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