Montrose and Argyll
Two important signatories of the National Covenant were James Graham, Marquess of Montrose, and Archibald Campbell, Marquess of Argyll. Both men professed loyalty to King Charles, but when the covenanters began to force people to sign the National Covenant, Montrose broke with what he perceived to be the excesses of Argyll's reforming party, and led a royalist army in Scotland against Argyll.
Montrose was executed outside St Giles' at the Mercat Cross in 1650, and his head placed on a spike outside the church. After the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660, Montrose's head and body were exhumed and reinterred in St Giles' with full honours. His memorial stands in the Chepman Aisle. Argyll was himself executed outside St Giles' in 1661. He is commemorated in St Eloi's Aisle.
