Historical fiction; Montrose, James Graham, Marquis of, 1612-1650 -- Fiction; Scotland -- History -- Charles I, 1625-1649 -- Fiction
Another worthy of the same school, and nearly the same views of the
military character, is Sir James Turner, a soldier of fortune, who
rose to considerable rank in the reign of Charles II., had a command in
Galloway and Dumfries-shire, for the suppression of conventicles, and
was made prisoner by the insurgent Covenanters in that rising which
was followed by the battle of Pentland. Sir James is a person even
of superior pretensions to Lieutenant-Colonel Monro, having written
a Military Treatise on the Pike-Exercise, called “Pallas Armata.”
Moreover, he was educated at Glasgow College, though he escaped to
become an Ensign in the German wars, instead of taking his degree of
Master of Arts at that learned seminary.
In latter times, he was author of several discourses on historical and
literary subjects, from which the Bannatyne Club have extracted and
printed such passages as concern his Life and Times, under the title
of SIR JAMES TURNER’S MEMOIRS. From this curious book I extract the
following passage, as an example of how Captain Dalgetty might have
recorded such an incident had he kept a journal, or, to give it a more
just character, it is such as the genius of De Foe would have devised,
to give the minute and distinguishing features of truth to a fictitious
narrative:--
“Heere I will set doun ane accident befell me; for thogh it was not
a very strange one, yet it was a very od one in all its parts. My tuo
brigads lay in a village within halfe a mile of Applebie; my own quarter
was in a gentleman’s house, ho was a Ritmaster, and at that time with
Sir Marmaduke; his wife keepd her chamber readie to be brought to bed.
The castle being over, and Lambert farre enough, I resolved to goe to
bed everie night, haveing had fatigue enough before. ‘The first night
I sleepd well enough; and riseing nixt morning, I misd one linnen
stockine, one halfe silke one, and one boothose, the accoustrement under
a boote for one leg; neither could they be found for any search. Being
provided of more of the same kind, I made myselfe reddie, and rode to
the head-quarters. At my returne, I could heare no news of my stockins.
That night I went to bed, and nixt morning found myselfe just so used;
missing the three stockins for one leg onlie, the other three being left
intire as they were the day before. A narrower search then the first
was made, bot without successe. I had yet in reserve one paire of whole
stockings, and a paire of boothose, greater then the former. These I put
on my legs. The third morning I found the same usage, the stockins for
one leg onlie left me. It was time for me then, and my servants too, to
imagine it must be rats that had shard my stockins so inequallie with
me; and this the mistress of the house knew well enough, but would not
tell it me. The roome, which was a low parlour, being well searched with
candles, the top of my great boothose was found at a hole, in which
they had drawne all the rest. I went abroad and ordered the boards to be
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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