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St Giles High Kirk of Edinburgh.

 

The memorial for James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, 5th Earl and 1st Marquis of Montrose. 1612-1650. Executed age 37.

 

The Montrose monument was designed by Robert Rowand Anderson and carved by John and William Birnie Rhind.

 

On 21 May 1650, James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, the chief Royalist military commander in Scotland, was executed in Edinburgh.

 

Montrose had initially been one of the nobles to draw up the National Covenant in 1638, however, he became concerned about the opposite extreme, a Presbyterian oligarchy led by Archibald Campbell, the 8th Earl of Argyll, who imprisoned Graham in 1640.

 

Montrose, therefore, sided with the King against the Covenanting Army under Argyll, which was allied to the English Parliamentarians.

 

Montrose won six successive battles at Tippermuir, Aberdeen, Inverlochy, Auldearn, Alford and Kilsyth, before being defeated by David Leslie at Philiphaugh. He escaped to continental Europe.

 

Shocked at the execution of Charles I, he returned to avenge the old King and support the young King Charles II, but his small force was defeated at Carbisdale.

 

He was betrayed by MacLeod of Assynt, captured, brought as a prisoner to Edinburgh, summarily convicted, hung, disembowelled, beheaded, quartered and his head impaled on a stake at the Mercat Cross on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile.

 

What was left of his remains were regathered for reburial in St. Giles Kirk some eleven years after his execution.

 

James VI of Scotland in 1581 had signed the “National League and Covenant” which essentially provided protection for the new Presbyterianism worship set against the continuing silent Catholicism with its edicts from Rome, coupled to the invasion of Episcopalianism from the south.

 

In its clauses the King was beholden to maintain the new religion and resist, if necessary by force, any attempt to have it usurped. This edict allowed the people of Scotland the right to express dissent in matters of religion foisted on them by any King.

 

James’s son, Charles I, who came to the throne in 1625, was a firm believer in Catholicism and the divine right of kings. He subsequently was beheaded over the latter issue. He, to a large degree, rebuffed the document and its intent, and had already alienated much of the population by marrying Henrietta Maria, the Catholic daughter of Henry IV of France. He also had displayed apparent sympathy for Catholicism at his Scottish coronation in Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh in 1633.

 

Suspicion of him had become evident early in his reign when he issued from England an act of revocation cancelling all grants for crown and church property which had been in effect for over a hundred years. It therefore was apparent that Charles was a discreet advocate of Catholicism. His activities in matters of religion and display of religious worship caused a lot of discomfort to many in Britain and in Scotland in particular.

 

A new book of common prayer was introduced in St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh. It caused an instant furore. Emotions were high in protest, and became so heated that Jennie Geddes, and no doubt part of Knox’s congregation, his “monstrous regiment”, threw a stool at the officiating Dean in the Cathedral. Riots occurred in the streets with the prelates running for their homes chased by angry mobs.

 

The issue of divine right surfaced three years later and the English Civil War commenced with all the fury that a civil war brings.

 

As most Scots were aligned with the Act of Covenant, positions were taken. James Graham, the Marquis of Montrose, a Protestant by birth, however, rose to leadership of the King’s army.

 

His opponents were known as the Protestant Covenanters. Their army was commanded by Alexander Leslie. Leslie was a Scots mercenary soldier on the continent. He had been persuaded to return from Sweden, and given the rank of Field-Marshal. On his return to Scotland he had brought with him a plentiful supply of arms and ammunition as well as military men.

 

Both armies were a motley crew. Montrose as the King’s commander in Scotland was accompanied by some Perthshire “lights” including the eldest son of the Earl of Monteith, John Graham-Lord Kilpont, David Drummond Master of Maderty (Madderty), Sir John Drummond, and a son of the Earl of Perth. They collected a motley crew of levies from a variety of clans which included Appin Stewarts, Camerons, Farquharsons, Gordons, several cadet branches of the clan MacDonald, MacKinnons, MacLeans, MacNabs, Macphersons, as well as mercenaries from Ireland.

 

the other team, and opposed to the dictates of the King, under the command and control of Archibald Campbell, was the eighth Earl, and first Marquis of Argyll. Argyll could summon the multitudes of Clan Campbell and he appointed as its army commander, Lord Elcho. Elcho surrounded himself with a mixed bag of acolytes including, strange to say, some from Covenanting families like Murray of Gask, and some from non-Covenanting families like Lord Drummond’s. He had collected about 8,000 men including a squadron of 700 horses. On Sunday September 1, 1644, at Tippermuir, outside Perth, the opposing forces met for the first time.

 

Montrose arranged his men in three ranks, the front two with muskets, and the third armed only with stones. They required to scavenge weapons from the fallen opposition. The first two ranks fired and then a highland charge followed. The Coventanting line was broken, through with few killed, but the retreat became a route with no quarter given and resulted in carnage.

 

Montrose’s subsequent campaigns including the destruction of Argylls army at Inverlochy, following an inspired night-time traverse of snow filled mountains and glens to appear at dawn on the high ground and in complete command of the battlefield for the morning. The wounded or ill Campbell watched the catastrophe from his Birlin in the loch.

 

Thereafter the career of Montrose as a brilliant general became a reality. His lightning moves against the Covenanting army are the stuff of legends. He took them on time after time. At Aberdeen, Fyvie, Inverlochy, the classic retreat from Dundee to Auldearn, and Alford, followed up with the Battle at Kilsyth sealed for him a place amongst the great generals of history.

 

It was said that one of the horses complained to another horse that it had sore feet with all the marching. Time after time these movements gave Montrose the advantages of location, height and surprise.

 

After the King Charles 1st decisive defeat at Naseby in June 1645, Montrose’s army melted away, and the small force remaining was routed at Philiphaugh in September. Montrose fled to the European continent in 1646 but, with the exiled Charles II’s blessing, returned to Scotland with about 1,200 men in March 1650.

 

Sadly for the Marquis his luck ran out. He was ambushed and defeated at Carbisdale in 1650. He sought shelter at Ardvreck Castle in Assynt. This was one of the homes of the MacLeods. There, under their hospitality and protection as per the clan code, they betrayed him. He was bound, taken to Edinburgh via Inverness and Dundee, and vilified and humiliated on the way.

 

At the Water Gate he was met by the hangman, transferred to the hangman's cart and tied to the seat, to be taken through the streets to the Tolbooth prison. Argyll was watching from a house on the route and the two men's eyes are said to have met for a moment as the cart trundled by. Far from stoning and reviling the prisoner, as had been hoped, the watching crowds were silent, and observers sensed an air of reluctant admiration and sympathy. The cart reached the Tolbooth prison about seven o'clock in the evening. Montrose spent the Sunday in his cell, pestered by Presbyterian ministers, who renewed their assault on Monday, when he was taken to the Parliament to hear the death sentence.

 

A court made up of all his enemies, many Campbells among them, was convened. After due evidence was introduced and presented he was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging. The sentence was a foregone conclusion but hanging was not a part of it. The axe or the sword was used to execute noblemen, the rope was for the common criminal.

 

An appeal was made but the Court was in no mood to be trifled with or dictated to by the Marquis and his request was denied. He, like many other noble fellows was hung at the Grassmarket by the rope on May 21st, 1650. He died forgiving all his enemies and confirming his loyalty to his King and cause! His last words were, “God have mercy on this afflicted land.”

 

On Tuesday morning Montrose rose for the last time on earth and made himself ready. Carefully combing out his long hair, he was reproached by one of the Puritan divines for paying so much attention to his appearance at such a time. "My head is still my own," Montrose replied. "Tonight, when it will be yours, treat it as you please". At two in the afternoon he was taken on foot along the High Street to the Mercat Cross, close by to St Giles High Kirk, where a gallows 30ft high had been erected on a platform.

 

After death on the gallows, he was beheaded, his head shown to the public at the Tolbooth where it hung for eleven years eventually being replaced by the head of his enemy, the beheaded 1st Marquis of Argyll. The fates of both opposing commanders speaks volumes to the chaos of monarchy, religion, power in these almost hopeless times.

 

His body was sectioned and distributed to various towns. His limbs were displayed in prominent places in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perth and Aberdeen. His torso was buried in the Boroughmuir graveyard.

 

In early January, 1661, as many parts of his body as it was possible to find were gathered together and placed in a linen-draped casket for final internment within St Giles High Kirk. His heart was missing.

 

He had been granted “honourable reparation” by the Scots Parliament and a great assembly foregathered for his final burial.

 

The background to this came after the demise of Cromwell, an invite was extended to the exiled Charles, son of the beheaded Charles 1st, after exile following the battle of Worcester, was invited back to regain his monarchal role and crowned King Charles 2nd. Supposedly having disavowed Catholicism and having signed the Solemn League and Covenant at Speybay, he in fact remained fairly to true to his Catholic roots.

 

 

 

Done