Series 1 > Miscellany of the Scottish History Society (First volume)

IV
Montrose’s Flight from Carbisdale,
April 27-May 1 (?), 1650.
[The graphic details of the following narrative will be read
with much interest. A copy of the manuscript was sent some
years ago to Mr. S. It. Gardiner, the accomplished historian of
the Civil War, by whom it was communicated to the present
editor. Unhappily all trace of its source, and of the John
Milbourne and his family who succoured Montrose, has been
lost. It has been conjectured that ‘Milbourne ’ has been mis¬
read for ‘ Melvine ’ (Melweine, etc.) ; and in support of this,
it appears that property which Montrose must have passed
on his flight from Carbisdale to Assynt was held by some of
the name of Melvin. But it is to be observed that the name
occurs frequently, and this much diminishes the possibility of
such an error.
John Milbourne, according to the narrative, died at about
the age of twenty-one. His children, therefore, must have been
mere babes, and the preservation of the tradition in the family
must have been due to his wife. How far we may accept the
narrative as authentic tradition, in the present absence of any
evidence that a family of this name resided at that time in
Ross or Sutherland, it is difficult to decide. But the episode is
described with a simplicity and directness which gives it a
strong air of verisimilitude. Nor is there in the events
described any fact inconsistent with our knowledge of what
did occur during the few days that intervened before Mon¬
trose reached the fatal castle of Neil Macleod. The references
to the latter are of special interest, as bearing out, if genuine,
the repeated assertion of contemporary writers and of tradition