Sir Walter Scott
A LEGEND OF [THE WARS OF] MONTROSE (1819) Reviewed by Patrick Killough [NOTE: Scott's original title, recently restored by the Edinburgh University critical reworking of the FIRST EDITION, was A LEGEND OF THE WARS OF MONTROSE. Two friends advised droppiing THE WARS. Scott reluctantly agreed but his point was that he had put together some old tales and legends about persons other than Montrose. TPK 07/31/2007] I. Reviewed for barnes and noble Reviewer: Patrick Killough, still chuckling over this one. Reviewer's rating of A LEGEND OF MONTROSE: * * * * FOUR STARS Title of this Review: Captain Dugald Dalgetty and his War Horse Gustavus The fictitious 17th Century Scottish mercenary Dugald Dalgetty may be the funniest character Sir Walter Scott ever conceived. He and his great war horse Gustavus, ride up into the Highlands of Scotland just before a minor turning point of British history in the pages of Walter Scott's short novel of 1819, A LEGEND OF MONTROSE. Before Dalgetty and Gustavus appear, the first chapter sets the historical scene. It is 1644, and the tide of events is flowing towards a great clash in February 1645 between the dominant Presbyterians of Scotland and the scattered minority of Highlanders and clans still loyal to King Charles Stuart. A Scottish army of Covenanters, made of that Kingdom's best fighting men, has gone south to help the English Parliament corner the embattled king. The Marquis of Montrose creates a diversion to force them back to Scotland. Warlike but impoverished Scotland had exported increasing numbers of mercenary troops to the Continent for the past 100 years of the age of gunpowder. Now one of them has come home after a quarter century fighting for all sides in Germany's wars of religion. Nearing 50, he is Captain Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket. At age 18, family poverty had caused him to abandon his studies at the Mareschal (Marischal) College in Aberdeen and go off to Germany. Riding up into the Highlands from Perthshire on a summer evening, the Captain encounters a party of Royalists, the Earl of Menteith and two attendants. One of the latter, Anderson, is in reality the disguised Earl (or Marquis) of Montrose, James Graham. Montrose will shortly reveal himself to a gathering of clan chiefs as one recently empowered by King Charles to rally support in Scotland for the Royal cause. Menteith's party and Dalgetty overnight in the castle of Darnlinvarach, home of two brothers M'Aulay: Clan chief Angus and the two years younger Allan. Allan's mother had lost her mind many years earlier, while pregnant with him and having fled into the woods from a bandit clan MacEagh, Sons of the Mist, who had murdered her brother and brought her his head at a dinner. Some of his mother's madness had rubbed off on her son, who grew up a powerful giant of a young man, gifted also with second sight. He had sworn and executed fearful vengeance against the MacEaghs. He had, however, at Menteith's request, spared the life of a two year old girl taken in a raid on the McLeags. She was raised at Darlinvarach, almost as a sister. Now 17, Annot Lyle is a harpist and singer of surpassing beauty. Only her playing can soothe the deep melancholy of Allan M'Aulay. Both Allan and Lord Menteith love Annot, but neither can marry her because of her unknown ancestry. Nobles only marry nobles. The Highlands have many lesser clans ready to rally to King Charles. But the Royalists are all in awe of the mighty Clan Campbell, or Children of Diarmid, led by the Marquis of Argyle, nicknamed Gillespie Grumach. One of the Marquis's closest relatives and supporters is Sir Duncan Campbell. Fifteen years earlier, three of his children had been slain by the current chief of the Sons of the Mist, Ranald MacEagh. Not too long into the story, Captain Dalgetty, sent on a mission of peace to the Marquis of Argyl by Montrose, is thrown into the same dungeon as the recently captured Ranald MacEagh. He overhears a conversation which reveals the deep secret that Annot Lyle is the sole surviving child of Sir Duncan Campbell. After many adventures and battles, the fact of Annot's noble ancestry is accepted by all the leading Royalists. She is to marry her true love, the Earl of Menteith. Her wounded father agrees to this. But the unstable, jealous Allan M'Aulay will not have it. He stabs his long-time friend Lord Monteith on the latter's wedding day, then rushes away. The Earl survives. The wedding takes place. The captured King Charles I orders Montrose to lay down his arms and go abroad. Years pass. Oliver Cromwell rises to power. King Charles II is restored to the throne. The Earl on Menteith is also restored to honor. Dalgetty reacquires his patrimony of Drumthwicket by marrying the widow of the Covenanater who had acquired it. As Walter Scott novels go, A LEGEND OF MONTROSE is short and it is necessary to keep no more than ten or twelve main characters straight. Annot Lyle is the only female character of significance. There is much real history in the novel. But names are changed and some things simply did not happen as described. Readers today will chuckle over the amiable, hard drinking, prodigiously eating Scottish mercenary Dalgetty. Montrose quickly promotes him to Major and towards novel's end knights him for gallantry at the decisive February 2, 1645 rout of the Campbells at Inverlochy. Dalgetty is the classic 'miles gloriosus' or boastful soldier loved by writers since the Romans. He reminisces endlessly about what he learned at Mareschal College and in the many battles of his esteemed master, King Gustavus of Sweden. Dalgetty loves the horse he named for that monarch almost as much as he loves himself. But when Gustavus is shot and slain by Sir Duncan Campbell at the battle of Inverlochy, Dalgetty strips his beloved mount's hide to make warm trousers for himself. Most characters underrate and make fun of Dalgetty. But Montrose does not. For Dalgetty knows military tactics and strategy and how to train and lead men in battle. He is a good man to share a foxhole with. -OOO- Also recommended: Sir Walter Scott, WOODSTOCK and TALES OF A (SCOTTISH) GRANDFATHER, especially Chapters 52,53 on Montrose. A. N. Wilson, THE LAIRD OF ABBOTSFORD. 07/31/2007 =-=-=-=====-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= II. Reviewed for amazon Reviewer's rating of A LEGEND OF MONTROSE * * * * FOUR STARS Title of this review: February 2, 1645: Earl of Montrose Thumps Clan Campbell at Inverlochy On February 2, 1645 Royalist Forces supporting King Charles I, after a forced march through snow covered mountains, routed the superior forces lined up against them at Inverlochy in west central Scotland. Never before or since did mighty Highlands Clan Campbell ("The Campbells Are Coming!") suffer such a military defeat. Their conqueror was their hereditary enemy James Graham, Earl of Montrose. For a few months in 1644-5 Montrose rallied dispirited, outgunned Royalists in support of their embattled King Charles Stuart. Once the King was captured, he ordered Montrose to lay down his arms. The dreaded earl sailed for Norway and the Campbells, led by the Marquis of Argyl, took fearful revenge on all the lesser clans that had risen against them under Montrose. Minor players of Scott's novel include Annot Lyle, a beautiful 17-year old, protected by two noble brothers, Angus, chief of Clan and Allan M'Aulay. They had spared her life 15 years earlier when slaying members of the bandit clan MacEagh, "Sons of the Mist." The Sons of the Mist had earlier and secretly spared the young girl's life when they had burned a castle belonging to Sir Duncan Campbell and killed three others of his children. Allan M'Aulay is a strong giant, troubled in mind after his mother was terrified when the Chldren of the Mist had severed her brother's head and served it to her at a meal. Allan's lifetime mission: to avenge his uncle and to decapitate MacEaghs wherever he found them. Both he and his friend the handsome young Earl of Menteith love the radiant Annot Lyle but will not marry her because they cannot prove she is of noble birth. That Annot Lyle is noble is revealed in a prison of the Campbells to a 40-something mercenary recruit of Montrose, Dugald Dalgetty. After nearly 30 years fighting for all sides in the religious wars in Germany, Dalgetty has come home to Scotland for money and to regain his family's lost estate of Drumthwacket. He begins as Captain Dalgetty, is soon promoted to Major by Montrose and is ultimately knighted after leading the horse at the battle of Inverlochy. Meanwhile he has bored many with his endless reminiscenses of his studies in Aberdeen and his campaigns in Germany, especially under his hero, King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. Captain Dalgetty so revered that monarch that he named his own horse Gustavus. After Gustavus is shot at Inverlochy by Sir Duncan Campbell, who had refused Dalgetty's offer of quarter, the new knight resolves to skin Gustavus to make warm trousers against the Scottish winter. Life goes on in Scotland, no matter how much world history is being created to the south in England by the Civil Wars. Once Annot Lyle is acknowledged suitably noble, she chooses to marry Lord Menteith. This enrages his best friend Allan M'Aulay who stabs Menteith on his wedding day, but not fatally. After the dust settles in 1660 and the Stuarts resume their thrones, Menteith regains public honor and Dalgetty marries the Presbyterian widow of the man who had acquired Dalgetty's old estate of Drumthwacket. Despite being one of Walter Scott's shorter novels, MONTROSE is action-packed. Captain Dugald Dalgetty is one of Scott's greatest comic creations. Scotsmen are shown in the colorful twilight of their feudal system, with its unending hatreds of clan for clan, competing religions and Highland versus Lowland. A comic masterpiece. A slice of Scottish history and society. -OOO- Your tags: dugald dalgetty, sir walter scott, james graham, earl of montrose, sir duncan campbell, battle of inverlochy, king charles i -==-===-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= III. Reviewed for EPINIONS Reviewer's Rating of A LEGEND OF MONTROSE * * * * FOUR STARS Title of this Review: A War Horse Named Gustavus and his Quixotic Rider Sir Walter Scott (1771 - 1832), despite what polio did to his right leg, was a great outdoorsman, hunter and rider. He especially loved dogs (see the hound Bevis in his novel WOODSTOCK whose growling at strategic moments kept randy young King Charles II from attempting the virtue of Bevis's mistress). But Scott was also an officer in Edinburgh's cavalry militia during the wars with Napoleon. He knew his horseflesh. This shows in the "character" of Gustavus, the patient, tireless war horse of Captain Dugald Dalgetty in A LEGEND OF MONTROSE or, as Scott originally intended and as the University of Edinburgh has recently re-issued it, A LEGEND OF THE WARS OF MONTROSE. The novel is so short (for Scott, at least) and so funny that I refrain from over detailing its plot. The first Charles Stuart is King of both Scotland and England. He was doing a good job of beating back his armed opponents in the English Civil Wars until his opponents in Scotland sent an army to help the English corner their king. In a last despairing and ultimately futile throw of the dice, the King commissioned the Scottish Earl of Montrose, James Graham, to return to the north, rally the discontented and compel the Scottish army to return from England to Scotland. In a series of brilliant campaigns in the Highlands, Montrose twice humbled the King's mightiest foe, the Marquis of Argyll, head of the huge Clan Campbell. Among his closest associates among the loyalist clans were a chief, Angus M'Aulay and his brother Allan. They had rescued 15 years earlier the life of Annot Lyle, a small girl briefly in the clutches of the dreaded Children of the Mist, the MacEaghs. They had first burned the castle of Argyll's kinsman, the warrior Sir Duncan Campbell. Before that the MacEaghs had decapitated the uncle of Allan M'Aulay and driven his mother mad. From age 15 onwards he was on a vengeful one-man mission of search and destroy against any Sons of the Mist he could find. As Annot Lyle grew to a beauteous 17-year-old harpist and singer with power to soothe Allan M'Aulay's rages, Allan began to think of her less as a sister and more as a wife. So did Allan's friend the Earl of Menteith. But neither could wed a woman of unknown ancestry. Only a certfiable noblewoman would do, alas. Meanwhile back in Germany the Thirty Years War is drawing to a close and pickings are slimmer for the hundreds of Scottish mercenaries there. Captain Dugald Dalgetty, pushing 50, is one of them. Never paid as regularly as he should of been, but greatly devoted to the Protestant champion, his great master King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, Captain Dalgetty had since served the Emperor, the Spanish and the Estates of the Netherlands. Now, hearing that action is stirring in the Highlands, Dalgetty has returned to his native Scotland. Among other things he hopes to pick a winning side and receive back his small family estate of Drumthwacket. Riding up into the mountain passes above Perth on a summer's day in 1644, the Captain joins forces with a party of three Royalists, one of whom is the young Earl of Monteith and the other the disguised Earl of Montrose. They persuade him to serve in the army of Highlanders and Irish that the Earl raises to support the embattled King. Sent as an ambassador to the Marquis of Argyle, Dalgetty is imprisoned. There he meets and helps escape Ranald MacEagh. chief of the renegage Sons of the Mist. From him he learns the truth of Annot Lyle's noble birth. But enough of the plot! It moves briskly through the meteoric and successful campaigns of Montrose against Presbyterians and especially Clan Campbell. Read the novel and enjoy it. A few concluding words about Dalgetty and his horse. Dalgetty is an amiable braggart, talkative, too. With little or no provocation he will apply to a current military challenge lessons learned as a teenager at Aberdeen's Mareschal College or from the victories of Gustavus Adolphus. The Captain, promoted to Major and later knighted by Montrose, has named his mount Gustavus in honor of "The Lion of the North." He loves Gustavus and gives him the kind of detailed, personal care which others routinely leave to hired help. Gustavus carries his master through the deep snows and through the trailless mountains through which the Earl of Montrose leads his little army to victories. When Gustavus is slain at the great rout of the Campbells at Inverlochy on February 2, 1645, Dalgetty does not leave all of the corpse to the crows. He skins Gustavus to make warm trousers against the bitter wintry blasts. Gustavus and Dalgetty are very good for each other. There is real affection and mutual service. Gustavus is quiet where Dalgetty is noisy and talkative. But they can both put away a good meal, though horse does not compete with man on the alcohol front. Dalgetty is one of literature's great comic characters. To be a Scotsman is to demand freedom and to take up arms when it is lost. The final exhortation of the dying chief of the Sons of the Mist to his grandson is all about the libertarian ethos: "Kenneth, son of Eracht, keep thou unsoiled the freedom which I leave thee as a birthright. ... Be free as thy forefathers! Own no lord -- receive no law -- take no hire -- give no stipend -- build no hut -- enclose no pasture -- sow no grain; let the deer of the mountain be thy flocks and herds -- if these fail thee, prey upon the goods of our oppressors -- of the Saxonss and of such Gael as are Saxons in their souls, valuing herds and flocks more than honour and freedom. .. Farewell, beloved! And mayest thou die like thy forefathers, ere infirmity, disease, or age, shall break thy spirit -- Begone! -- begone! -- live free -- requite kindness -- avenge the injuries of thy race!" -OOO- Black Mountain 07/31/2007 http://www.patrickkillough.com/books/sirws_montrose.html |