|
Preface
Some years ago, having
occasion to examine the Napier charter-chest, I discovered materials
there which suggested the idea of illustrating, more fully and
originally than had hitherto been done, the lives of two of the greatest
worthies, in their separate walks, whom Scotland has produced, viz.
Napier and Montrose. Different as were the characters and pursuits of
the Inventor of Logarithms, and the Hero of the Scottish Troubles, some
of the illustrations contained in the “Memoirs of John Napier of
Merchiston,” and those now brought together to elucidate the comparative
merits of “Montrose and the Covenanters,” are not without an historical
connexion. Napier, a great champion of the Protestant Church, attracted
the eyes of Europe even more, in his own day, by his very learned and
original Commentaries on the Apocalypse, than by his immortal discovery
in mathematics. He was a most distinguished leader of that church party
in Scotland who stood forth, sturdily and conscientiously, but without
disloyal or anti-monarchical feelings, against the supposed papistical
inclinations of James VI., and the desperate attempts of absolute Popery
from abroad.
Napier’s eldest son, the
first Lord Napier, a sincere disciple of his father’s in those rigid
Protestant doctrines, became the personal friend both of .Tames VI. and
Charles I., and, moreover, a second parent to Montrose. But, in the
progress of events, all that was honest and sincere of the anti-papistical
party in Scotland was superseded by an insidious democratic clique, who,
disguised for a time under the mantles of such enthusiasts as Knox and
Napier, and pretending to identify Episcopacy with Popery, pressed
onwards, through their various stages of duplicity and crime, until an
ephemeral throne, born of their anarchy, was reared upon the prostrate
necks of Religion and Liberty, whose sacred names they bad taken in
vain. Hence it happened that the immediate representative of the great
Napier, and his illustrious pupil Montrose, were covenanting at first,
and, without the sacrifice of a principle, martyrs to their loyalty in
the end.
But, even in our own enlightened times, there is a disposition to
confound the cause of truth with that career of democracy, and to claim
for the factious Covenanter of Argyle’s Dictatorship,—as vicious a
compound as ever agitated under a veil of sanctity,— the respect due to
the stern virtues of some of our early reformers, and also that admiring
sympathy which the violent and impolitic retaliation of the Government
of the second James has rendered no less due to the wrapt heroism of the
Cameronian peasant. Some, indeed, carry their vague ideas, of the
political sobriquete Covenanters, so far as to consider the term sacred,
to identify those factionists with the Church of Scotland in all eras,
and to resent any attempt at exposing their vices, with as much keenness
as if the respectability of the Presbyterian forms depended upon the
fame of the unprincipled school of Argyle, such as Wariston, and
Lauderdale himself, the persecutor of the second race of Covenanters. It
is not, however, in a sense so indiscriminate, that I have adopted the
title “Montrose and the Covenanters,” or have instituted that contrast.
The name and actions of Montrose were too conspicuous, and influential,
in his critical times, not to have become familiar even to such as
cannot, in a strict sense, be termed readers of history. The romantic
pages, and historic genius, of Sir Walter Scott, have made the hero as
well known to the general or luxurious reader, as he is to those who
study, more inquiringly and systematically, all the historical annals of
their country. Hence there is an impression, widely prevailing though
very erroneous, that no more need or can be recorded of Montrose and his
times. But, I venture to say, had the original materials now first
brought to light in the following pages, been in the possession of David
Hume or Sir Walter Scott, greatly would the acquisition have aided,
enlightened, and enriched, a deeply interesting and important chapter of
their historical compositions. Even the domestic facts, though few in
number, which I have been enabled to add to a more minute illustration
of the principles of Montrose’s public conduct than had hitherto been
afforded, would have been treasures in the hands of the “Great
Magician.” With such stores, new to the world, his exquisite, but
unfortunately too meagre, “ Legend of Montrose,” might have expanded in
a work of yet greater interest and effect; combining, too, the truth and
importance of historical discovery, with some domestic matters of
unquestionable fact, that beggar even his powers of romantic fiction.
The devotion, to Montrose, of his nephew, who was so dearly beloved in
return, and who preserved that devotion to his uncle in the face of the
most powerful entreaties and temptations to forsake, or at least to quit
him,—the no less heroic adherence, to Montrose and his cause, displayed
by his nieces, who on his account suffered the imprisonment of
malefactors, and were reduced from the affluence and luxuries of their
high station to discomfort and poverty,—the “well known token,” sent by
them to guide the hero to his career of ill-fated victories,— —the
abstracting of his heart from his mutilated trunk beneath the
gibbet,—and, above all, the extraordinary progress of that romantic
relic, through perils by land and sea, even into the possession, and
among the barbaric treasures of an Indian chief,—himself an heroic
sufferer, whom we must not call savage,—these are incidents which ought
to have been introduced to the world by no other pen than Sir Walter
Scott’s; but which, it may be hoped, will cause, even by this humbler
record of them, the Legend of Montrose itself to be perused with
additional interest.
The most important new matter, however, contained in these volumes, are
the historical fragments obtained from the private archives of the
Napier family, with the addition of some discoveries among the
manuscripts of the Advocates’ Library. These throw an entirely new light
upon the moral springs of Montrose’s isolated and almost incredible
exertions, and, at the same time, aid not insignificantly our
reflections upon the state and results of his times,—an exhaustless
source of political and moral instruction. Whilst such enthusiastic
democratical writers as Mr Brodie, (now Historiographer Royal for
Scotland,) followed by Lord Nugent, and, in the chapter we refer to,
quoted and relied upon even by an historian of such superior powers as
Hallam,—whilst these have run riot in their assumptions of Montrose’s
unprincipled selfishness, reckless ambition, and insatiable appetite for
blood and murder, how little has been done to illustrate what was the
actual state of the Hero’s mind in his meteor-career of self-devotion.
But, as an antidote to those baneful historical calumnies,—in opposing
which I am conscious of having caught too much of the tone of excited
controversy,—of having written “tumultuante ca Jamo” and, it may be
said, occasionally somewhat in King Cambyses’ vein,—I would desire no
more than that beside those calumnies should be placed the hitherto
unknown letters and documents I have now produced, in which Montrose may
be said to speak for himself, on the matter of his advice to Charles I.
and the motives and principles of his own conduct.
From the charge of having “touched that unclean thing whiggery,”—(I
adopt the expressive phrase of a distinguished literary correspondent,
who honoured me with a perusal of these volumes before they were
published,)—of having committed a false step in joining at their outset
the covenanting clique in Scotland,—a word I do not shrink from using,
as being truly descriptive of a party who arrogated to themselves the
character of a whole nation’s generous voice,—of having acted
inconsistently with the dictates of his reason, and his maturer
principles of action, by having carried, what he fondly considered the
arms of “ the Covenant,” against the last hope of true Religion and
Liberty in the north,—from these charges Montrose can never be
exonerated. But the moral, and, when we remember his expiatory struggle
and death, it may be added, the grandeur, of his heroic character and
career, cannot, by such defects, lose their value and interest. The
documents referred to must carry an irresistible conviction, at least to
every unbiassed mind commencing its study of the times past, that, even
in his first error and inconsistency, Montrose was humane and honest,
was no far-sighted and selfish factionist, no bloodthirsty destroyer,
but a youthful and mistaken enthusiast. If the sudden and violent
excitement of the period, and Montrose’s age of four-and-twenty, will
not suffice to reconcile such political inconsistency as can be proved
against him, with the character of an honest statesman, and a glorious
hero, we may close the annals of human virtue.
I am induced to notice still further in this place the manuscripts which
prove Montrose to have exercised, in his later patriotic struggle, the
ratiocination of an upright and accomplished politician, from having, in
a recent visit to Cambridge, my attention called to a published
Discourse, pronounced by one of the living ornaments of that seat of
learning and loyalty. I will be excused for transcribing the whole
passage from such a writer as Professor Sedgwick. In his scrutiny of
some of Paley’s defective Philosophy, occurs what will be found in the
note....
“Why is it our duty to
obey the civil government? Paley replies, because it is the will of God
as collected from expediency......so long as the established government
cannot be resisted or changed without public inconveniency, it is the
will of God that the established government be obeyed—and no longer.
This principle being admitted, the justice of every particular case of
resistance is reduced to a computation of the quantity of danger and
grievance on one side, and of the probability and expense of redressing
it on the other. But who shall judge of this ? We answer, every man for
himself* A more loose and mischievous doctrine —one more certain to be
turned to base purposes by bad men—was never, I believe, upheld by any
Christian moralist. In times of excitement, men are too much blinded by
passion ever to enter fairly on a computation of civil grievance : and
as for danger—brave men of sanguine tempers are not restrained by it,
but on the contrary,are urged by it into action. On Paley’s principles,
civil obedience cannot continue to be regarded as a duty: and if civil
order be retained at all, it can only be through selfishness and fear on
the one hand, and by corruption and brute force on the other. Such a
state of things can only lead to ruin and confusion, or the
establishment of a despotic executive.
“An unbeliever may ground his duty of obedience inexpediency : but a
Christian finds, in the word of God, a ready answer to the question we
started with. Obedience to the civil government is a duty, because the
word of God solemnly and repeatedly enjoins it. But does this doctrine
lead us to the slavish maxims of non-resistance and passive obedience?
Undoubtedly not. The Apostles of our religion gave us an example and a
rule for the resistance of a Christian. They resisted not the powers of
the world by bodily force ; but by persuasion, by patient endurance, and
by heroic self-devotion : and the moral and civil revolutions, which
they and their followers effected, were incomparably the most
astonishing that are recorded in the history of man.
“Should it, however, be
said, that ordinary men, not having the powers given to the inspired
Apostles, must, on that account, adopt less exalted maxims as their
rules of life: we may state in general terms (without loading this
discussion with extreme cases which lead to no practical good in moral
speculation), that where the Christian religion prevails in its purity,
it is impossible there should ever exist an unmitigated despotism : and
where the power of the executive is limited (in however small a degree)
there will always be found within the constitution some place where the
encroachments of bad and despotic men may be met by a moral and legal
resistance. Rebellion is proscribed by human law, and is forbidden by
the law of God. But a moral opposition to the executive, conducted on
constitutional grounds, is proscribed by no law, either of God or man :
and if it be wisely and virtuously carried on, it has in its own nature
the elements of increasing strength, and must at length be irresistible.
If, however, during the progress of a state, the constituted authorities
be in open warfare with each other; a good man may at length be
compelled to take a side, and reluctantly to draw his sword in defence
of the best inheritance of his country. Such an appeal, to be just, must
be made on principle; and after all other honest means have been tried
in vain.
I have no reason to ima-
“Unfortunately, the opposition to the encroachments of arbitrary power,
has too often been commenced by selfish men for base purposes. Instead
of taking their stand in a moral and constitutional resistance—instead
of trying, by every human means, to concentrate all the might of virtue
and high principle on their side, they have broken the laws of their
country, dipped their hands in blood, and needlessly brought ruin on
themselves and their party. The vices of the subject are not only the
despot’s plea, but the despot’s strength. Where the virtuous elements of
social order are wanting in the state, whether men be willing slaves or
not, they are unfit for freedom.”—Discourse, ^c. by Adam Sedgwick, M.
A., F R. S., kc. Woodwardian Professor and. Fellow of Trinity College,
Cambridge. Fourth Edition, 1835, p. 137-139.
*Moral and Political Philosophy, Book vi. Chap. iii. gine that those
powerful passages were composed under the direct influence of a
recollection of the times of Charles I., or with an immediate reference
to Montrose and the Covenanters. Certainly Professor Sedgwick had never
seen the fragments of papers which have preserved to us the reasonings
of Montrose, and of his preceptor, Napier, on the subject of Sovereign
power, and Rebellion. Yet, notwithstanding all that has come and gone,
since about the year 1641, when those fragnients entered, not history,
but the obscurity of a Scottish charter-chest, to the year 1835, when
one of the most accomplished of her sons addressed Alma Mater as quoted,
Montrose’s principles of civil obedience, his axioms of political
government, his anxious and elaborate search for that invisible line of
demarcation, betwixt the philosophy of non-resistance and passive
obedience on the one hand, and, on the other, justifiable resistance to
arbitrary power,—the reasoning and sentiments, we say, of Montrose, when
deprecating the approach of the great civil war, are wonderfully
similar, in their philosophy, logic, and even language, to those with
which Professor Sedgwick instructed the youth of Cambridge in the Chapel
of Trinity College. “ Rebellion is proscribed by human law, and is
forbidden by the law of God. But a moral opposition to the executive,
conducted on constitutional grounds, is proscribed by no law, either of
God or man ; and if it be wisely and virtuously carried on, it has in
its own nature the elements of increasing strength, and must at length
be irresistible. If, however, during the progress of a state, the
constituted authorities be in open warfare with each other, a good man
mav at length be compelled to take a side, and reluctantly to draw his
sword in defence of the best inheritance of his country. Such an appeal
to be just, must be made on principle ; and after all other honest means
have been tried in vain.” So inculcates the living Professor. And
moreover, he maintains obedience to the civil government as a duty, “
because the word of God solemnly and repeatedly enjoins itand he refers
us to the example of the apostles of religion, who “resisted not the
powers of the world by bodily force, but by patient endurance, and by
heroic self-devotion?’ Finally he tells us, in the concluding passage of
the pages we have quoted from him, a passage singularly applicable to
the conduct of the covenanting rulers, that 44 unfortunately, the
opposition to the encroachments of arbitrary power has too often been
commenced by selfish men for base purposes,” who, he adds, “have broken
the laws of their country, dipped their hands in blood, and needlessly
brought ruin on themselves and their party.”
This is an unpremeditated and unconscious echo of what the murdered
Montrose, and his Mentor, inculcated two hundred years ago, before the
great civil war, and its fearful results, had verified their worst
anticipations. 44 Civil societies, (said they) so pleasing to Almighty
God, cannot subsist without government, nor government without a
sovereign power to force obedience to laws and just commands. * * * This
sovereignty is, a power over the people, above which power there is none
upon earth, whose acts cannot be rescinded by any other, instituted by
God for his glory, and the temporal and eternal happiness of men. * * *
Patience in the subject is the best remedy against the effects of a
prince’s power too far extended. * * * But there is a fair and
justifiable way for subjects to procure a moderate government, incumbent
to them in duty, which is, to endeavour the security of Religion and
just Liberties, (the matters on which a prince’s power doth work,) which
being secured, his power must needs be temperate and run in the even
channel. * * * The perpetual cause of the controversies between the
prince and his subjects, is the ambitious designs of rule in great men,
veiled under the specious pretext of religion and the subjects’
liberties.” Professor Sedgwick’s sacred principle of obedience to civil
government, and his views of the moral depravity of rebellion, are not
to be distinguished, except by those who indulge in mere verbal
disputes, from Montrose and Napier’s exposition of the divine and
inviolable character of sovereign power upon earth, “whether in the
person of a monarch, or in a few principal men, or in the estates of the
people.
It is hoped, then, that the new materials, with which I have illustrated
Montrose and his times, will be considered as not limited, in their
interest and importance, to the tastes of a certain class of historical
readers in Scotland, but as being valuable to the cause of truth and
justice generally. Could I suppose my own treatment of these materials
to be worthy of the field of inquiry they reopen, I might have aspired
to dedicate the result to the best existing representative of those
lofty, unimpassioned principles,—so conservative of good government and
time-honoured institutions,—those attributes, of untainted integrity in
the senate, and matchless heroism in the field, which may they never
cease to be the characteristics of the British nation. But I do not
pretend to have brought to my task the talent and judgment it required.
If, however, the various original documents now produced, and which,
instead of consigning to the retirement of an appendix, I have
interwoven with my text, shall be found to add any thing to the facts,
and the interest of the most instructive period of British history, and,
above all, shall in any degree tend to redeem from unmerited obloquy one
illustrious victim of hypocritical democracy, I am satisfied to give up
my own lucubrations in these volumes to whatever criticism they may call
forth.
It only remains to be added, that I was not so far wanting to my
subject, nor in duty to the noble family whose proud distinction it is
to represent the Hero, as to omit an application in the proper quarter
for any original materials, in possession of the family, which might
illustrate the life of Montrose. But that no such materials exist, I
learn, with great regret, from his Grace the present Duke of Montrose,
who, in a polite communication on the subject, informs me,—“I am sorry
to say that we cannot give you any assistance in the performance of the
task you are preparing to undertake, as there are no papers whatever
existing, and in our possession, which can throw light upon the
subject.”
11, Stafford Street, April 1838.
Volume 1 |
Volume 2 |
