In each of their cups they dropped a crust
And stared at the guests with a frown;
Then drew their swords and roared, for a toast,
“God send this Crum-well-down!”
The singing and fighting Cavalier was most nobly represented by James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, a hero of romance and a great partisan leader. With a handful of wild Irish and West Highland clansmen,—Gordons, Camerons, McDonalds,—with no artillery, no commissariat, and hardly any cavalry, Montrose defeated the armies of the Covenant, took the towns of Aberdeen, Dundee, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, and in one brief and brilliant campaign, reconquered Scotland for the King. Nothing more romantic in the history of the Civil War than Montrose’s descent upon Clan Campbell at Inverlochy, rushing down from Ben Nevis in the early morning fogs upon the shores of wild Loch Eil. You may read of this exploit in Walter Scott’s “Legend of Montrose,” as you may read of the great Marquis’s death in Aytoun’s ballad, “The Execution of Montrose.” For his success was short. He could not hold his wild army together: with the coming of harvest the clansmen dispersed to the glens and hills. Montrose escaped to Holland and, after the death of the King, venturing once more into the Highlands, with a commission from Charles II, he was defeated, taken prisoner, sentenced to death in Edinburgh, hanged, drawn, and quartered. His head was fixed on an iron spike on the pinnacle of the tollbooth; one hand set over the gate of Perth and one over the gate of Stirling; one leg over the gate of Aberdeen, the other over the gate of Glasgow. Montrose wrote only a handful of poems, rough, soldierly pieces,—one on the night before his execution, one on learning, at the Hague, of the King’s death. But by far the best and the best known of these are the famous lines of which I will quote a part. You will notice that, under the form of a lover addressing his mistress, it is really the King speaking to his kingdom. You will notice also the fine Celtic boastfulness of the strain and the high-hearted courage of its most familiar passage—the gambler’s courage who stakes his all on a single throw.
My dear and only love, I pray that little world of thee
Be governed by no other sway than purest monarchy;
For if confusion have a part, which virtuous souls abhor,
I’ll hold a synod in my heart and never love thee more.
As Alexander I will reign and I will reign alone;