Maitland Club > Memorials of Montrose and his times > Volume 1

AND HIS TIMES. 119
from Charles II. to the foreign States, her Majesty, who had conceived
a great affection for the hero, writes to him from Rhone in these terms :
— ' We have nothing to do bat to walk and shoot. I am grown a good
archer, to shoot with my Lord Kinnoul. If your office will suffer it, I
hope you will come and lielp us to sJioot.'^ From this it would seem
that Montrose had retained throughout his life the reputation of a good
archer, which the following items prove that he must have acquired at
St Andrews : —
Item on tlie 4 of July (1G2S) to the producer of the
silver arrow at tlie Butts, ... 12 sh.
On the 7th of July to Wilham Mercer, who had given
to my Lord, shooting the second time at the silver
arrow, at the Butts, .... 12 sh.
Item the 9th of July, at breakfast, after the archery,
with my Lord vSutherland- and Randirstane, . 12 sh.
Item 16th of July, my Lord being to shoot at the silver
arrow, before he went to the fields at dinner, . 6 sh.
More to the producer of the arrow, ... 18 sh.
More to ane boy for carrying his quivei", . . 2 sh.
More for my Lord's loss in a party, after the arrow
was won, ..... 16 sh.
More the di-ummcr and piferer of the town. . 40 sh.
' This, and several other amusing and and is generally sujiposed to have perished
affectionate letters from the high-spirited in the wilderness. INIontrose, endued with
but unfortunate Queen of Bohemia, wiU be a frame of uncommon hardihood, eat his
found in their place among these Memo- own glove, and struggled through to the
rials. In the mouth of jNIay following the scaffold.
date of that quoted above, it was the fate ' This was John thirteenth Earl of Su-
of these two very noblemen to be struggling therland. He was three years older than
together for their lives, without any other Montrose, having been born in 1609. But
companion, amidst the wilds of Assynt. it appears, from the books of St Andrews,
Kinnoull dropped from fatigue and hunger, that they entered college on the same day.