During the progress of the English parliament, he quitted the kingdom ; and sonic time previous to the arrival of Charles 11. in Scotland, he made one other unsuccessful attempt to restore the monarchy by force of arms.
Sonic prophet of the Royalists had assured him, (for the Royalists had their prophets as well as the Covenanters,) that to him, and to him alone, it was reserved to restore the king's authority in all his dominions ; and he eagerly listen ed to an intimation which agreed so well with his enter prising genius. But, notwithstanding this augury, he was defeated by Strachan, one of Lesly's captains, and taken prisoner after the battle, in the disguise of a peasant," hav ing thrown away his cloak and the star upon it." The Covenanters made a rigorous use of the victory, and treated their illustrious captive with a degree of insolence which can find no other apology than the barbarism of the period in which they lived, and the treacherous manner in which he had deserted them. He was brought to Edin burgh under every circumstance of elaborate indignity ; and after a trial before the Scottish parliament, during which he conducted himself with the utmost presence of mind, and with a magnanimity which his enemies were constrained to admire, he was sentenced to lose his life by the hands of the public executioner ; and with a lofty com posure, and using some pious ejaculations, he submitted to his fate. Thus was closed, at the age of thirty-five, the career of James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, a man un questionably of a most noble and heroic character, bold, active, and for a time successful. All history unites in re
cording his atchievements, and in celebrating his valour : but he was brave in the hour and in the tempest of the bat tle, rather than skilful in forming the plan of a campaign. He took up arms against the Presbyterians, without a pru dent estimate of his means. And it may be doubted whe ther, with all his courage and all his activity, his exploits were of any service to the cause of the king. It has been said that he was no stranger to elegant literature ; but while every one allows that the verses which he composed on the evening before his death may be regarded as proofs of the serenity of his mind, there are few who will be ready to acknowledge them as a very favourable specimen of his attainments in the poetical art. One foul spot remains up on his character ; he betrayed the cause of liberty, and the friends of his early life ; if, indeed, it be not a fouler and more indelible stain, that he continued through a series of heroic endeavours, the champion of a cause which had for its object to establish an unlimited power in the nation, and to force, by a military apostleship, an abhorred religion up on the acceptance of the Scottish people. See Wishart's Memoirs of Montrose ; Hume's History of England, vol. x. xi. ; Principal Baillie's Letters and Journals, vol. ii. ; Bur net's Own Time, vol. i. ; and Fox's History of the early tart of the Reign of James II. (h)