of January 1633, the parties having also failed to appear at the bar of the Court of Justiciary, sentence of fugitation was pronounced against them. No more was ever heard of the dramatis personæ in this deplorable scene. The contemporary silence on the subject is remarkable. None of the culprits are any where alluded to by Sir James Balfour, who records the marriage, death, and burial-place of Lady Dorothea. The more scandalous and malicious chronicler, Scotstarvet, who fastens a toad upon the infancy of Montrose, and witchcraft upon his mother, breathes not the name of Lady Katherine. Yet the story was publicly recorded, and is still to be found in a most disreputable-looking, and now scarcely legible MS. volume, being one of the old books of Adjournal, which compose the library of the High Court of Justiciary. That volume has not even been printed by Pitcairn.' And there the sad history ends. Heraldic and family historians have aided the mystery by welding two lairds of Luss into one. While they record the happy commencement, of the necromantic laird's domestic life, they hide the unnatural deformity of its latter end, by confounding it with the honourable misfortunes of his loyal son. 'And Luss-Carlippis-Katherine, are gone, 1 Mr Pitcairn's valuable collection is not brought down to so late a date. Brabantio denounces the Moor as having practised necromancy upon Desde mona: 'Judge me the world, if 'tis not gross in sense That thou hast practised on her with foul charms, Abused her delicate youth with drugs, or minerals.' and the Black,-whose best defence, by the way, if his admirers be right as to his complexion, would have been that he was not black,-replies, with dignity and eloquence of which we can scarcely conceive 'thick lips' capable-disclaiming all use of sorcery, with something like a sneer at the imputation. Some commentators have ridi There can be little doubt, although the fact has never hitherto been observed, that the immediate result, to the young Earl himself, of this unfortunate incident in his family, was very influential in regard to his culed the idea of a dignified and learned tribunal being thus figured to have gravely entertained an accusation so preposterous and weak. Others, with more justice, have defended the consistency of the great poet of Nature, by referring to the superstitions of the kind prevalent in the reign of King Richard III., and to the acts and deeds of the witch-hunting King James. But the play of Othello was first acted more than thirty years before this sad reality occurred in Scotland. It is, then, rather to be wondered at that Desdemona's distracted parent should be made to put the question doubtingly,― 'Are there not charms By which the property of youth and maidhood May be abused? Have you not read, Roderigo, Of some such thing?' That a great crime had been committed by the laird of Luss, in which his German servant was an accomplice, is not to be doubted. The libel mentions philtra and poisons of love, as well as the jewel, although this last was chiefly relied upon by the prosecutor. The unfortunate young lady herself, had been secretly carried off to London, as the libel states, by Luss and his servant, in the month of September 1631. Judging from the date of the King's letter, the eclat had not occurred until after the flight of the parties, although the crime is libelled as having commenced in 1629. How the information contained in the criminal letters had been obtained, and in what manner the incantations, and the intoxication of the jewel would have been proved, does not appear. Perhaps the poor victim had been brought under some dreadful delusion, and had herself afforded a clue to the infamous proceedings, before she was carried off. It is sad to speculate upon her ultimate fate, of which nothing is known. By the mother's side she had come of a necromantic race, and could scarcely fail to believe in the powers of darkness upon earth. Her maternal uncle, the notorious Earl of Gowrie, and her great-grandfather, were both reputed necromancers. With regard to the latter, Patrick Lord Ruthven, there is a curious attestation of his powers, by Queen Mary herself, upon whose Statute the laird of Luss was tried for practising necromancy upon Ruthven's great-granddaughter. In John Knox's History of the Reformation in Scotland, it is narrated, that upon some occasion, when out hawking near Kinross, her Majesty in conversation, began diverse other purposes, such as the offering of a ring to her by Lord Ruthven, "whom," said she, "I cannot love, for I know him to use enchantment, and yet is he made one of my Privy Council." (New Edit. of Knox's History, preparing for the press, by Mr David Laing, p. 373.) future fortunes. His first inauspicious introduction to Charles I., when the Marquis of Hamilton prejudiced his sovereign against him, was early in the year 1636, Montrose having then just returned from his travels. How different would their first meeting and its consequences have been, had that occurred in 1633, when Charles at length accomplished his long intended coronation in Scotland. It is not too much to say, that the circumstance might have altogether changed the destinies of Montrose. Now it seems beyond all reasonable doubt that Montrose, whose pride was great, and whose feelings for the honour of his family were extremely sensitive, had upon this occasion avoided a presentation to his sovereign, and seized the opportunity of travelling for a few years, leaving his wife and his young boys at home, with Lord Carnegy. From some of the papers in this Part, it will be seen that he was in Edinburgh in the months of October and November 1632, at the very time when the criminal process against his brother-in-law was raised, and probably had been in communication with Sir Thomas Hope on the subject. That process, as we have seen, terminated in the month of January 1633. A few months afterwards, Charles I. was crowned in Edinburgh, and the Lord Lyon, Sir James Balfour, who has left a minute and very graphic official account of the splendid pageant, marks the name of Montrose with the word 'absent' after it. That he was about to travel, was no reason for omitting such an opportunity of being made known to the king. Sir Phillip Warwick says of Charles I., 'that whenever any young nobleman, or gentleman of quality, who was going to travel came to kiss his hand, he cheerfully would give them some good counsel, leading to moral virtue, especially to good conversation, telling them, that if he heard they kept good company abroad, he should reasonably expect they would return qualified to serve him and their country well at home.' And such unquestionably would have been the reception which the gallant and graceful young Scottish nobleman would have met with from his sovereign in Scotland. His father-in-law, Lord Carnegy, was in such favour, that he was created upon this occasion Earl of Southesk. Lord Napier, too, was an old friend of the king's, who selected him as one of the six Barons of Parliament, who were to support the six earl's eldest sons having the honour to bear the canopy above his head to the church, and 'in time of his sacring, the day of his coronation.' Then, Montrose himself was the very figure for such pageantry. Even at St Andrew's College, which he had but recently quitted, he was the beau-ideal of a young cavalier. His recreations were hunting and hawking, horse-racing, archery and golf, poetry and chess, heroic and romantic histories and classics; nor did he lack those attributes of the knightly character, the occasional wassail, and the frequent largesse. His sword was not yet unsheathed, but already was he growing to be the observed of all observers. Of this a very curious and interesting corroborative evidence is to be derived from the lays of a humble contemporary poet, who made some noise in his day, but whose poetical effusions are so very rarely to be met with that the passage we are about to quote has never until now been referred to in any biography or notice of Montrose, and only recently came under the editor's own observation. The poem is entitled 'Scotland's welcome to her native son and Soveraigne Lord King Charles, by William Lithgow, the Bonaventure of Europe, Asia, and Africa.' The Genius of Scotland is supposed to address Charles I. upon the occasion of his visit to Scotland in 1633, and to call his attention to the state of the country, the valour of the nation, vices to be discouraged, aud grievances to be redressed; affording, withal, a very curious picture of the condition and habits of the capital of Scotland in 1633. The poem, although anticipating the whole scene, must have been composed before the ceremonials of the coronation; because, when enumerating the nobility whom Scotland earnestly recommends to the love and patronage of their Sovereign, Viscount Duplin, Lord Carnegy, and others who then obtained a higher rank in the peerage, are named by their inferior titles. As for Lord Barons, Lyndesay and Cathcart, But the nobleman whom the Genius of Scotland recommends to the Sovereign with the greatest ardour and the highest eulogy, is the very 1 This refers to Lord Napier's elevation to the peerage, in 1627. The ceremony of creating the Lord Chancellor Duplin Earl of Kinnoul took place on the 17th June 1633. It is curious to find him and Lord Napier thus brought into happy conjunction in the poet's couplet, considering the scenes that had formerly passed between them. See supra, pp. 40, 55. Lord Napier's characteristic of the old Chancellor, that at the Council board' his manner was to interrupt all men when he was disposed to speak, and the King too' (supra, p. 64), is precisely confirmed by Sir James Balfour. It seems that even the earldom had not taught him respectful demeanour to his Sovereign. I remember,' says the Lyon, 'that King Charles sent me to the Chancellor, being then Earl of Kinnoul, the day of his coronation, in the morning, in August 6 1633, to shew him that it was his will and pleasure, but only for that day, that he would ceed and give place to the Archbishop; but he returned by me to his Majesty a very bruske answer, which was, that since his Majesty had been pleased to continue him in that office of Chancellor, which his worthy father, of happy memory, had bestowed upon him, he was ready in all humility to lay it down at his Majesty's feet; but since it was his royal will he should enjoy it with the known privileges of the same, never a stoned priest in Scotland should set a foot before him so long as his blood was hot. Quen I had related his answer to the King, he said, "Well, Lyon, let's go to business; I will not meddle further with that old canckered gouty man, at whose hands there is nothing to be gained but sour words." (Annals, 2, 141.) |