way. But this latest blow taxed all his resources of will-power and enforced calm. No doubt Hurry, a plain soldier, was acting under orders from Argyll, for he would be unlikely to make war on women and children. And no violence was beyond the godly Archibald Campbell. What would they do with the boy? Whe