Friends, though divided: A Tale of the Civil WarHenty, G. A. (George Alfred)
History
Friends, though divided: A Tale of the Civil War
Henty, G. A. (George Alfred)
Great Britain -- History -- Civil War, 1642-1649 -- Juvenile fiction
It was at the end of April, 1650, that Harry reached Hamburg, and a
month later came the news of the defeat and death of the Earl of
Montrose. He had two months before sailed from Hamburg to the Orkneys,
where he had landed with a thousand men. Crossing to the mainland he had
marched down into Sunderland. There he had met a body of cavalry under
Colonel Strachan, in a pass in the parish of Kincardine, now called
Craigchonichan, or the Rock of Lamentation. The recruits he had raised
in Orkney and the north fled at once. The Scotch and Germans he had
brought with him fought bravely, but without effect, and were utterly
defeated, scattering in all directions. Montrose wandered for many days
in disguise, but was at last captured, and was brought to Edinburgh with
every indignity. He was condemned to death by the Covenanters, and
executed. So nobly did he bear himself at his death that the very
indignities with which Argyll and his minions loaded him, in order to
make him an object of derision to the people, failed in their object,
and even those who hated him most were yet struck with pity and
admiration at his noble aspect and bearing. Argyll stood at a balcony to
see him pass, and Montrose foretold a similar fate for this double-dyed
traitor, a prediction which was afterward fulfilled. Harry deeply
regretted the loss of this gallant and chivalrous gentleman.
CHAPTER XX.
WITH THE SCOTCH ARMY.
While trying and executing Montrose for loyalty to the king, the Scots
were themselves negotiating with Charles, commissioners having come over
to Breda, where he was living, for the purpose. They insisted upon his
swearing to be faithful to the Covenant, to his submitting himself to
the advice of the Parliament and Church, and to his promising never to
permit the exercise of the Catholic religion in any part of his
dominions. Charles agreed to everything demanded of him, having all the
time no intention whatever of keeping his promises. While he was
swearing to observe everything the Scots asked of him, he was writing to
Ormonde to tell him that he was to mind nothing he heard as to his
agreement with the Scots, for that he would do all the Irish required.
Charles, indeed, although but a young man of twenty, was as full of
duplicity and faithlessness as his father, without possessing any of the
virtues of that unfortunate king, and the older and wiser men among his
followers were alienated by his dissolute conduct, and by the manner in
which he gave himself up to the reckless counsels of men like Buckingham
and Wilmot.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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