Great Britain -- History -- Stuarts, 1603-1714; Montrose, James Graham, Marquis of, 1612-1650
[Footnote 6: The grim tragedy known as the Burning of Frendraught,
in which young Aboyne, Huntly's brother, with some other Gordons,
were treacherously murdered while guests under Crichton's roof, had
happened only nine years earlier, in 1630.]
[Footnote 7: See _Memoirs of Montrose_, chap. xv., and Professor
Masson's _Drummond of Hawthornden_, pp. 272-287 and 343-348. The
_Irene_ was not published in Drummond's lifetime, but copies were
freely circulated in manuscript towards the latter end of 1638. Mr.
Masson thinks that the _Noble Lord_ to whom one of the copies was
sent, with a note containing the significant words, "Force hath less
power over a great heart than duty," may have been Montrose; and
Mark Napier thinks that the _Noble Sir_ to whom Montrose addressed
his state-paper may have been Drummond. The paper was found by
Napier in a volume of transcripts in Wodrow's handwriting in the
Advocates' Library, where it must have lain for many years unread and
apparently unsuspected. Wodrow himself has made no allusion to it in
his _Analecta_, nor has any subsequent writer noticed it on either
side. In short, from the time it was written (1640-1641) till Napier
published his biography, it has never entered history.]
[Footnote 8: The letter was addressed _au Roi_, and this, it was
argued by the Lord Keeper, implied that the writers recognised Lewis
as their king, that style being only used by subjects to their
sovereign. This seems an unnecessary point to have raised. The letter
was plainly an appeal for aid from France by subjects of the English
King, and as such came certainly within the range of a treasonable
correspondence. Loudon's assertion that he did not understand French,
and that so far as he knew the letter was perfectly harmless, was
sheer impudence. The indifference of Parliament proves how good was
the understanding between England and Scotland, and how helpless
Charles really was.]
[Footnote 9: A copy of it was discovered by Mark Napier among the
manuscripts of Sir James Balfour (Lyon King-at-Arms) in the Advocates'
Library; see _Memoirs of Montrose_, i. 269.]
[Footnote 10: The first edition of Clarendon's _History of the
Rebellion_ was published at Oxford, 1702-4, under the direction
of his sons, with many alterations and suppressions. This edition
was reprinted several times. In 1826 many suppressed passages were
restored, and the text collated with the original manuscript in the
Bodleian Library. It was then that the earlier version of the Incident
was made public, though Hume had already discredited the popular one
on the somewhat insufficient grounds that Montrose, being a prisoner,
could not have been admitted to an interview with the King. More
careful collations were made for the editions of 1849 and 1888, when
several fresh passages that had been previously overlooked were added.]
[Footnote 11: His first wife was the Lady Dorothea Graham; on her
death in 1638 he had married Lady Mary Campbell.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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