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.
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