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‘
I
move
that the questions continue,' Montrose declared.

'Seconded,'
Napier backed him, although not hopefully.

In
the upheaval, Burleigh beat with his gavel. 'I rule that it is not
in order for the Earl of Montrose and the Lord Napier, as prisoners
and witnesses, to make such submission to parliament. I accept the
motion. The two lords named to be removed from this sitting.'

Montrose
bowed to the President, more deeply to his liege lord, and followed
his guards out. The entire interlude had been merely a
demonstration, he perceived, the object of which was to let the King
see that he need place no confidence in himself, Montrose, or
any other party, to support him. The monarch was to be isolated.
Even Hamilton, Traquair and Roxburgh, his former toadies, had
obviously been suborned, detached, and now danced to Argyll's tune.
It was all very clear. Unfortunately, what was equally clear to the
Graham, was that Charles Stewart was not going to raise hand nor
voice in the matter. Argyll had calculated aright, in this also.

In
the desperately slow, frustrating, lonely weeks that followed,
James Graham came near to despair. Denied all contact with the
outside world, a man of action, he was a prey to alternate helpless
furies and deep depressions. To be utterly unable in any way to
affect or influence his own fate was probably the most grievous
affliction he had to bear.

Yet,
despite himself, he could not but turn his mind towards the King,
for aid. Charles, however circumscribed, still had powers, and could
assist if he would. So he wrote letters to the Palace of
Holyroodhouse - but had no way of knowing whether they ever reached
their destination, however much he offered his jailers as
bribes. He requested interviews with those in authority,
Henderson, Loudoun, Johnston - but not with Argyll himself,
never Argyll. And was vouchsafed no answer from any. He might have
been already a dead man - as he would be, he knew well, if
ultimately Archibald Campbell had his way - for all the notice the
rest of Scotland took now of James Graham,
An
Greumach Mor
,
first
signatory of the Covenant and Licutenant-General. Had Magdalen and
her father been right? Had he dabbled in things too great for him,
and now must bear the consequences? Should he have stayed at
home, tending his own wide acres, playing only the family man? He,
the Graham?

It
was nearly mid-October before he obtained his first gleam of hope,
his first contact with other than his jailers -and also a personal
blow. A new captain of the guard proved venal, and one night handed
Montrose a letter from Kilpont. This began with the sad news that
little David, the second youngest son, had died. He had been a
weakly child from die first, and his father hardly knew him; but it
was a blow, and poor Magdalen's heart would be sore. After this the
letter declared the urgent loyalty of his friends, their horror at
what was being done, and their constant efforts on their chief's
behalf. Kilpont informed that they were ever pressing the King to
act; and His Grace had assured them that he was concerned, and
indeed would not leave Scotland until Montrose was freed - since he,
with them, believed that the Graham's life hung on it. Charles was
more sympathetic and understanding than might seem — but he
was surrounded by traitors, spies and creatures of Argyll and
Hamilton. These two were now inseparable. The King was desperate for
an army, any army, to teach his English parliament a lesson - and
only the Scots could provide one, mustered and equipped. All was
subordinate to that, Leslie and his force the trump card. Edinburgh
was full of Campbells and Hamiltons, in unholy alliance - it
was said that Argyll had 5000 of his clan in and around the city -
in name more volunteers for the King's army, but in fact . . . who
knew? It seemed more like Campbell's kingdom. Much of the country,
and probably most of the nobles, were now alarmed at the way things
were going. But they were leaderless, and Argyll was careful to keep
the Kirk behind him. But Montrose must not despair. He, Kilpont,
believed the King when he said he would not leave Scotland until the
Graham was freed - the only man who could stand against Argyll. The
Campbell would never dare move against his life while the King was
present. Kilpont ended by informing that the Earl of Rothes had
died.

This
very doubtfully encouraging letter was as a ray of light into the
dim grey cell, nevertheless. Montrose had an objective again, not
only hope but something to work for. There and then he sat down and
wrote an acknowledgment to Kilpont, with sundry instructions, and
another letter enclosed, to be handed, somehow or another,
personally and secretly to the King. Means must be found. In it he
warned Charles Stewart that there was no reason to believe that the
deposition story was a forgery. He did not specifically accuse
Argyll of being behind it, but he had known of it, and spoken of it
- that was sure; for Ladywell was not a man who could or would have
invented such a tale. Moreover there had been circumstantial rumours
circulating, before his own arrest, that plans were being formulated
to set up a Commonwealth embracing both kingdoms of Scotland
and England, with the Crown put down and government by the
parliaments only.

This
letter sent, he could only wait, and hope.

He
had to wait for a full month more. Then, on the night of the 17th of
November, late in the evening, he was quite unceremoniously taken
from his cell, conducted to the castle gatehouse by a junior
officer, and told that he was free to go where he would. No
explanations, no instructions, certainly no apology, was offered.
An
Greumach Mor
now
might have been some petty felon who had served his time in jail,
casually released.

It
was a wet night, and dark. In the Grassmarket below the castle,
Montrose managed to hire a broken-down nag, all he could get, and
made his way to Merchiston. There he found Archie Napier and the two
knights, each having been freed earlier and separately, also without
explanation. But from the servants at Merchiston, Napier had pieced
together a strange story.

It
seemed that the King was due to leave Holyroodhouse for the South
first thing in the morning - hence their release at the last moment
previous to the royal departure, when it would be too late for them
to make any arrangements for an audience with Charles, who was, of
course, kept most watchfully surrounded. But at least the
monarch had not forgotten his promise.

It
seemed that the royal departure was sudden and urgent. Rebellion had
broken out in Ireland, and the English parliament had discovered
that it required the King's authority to take the necessary steps to
deal with the crisis. Charles apparently had hopes that this
situation would benefit his position, proving to his malcontents in
the South that they were less potent than they thought. With
Leslie's Scots army to threaten them in the North, the King believed
that
he
might
bring Pym, Hampden, Cromwell and the rest to their senses. To this
end
he
had
hurriedly granted everything the Covenanters wanted; and had
added
a
positive
shower of honours and appointments of office and profit, quite
fantastic to contemplate. Argyll himself had been made Scotland's
third marquis - it was said that
he
had
accepted only because there was an ancient West Highland prophecy
that the Argyll earldom would end with
a
squinting,
red-haired holder, and here was an ingenious way of averting the
curse, commentary indeed on the Campbell's mind. Loudoun had been
made Chancellor of Scotland. Sandy Leslie, astonishingly, had been
created Earl of Leven. Alexander Henderson was now Dean of the
Chapel Royal and so King's personal minister in Scotland. And that
strange young man, Johnston of Warriston, although just thirty, had
actually been knighted, given a liberal pension, and made
a
Lord
of Session, the first of the new judges. If all this was almost as
laughable as it was shameful, the shame at least looked like being
extended and perpetuated. For there was word from usually
knowledgeable sources that the reason behind it all, Charles's
buying of the Scots army, had never really been even remotely
considered, in the first place, by the said recipients of the
largesse and titles. The information was that, the moment the King
was out of Scotland, the new Earl of Leven was to bring his army
home and disband it. Here was Campbell diplomacy with a vengeance.

Even
while Montrose all but wept for his duped and unfortunate
monarch, he was told of still another and scarcely more believable
story - and one which might more closely affect the late four
prisoners. Scotland, it seemed, was ringing - however little of it
had reached the cells of Edinburgh Castle — with a new
sensation, which was being called the Incident for want of any more
credible description. A plot, it was alleged, had been unearthed
against Argyll and Hamilton, of all directions, to discredit
them with the King - and there were inspired rumours that Montrose
was behind it all. It was difficult to unravel the details and any
real sense of it, but the gist seemed to be that though Edinburgh
had been packed tight as a drum with thousands of Campbell clansmen
and Hamilton retainers, to discourage other lords from questioning
Argyll's hegemony, nevertheless the said pair of nobles put it about
that their lives were in danger, and that they were being traduced
to the King. So serious the threat, these two wronged and distressed
statesmen had thereupon retired from unsafe Edinburgh to Hamilton's
Kinneil Palace in West Lothian - from whence they could be back in
an hour - in high dudgeon and deep sorrow. Nobody could make head
nor tail of it all - save perhaps Napier, who, when he heard of
Montrose's smuggled letter to the monarch with its specific
information regarding the Commonwealth idea, declared that Argyll's
devious mind had probably concocted the whole thing, to get him out
of the King's presence until the royal departure, and to have every
pulpit in the land ringing with his wrongs as a godly man
endangered, hunted for his life; and to sow suspicion and
mystification amongst his enemies.

At
all events, whatever the rights of it, fairly obviously Charles
would not be over the Border before his two marquises would be back
in Edinburgh, and far from inactive. In the circumstances, it
would be the most elementary precaution for the four ex-prisoners to
get out of the city, and much farther away than Merchiston, before
that happened, if they valued their new-found liberty. Deep in
the Graham lands, Montrose declared, was the place for them, in this
pass. He had never liked Edinburgh; now it stank in his nostrils.

That
very November night, in thin drizzling rain, the horses were saddled
and all four set out for the North with as minimal delay as
disturbance.

There
were times when discretion was not merely wise but the only course.

17

S
trangely
enough, that winter and the following
months
of 1642, James Graham came almost to give thanks to Archibald
Campbell and his machinations, for so effectively cutting him
adrift from all Covenant and national affairs. His name undoubtedly
stank in the nostrils of the militant Covenanters and the fanatical
ministers - who now, under Argyll, ruled Scotland unchallenged; but,
secure within his own domains, it would have been a bold man who
actually sought to lay hands on Montrose. While he had been held
prisoner, Argyll had ordered the Lord Sinclair to go and harry the
Mugdock estate, and pull down its castle - a piece of typical
Campbell ferocity; but Mugdock was an isolated property as far as
the Graham clan was concerned, only seven miles north of Glasgow. It
was noticeable that there had been no attacks on Kincardine or other
Strathearn lands, nor on Old Montrose, deep in traditional Graham
territory.