Another Birthday!

Today is the birthday of another of Scotland's greatest heros: James Graham, the 1st Marquis of Montrose. Montrose--as he is commonly called--fought for Charles I (the king who got his head cut off) in the time of Oliver Cromwell. Sadly, Montrose is quite forgotten and almost never mentioned outside of Scottish history books. I have never seen him in a history text book even when Charles I was mentioned. It is truly a shame that he seems to not be recognized outside of Scotland, for he was a truly wonderful man. He was brave and a very good military leader. He was the only one to be able to tame the Highland clans and they followed him out of respect. He was sadly, like Wallace, betrayed by his own countrymen and taken for execution. There is a beautiful poem detailing his last moments that you'll find at this link.

Montrose himself wrote a bit of poetry. One of his poems he wrote in his cell on the eve of his execution.

Here's a link to the 1st Marquis of Montrose society where you can find out some more information on him and also the poems he wrote.

The great Scottish novelist, Nigel Tranter wrote two books about Montrose--ones that I have not as yet been lucky enough to get my hands on!-- and I'm sure they would be a wonderful read for anyone who was interested.

Here's also a link to The Corries singing one of Montrose's songs, My Dear and Only Love

I will try to be back sometime, probably by next month to write some more posts. I have a couple things I was thinking of writing about, I just need to start pulling my books out again and looking through them to find what I need! Again, if anyone has anything they wish to know more about, please let me know.

Slainte, Hazel

New Info Regarding the Safe Conduct Letter!

For any of you who read my post several months ago about the Wallace Safe Conduct Letter you'll find this information as exciting as I! It seems that they have found that the letter is actually the original French document and not an English copy as the English historians said before. So it is looking up for us getting it up to Scotland! Here's a link to the information. Or you can go to The Society of William Wallace.

I'll be keeping you posted about any new installments as soon as I find out about them! We can only hope that by next year, the Safe Conduct Letter will be back in Scotland where it belongs. It would be a very nice start to a next year. If enough people get involved, I think we can all make it happen, so please do all you can to help! Just caring is enough sometimes.

Slainte, Hazel

Yes, I'm slacking

I apologize for the lack of posts recently, but I have been busy with everything, and have been researching for a book I'm writing, so I have not really had time to pick up my Scottish history books and peruse them to see what would be a good post idea. Unfortunately, all the things that have happened on days lately, have been things that I have not studied in depth before and, thus, without the time to study them, I have not been able to write about them. However, I do wish to have at least a couple posts this month when I get the time for them. I promise, I have not forgotten you! I have just been doing other things! So it will be a slow month, but as always, if you have any questions, comments or various other things, please let me know. I always like to hear what you have to say.

Slainte, Hazel