[Footnote 1: Almost all that is known or can be conjectured of Montrose's youth is derived from the accounts of his father's household expenses and of his own at Glasgow and St. Andrews, which were discovered about forty years ago in the charter-chest at Kinnaird Castle. They have been abundantly and cleverly used by Mark Napier in the opening chapters of his _Memoirs of Montrose_ (2 vols., Edin., 1856), the last and most complete of the many volumes published by him on his famous kinsman. In respect of the facts of Montrose's life, he may be considered to have exhausted all known sources of information; but outside the facts he must be read with caution. For this purpose there can be no better antidotes than Dr. Burton and Mr. Gardiner have supplied in their grave and judicial histories. The second volume of the latter's _History of the Great Civil War_ is invaluable to all who would trace the intricate course of Montrose's Highland campaign. It is unnecessary to enumerate all the original authorities that may be consulted. Students of history are well aware of them, and others may be content to trust Dr. Burton and Mr. Gardiner, who have neglected no means of enabling readers to draw their own conclusions. Montrose, it may be observed, did not disdain tobacco in all its forms, if the testimony of the Stuart Exhibition may be trusted. In that most interesting collection of relics was to be seen the silver snuff-box, shaped like a watch-case, which he is said to have carried in his hand to the foot of the scaffold.] [Footnote 2: In a later generation it was to be drawn again closer. In 1639 Sir John Carnegie, Lord Carnegie's brother, was created Lord Lour, and in 1647 was promoted to the earldom of Ethie, which was exchanged after the Restoration for that of Northesk. His daughter, also Magdalene, was married to Sir William Graham of Claverhouse, grandson to Montrose's guardian, and their son was the famous Dundee. Lord Carnegie had been created Earl of Southesk at the King's visit to Edinburgh in 1633.] [Footnote 3: There are four portraits extant of Montrose, all engraved in Napier's book, and very carefully described in the appendix to his first volume. (1) By Jameson, 1629, _ætat._ 17, now at Kinnaird Castle, the seat of the Earl of Southesk. (2) Also by Jameson, 1640, _ætat._ 28, known as the Camstradden portrait, now at Buchanan House, the seat of the Duke of Montrose. (3) By Dobson, _ætat._ 32, probably painted at Oxford in 1644, also at Buchanan House; this was for a long time attributed to Vandyck, owing to a mistake of the engraver Houbraken. (4) By Gerard Honthorst, _ætat._ 37, painted at the Hague in 1649, and given by Montrose to Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia; it is now at Brechin Castle, the seat of the Earl of Dalhousie. It is from this last portrait that the frontispiece to this volume has been taken.] [Footnote 4: Napier's _Montrose and the Covenanters_, i. 81-88.] [Footnote 5: _Montrose and the Covenanters_, i. 67-72.]