P 
‘i 
4 
- nent soldier in the reigns of C 
g GRAFTING. See Hontrcun tune. 
GRAIN. See Acricunture and Corn Laws. 
GRAHAM, James, Marquis of Montrose, an emi- 
rles I. and oe eien Il. 
and distinguished by his enterprises against the Cove- 
nanters in Scotland. 
"Having been treated with some disrespect by the 
King, Charles I. he was at first attached to the cause of 
the Presbyterians, and supported them in their endea- 
vours to secure the civil and religious liberties of the 
nation. It has been questioned, indeed, whether he 
was sincere in this attachment ; and it must be owned, 
—_ 7 = early he his aa — per ne had every 
uplicity an . Even his panegyrists 
have étlowed: hat his ienectee with the Presbyte. 
yians was that of convenience, not of inclination ; that 
he enrolled himself in their armies, and held confe- 
rences with their divines, in order to be admitted into 
their secret counsels ; and that having obtained the in- 
telligence which he required, he made use of this intel- 
ligence against the very party whose confidence he had 
enjoyed, The facts are certainly strong. At one time 
_ he was entrusted with a high military command among 
the Covenanters, and actu md passed the Tweed at the 
head of their 
sures us, that, at 
close 
s; and istorian of England as- 
is very time, he had entered into a 
dence with the partizans of the king. 
At , after a course of perfidiousness, unworth 
river ustrious birth, ates must be eee - 
together at variance with his general character, whi 
a to have been that of manliness and heroism, he 
osed all he knew of the purposes of the Presbyte- 
rians, and declared his attachment to the royal 
cause. Such, however, was his vacillation, to give it 
no other name, that Charles himself was for some time 
unwilling to trust him; but having succeeded in de- 
tachin, the Hamiltons, who were his political antago- 
nists, fom the confidence of the monarch, he rose in 
the royal estimation, and was at length appointed lieu- 
tenant-general of the king’s forces in Scotland. 
Yet he who deserted cause of liberty and of true 
igion, and betrayed his countrymen, proved faithful: 
tohis king. He taken upon him, however, as. 
Burnet expresses it, the post of a hero too much. With 
i te means, and relying chiefly on his per- 
sonal prowess, he undertook to subdue the Presbyterians 
by force of arms. And, at this time, the Presbyterians. 
- were not, in strict language, a party in Scotland ; they 
constituted the stren and the talent, the energy, 
physical and intellectual, of nearly the whole nation ; 
they were united in the cause of religion and of liberty, 
bound’by a public and solemn: engag 
to it with their fortunes and their lives, supported by 
the English parliament; confident in the purity of their 
intentions, and not without encouragement from pre- 
vious success. Yet while all this must be allowed, the 
progress of Montrose, tem and partial as it was, 
may serve to shew how much may be atchieved by the 
enterprise of.one man’s mind, and: the effort of a single 
arm. 
His first concern was to draw around him those of 
the Scottish nobility, who were either more attached to 
the king, or less intimately connected with the Presby- 
terians. Among the sete of distinction who joined 
him on this occasion, historians have not failed to men- 
tion the Lord Napier of Merchieston, son of the cele- 
brated inventor of the logarithms ; the Earl of Antrim, 
anobleman of Scotch extraction, and who brought in- 
VOL, X, PART I. 
GRAHAM. 
ement to- adhere . 
$85 
to the field a body of the Macdonalds whohad servedin Graham, 
Ireland, and the two sons of the Marquis of Huntly, Marquis of 
To these we might have added the Marquis himself, 
the chieftain of the powerful clan of the Gordons ; but 
the Marquis had studied astrology, and had learned 
from the stars, that neither the king, nor the Hamil- 
tons, nor Montrose, should prosper. According to Kur- 
net, he was naturally a gallant man, but the stars had 
so subdued him, that he made a poor figure during the 
whole course of these wars. Discouraging as the pros- 
pect appeared, Montrose, or as he was usually called, 
*¢ the Graham,” was in haste to take the field. Joining 
himself to the Macdonalds, and about eight hundred of 
the men of Athol, who had flocked to bis standard, he 
prepared, with incredible activity and expedition, to 
attack the Lord Elcho, who lay with a considerable bo- 
dy of troops in the neighbourhood of Perth. | No gene- 
ral, either of ancient or of modern times, was ever more 
rapid in his marches, or more fierce in his onset, than 
the Marquis of Montrose. ‘Though inferior in num- 
bers, destitute of cavalry and of artillery, and so ill 
furnished with ammunition that he was obliged to an- 
swer the discharges of the enemy by a volley of stones, 
he assailed the Covenanters with such unexpected fury, 
that he threw them into disorder, pushed his pe 
and gained the victory ; he himself combating with his 
Mestal-aleotid amon, the foremost of his troops, and ani- 
mating them by ee example. The slaughter of the 
Presbyterians was great, amounting, by some accounts,. 
to two thousand men ; and the town of. Perth opened 
its gates to Montrose, in consequence of the battle, On 
this.occasion, he had an opportunity of proving his cle- 
mency, a quality which entered largely into the forma-- 
tion of his character, and to which he made a conso- 
ling allusion:-when about to prepare for the scaffold ; 
for he took possession of the town without injuring its: 
inhabitants, and restrained even the Highlanders from, 
their well known propensity to plunder. 
But if the town of Perth experienced his clemency, he- 
let loose all the rage of predatory warfare upon the coun= 
try of the Duke of Argyle and the estates-of the Hamil- 
tons; the former,aleading man amongthe Presbyterians, 
and the personal enemy of Montrose, and the latter his 
rivals in the favour of the king. At the head of 
the Macdonalds and the Irish, he attacked Argyle- 
shire with the ferocity, of a Tartar, carrying off the 
cattle, in which the wealth of the inhabitants consist- 
ed, burning the houses, and wherever he met with 
opposition, putting men, women, and children to. the 
sword. His panegyrist Wishart informs us, and in- 
forms us without apology or remorse, that he sent out 
his troops “ to‘kill and to destroy.” In these expedi 
tions, the life of “« the Graham” was frequently in 
ger. He was constrained to make very long and 
tiguing marches, often in the night and_ in the depth 
winter, through a and mee a 5 
and he was opposed by the Campbells, the heredi 
enemies of his name, se from tthe effects of raed 
aggression, and equally active and revengeful with the 
other clans of the north. These, however, were anta- 
gonists that might be encountered, or sufferings that: 
might be endured ; but the age was barbarous, and he 
seems not to have perceived that he had tarnished 
the lustre of his atchievements by the rapacity of a 
free-booter, And what was still more to be regretted 
by the royalists, he had suffered his numbers to be di- 
minished without rendering any essential or lasting. 
service to the cause of the fing: 
c 
Montrose, 
—o 
