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I never knew who the 'Duke who lost his head in London' was till I read your book. I always had wondered when I read Old Mortality

WALLINGTON, CAMBO, MORPETH.

Sep. 21. 1913.

Dear John

I have just read with very great pleasure indeed your Montrose. There is not a dull page in it, and it is perfectly

fair. One feels one can form ones own opinion out of the facts presented and see if one agrees with the author or not, accepting his facts as the true ones. That is the way to write history, to

be an advocate for your own views, but a judge in impartiality of stating the facts.

I also agree with your general likes and dislikes, and your criticism of the Kirk party of that day. And yet I should have drawn

sword against Montrose on this ground, that his victory would not have meant that he would rule Scotland which might have been well enough, but that Charles I after a military victory should rule both England and Scotland. You take my point even though you disagree with it. At no time in the 17th cent. could Scotland have maintained for more than

a year or two a government opposed to that of England. The war in Scotland was merely a part of the struggle in great Bitain. And if, as might easily have happened, Montrose's military genius had made the Cavaliers sweep "from the Highlands to Devon" as I think you