Wi' heart an' hand came he;
Wi' him three thousand bonny Scotts,
To bear him company.
Wi' him three thousand valiant men,
A noble sight to see!
A cloud o' mist them weel concealed,
As close as e'er might be.
When they came to the Shaw burn,
Said he, "Sae weel we frame,
"I think it is convenient,
"That we should sing a psalm."[A]
When they came to the Lingly burn,
As day-light did appear,
They spy'd an aged father,
And he did draw them near.
"Come hither, aged father!"
Sir David he did cry,
"And tell me where Montrose lies,
"With all his great army."
"But, first, you must come tell to me,
"If friends or foes you be;
"I fear you are Montrose's men,
"Come frae the north country."
"No, we are nane o' Montrose's men,
"Nor e'er intend to be;
"I am sir David Lesly,
"That's speaking unto thee."
"If you're sir David Lesly,
"As I think weel ye be,
"I'm sorry ye hae brought so few
"Into your company.
"There's fifteen thousand armed men,
"Encamped on yon lee;
"Ye'll never be a bite to them,
"For aught that I can see.
"But, halve your men in equal parts,
"Your purpose to fulfil;
"Let ae half keep the water side,
"The rest gae round the hill.
"Your nether party fire must,
"Then beat a flying drum;
"And then they'll think the day's their ain,
"And frae the trench they'll come.
"Then, those that are behind them maun
"Gie shot, baith grit and sma';
"And so, between your armies twa,
"Ye may make them to fa'."
"O were ye ever a soldier?"
Sir David Lesly said;
"O yes; I was at Solway flow,
"Where we were all betray'd.
"Again I was at curst Dunbar,
"And was a pris'ner ta'en;
"And many weary night and day,
"In prison I hae lien."
"If ye will lead these men aright,
"Rewarded shall ye be;
"But, if that ye a traitor prove,
"I'll hang thee on a tree."
"Sir, I will not a traitor prove;
"Montrose has plundered me;
"I'll do my best to banish him
"Away frae this country."
He halv'd his men in equal parts,
His purpose to fulfill;
The one part kept the water side,
The other gaed round the hill.
The nether party fired brisk,
Then turn'd and seem'd to rin;
And then they a' came frae the trench,
And cry'd, "the day's our ain!"
The rest then ran into the trench,
And loos'd their cannons a':
And thus, between his armies twa,
He made them fast to fa'.
Now, let us a' for Lesly pray,
And his brave company!
For they hae vanquish'd great Montrose,
Our cruel enemy.
[A]
Various reading; "That we should take a dram."
Various reading; "That we should take a dram."
NOTES ON THE BATTLE OF PHILIPHAUGH.
When they came to the Shaw burn.—P. 27. v. 1. A small stream, that joins the Ettrick, near Selkirk, on the south side of the river.
When they came to the Lingly burn.—P. 27. v. 2. A brook, which falls into the Ettrick, from the north, a little above the Shaw burn.
They spy'd an aged father.—P. 27. v. 2. The traditional commentary upon the ballad states this man's name to have been Brydone, ancestor to several families in the parish of Ettrick, particularly those occupying the farms of Midgehope and Redford Green. It is a strange anachronism, to make this aged father state himself at the battle ofSolway flow,which was fought a hundred years before Philiphaugh; and a still stranger, to mention that of Dunbar, which did not take place till five years after Montrose's defeat.
A tradition, annexed to a copy of this ballad, transmitted to me by Mr James Hogg, bears, that the earl of Traquair, on the day of the battle, was advancing with a large sum of money, for the payment of Montrose's forces, attended by a blacksmith, one of his retainers. As they crossed Minch-moor, they were alarmed by firing, which the earl conceived to be Montrose exercising his forces, but which his attendant, from the constancy and irregularity of the noise, affirmed to be the tumult of an engagement. As they came below Broadmeadows, upon Yarrow, they met their fugitive friends, hotly pursued by the parliamentary troopers. The earl, of course, turned, and fled also: but his horse, jaded with the weight of dollars which he carried, refused to take the hill; so that the earl was fain to exchange with his attendant, leaving him with the breathless horse, and bag of silver, to shift for himself; which he is supposed to have done very effectually. Some of the dragoons, attracted by the appearance of the horse and trappings, gave chase to the smith, who fled up the Yarrow; but finding himself as he said, encumbered with the treasure, and unwilling that it should be taken, he flung it into a well, or pond, near the Tinnies, above Hangingshaw. Many wells were afterwards searched in vain; but it is the general belief, that the smith, if he ever hid the money, knew too well how to anticipate the scrutiny. There is, however, a pond, which some peasants began to drain, not long ago, in hopes of finding the golden prize, but were prevented, as they pretended, by supernatural interference.
THE GALLANT GRAHAMS.
The preceding ballad was a song of triumph over the defeat of Montrose at Philiphaugh; the verses, which follow are a lamentation for his final discomfiture and cruel death. The present edition of"The Gallant Grahams"is given from tradition, enlarged and corrected by an ancient printed edition, entitled,"The Gallant Grahams of Scotland"to the tune of"I will away, and I will not tarry,"of which Mr Ritson favoured the editor with an accurate copy.
The conclusion of Montrose's melancholy history is too well known. The Scottish army, which sold king Charles I. to his parliament, had, we may charitably hope, no idea that they were bartering his blood; although they must have been aware, that they were consigning him to perpetual bondage.[A]At least the sentiments of the kingdom at large differed widely from those of the military merchants, and the danger of king Charles drew into England a well appointed Scottish army, under the command of the duke of Hamilton. But he met with Cromwell, and to meet with Cromwell was inevitable defeat. The death of Charles, and the triumph of the independents, excited still more highly the hatred and the fears of the Scottish nation. The outwitted presbyterians, who saw, too late, that their own hands had been employed in the hateful task of erecting the power of a sect, yet more fierce and fanatical than themselves, deputed a commission to the Hague, to treat with Charles II., whom, upon certain conditions they now wished to restore to the throne of his fathers. At the court of the exiled monarch, Montrose also offered to his acceptance a splendid plan of victory and conquest, and pressed for his permission to enter Scotland; and there, collecting the remains of the royalists to claim the crown for his master, with the sword in his hand. An able statesman might perhaps have reconciled these jarring projects; a good man would certainly have made a decided choice betwixt them. Charles was neither the one not the other; and, while he treated with the presbyterians, with a view of accepting the crown from their hands, he scrupled not to authorise Montrose, the mortal enemy of the sect, to pursue his separate and inconsistent plan of conquest.
[A]
As Salmasius quaintly, but truly, expresses it,Presbyterian iligaverunt independantes trucidaverunt.
As Salmasius quaintly, but truly, expresses it,Presbyterian iligaverunt independantes trucidaverunt.
Montrose arrived in the Orkneys with six hundred Germans, was furnished with some recruits from those islands, and was joined by several royalists, as he traversed the wilds of Caithness and Sutherland: but, advancing into Ross-shire, he was surprised, and totally defeated, by colonel Strachan, an officer of the Scottish parliament, who had distinguished himself in the civil wars, and who afterwards became a decided Cromwellian. Montrose, after a fruitless resistance, at length fled from the field of defeat, and concealed himself in the grounds of Macleod of Assint to whose fidelity he entrusted his life, and by whom he was delivered up to Lesly, his most bitter enemy.
He was tried for what was termed treason against the estates of the kingdom; and, despite the commission of Charles for his proceedings, he was condemned to die by a parliament, who acknowledged Charles to be their king, and whom, on that account only, Montrose acknowledged to be a parliament.
"The clergy," says a late animated historian, "whose vocation it was to persecute the repose of his last moments, sought, by the terrors of his sentence, to extort repentance; but his behaviour, firm and dignified to the end, repelled their insulting advances with scorn and disdain. He was prouder, he replied, to have his head affixed to the prison-walls, than to have his picture placed in the king's bed-chamber: 'and, far from being troubled that my limbs are to be sent to your principal cities, I wish I had flesh enough to be dispersed through Christendom, to attest my dying attachment to my king.' It was the calm employment of his mind, that night, to reduce this extravagant sentiment to verse. He appeared next day, on the scaffold, in a rich habit, with the same serene and undaunted countenance, and addressed the people, to vindicate his dying unabsolved by the church, rather than to justify an invasion of the kingdom, during a treaty with the estates. The insults of his enemies were not yet exhausted. The history of his exploits was attached to his neck by the public executioner: but he smiled at their inventive malice; declared, that he wore it with more pride than he had done the garter; and, when his devotions were finished, demanding if any more indignities remained to be practised, submitted calmly to an unmerited fate."—Laing's History of Scotland,Vol. I. p. 404.
Such was the death of James Graham, the great marquis of Montrose, over whom some lowly bard has poured forth the following elegiac verses. To say, that they are far unworthy of the subject, is no great reproach; for a nobler poet might have failed in the attempt. Indifferent as the ballad is, we may regret its being still more degraded by many apparent corruptions. There seems an attempt to trace Montrose's career, from his first raising the royal standard, to his second expedition and death; but it is interrupted and imperfect. From the concluding stanza, I presume the song was composed upon the arrival of Charles in Scotland, which so speedily followed the execution of Montrose, that the king entered the city while the head of his most faithful and most successful adherent was still blackening in the sun.
THE GALLANT GRAHAMS.
Now, fare thee weel, sweet Ennerdale!
Baith kith and countrie I bid adieu;
For I maun away, and I may not stay,
To some uncouth land which I never knew.
To wear the blue I think it best,
Of all the colours that I see;
And I'll wear it for the gallant Grahams,
That are banished from their countrie.
I have no gold, I have no land,
I have no pearl, nor precious stane;
But I wald sell my silken snood,
To see the gallant Grahams come hame.
In Wallace days when they began,
Sir John the Graham did bear the gree,
Through all the lands of Scotland wide;
He was a lord of the south countrie.
And so was seen full many a time;
For the summer flowers did never spring,
But every Graham, in armour bright,
Would then appear before the king.
They all were dressed in armour sheen,
Upon the pleasant banks of Tay;
Before a king they might be seen,
These gallant Grahams in their array.
At the Goukhead our camp we set,
Our leaguer down there for to lay;
And, in the bonnie summer light,
We rode our white horse and our gray.
Our false commander sold our king
Unto his deadly enemie,
Who was the traitor Cromwell, then;
So I care not what they do with me.
They have betrayed our noble prince,
And banish'd him from his royal crown;
But the gallant Grahams have ta'en in hand,
For to command those traitors down.
In Glen-Prosen[A]we rendezvoused,
March'd to Glenshie by night and day,
And took the town of Aberdeen,
And met the Campbells in their array.
Five thousand men, in armour strong.
Did meet the gallant Grahams that day
At Inverlochie, where war began,
And scarce two thousand men were they.
Gallant Montrose, that chieftain bold,
Courageous in the best degree,
Did for the king fight well that day;
The lord preserve his majestie!
Nathaniel Gordon, stout and bold,
Did for king Charles wear the blue;
But the cavaliers they all were sold,
And brave Harthill, a cavalier too.
And Newton Gordon, burd-alone
And Dalgatie, both stout and keen,
And gallant Veitch upon the field,
A braver face was never seen.
Now, fare ye weel, sweet Ennerdale!
Countrie and kin I quit ye free;
Chear up your hearts, brave cavaliers,
For the Grahams are gone to high Germany.
Now brave Montrose he went to France,
And to Germany, to gather fame;
And bold Aboyne is to the sea,
Young Huntly is his noble name.
Montrose again, that chieftain bold,
Back unto Scotland fair he came,
For to redeem fair Scotland's land,
The pleasant, gallant, worthy Graham!
At the water of Carron he did begin,
And fought the battle to the end;
Where there were killed, for our noble king,
Two thousand of our Danish men.
Gilbert Menzies, of high degree,
By whom the king's banner was borne;
For a brave cavalier was he,
But now to glory he is gone.
Then woe to Strachan, and Hacket baith!
And, Lesly, ill death may thou die!
For ye have betrayed the gallant Grahams,
Who aye were true to majestic.
And the laird of Assint has seized Montrose,
And had him into Edinburgh town;
And frae his body taken the head,
And quartered him upon a trone.
And Huntly's gone the selfsame way,
And our noble king is also gone;
He suffered death for our nation,
Our mourning tears can ne'er be done.
But our brave young king is now come home,
King Charles the second in degree;
The Lord send peace into his time,
And God preserve his majestie!
[A]
Glen-Prosen, in Angus-shire.
Glen-Prosen, in Angus-shire.
NOTES ON THE GALLANT GRAHAMS.
Now, fare thee weel, sweet Ennerdale.—P. 38. v. 1. A corruption of Endrickdale. The principal, and most ancient possessions of the Montrose family lie along the water of Endrick, in Dumbartonshire.
Sir John the Graham did bear the gree.—P. 39. v. 1. The faithful friend and adherent of the immortal Wallace, slain at the battle of Falkirk.
Who was the traitor Cromwell, then.—P. 39. v. 5. This extraordinary character, to whom, in crimes and in success our days only have produced a parallel, was no favourite in Scotland. There occurs the following invective against him, in a MS. in the Advocates' Library. The humour consists in the dialect of a Highlander, speaking English, and confusingCromwellwithGramach,ugly:
Te commonwelt, tat Gramagh ting.
Gar brek hem's word, gar do hem's king;
Gar pay hem's sesse, or take hem's (geers)
We'l no de at, del come de leers;
We'l bide a file amang te crowes, (i.e.in the woods)
We'l scor te sword, and wiske to bowes;
And fen her nen-sel se te re, (the king)