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.