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But his industry is unimpeachable; and, through the kindness of the late Duke of Buccleuch, he was able to publish no less than thirty-seven letters written in Claverhouse's own hand to the first Duke of Queensberry, not one of which had been included in the collection printed for the Bannatyne Club in 1826, nor was, in fact, known to be in existence by anyone outside the family of Buccleuch.
Although his labors were light, the office entailed the necessity of living in that county a few months in each year. It was a pastoral, quiet, peaceful part of the country, belonging to the Duke of Buccleuch, his friend and patron. His published translation in this year of Goethe's "Goetz of Berlichingen" added to his growing reputation, and led him on towards his career.
Among them were Arran, Argyll, Moray, Bothwell, and other nobles, with Maxwell and the Laird of Buccleuch, Sir Walter Scott. Campbells, Macleans, and Macdonalds had all this while been burning each other's lands, and cutting each other's throats. James visited them, and partly quieted them, incarcerating the Earl of Argyll.
There at the parlour window stands my dear little Agnes, in a white frock, in a great cap with a blue riband and bow, and curls clustering over her face. I wish Sir Joshua Reynolds had painted thee in those days, my dear: but thou wert the very image of one of his little ladies, that one who became Duchess of Buccleuch afterwards.
He had not yet wholly given up practice, and though its rewards were not munificent, they reached about this time, it would seem, their maximum sum of £218, which, in the days of his fairy-money, he must often have earned by a single morning's work. The place was not far from Selkirk, on the banks of the Tweed and in the centre of the Buccleuch country.
But at Newark Castle, the seat of the Duchess of Buccleuch, he receives kindly entertainment. "When kindness had his wants supplied, And the old man was gratified, Began to rise his minstrel pride: And he began to talk anon, Of good Earl Francis, dead and gone, And of Earl Walter, rest him, God!
The commands of Ross and Claverhouse were then withdrawn to Stirling, and when Livingstone joined them at Larbert, the whole army mustered but 1800 men so weak were the regulars. The militia was raised, and the king sent down his illegitimate son, Monmouth, husband of the heiress of Buccleuch, at the head of several regiments of redcoats.
This new act of firmness showed Huntly that the young queen was not disposed to allow the Scottish lords a resumption of the almost sovereign power humbled by her father; so that, in spite of the extremely kind reception she accorded him, as he learned while in camp that his son, having escaped from prison, had just put himself at the head of his vassals, he was afraid that he should be thought, as doubtless he was, a party to the rising, and he set out the same night to assume command of his troops, his mind made up, as Mary only had with her seven to eight thousand men, to risk a battle, giving out, however, as Buccleuch had done in his attempt to snatch James V from the hands of the Douglases, that it was not at the queen he was aiming, but solely at the regent, who kept her under his tutelage and perverted her good intentions.
He was created Duke of Monmouth, February 14th, 1663, and married Lady Anne Scott, daughter and heiress of Francis, second Earl of Buccleuch, on April 20th following. By and by in comes the King, and anon the Duke and his Duchess; so that, they being all together, was such a sight as I never could almost have happened to see with so much ease and leisure.
They lived to celebrate their golden wedding, which two of my sisters, the late Duchess of Buccleuch and Lady Lansdowne, were also fortunate enough to do, and I can say with perfect truth that in all three instances my mother and her daughters celebrated fifty years of perfect happiness, unclouded save for the gaps which death had made amongst their children.
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