Read Online 1635: A Parcel of Rogues - eARC by Eric Flint, Andrew Dennis - Free Book Online
Authors: Eric Flint, Andrew Dennis
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they are prey to and the barbarisms and cruelties they use. Efforts to educate them must be redoubled, both among the great and small of them. Such of them as are willing to recant their popish errors and confess the proper and episcopalian creed of the Church of Scotland may be found profitable service with His Majesty; there is much tumult throughout the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland and the suppression of same is greatly to be desired.”
Despite himself, Montrose felt his jaw clench. The highlanders were, he’d be the first to allow, a fractious, quarrelsome, inconvenient lot of nuisances; the same people who’d turned back Rome’s legions at the Wall. But they were, in large part, his nuisances.
His Majesty’s father had been content with an outward obedience to the law, and provided you didn’t insist on that meaning not stealing cattle and feuding, the highlanders carried on as they had since time out of mind. They would cheerfully confess themselves good Protestants to your face and hear Mass every Sunday when your back was turned. For a certainty, they’d rally to any cause of plundering the presbyterian lowlanders who set such store by suppressing their language and religion and scorned them as illiterate savages. But whether they’d take mercenary service in England to allow Charles Stuart to continue to rule with French gold and without Parliament was another question.
And, of course, there were all the thousands of them that were Campbell’s—which way would they go? Not red-hot, Your Majesty, but another hot enough to burn. There was already a great fear that the king meant to use Irish mercenaries to enforce his will, again with French gold—and wasn’t that a beautiful thing, after half of Scotland’s Reformation had been to get French influence out that country, that two reigns later the king should bring it back into England? They were already calling Cork the premier ministre in scurrilous pamphlets, Richelieu’s principal secular title being a byword for unprincipled tyranny throughout England.
“Your Majesty, the work of civilizing the Erse of the highlands continues today as it did in Your father’s time and before that. Whatever my poor efforts may do to hasten it along will be done.” Again, not a direct lie. Civilizing the wretches would do them direct and measurable good, no matter the religion they followed. The papists of Spain, France and Italy were, after all, civilized and seemed to do well by it. If the divines wanted them converted to the uncorrupted faith of Calvinism, they could get about the work themselves. Perchance it would keep them out of mischief.
The remainder of the king’s charges to his new Lord Lieutenant were considerably less disheartening. What was disheartening to Montrose was that he had been given the greatest office short of the crown itself in Scotland, and the charges laid on him with it were, indeed, disheartening him.
* * *
Later, awaiting their mounts to be brought from the stables to go to their respective London houses, Cork gave Montrose a wry smile. “I trust you’re seeing how I feel about great power in these times.”
“A burden, aye,” Montrose said. “I trust that should I choose to do more of the spirit of His Majesty’s charges than the letter, he’ll not hear any contradiction from you? I’m of a mind that that first charge, silence north of the Tweed, is the one that counts?”
Cork’s grin was twisted and rueful. “That’s about the size of it. Between Wentworth and Laud, we’ve a merry mess on our hands in England. Between Spain, France, and the USE, it’s our task to keep our feet and not end up provinces of one or the other. And I’m fucked if I know where Spain’s going to fall out on this now the queen’s dead—nor can I see any prospect of a new marriage for him to settle anything with anyone on Europe. Marriages of state are often cynical matters, but they have to be marriages for all that, and
Despite himself, Montrose felt his jaw clench. The highlanders were, he’d be the first to allow, a fractious, quarrelsome, inconvenient lot of nuisances; the same people who’d turned back Rome’s legions at the Wall. But they were, in large part, his nuisances.
His Majesty’s father had been content with an outward obedience to the law, and provided you didn’t insist on that meaning not stealing cattle and feuding, the highlanders carried on as they had since time out of mind. They would cheerfully confess themselves good Protestants to your face and hear Mass every Sunday when your back was turned. For a certainty, they’d rally to any cause of plundering the presbyterian lowlanders who set such store by suppressing their language and religion and scorned them as illiterate savages. But whether they’d take mercenary service in England to allow Charles Stuart to continue to rule with French gold and without Parliament was another question.
And, of course, there were all the thousands of them that were Campbell’s—which way would they go? Not red-hot, Your Majesty, but another hot enough to burn. There was already a great fear that the king meant to use Irish mercenaries to enforce his will, again with French gold—and wasn’t that a beautiful thing, after half of Scotland’s Reformation had been to get French influence out that country, that two reigns later the king should bring it back into England? They were already calling Cork the premier ministre in scurrilous pamphlets, Richelieu’s principal secular title being a byword for unprincipled tyranny throughout England.
“Your Majesty, the work of civilizing the Erse of the highlands continues today as it did in Your father’s time and before that. Whatever my poor efforts may do to hasten it along will be done.” Again, not a direct lie. Civilizing the wretches would do them direct and measurable good, no matter the religion they followed. The papists of Spain, France and Italy were, after all, civilized and seemed to do well by it. If the divines wanted them converted to the uncorrupted faith of Calvinism, they could get about the work themselves. Perchance it would keep them out of mischief.
The remainder of the king’s charges to his new Lord Lieutenant were considerably less disheartening. What was disheartening to Montrose was that he had been given the greatest office short of the crown itself in Scotland, and the charges laid on him with it were, indeed, disheartening him.
* * *
Later, awaiting their mounts to be brought from the stables to go to their respective London houses, Cork gave Montrose a wry smile. “I trust you’re seeing how I feel about great power in these times.”
“A burden, aye,” Montrose said. “I trust that should I choose to do more of the spirit of His Majesty’s charges than the letter, he’ll not hear any contradiction from you? I’m of a mind that that first charge, silence north of the Tweed, is the one that counts?”
Cork’s grin was twisted and rueful. “That’s about the size of it. Between Wentworth and Laud, we’ve a merry mess on our hands in England. Between Spain, France, and the USE, it’s our task to keep our feet and not end up provinces of one or the other. And I’m fucked if I know where Spain’s going to fall out on this now the queen’s dead—nor can I see any prospect of a new marriage for him to settle anything with anyone on Europe. Marriages of state are often cynical matters, but they have to be marriages for all that, and
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