James Drummond
Montrose
Dated 1859

James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, raised an army on behalf of Charles II and won many victories in the Highlands. He was eventually captured by treachery, and is here shown dragged by the public executioner on a cart up the Royal Mile, past the balcony of Moray House, where his greatest enemies, the Marquis of Argyll and his family, were watching. Drummond had a profound knowledge of the buildings of old Edinburgh and was a passionate collector of many of the kinds of object - Highland weapons and costumes - which feature in this picture. He based his story upon a poem by William Edmondstoune Aytoun, which presents Montrose as a betrayed saint or martyr to the Royalist cause.