Montrose, JAMES GRAHAM, MARQUIS OF, belonged to a family which can be traced back to the year 1128, and which since 1325 had been settled at Old Montrose, in Maryton parish, Forfarshire, near Montrose town. It had been ennobled with the titles of Lord Graham (1451) and Earl of Montrose (1505); and three of its members had fallen at the battles of Falkirk, Flodden, and Pinkie; whilst another, Sir William Graham, early in the 15th century married for his second wife Mary, daughter of Robert III.—a marriage from which sprung the Grahams of Claverhouse. John, third Earl of Montrose, was chancellor and, after James VI.'s accession to the English crown, viceroy of Scotland. His successor, John, married Lady Margaret Ruthven, eldest sister of the unfortunate Earl of Gowrie; and the issue of this union was five daughters and one son, James, the 'great marquis,' who was born in 1612 at Old Montrose. His mother died in 1618, his father in 1626. Next year the young earl was sent to the university of St Andrews by his guardian and brother-in-law, Archibald Lord Napier, son of the famous inventor of logarithms. He was proficient in all field-sports, and an apt if not ardent student, besides exhibiting a genuine love of literature, which his stormy after-life never destroyed. In 1629 he married Magdalene Carnegie, daughter of the first Earl of Southesk, and he lived at Kinnaird Castle, his father-in-law's seat, till in 1633, on attaining his majority, he left Scotland to travel in Italy, France, and the Low Countries.
On his way home, in 1636, he had an audience with Charles I., but, owing to the machinations of the Marquis of Hamilton, was coldly received; and he had not been long back in Scotland before by the 'canniness of Rotheres' he was 'brought in' to the ranks of the king's opponents, at this time comprising the great mass of the Scottish nation. Montrose returned in the very year (1637) when the tumults broke out in Edinburgh on the attempt to introduce Laud's Prayer-book; and he was one of the four noblemen selected to compose the 'Table' of the nobility, which, along with the other Tables of the gentry, the burghs, and the ministers, drew up the famous National Covenant (q.v.). In the summer of 1638 he was despatched to Aberdeen, to coerce it into subscription; and in 1639 he made three military expeditions thither. On the first occasion (30th March) he employed conciliation; Baillie laments his 'too great' humanity. On the second (25th May) he imposed on the city a fine of 10,000 merks, but, though his soldiers committed some acts of pillage, he resisted the importunities of the Covenanting zealots to give 'Meroz' to the flames, and Baillie again complains of 'his too great lenity in sparing the enemy's houses.' The arrival at Aberdeen by sea of the Earl of Aboyne, Charles's lieutenant of the north, with reinforcements, caused Montrose to retreat, followed by the earl and the Gordon Highlanders; but at Meagra Hill, near Stonehaven, on 15th June, he won a complete victory, and four days later, after storming the Bridge of Dee, he was once more master of Aberdeen. The citizens expected some bloody punishment for their well-known Episcopalian leanings, but again Montrose agreeably disappointed their fears, again to be upbraided by the Committee of Estates for not having burned the town.
News now arrived of the 'pacification of Berwick,' and terminated the struggle in the north. Charles invited several of the Covenanting nobles to meet him at Berwick. Among those who went was Montrose; and the Presbyterians dated what they regarded as his apostasy from that interview. His political position was certainly different after his return. In the General Assembly which met in August 1639 he showed symptoms of disaffection towards the Covenant; and one night, it is said, a paper was affixed on his chamber-door, 'In victus armis, verbis vincitur.' In the second Bishops' War, when, on 20th August 1640, 25,000 Scots crossed the Tweed, Montrose was the first to plunge into the stream; but that very month, with eighteen other nobles and gentlemen, he had entered into a secret engagement at Cumbernauld against the dictatorship of Argyll, to whom and the zealots Montrose was as hostile now as he ever had been to Hamilton and the 'sometime pretended prelates.' It leaked out that he had been secretly communicating with the king; and when the Scottish parliament met (November 1640) he was cited to appear before a committee. The affair of the 'Cumbernauld Bond' was brought up; but nothing came of it, though some of the fiery spirits among the clergy 'pressed,' says Guthrie, 'that his life might go for it.' Next June Montrose with three others was accused of plotting against Argyll, and confined till November in Edinburgh Castle. Clarendon's story that Montrose, about this period, offered to the king to assassinate Argyll and Hamilton may safely be set aside; but to Hamilton he owed the rejection of his two proposals in the following year to raise the royalist standard in the Highlands.
In 1644, however, he quitted his forced inaction at Oxford, where he had been residing with Charles, and, disguised as a groom, made his way into Perthshire, with the rank of lieutenant-general in Scotland and the title of Marquis of Montrose. At Blair-Athole he met 1200 Scoto-Irish auxiliaries under Alaster Maccoll Keitache Macdonell ('Colkitto'), and placed himself at their head, the clans quickly rallying round him. Marching south, on 1st September he fell on the Covenanting army, commanded by Lord Elcho, at Tippersmuir, near Perth, and gained a signal victory. He next defeated a force of Covenanters at Aberdeen (13th September), and took possession of the city, which was this time abandoned for four days to all the horrors of war. The approach of Argyll, at the head of 4000 men, compelled Montrose, whose forces were far inferior in numbers and discipline, to retreat. He plunged into the wilds of Badenoch, recrossed the Grampians, and suddenly appeared in Angus, where he wasted the estates of more than one Covenanting noble. Having obtained fresh supplies, he once more returned to Aberdeenshire, with the view of raising the Gordons; narrowly escaped defeat at Fyvie in the end of October; and again withdrew into the fastnesses of the mountains. Argyll, baffled, returned to Edinburgh, and threw up his commission. Montrose, receiving large accessions from the Highland clans, planned a winter campaign, marched south-westward into the country of the Campbells, devastated it frightfully, drove Argyll himself from his castle at Inveraray, and then wheeled north intending to attack Inverness. The 'Estates' at Edinburgh were greatly alarmed, and, raising a fresh army, placed it under the command of a natural son of Sir William Baillie of Lamington. He arranged to proceed by way of Perth, and take Montrose in front, while Argyll should rally his vast array of vassals, and fall on him in the rear. The royalist leader was in the Great Glen of Albin, the basin of the Caledonian
Canal, when he heard that Argyll was following him. He instantly turned on his pursuer and surprised and utterly routed him at Inverlochy, 2d February 1645. Fifteen hundred of the Campbells were slain, only four of Montrose's men. He then resumed his march northward, but did not venture to assault Inverness, his wild mountaineers being admirably fitted for rapid irregular warfare, but not for the slow work of beleaguerment. So, directing his course eastward, he passed with fire and sword through Moray and Aberdeenshire. Baillie and Hurry, his lieutenant, were at Brechin, but Montrose by a dexterous movement eluded them, captured and pillaged Dundee (3d April), and escaped safely into the Grampians. On 4th May he routed Hurry at Auldlearn, near Nairn, and on 2d July inflicted a still more disastrous defeat on Baillie himself at Alford in Aberdeenshire. 'Before the end of the summer,' he sent word to Charles, 'I shall be in a position to come to your Majesty's aid with a brave army;' and towards the end of the month he marched southward with upwards of 5000 men. He was followed by Baillie, who picked up reinforcements by the way, and who on 15th August again risked a battle at Kilsyth, but was defeated with frightful loss, 6000 of the Covenanters being slain. This, the last and most signal of Montrose's six splendid victories, seemed to lay Scotland at his feet, but the clansmen slipped away home to secure their booty, and Aboyne withdrew with all his cavalry. Still, with 500 horse and 1000 infantry, he had entered the Border country, when, on 13th September, he was surprised and hopelessly routed by 6000 troops under David Leslie at Philiphaugh, near Selkirk. Escaping to Athole, he again endeavoured, but vainly, to raise the Highlands; and on 3d September 1646 he sailed for Norway, whence he proceeded to Paris, Germany, and the Low Countries.
Here it was that news reached him of Charles I.'s execution, whereat he swooned, and then reviving, 'swore before God, angels, and men to dedicate the remainder of his life to the avenging the death of the martyr.' So, on behalf of Charles II., he undertook a fresh invasion of Scotland, and from Orkney passed over to Caithness, his little army almost annihilated by shipwreck. Neither gentry nor commons would join him; but he pushed on to the borders of Ross-shire, where, at Invercharron, his dispirited remnant was cut to pieces by Strachan's cavalry, 27th April 1650. He fled into the wilds of Sutherland, and was nearly starved to death, when he fell into the hands of Macleod of Assynt, who sold him to Leslie. He was conveyed with all possible contumely to Edinburgh, where, dressed like a gallant bridegroom, he was hanged in the Grassmarket on a lofty gallows, 21st May 1650. Eleven years afterwards his mangled remains were collected from the four airts, and buried in St Giles's, where a stately monument was reared to him in 1888. He left a son, James, the 'good Marquis' (c. 1631-69), whose grandson in 1707 was created Duke of Montrose.
Montrose's few poems, all burning with passionate loyalty, are little known, save the one famous stanza commencing, 'He either fears his fate too much.' That has the right ring, one would think; and yet its ascription to Montrose is doubtful, first put forward in Watson's Collection of Scots Poems (1711). There are four portraits of Montrose—by Jameson (1629 and 1640), Dobson (1644), and Honthorst (1649). Of the inner man the finest estimate is Mr Gardiner's: 'When once he had chosen his side, he was sure to bear himself as a Paladin of old romance. If he made any cause his own, it was not with the reasoned calculation of a statesman, but with the fond enthusiasm of a lover. When he transferred his affections from the Covenant to the king, it was as Romeo transferred his affections from Rosaline to Juliet. He fought for neither King nor Covenant, but for that ideal of his own which he followed as Covenant or Royalist. He went ever straight to the mark, impatient to shake off the schemes of worldly-wise politicians and the plots of interested intriguers. Nature had marked him for a life of meteoric splendour, to confound and astonish a world, and to leave behind him an inspiration and a name which would outlast the ruins of his hopes.'
See the Latin Memoirs by his chaplain, Dr Wishart (Amst. 1647; partial English translation, 1756; complete trans. by Murdoch and Morland Simpson, 1893); Mark Napier's Memoirs of Montrose (1838; 4th ed. 1856); Lady Violet Greville's Montrose (1886); and Mr S. R. Gardiner's History of England, Great Civil War, and History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate.