ALL right, over the years we've freewheeled past some weird and
wonderful happenings along the margin of Scottish history but the
reassembling of the Marquis of Montrose -- 10 years after his execution
-- must rank as one of the most bizarre.
First of all a little scene-setting. James Graham, first Marquis of
Montrose was a romantic character, right up there, in my view at least
alongside the Old Firm of Bonnie Prince Charlie and Mary Queen of Scots.
A testimony to his enduring charisma can be traced to this day in the
fresh flowers invariably found atop his tomb in the little side chapel
at St Giles, Edinburgh.
Montrose, who helped draw up the National Covenant in 1638, was
closely involved in the campaigns of persuasion in the north before
appearing to cool towards the cause. He led a brilliant Royalist
expedition in 1644-45 on behalf of Charles I, but suffered defeat at
Philiphaugh, near Selkirk. Returning from the Continent, where he had
fled to give it one more try, he was captured after Carbisdale and
hanged at Edinburgh in 1650.
Enigmatic to the end the Marquis jotted down some lines of poetry and
still swearing adherence to the Covenant, as he was carted to the gibbet
which, we are told was 30 feet high; all Edinburgh wanted to see this
execution. Montrose's gallantry and calmness on this horrendous occasion
has etched itself into the Scottish pysche. A legend was born as the
rope snapped tight.
As per instruction he was quartered and his severed head stuck on the
Tolbooth of Edinburgh and his limbs were sent for exhibition over the
ports of Glasgow, Stirling, Perth and Aberdeen. As he was an
excommunicant, friends were even refused permission to give a proper
burial to the remainder of his body and it was unceremoniously interred
on the Burgh-moor of Edinburgh.
Ten years passed and on the Restoration of Charles II one of the
King's first acts was to order the magistrates of Edinburgh to gather
the Marquis together for a proper funeral. His limbs were called in from
the towns and his trunk raised from the Burgh-moor in the presence of a
crowd of nobles and carried in a velvet-draped coffin to the Tolbooth.
Thousands had gathered there, drums sounded and cannon roared from the
castle in salute.
At the Tolbooth the head of the Marquis, which had grinned upon the
citizens for a decade, was taken down reverentially -- some folk,
according to Privy Council records, bowing, kneeling, and even kissing
the relic before it was placed in the coffin. Presbyterian historians
are quick to make the point that the Laird of Gorthie who lifted the
head from the spike, died within a few hours.
The actual funeral in mid-May was worthy of a monarch. Twenty-three
companies of the Burgess guard lined the streets so that the grand
procession could pass through the throng to St Giles. One striking
memory of this funeral was that the relatives wore ''countenances of
joy''.
The heart of this hero is still missing. Soon after his execution his
niece, Lady Napier, arranged for the body on the moor to be dug up, the
heart removed and placed in a steel case made out of the Marquis's
sword, this in turn being secured in a gold filigree box which had been
presented by the Doge of Venice to Lady Napier's husband's grandfather,
the inventor of logarithms. This remained in the Napier family for
generations but was lost or so it's said, amid the confusion of the
French Revolution.
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