A brilliant young poet, leading a gallant band whose epic adventure ends in defeat, betrayal and execution. Montrose was a doomed King's general who dared to win - and lost it all. The Scottish Royalist armed forces, along with its principal leader, the Marquis of Montrose, have had a romantic veneer that has long obscured their true composition and function. In this work, the author examines the troops and their operational doctrines within the themes of the early modern Military Revolution, and places the Scots Royalists within a greater European context of development.The book is enlivened by specially-commissioned colour uniform plates based on the latest research, showing how Montrose's troops really appeared on the battlefield.

Charles Singleton has spent the last 30 years engrossed in the age of pike and shot warfare and the British Civil Wars. He has taught and researched the period extensively, and regularly visits the sites linked to the events of the 17th century. Charles has also worked with local BBC Radio on programmes about the conflict. His first book, Uncharitable Mischief: Barbarity and Excess in the British Civil Wars, saw publication in 2013 - and his first book with Helion & Company, Famous by my Sword: The Army of Montrose and the Military Revolution, was published in 2014. He is also the author of To Kill a King, which is the ECW supplement for Warlord Games' pike and shot rules, and is the editor of the 2012 Oxford Companion to Military History (published by Oxford University Press). He lives with his wife Helen on the fringes of the Welsh Marches, along with two Jack Russells.