1635: A Parcel of Rogues: Chapter Eleven

PART III

August, 1634

    “I hope my Lord Montrose will forgive me not rising,” Mackay said, indicating with a gesture the uselessness of the legs under the blanket. He’d had a couple of footmen, with Meg fussing, lift him and move him into a chair. Sitting up for any length of time hurt damnably, and he could all but feel it wearing his life away like a blade on a grindstone, but he was determined that the last of him to go would be his manners with guests. Besides, the pain made him sharp in his mind, and he’d need that.

    Montrose, polite himself, waved it aside as of no matter. “A broken back’s excuse enough for any man,” he said, “and if it would serve you better to lay down, I’ll not hear it said I made a man suffer for formality.”

    “I have comfort enough as I am, my Lord,” Mackay lied. It would not do to admit any more weakness than he absolutely had to until he knew which part Montrose had taken. He’d known of the Graham clan chief’s summons to London, and word of his elevation to the Lord Lieutenancy had preceded him back. Was he talking to Charles Stuart’s bought-and-paid-for man, or simply the nearest the king could find? Scotland’s peerage was stacked to the rafters with men no more constant than the nation’s weather. “Will you have a drink? I find a brandy at this hour helps.”

    “Wine, if it’s to hand,” Montrose said. “I’ve mair folk to see the day, I’ll save the brandy for when I’m done. Don’t let me stop you with the brandy, though, I’d want one myself were I afflicted as you are.”

    That was a common reaction. A fall from a horse could happen to any man, and it was a rare and skilled horseman who never had so much as a bruise, and not many more who hadn’t at least broken a bone or two. A broken back, well, anyone could look on a man damaged as Mackay was and shudder that there but for the grace of God went he.

    Mackay let Meg put the brandy in reach of his hand and a decanter of good wine by Montrose and leave them. The afternoon was a pleasant one, the rain outside soft on the streets of Edinburgh but otherwise it was warm. The faint smell of wet wool was about the place, not strong as the showers were stopping and starting, and there was promise of a fine fresh day in the later afternoon.

    “I’ll be blunt, my Lord,” he said after they’d taken a moment to have a small drink, glasses raised to each other in a polite, if silent health. “I’m more than a little mithered as to what His Majesty’s about with yon Earl of Cork, who I’ve long thought an equivocator of the worst kind, which is to say the kind that comes out on the winning side every time. Did he not spend time imprisoned over the Irish business all those years ago? I was but a young boy myself and not minding matters in the plantations overmuch, but I recall he was a rebel for a time with his people in Munster.”

    Montrose shrugged. “He stood acquitted of all the charges and Her Majesty of England granted him high office, after. That much I have from some of my older people; it was before I was born. If it’s between us two here and now, I’ll not gainsay you on the man being devious, unprincipled and after naught but his own advancement.” He held up a hand. “If you think that’s the beginning of me saying he’s an evil counsellor, as the saying has it, think again. The sense I have of the man is he has a wildcat by the tail and dare not let go. If anything, the man regrets his move against Strafford, who’s in all likelihood Wentworth again now. They were drawing up attainder and impeachment when I left London. But Cork? If he’s a lying, back-stabbing, unprincipled snake of a man, and I do rich insult to snakes with that, he’s exactly the man His Majesty needs in England these days. And now, without His Majesty on a secure throne, Cork is, and pardon my crudeness, fucked.”

    As such things went, that was as good a dissection of the cadaver of English politics as Mackay expected to hear from anyone. And it came from this sharp young man, of an age to be his own son, who’d met all concerned, and that recently. He nodded. “A sorry state for the state of England, I’d say,” he said.

    Montrose’s expression was distasteful. “No more would I want the like here in Scotland, if I can help it.”

    “Aye, I’ll raise my glass to that notion,” Mackay said, doing so.

    Montrose answered him likewise. “His Majesty has charged me to secure silence north of the Tweed, among other things,” he said, after taking a sip. “I’m to ensure that there’s no reversal for the episcopal party, although, and here I sense Cork’s hand, there’s no charge on me to advance the swine either.”

    Mackay raised an eyebrow. “The king’s ain party in the kirk? Swine?”

    Montrose chuckled. “I’ll swear any oath you care to name I said no such word. Concerning those swine nor any other lot. I’ve no time for prelates, we had well rid of them in my grandfather’s time, but added to that I’ve not much patience with presbyters neither. Their place is in the pulpit, not in the governance of the realm.”

    “That would sound awfully like the separation of church and state, My Lord, and I should be much obliged if you could explain to me the reason it is not so?”

    “Well, as His Majesty is the head of the Kirk in Scotland, is it not the case that he may command the presbyters thereof to leave off the secular governance? As he guarantees their establishment, is it not reasonable that they — “Montrose gestured vaguely, looking for a phrase.

    “Render unto Caesar?” Mackay suggested, suddenly taken by the imp of the perverse.

    Montrose grinned. “Aye, or words to like effect. I shall have to remember that one.”

    “The presbyters will call it a short step from freedom of religion,” Mackay said, sure they’d call it worse than that if given the least liberty.

    “If it’s a lack of freedom they desire, I’m empowered, and on one reading charged, to administer it them, and that right harshly. I’ve charges from His Majesty, but as long as they hear nothing south of the border, how I undertake them is a matter for me.”

    “Aye? I’d heard you were made Lord Lieutenant over us, but from the sounds, you’ve all but been made viceroy.”

    Montrose rocked a hand back and forth. “Ye might call it that, ye might not. Certain sure I am that I could govern as one right up until the rebellion it created.”

    “There’s always that,” Mackay answered. He’d felt a mounting sense of unease, and not simply from the pain he was in. He himself was none of the movers and shakers of Clan Mackay, still less now he was a cripple. He was personally acquainted with Lord Reay, was a cousin four times removed or something on the close order of that, and had a number of closer kin in the Mackay regiment in the Germanies. So why was His Lordship the Earl of Montrose, Chief of Clan Graham, whom he had met perhaps twice before, treating him with such friendly familiarity?

    “Aye, that,” Montrose sighed. “And ye needn’t fear for me on that score. I’ve no intention of creating mair trouble than the nation truly needs. We’ve had and signed the National Covenant in my grandfather’s time and the less said about that the better. England’s misfortunes will be to Scotland’s benefit in at least that much. His Majesty won’t be trying to press the matter of the liturgy or the power of the prelates any further, he having larger matters to occupy him. There’s a smaller matter he’s paid mind to, though, and it’s the reason I came first to you, for on it hangs much else.”

    “Aye? I can do little but advise, crippled as I am.”

    Montrose fixed him with a stare. “There’s a lot more you can do, Mackay of the Mackays. Father-in-law of Baroness Bornholm. Cousin to Lord Reay, however distant. Old drinking companion of Robert Leslie. And others I might list, but choose not to for the moment.”

    “You mean those gone for soldiers in the Germanies, of course. I take it His Majesty means for them to come home peacefully or not at all?”

    “Somewhat more, in which regard I want your help in the persuading of those men. You among others, of course, you’re not the only man with kin and companions currently serving the king of Sweden. His Majesty Charles has already made shift to see that some of those who stood against him on the other history cannot do it in this. Cromwell, for one, some others in England the names of which I can’t recall. There would have been more in Scotland, save that Leslie was in Germany, and others it was not … practical to take captive.”

    Mackay laughed at that. “You mean Argyll let it be known, beyond any manner o’ doubt, that if any man north of the border was so much as touched for his part in that other history, he being at the top of the list, the Bishops’ War would start ten years early and wouldn’t stop at Newcastle? You know he already has a fine body of men about him that would answer such a call, beyond even the usual clans he can call on at need?”

    Mackay had only learned the full extent of that particular correspondence days before. At the time it actually happened, he’d missed much of the detail. When he’d heard the full story he’d pissed the bed laughing and not regretted a drop. He knew Argyll was a peppery wee bastard, but the likely reaction of Strafford and His Majesty to such a naked defiance, however privately expressed, would have been a sight to see. It was Mackay’s guess, supported by a few other fellows he’d written to, that the only thing that was stopping him for now was that he wasn’t yet Earl of Argyll in his own right, at least until his father died in his self-imposed exile in London. For every worthwhile purpose, though, he was Chief of the Campbells and his Lordship of Lorne sufficed to give him lawful authority in that matter.

    “If I was to put my hand on my heart, I’d agree with him,” Montrose said, “and it’s exactly that manner of thing I mean not to have with the German veterans. Ye ken Leslie would have been arrested if he’d been in the country, and Argyll had not spoken as he did? I was a mite troubled my name was on the list when I heard, too, though it seems His Majesty cares for the end result rather than the first thoughts. As matters stand, I’ve been given the Lord Lieutenancy only after Strafford, Laud and the like have heated it to a red glow for me, and I mean to have the matter of the veterans be the least of my troubles. I can delay and delay and delay the sending of letters patent to those men demanding their return, allegiance and good behavior on pain of forfeiture, but there’ll come a day when His Majesty must take notice of my doing nothing in the matter. I mean by then to have a solution all, or at least most, are content with, that they may return home or have their affairs in order for exile. I’ll chafe as I may at some of His Majesty’s charges, Mister Mackay, but he and I are of one mind that Scotland is to be peaceful. There’ll be no lamentations of Scotland to match the same in Germany, if at all it can be helped. Heaping up a pan of fresh embers from the smouldering of Germany to tip them into the bedding of Scotland strikes me as no help at all in that regard.”

    “I have every warmest sentiment toward your aims, my lord,” Mackay said, temporising while he thought. How much had Reay been in communication with Montrose? Argyll? How much were the Scots officers in Gustavus Adolphus’ service in agreement on the matter? Nothing suggested itself as a way forward. “What would His Majesty have, precisely, of the Scots abroad?” he asked, hoping to buy time to think.

    Montrose’s face brightened a little. Perhaps he had been expecting an immediate refusal. Mackay had a clear idea of what perhaps a dozen of those lords and gentlemen thought, and some of their followers besides, what the king’s spies might have told him was a closed book. There was also the possibility that Charles Stuart, being Charles Stuart, had got hold of some other notion of his own about what the veterans abroad thought.

    Montrose took a deep breath and began reciting. “His Majesty is principally concerned that his subjects granted leave to fight abroad remain in the service of the king of Sweden, not the United States of Europe, with which there exists a state of hostility, short of outright war but nevertheless unfriendly. He is further concerned that in as much as they bear arms in Sweden’s cause, Sweden is closely aligned with the United States of Europe and as such His Majesty’s subjects are bearing arms in support of a nation that espouses the heretical and anarchical doctrine of freedom of religion. In so doing they are in peril of their souls and he is much exercised as head of the church to which they are properly adherent that they remove themselves from the said peril as soon as may be. He requires, in the first instance, that they give undertaking and surety that they serve the king of Sweden only and that only in conflict with avowedly Catholic arms in the Germanies. He also requires that all of the rank of major and above resign their commissions and return to their estates in Scotland to the great benefit of that nation.”

    He took another breath. “My charge continues in the same vein for some time, with many places and means whereby delay and obfuscation may occur, but the essence of it is that they should be at home and at peace lest His Majesty take to the notion that they are preparing to levy war against him either here or abroad.”

    “Put thus, it seems like a fair command, as commands go,” Mackay said, “although I’ve no means of knowing how any man to whom it may come will see it. His Majesty says as he will of the notion of freedom of religion, but how is it seen by those living with it? There was a time when the reformed religion was declared by kings to be heretical and anarchical, after all, but it was found good in Geneva.”

    Montrose answered that with a level stare. “I’m not minded to debate that matter at all, neither with His Majesty nor any of his subjects. I want peace, but when all’s said and done, if His Majesty’s subjects wish to reside in His Majesty’s realm under His Majesty’s peace, the price is obedience to His Majesty. North of the Tweed, through me. I believe it was His Majesty’s father who said all he desired was an outward obedience to the law, and that I am content with also. Those that can’t obey, well, they may sell their lands and settle where obedience is easier, and I mean to make that easy. But those are the choices. You, among others, I ask to present those choices to the men that must make them so they may mull them before anything is said ex officio, and persuade them that, by command of His Majesty I cannot be moved beyond tolerance of mere delay.”

    “I’ll send to those I know, my lord. It’s not for me to dictate their answers.”

    Montrose nodded acknowledgement of the point. “Nor do I ask it. I merely wish to be sure that I only give the command to those that will obey it, and ensure that those whose conscience bids them remain abroad not find themselves ruined thereby. Conveyed privately, by friends, I hope that that will be clearer than it might be by official letter.”

    Mackay nodded. “In this much, then, I am my lord’s servant.”

    “Aye, and in perhaps one other thing. You’ve a son out of wedlock who’s been back in the country, do I understand correctly?”

    Mackay noted the wording. He had his own suspicions about what Alex and Julie had been up to in London, dark suspicions indeed. But he was sure they’d not left Edinburgh with any provable intent to take part in that, and if their part in it, if any, had been witnessed the Montrose would not be half so cordial today. Indeed, there’d be warrants, summonses and questions to answer, and likely he’d be accused of being an accessory to felony rescue. How a bench of Scots judges would try that Mackay had no idea, but there was plenty of precedent for them taking on such matters whether or not there was strictly any law covering it.

    “Aye, for all he’s from the wrong side of the blanket, he’s a fine boy who’s done well for himself.”

    “His wife, too.” Montrose was giving nothing away with that remark, but Mackay felt he was justified in assuming the worst.

    “A bonny wee lass, and a fair hand with a rifle,” Mackay said. All true facts, not open to debate.

    “Aye, and possessed of a barony of Sweden,” Montrose added, also a fact not open to debate. “I’ve no notion of where your boy is, Mackay, but if it turns out he or his wife had anything to do with the prison-breaking at the Tower of London, and you’ve any influence with him, see he doesn’t show his face where I might have to turn my attention to him. I can wink at much, but when a man takes open warlike actions against one of the king’s own fortresses, well, that strikes me as a bit much. What’s more, I don’t want it coming to anybody’s attention that you’re in communication with him if such turns out to be the case. I need your services as intermediary with the veterans abroad far more than I need to hang a crippled man as accessory to treason and felony.”

    Mackay glared. “If my lord cares to accuse me publicly of misprision of treason, he is welcome to do that, and be damned to him.”

    Montrose growled back. “That’s not what I want, and you know it, man. Strafford did the stupidest thing a man could do by those arrests in England, and while I’ve little use for Campbell the man, Argyll the politician did righter than he knew when he made it known he’d take it ill if there were proscriptions of that kind in Scotland. His Majesty’s father did ill enough proscribing the MacGregor, broken men and outlaw brutes though they were. To have that against decent folk would be more than could be borne. Now, if your boy took a hand in correcting that stupid mistake, I for one care not a whit for it. So long as I don’t have to take official notice of it as Lord Lieutenant of Scotland, and none of the consequences come within this kingdom, I’ll carry on not caring. It is to my benefit, your benefit, your son’s benefit, and Scotland’s benefit if I can keep to not caring. See to it, as well as you may.”

    With that, and the most perfunctory of pleasantries to contrive that he did not wish to be unfriendly but had been put out of sorts by their conversation, Montrose took his leave.