[4] Napier's Montrose and the Covenanters, i. 81-88.
[5] Montrose and the Covenanters, i. 67-72.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[11] His first wife was the Lady Dorothea Graham; on her death in 1638 he had married Lady Mary Campbell.
[12] Napier's Memorials of Montrose (printed for the Maitland Club), ii. 146.
[13] The patent is dated at Oxford, May 6th, 1644.