James Graham, fifth Earl and first Marquis of Montrose. Born in 1612: died May 21, 1650. A noted Scottish statesman and soldier. He served in the Presbyterian army at the beginning of the civil war, but afterward joined the king, by whom he was made lieutenant-general in Scotland in 1644. He defeated the Covenanters at Tippermuir Sept. 1, and at Aberdeen Sept. 13, 1644, and at Inverlochy Feb. 2, Auldearn May 9, Alford July 2, and Kilsyth Aug. 15, 1645. He was defeated by David Leslie at Philiphaugh, Sept. 13, 1645, and expelled from Scotland. He afterward entered the service of the emperor Ferdinand III., by whom he was made a field-marshal. In 1650 he conducted an abortive Royalist descent on Scotland, and was captured and executed.
Personal
I know I need no arguments to induce you to my service. Duty and loyalty are sufficient to a man of so much honour as I know you to be: Yet as I think this of you, so I will have you to believe of me, that I would not invite you to share of my hard fortune, if I intended you not to be a plentiful partaker of my good. The bearer will acquaint you of my designs, whom I have commanded to follow your directions in the pursuit of them. I will say no more but that I am your assured friend.
In his down-going, from the Tolbooth to the place of execution, he was very richly clad in fine scarlet, laid over with rich silver-lace,—his hat in his hand,—his hands and cuffs exceeding rich,—his delicate white gloves on his hands,—his stockings of incarnate (flesh-coloured) silk,—and his shoes with their ribbands (roses) on his feet,—and sarks, (embroidered linen,) provided for him, with pearling (lace) about, above ten pund the elne. All these were provided for him by his friends, and a pretty cassock put on upon him, upon the scaffold, wherein he was hanged. To be short, nothing was here deficient to honour his poor carcase, more beseeming a bridegroom, nor (than) a criminal going to the gallows.
He was a gentleman of a very ancient extraction, many of whose ancestors had exercised the highest charges under the king in that kingdom, and had been allied to the crown itself. He was of very good parts, which were improved by a good education: he had always a great emulation, or rather a great contempt of the marquis of Argyle, (as he was too apt to contemn those he did not love), who wanted nothing but honesty and courage to be a very extraordinary man, having all other good talents in a great degree. Mountrose was in his nature fearless of danger, and never declined any enterprise for the difficulty of going through with it, but exceedingly affected those which seemed desperate to other men, and did believe somewhat to be in himself which other men were not acquainted with, which made him live more easily towards those who were, or were willing to be, inferior to him (and towards whom he exercised wonderful civility and generosity), than with his superiors or equals. He was naturally jealous, and suspected those who did not concur with him in the way, not to mean so well as he. He was not without vanity, but his virtues were much superior, and he well deserved to have his memory preserved and celebrated amongst the most illustrious persons of the age in which he lived.
General
But a poet who lived slightly anterior to those we mentioned, the brilliant Marquis of Montrose—who was even still readier with the sword—appears to have excelled them all, with the exception of Lovelace—that is, in the poetry of love.
Montrose was a poet as well as a warrior and statesman. His poems have a political purpose, but, unlike most political verses, they have a poetic vigour which would have given them life apart from the intention with which they were written.
The poems of Montrose are exactly such as might have been expected from a character like that of the Marquis. Ardent and somewhat unequal, they are the production of the man of action rather than the man of letters, the work of one who cared more for the thought than for its manner of expression, yet whose thought is of itself so noble that in spite of all shortcomings the verse lives and must always live in the national mind and heart.
