A Legend of Montrose is an historical novel by Sir Walter Scott, set in Scotland in the 1640s during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

Scott was still recovering from his serious illness of March 1819 and it is likely that the greater part of the new novel was dictated to John Ballantyne and William Laidlaw, though the manuscript for most of Chapters 3 to 6 is extant in his own hand.

[3] The first edition of Tales of my Landlord (Third Series), consisting of The Bride of Lammermoor and A Legend of Montrose (the title reluctantly accepted by Scott), was published by Archibald Constable in Edinburgh on 21 June 1819 and in London by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown on the 26th.

The main plot concerns a love triangle between Allan M'Aulay, his friend the Earl of Menteith, and Annot Lyle.

Annot is a young woman who has been brought up by the M'Aulays since being captured as a girl during a blood feud against the MacEagh clan (also known as the Children of the Mist).

A large section of the novel is taken up with a subplot involving an expedition into enemy territory by Dugald Dalgetty, an experienced mercenary fighting for Montrose.

He wrote in an 1830 introduction to the novel, "Still Dalgetty, as the production of his own fancy, has been so far a favourite with its parent, that he has fallen into the error of assigning to the Captain too prominent a part in the story.

"[5] (principal characters in bold) Introduction: The narrator [Peter Pattieson] indicates that he received the tale that follows from a resident of Gandercleugh, the retired Serjeant More MacAlpin.

2: The mercenary soldier Dugald Dalgetty encounters the Earl of Menteith on the borders of the Highlands and tells him of his service on the Continent.

His brother, the laird Angus, wins a wager with his guest Sir Miles Musgrave by having some of his men act as living chandeliers.

5: Menteith tells Dalgetty the story of Allan's feud with the Children of the Mist, and of his reluctant sparing of Annot Lyle and subsequent fondness for her.

8: Sir Duncan Campbell arrives with a proposal from the Marquis of Argyle for a truce, and Dalgetty is selected to go to Inverara to negotiate terms.

7 (15): Montrose enjoys military success, leading Argyle to relinquish his command of the Covenanting forces and retire to Inverara.

14 (22): The dying Ranald instructs Kenneth to torment Allan by telling him that Menteith plans to marry Annot.

Montrose fails to dissuade Menteith from pressing his suit, and Campbell agrees that the wedding should take place.

A Legend of Montrose shared in the mixed reception with its companion novel by reviewers with their tendency to lament the familiar stylistic carelessness and weak plotting, and some reviewers saw a distinct decline from the preceding novels, with signs of exhaustion and less interesting subject matter.

Ranald MacEagh and Annot Lyle attracted praise, though The Edinburgh Magazine found the former incongruously Byronic.

Dalgetty was widely recognised as a great comic creation, but the severe Monthly Review found him uniform and always present, extravagant in character and disgraceful in his views.

[7] Also helpful for this character were Memoirs of his own Life and Times by Sir James Turner (which was not published till 1829, but Scott had access to the manuscript in 1819), and the same author's Pallas Armata (1683).

The Ardvoirlich story Scott knew from oral tradition, but he was also indebted to its appearance in Clan-Alpin's Vow by Alexander Boswell of Auchinleck (1811).

The Ardvoirlich story Scott knew from oral tradition, but he was also indebted to its appearance in Clan-Alpin's Vow by Alexander Boswell of Auchinleck (1811).

In accordance with this custom, Lady Margaret Stewart at Ardvorlich, pregnant at the time, gave hospitality to some travelling MacGregors.

[11] The City of Montrose, Colorado was named after the novel P. D. Garside of the University of Edinburgh has argued that Scott intended the novel to highlight the changing nature of warfare in the seventeenth century, showing how the lack of a professional army caused the “civilized” society of the Lowlands to become “temporarily vulnerable to the ‘barbarous’” society of the Highlands.