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THE GRAHAMS.
page 159
Montrose was still constantly meditating a descent upon
Scotland in favour of the royal cause, and was at the Hague while Prince
Charles was in treaty with the leaders of the Covenanting party for a
restoration to the Scottish throne, on the principles embodied in the
National Covenant. The Marquis earnestly recommended him not to accept the
Crown on the stringent terms proposed by them, and offered to replace him
by force of arms on the throne of his ancestors. Charles, with
characteristic baseness and duplicity, continued to negotiate a treaty
with the Commissioners deputed by the Scottish Estates, while at the same
time he encouraged Montrose to persevere in his enterprise, and sent him
the George and Garter. Letters of Charles II., Montrose and his Times, ii.
353.* The Marquis, having obtained a small supply of money and arms from
the Queen of Sweden, and the King of Denmark, embarked at Hamburg, in the
spring of 1650, with six hundred German mercenaries, and landed on one of
the Orkney islands. Two of his vessels, laden with arms and ammunition,
and about a third of his forces, were lost on the voyage. He constrained a
few hundreds of the unwarlike fishermen to join him, and early in April he
crossed to Caithness, with the design of penetrating into the Highlands.
But just as he approached the borders of Rossshire, at a place called
Drumcarbisdale, on the river Kyle (27th April),
he fell into an ambuscade laid for him by Colonel Strachan, who had been
despatched in all haste with a body of horse to obstruct his progress. The
Orkney men threw down their arms at once, and called for quarter. The
German mercenaries retreated to a wood, and there, after a short defence,
surrendered themselves prisoners. Montrose's few Scottish followers made a
desperate resistance, but were most of them cut to pieces. As Sir Walter
Scott remarks, 'the ardent and impetuous character of this great warrior,
corresponding with that of the troops which he commanded, was better
calculated for attack than defence—for surprising others rather than for
providing against surprise himself. His final defeat at Dunbeith so nearly
resembles in its circumstances the surprise at Philiphaugh, as to throw
some shade on his military talents.' Montrose, who was wounded and had his
horse killed under him, seeing the day irretrievably lost, fled from the
field. Along with the Earl of Kinnoul and other two or three friends, they
made their way into the desolate and mountainous region which separates
Assynt from the Kyle of Sutherland, with the view
of passing into the friendly country of Lord Reay. The Earl of Kinnoul
sunk under the effect of hunger, cold, and fatigue, and Montrose himself
fell into the hands of Macleod of Assynt, a mean and sordid chief, who
delivered him up to the Covenanting general. He was conveyed to Edinburgh
in the peasant's habit in which he had disguised himself. 'He sat,' says
an eye-witness, 'upon a little shelty horse without a saddle, but a quilt
of rags and straw, and pieces of rope for stirrups, his feet fastened
under the horse's belly with a tether, and a bit halter for a bridle; a
ragged old dark-reddish plaid, and a Montrer cap upon his head, a
musketeer on each side, and his fellow-prisoners on foot after him.' At
the house of the Laird of Grange, where he spent one night, he nearly
effected his escape by a stratagem of the lady, who 'plied the guards with
intoxicating drink until they were all fast asleep, and then she dressed
the Marquis in her own clothes. In this disguise he passed all the
sentinels, and was on the point of escaping, when a soldier, just sober
enough to mark what was passing, gave the alarm, and he was again
secured.'
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