Complete fictional works.., p.905
Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated), page 905
A life of conspicuous public achievement, spent largely in the handling of great affairs, belongs even in its own day to history, and must be assessed by other canons than personal friendship. The statesman plays for high stakes, and is judged by a high tribunal. In the service of the State two notable types stand out, each with its share of merits and deficiencies. The first is the man of searching and introspective intellect, who has behind him the treasures of the world’s culture. Such an one has studied and meditated upon the whole history of politics, he is steeped in good literature, his mind by constant application has become a tempered weapon, so that easily and competently it attacks whatever body of knowledge presents itself. A new problem to him has familiar elements, for it is related to kindred problems in the past, and he has in his memory large store of maxims and precedents. For certain matters of statecraft such a mind will be of superlative value — matters principally where exact science, whether legal, economic, or constitutional, is the prime factor. Imagination, too, and the balance which a wide culture gives, will rarely be absent. In politics the pure intellect has its own splendid functions which only folly will decry. But there is a danger that a man of this type, though he may be the parent of ideas which have an enduring power over humanity, will fail in the day-to-day business of government. He may live too much in the world of books and thought to learn the ways of the average man, so that he lacks the gift of personal leadership. He may speak a tongue, like Burke, too high and noble for the commonplace business he has to conduct; he may fall into the snare of intellectual arrogance and excessive subtlety, so that, like Shelburne or George Canning, his very brilliance breeds distrust; or he may be betrayed into an impractical idealism which beats its wings in the void. If he miss the human touch, his place is in the library and not in the council or the field, for, though he may move the future world by his thought, his personality will leave his contemporaries cold.
In the other type the human touch is the dominant gift. The second man will always be a leader, but he will lead by character and not by mind. He has a large masculine common sense, an accurate notion of what can be achieved in an imperfect world, a fine and equable temper, good humour, patience, and an honest opportunism. His very foibles will be a source of strength; his qualities and tastes will be exactly comprehended by everybody; he will be popular, because no one will feel in his presence the uncomfortable sense of intellectual inferiority. Lord Palmerston might be taken as an instance, but a better is Lord Althorp, who largely carried the Reform Act of 1832 by his popularity. That “most honest, frank, true, and stout-hearted of God’s creatures,” as Lord Jeffrey called him, had the foremost influence in political life of any man of his generation, and he won it not by great knowledge, for he had little, or by great dialectical powers, for he had none, but by the atmosphere of integrity, unselfishness, and humanity which he diffused around him. To such a leader England will always respond, for he has the characteristic virtues of her people. But he has also their characteristic faults. He is without a creed in the larger sense; he is incapable of the long view and the true perspective, for he has no appreciation of principles; and in complex matters he will be too simple and rough-and-ready to meet the needs of the case. He may serve his day well enough with hand-to-mouth expedients, but he will lay down no lasting foundation for posterity.
Such are the two extremes in talents and temperament. A just mixture is needed in the work of governing, but it is proper that the second should have the larger share. The right character is more essential than the right mind; or, to put it more exactly, the right disposition will succeed, even though the intellectual equipment be moderate, whereas high intellectual power, not conjoined with the requisite character, will assuredly fail. Minto, as we have seen, had the normal education of his class and no more; he had not, like Lord Morley, many chambers in his memory stored with theory and knowledge. But he had what was more important for his task, a strong natural intelligence, not easily befogged by subtleties, an intelligence which had a notable power of cutting clean to the root of a problem. He had a flair for the essential, which was in itself an intellectual gift, not indeed working by complex processes of ratiocination, but simply the result of a strong mind accustomed for long to exercise itself vigorously on practical affairs. We see it in Canada — his instant perception of the proper sphere of the Governor-General, his wise appreciation of the Alaskan tangle, his infallible constitutional probity. We see it in India — his diagnosis of the unrest, his understanding of the complex interplay of creeds and races, his instinct as to when to relax and when to tighten the rein, his doctrine of the true relation of Secretary of State and Viceroy. We see it in his view of the development of the British Empire — his ready assent to the principle of colonial nationalism, his early realization that the hope of the future lay not in legislative federation but in an executive alliance. We speak of a flair, but let us remember that such a flair is no blind instinct, no lucky guess, but the consequences of reasoning none the less close and cogent because it is not formally set out. He judged calmly and correctly because his powers of mind were strong, and in no way weakened by that theoretic distraction which often besets the professed intellectuel.
Such talents are inestimable in the business of life, and they are essentially the talents of the British people — the landowner, the merchant, the plain citizen; that is why we have always had so rich a reservoir to draw on for the administration of the country and the Empire. When raised to a high power, the result is some great achievement, like the settlement of Egypt and the union of South Africa. Both Cromer and Louis Botha had this gift for simplifying the complex, and by concentrating on the essential bringing order out of confusion. They, like Minto, made no pretensions to academic superiority; their principles were a sober deduction from facts, and their brilliance was revealed not in dazzling theories or glittering words but in the solid structure which they built. Their qualities of mind won them confidence, because they were always comprehensible, the qualities of the ordinary man on the heroic scale. Much the same may be said of Minto. He had the endowments of the best kind of country gentleman raised to a high power, and it may fairly be argued that in the art of government these endowments are the most valuable which the State can command for its service — the more valuable because they are not rare and exotic growths, but the staple of the national genius.
Character plays the major part in the life of action, and Minto’s we have seen revealed in a variety of testing circumstances. A nature always modest, generous, and dutiful was broadened and toughened by his early life on the turf. The career of a gentleman-jockey has doubtless its drawbacks, but it is a school of certain indisputable virtues. A man starts on a level with others and has to strive without favour. He learns to take chances coolly, to cultivate steady nerves and the power of rapid decision; and he acquires in the process a rude stoicism. He meets human nature of every sort in the rough, and learns to judge his fellows by other standards than the conventional. Such a man may be a philistine but he will rarely be a fool, and Minto was preserved from the hardness and narrowness of the ordinary sportsman by his liberal education, the cultivated traditions of his family, and his perpetual interest in the arts of politics and war. Physically he was handsomely endowed by nature, for apart from great good looks he had perfect health and an amazing vitality, so that he was always eager for work and adventure. Nor had he any foibles or eccentricities of temper. He looked on the world cheerfully and sanely, wholly untormented by egotism, with a ready sense of humour — even of boyish fun, and also with the modest soldierly confidence of one who could forget himself in his task.
All who came in contact with him fell under the spell of his simple graciousness, for he could not have been discourteous had he tried. But those who saw much of him soon realized that his charm of manner was only the index of an inner graciousness of soul. This deeper charm sprang from two impressions which he left on all who had to deal with him. One was of unhesitating bravery. It was inconceivable that under any circumstances he should be afraid, or should hesitate to do what he believed to be right. The physical side was the least of it, for most men of his antecedents have that kind of courage; far rarer and more impressive was his moral fortitude. In Canada he could oppose all those whose esteem he most valued in a matter where an imperial officer and the local Government came into conflict; in India he could shape a course in direct opposition to the prejudices of his own military and sporting worlds, and choose in the pursuit of his duty to earn the imputation of weakness. The other impression was of a profound goodness — honour as hard as stone, and mercifulness as plain as bread. Deep in his nature lay an undogmatic religion, a simple trust in the wisdom and beneficence of God, and in the faith which he had learned in his childhood. It was a soldier’s creed, unsullied by doubt, and it gave him both fearlessness and tenderness; though far enough from the rugged Calvinism of Dalhousie, it had the same moral inspiration. His assessment of values in life had the justness which comes only from a sense of what is temporal and what is eternal, and at the same time this clear-sightedness was mellowed always by his love of human nature. He judged himself by austere standards, but the rest of mankind with abundant charity.
Few men have had a happier and fuller life, which was indeed his due, for he had a supreme talent for living. An adventurous youth, a middle age of high distinction, a delightful family circle, innumerable attached friends, a temper which warmed the world around him — the gods gave their gifts in ample measure. Looking back upon his career, it is notable how little in essentials he changed. The man who smoked out a gambling den at Cambridge was the same man who put down his foot about the Punjab colonies. Nor did the boy in him ever pass, for at whatever age he had died he would have died young. He had indeed to the full the two strains which we have seen in his race — the speed and fire of the old Liddesdale Elliots and the practical sagacity and balance of the Whig lords of Minto. It is a combination that is characteristic of the Borders, which were never prone to a narrow fanaticism, and which rarely lost a certain genial tolerance and a gift for mirthfulness and the graces of life. Of this the greatest of Borderers, Sir Walter Scott, is an example, and Minto had something of the same central wisdom, combined with the same ready ear for the fife and clarion. The union makes for happiness and for achievement, and is perhaps the best that can be found in the “difficult but not desperate” life of man.
“Blest are those Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled.”
MONTROSE: A HISTORY
CONTENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTORY. THE EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
BOOK I — PREPARATION
CHAPTER I. YOUTH (1612-36)
CHAPTER II. THE STRIFE IN SCOTLAND (1636-38)
CHAPTER III. THE FIRST COVENANT WARS (1638-39)
CHAPTER IV. MONTROSE AND ARGYLL (1639-42)
CHAPTER V. THE RUBICON (1642-44)
BOOK II — ACTION
CHAPTER VI. THE CURTAIN RISES (March 1644 — August 1644)
CHAPTER VII. TIPPERMUIR (September 1644)
CHAPTER VIII. ABERDEEN AND FYVIE (September-December 1644)
CHAPTER IX. INVERLOCHY (December 1644-February 1645)
CHAPTER X. THE RETREAT FROM DUNDEE (February-April, 1645)
CHAPTER XI. AULDEARN AND ALFORD (April-July, 1645)
CHAPTER XII. KILSYTH (July-August 1645)
CHAPTER XIII. THE WAR ON THE BORDER (August-September 1645)
CHAPTER XIV. AFTER PHILIPHAUGH (September 1645-September 1646)
BOOK III — PASSION
CHAPTER XV. THE YEARS OF EXILE (September 1646-March 1650)
CHAPTER XVI. THE LAST CAMPAIGN (March-May, 1650)
CHAPTER XVII. THE CURTAIN FALLS (May 1650)
CHAPTER XVIII. “A CANDIDATE FOR IMMORTALITY”
APPENDIX. MONTROSE ON “SOVEREIGN POWER”
Sedulo curavi humanas actiones non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari, sed intelligere. — Spinoza
FRATRI DILECTISSIMO
W. H. B.
When we were little, wandering boys,
And every hill was blue and high,
On ballad ways and martial joys
We fed our fancies, you and I.
With Bruce we crouched in bracken shade,
With Douglas charged the Paynim foes;
And oft in moorland noons I played
Colkitto to your grave Montrose.
The obliterating seasons flow —
They cannot kill our boyish game.
Though creeds may change and kings may go,
Yet burns undimmed the ancient flame.
While young men in their pride make haste
The wrong to right, the bond to free,
And plant a garden in the waste,
Still rides our Scottish chivalry.
Another end had held your dream —
To die fulfilled of hope and might,
To pass in one swift, rapturous gleam
From mortal to immortal light.
But through long hours of labouring breath
You watched the world grow small and far,
And met the constant eyes of Death
And haply knew how kind they are.
One boon the Fates relenting gave.
Not where the scented hill-wind blows
From cedar thickets lies your grave,
Nor ‘mid the steep Himálayan snows.
Night calls the stragglers to the nest,
And at long last ‘tis home indeed
For your far-wandering feet to rest
For ever by the crooks of Tweed.
In perfect honour, perfect truth,
And gentleness to all mankind,
You trod the golden paths of youth,
Then left the world and youth behind.
Ah no! ‘Tis we who fade and fail —
And you, from Time’s slow torments free,
Shall pass from strength to strength, and scale
The steeps of immortality.
Dear heart, in that serener air,
If blessed souls may backward gaze,
Some slender nook of memory spare
For our old happy moorland days.
I sit alone, and musing fills
My breast with pain that shall not die,
Till once again o’er greener hills
We ride together, you and I.
PREFACE
In September 1913 I published a short sketch of Montrose*, which dealt chiefly with his campaigns. The book went out of print very soon, and it was not reissued, because I cherished the hope of making it the basis of a larger work, in which the background of seventeenth-century politics and religion should be more fully portrayed. I also felt that many of the judgments in the sketch were exaggerated and hasty. During the last fifteen years I have been collecting material for the understanding of a career which must rank among the marvels of our history, and of a mind and character which seem to me in a high degree worthy of the attention of the modern reader. The manuscript sources have already been diligently explored by others, and I have been unable to glean from them much that is new; but I have attempted to supplement them by a study of the voluminous pamphlet literature of the time. My aim has been to present a great figure in its appropriate setting. In a domain, where the dust of controversy has not yet been laid, I cannot hope to find for my views universal acceptance, but they have not been reached without an earnest attempt to discover the truth. J. B.
Elsfield Manor, Oxon,
June, 1928.
[* The Marquis of Montrose, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1913.]
Montrose. After the portrait painted by Honthorst for the Queen of Bohemia
INTRODUCTORY. THE EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
In a famous letter Keats has expounded life under the similitude of Chambers. There is first the Thoughtless Chamber, when man lives only for sensation; then comes the Chamber of Maiden Thought, when he consciously rejoices in the world of sense, and from this happy illumination acquires insight into the human heart; thence open many doors—”but all dark, all leading to dark passages.” The simile applies not only to individual experience, but to the corporate life of peoples. There come epochs when a nation seems to move from the sun into the twilight, when the free ardour of youth is crippled by hesitations, when the eyes turn inward and instinct gives place to questioning.
Such a period commonly follows an age of confidence and exuberant creation. We can see the shadows beginning to lengthen in the early years of Elizabeth’s successor, and they do not lift till the garish dawn of the Restoration. It is dangerous to generalize about an epoch, but the first half of the seventeenth century has a character so distinct that it is permissible to separate certain elements in its intellectual atmosphere, which affected the minds of all who dwelt in it, whatever their creeds or parties. Whether we study it in the record of its campaigns and parliaments, or in the careers of its protagonists, or in the books of its great writers, three facts are patent in contrast with its predecessor.
“Is not this world a catholic kind of place?” Carlyle has written. “The Puritan gospel and Shakespeare’s plays: such a pair of facts I have rarely seen saved out of one chimerical generation.” The greatness of the Elizabethan age was that it was catholic; that is, a number of potent, and usually conflicting, forces were held for a brief season in equilibrium. The Reformation had broken certain seals of thought, but it had not destroyed the integrity of the Church. The Middle Ages, in the monarchy and in much of the law and custom of the people, co-existed with the new learning and the adventurous temper of the Renaissance. England could conquer strange worlds and yet maintain intact her ancient domestic life. The national mood was one of confidence and ardour, so intent upon present duties and enjoyments that it could permit the latent antagonisms to slumber. But in the first decade of the seventeenth century the mutterings in sleep became a restless awaking. The monarchy, when the great figure of Elizabeth passed, was seen to be a mediæval anomaly, and prerogatives hitherto unchallenged were soon a matter of hot debate. The ecclesiastical compromise which created the Anglican Church found many critics, and even those who accepted the fact were at odds about the theory. Sanctions, which had seemed imperishable, began to tilt and crack. The old world was crumbling, and there was no unanimity about the new.
