Montrose - Mowbray Morris

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offices, but of his titles as well; and though he was almost immediately afterwards re-admitted into the peerage as Earl of Airth and Menteith, the dangerous title of Stratherne became a thing of the past for ever, and nothing more was heard of "Elizabeth Mure's bastard." It can easily then be understood how Hamilton's hint would be enough to make Charles look coldly on another of these troublesome Grahams.

      This story of Hamilton's mischief has been told twice by Heylin, with the addition that Montrose subsequently alleged it to the King as the cause of his early defection. Heylin was indebted, he says, to Napier for much information on Scottish affairs, and a man who had talked much with Napier was not unlikely to hear something of his well-loved brother-in-law. There is no other authority for supposing that Montrose ever made such a confession. It is not impossible that he may have done so at Oxford when trying to convince the King of Hamilton's treachery. Clarendon makes no mention of it in his account of the charges then brought against the favourite, nor does Burnet, who sets out the charges in full and the answers to them. The latter alludes more than once to the enmity known to exist between the two men, attributing it to Montrose's suspicion that it was Hamilton who had betrayed to the Covenanters his secret correspondence with Charles. But there was common talk of bad blood between them before that date. Montrose could have had no suspicion at the time of the ill turn Hamilton had played him, or he would certainly have endeavoured to set himself right with his sovereign. From a story told in the appendix to the Hamilton Papers, it would appear that he attributed his kinsman of Menteith's disgrace to the favourite's jealousy. It is clear at any rate that they bore no goodwill to each other from the first, as indeed was natural enough, considering the temper of the times and of the two men. Both were young and both ambitious. Hamilton was cold, cunning, and jealous; Montrose was eager and impetuous, and jealous too, though in a more open and generous fashion. When flint and steel come together the sparks are apt to fly.

      Those who discredit this story do so on the ground that it discredits Montrose. Had he gone straight from the King into the arms of the malcontents, their argument might be good. But he did not. His interview with Charles took place some time in 1636, and it was not till the end of the following year that he first publicly ranged himself against the Court party. According to Robert Baillie, assuredly no mean authority in these matters, it was the "canniness," or cunning, of Rothes that won Montrose over, though the latter assigned that doubtful honour to Robert Murray, one of the reverend agitators deputed to beat up for recruits to the Covenant in the counties of Perth and Stirling. Rothes, with Loudon and Balmerino, had been in the forefront of the opposition from its beginning; and it is said that Charles had been unwise enough to put a public affront on him in Scotland. He was a clever man, of dissolute life but good appearance and manners; his religion he could put on and off like his gloves; "no man could appear more conscientiously transported when the part he was to act required it," says Clarendon, who also calls him "the chief architect of the whole machine." The Covenant was not publicly produced for signature till early in 1638; but ever since that memorable Sunday in the summer of the previous year, when the reading of the new prayer-book in St. Giles's Church had been interrupted by an organised tumult of serving-women, various supplications and remonstrances had been forwarded to the King, and various meetings held among the disaffected nobles, clergymen, and others, from which finally sprang the famous Covenant. At one of these meetings, held in November 1637, Montrose made his first public appearance on the side of the malcontents.

      It is clear, therefore, that he had ample time for reflection, and that what he did could not at least have been done in the heat of an angry moment. Those who reject the idea that he was seduced against his better judgment by the arguments of Rothes or any other agitator, lay great stress on the probability of his having been guided by the advice of Napier. That he and Napier must have talked much over the evil time they saw coming may be taken for granted. It is certain too that Napier was as honest and loyal as he was sagacious. He was a true King's man, but in the constitutional, not in the absolute sense of the old phrase; an upholder of the monarchy, but of a monarchy ruling according to the established laws of the country. He was of no faction. He sympathised with all that was genuine, and, according to the theories of the Scottish nation, lawful in the Covenant; but, and it is important to remember this, he would not sign it. The Covenant of 1638 professed to be no more than a renewal of the old Covenant, or King's Confession as it was sometimes called, of 1580–81, which had itself been renewed in 1588, when the fear of the Spaniard was over all the land. But it contained some notable additions. The office of bishops and the promotion of churchmen to civil power were declared to have no scriptural warrant, to be contrary both to the letter and spirit of the original Covenant, which had been subscribed by King James as well as by his subjects, to tend to the re-establishment of Popery, and, in short, to be dangerous to the religion, laws, and liberties of the nation, and no less so to the King's honour. Their loyalty the subscribers to this new bond declared to be unimpeachable, whatever "foul aspersions of rebellion or combination" might be alleged against them by their adversaries. The King's authority was so closely joined with the true worship of God that they must stand or fall together; and as they repudiated all design of doing anything that might turn to the dishonour of God, so did they repudiate all design of doing anything that might turn to the diminution of the King's greatness or authority. "We shall," they swore, "to the uttermost of our power, with our means and lives, stand to the defence of our dread sovereign the King's majesty, his person and authority, in defence and preservation of the foresaid true religion, liberties, and laws of the kingdom; as also to the mutual defence and assistance every one of us of another, in the same cause of maintaining the true religion and his majesty's authority with our best counsel, our bodies, means, and whole power, against all sorts of persons whatsoever; so that whatsoever shall be done to the least of us for that cause, shall be taken as done to us all in general, and to every one of us in particular." This document was the work of Archibald Johnstone of Warriston, a clever, unscrupulous lawyer, and Alexander Henderson, a Presbyterian minister of more learning and temper than most of his party. It was subsequently revised by Rothes, Balmerino, and Loudon, and so took its place in Scottish history as the Covenant of 1638. In all that related to the appointment of churchmen to civil power Napier must have heartily agreed. He had been bred, as Montrose had been bred, in the reformed religion, and was, as Montrose was, a sincere though not intolerant Presbyterian. To a moderate form of Episcopacy, which should be confined strictly to the economy of the Church, he possibly entertained, as many good Presbyterians from the days of Knox had entertained, no aversion. "Bishops," Montrose declared with almost his last breath, "I care not for them. I never intended to advance their interests." That was probably Napier's attitude to them. It did not seem to him a very terrible thing that one clergyman should have the power of regulating the conduct and prescribing the duties of another, whether he was called Bishop or Moderator. But that a clergyman should be entrusted with civil power he thought dangerous to all parties, to King, Church, and State. There still exists in his handwriting a paper bearing emphatic witness to his sentiments on this head.[5] "That churchmen have competency," it begins, "is agreeable to the law of God and man. But to invest them into great estates and principal offices of the State, is neither convenient for the Church, for the King, nor for the State. Not for the Church, for the indiscreet zeal and excessive donations of princes were the first causes of corruption in the Roman Church, the taste whereof did so inflame the avarice and ambition of the successors that they have raised themselves above all secular and sovereign power, and to maintain the same have attended to the world certain devices of their own for matters of faith. Not to Kings nor States, for histories witness what troubles have been raised to Kings, what tragedies among subjects, in all places where churchmen were great. Our reformed Churches, having reduced religion to the ancient primitive truth and simplicity, ought to beware that corruption enter not in their Church at the same gate, which already is open, with store of attendants thereat to welcome it with pomp and ceremony." Nor was he likely to dispute the theory that resistance to innovations dangerous to the peace of the kingdom was compatible with loyalty to the King, and that to preserve the safety of the one was in effect to preserve the authority of the other. "For a King and his people," he wrote, "make up one political body, whereof the King is the head. In a politic as in a natural body what is good or ill for one is so for both, neither can the one subsist without the other, but must go to ruin with the other." Holding these views, and, according to one idea, approving if not actually recommending his brother-in-law's subscription to the Covenant, why, it may be asked,

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