Tales of the Wars of Montrose

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Tales of the Wars of Montrose is a set of six fictional narratives by James Hogg published in 1835. Each of them centres on the fortunes of an individual in Scotland in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms during the 1640s.

Contents

The tales vary considerably in the social status of the characters depicted. Some Remarkable Passages in the Life of An Edinburgh Baillie. Written by himself is written in the style of an autobiography, covering decades in the life of its main character. A Protestant allies himself to the Catholic George Gordon, 1st Marquess of Huntly and saves Huntly's life on two occasions. After his ally's death, the man becomes a mortal enemy of the heir George Gordon, 2nd Marquess of Huntly, and he is driven primarily by an obsessive vendetta. In The Adventures of Colonel Peter Aston, a woman's father and her love interest are enemies. She keeps trying to prevent them from harming each other, and she is eventually killed while trying to break up their last fight. In Julia M,Kenzie, a supposedly infertile noblewoman is targeted for murder by the men of her husband's clan. After surviving the ordeal, she gives birth to her first daughter. In A few remarkable Adventures of Sir Simon Brodie, James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose and two Royalist (Cavalier) officers use disguises to court the daughters of a "daft" (stupid or insane) knight. The girls' father soon sets out on a Quixotic military campaign which is farcical in style. In Wat Pringle o' the Yair, an old soldier and his daughter take a female war refugee and her infant son under their protection. The young woman dies, and her son is kidnapped. Several years later, the grown-up son seeks financial help from his surrogate aunt and her new husband. In Mary Montgomery, the daughter of an imprisoned Royalist is send to her relations in Scotland but falls into the hands of strangers. A series of would-be protectors serve as her legal guardians over the years, until she is old enough to marry. She is then proclaimed to be the heiress to three different earldoms.

Background

Tales of the Wars of Montrose originated in 1826 when Hogg attempted to interest William Blackwood in a collection of tales to be entitled 'Lives of Eminent Men', the core of which consisted of three items with the titles (shortened) 'An Edinburgh Baillie', 'Colonel Peter Ashton' (completed on 7 January the previous year), and 'Sir Simon Brodie'. Blackwood turned the project down, and Hogg was unable to find another publisher. [1] During the next six years he contemplated publishing the stories individually, but he did not give up on the idea of a collection, and when in 1833 he finally broke with Blackwood, on 17 June he sent the London partnership of James Cochrane and John M'Crone 'Genuine Tales of the days of Montrose' [2] This was intended to be a single-volume publication with the three original core stories: it seems Hogg prepared fresh manuscripts, which suggests that substantial revision was involved. On 24 July Cochrane agreed to publish the collection, but he asked for additional material so that he could increase the size to two volumes, and by November 1834 Hogg had written two further tales, 'Julia M,Kenzie' and 'Wat Pringle', and the final title had been agreed. [3] However, Cochrane (who had now parted company with M'Crone) increased his demands to three volumes, and on 13 December Hogg reluctantly sent him a sixth tale, 'Mary Montgomery', originally intended for Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine and now superficially revised to adjust the setting from the reign of James VII to that of Charles I. [4]

Editions

Tales of the Wars of Montrose. By James Hogg, Esq., Author of "The Queen's Wake." was published in 2 volumes in London by James Cochrane and Co. in 1835.

A critical edition by Gillian Hughes appeared in 1996 as Volume 4 in The Stirling/South Carolina Research Edition of The Collected Works of James Hogg published by Edinburgh University Press. This is based on Hogg's manuscripts rather than the printed edition, and it omits 'Mary Montgomery' in conformity with Hogg's preference: Gillian Hughes had edited this in its original version as 'A Genuine Border Story By the Ettrick Shepherd' in Studies in Hogg and his World, 3 (1992), [95]‒145.

Contents

Some Remarkable Passages in the Life of An Edinburgh Baillie. Written by himself

The Adventures of Colonel Peter Aston

Julia M,Kenzie

First published as 'A Horrible Instance of the Effects of Clanship' in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine , 28 (October 1830), 680‒87, and substantially revised here) [5]

A few remarkable Adventures of Sir Simon Brodie

Wat Pringle o' the Yair

Mary Montgomery

Reception

The reviewers received Tales of the Wars of Montrose with appreciation and disapproval in roughly equal measure. Hogg was praised for his story-telling power, but he was also found lacking in imagination in historical fiction, especially when it was compared with his poetry, and he was judged inferior to Walter Scott. [6]

References

  1. A full account of the development of the collection is given in James Hogg, Tales of the Wars of Montrose, ed. Gillian Hughes (Edinburgh, 1996), xi‒xvi. For the composition of 'Peter Ashton' see Ibid., 248.
  2. The Collected Letters of James Hogg: Volume 3 1832‒1835, ed. Gillian Hughes (Edinburgh, 2008), 159: Hogg to John Macrone.
  3. Hughes (1996), xiii‒xiv.
  4. Hughes (2008), 246.
  5. Hughes (1996), 249‒50.
  6. For a short survey of the reviews see Hughes (1996), xxix‒xxx.