The word pacification can hardly have deceived even the most sanguine advocates of peace. None who knew the character of Charles or of the Scottish nation can have believed in their hearts that any final solution to the quarrel between them had been found at Berwick. It was at most a truce; and it was soon made clear how short and hollow a truce it was destined to be. The Pacification was signed on June 10th, and before the year was out both sides were arming fast again for war.
It was the old story. Charles had refused to recognise the acts of the Glasgow Assembly, as indeed he could not but have refused while he called himself King of Scotland; but he had agreed that a lawful Assembly should be convened in August at which all the ecclesiastical points at issue should be settled, and that a Parliament should follow to make the settlement good. It had been his intention to preside in person at both meetings, but the temper of the Scottish capital made him hesitate. Almost immediately after the Pacification he had issued one of his foolish proclamations, summoning the bishops to take their places in the forthcoming Assembly. A protestationof course followed. Charles was indeed within his legal rights, for Episcopacy had as yet been abolished only by the Glasgow Assembly, which he had refused to acknowledge and which the Covenanters had agreed not to press. But though Episcopacy had not yet been legally abolished, Charles, by renewing the assurances made in his name by Hamilton at Glasgow, had given his word for its abolition. Within a fortnight of this solemn promise he had issued a proclamation which, if there were any meaning in words, could mean only one of two things; he was summoning the bishops to vote for their own extinction, or he was summoning them to quash the motion for their extinction by their own votes. It is no wonder that the Scottish people, with their previous experience of the royal diplomacy, chose the latter interpretation, and, finding that the King was breaking his share of the treaty, made no haste to keep theirs. The army was not disbanded; the Tables were not dissolved; the fortifications of Leith were not dismantled. The fortresses were indeed restored to the Crown, but Hamilton had to make his way through sullen and menacing crowds to install a new governor in Edinburgh Castle. A few days later Aboyne, who had imprudently shown himself on the High Street, was forced to fly for his life, while the unfortunate Treasurer was for the second time roughly handled by the mob. Charles, who was still at Berwick, sent in anger for the Covenanting leaders to explain these things. Only six obeyed the summons. The rest were stopped, or pretended to have been stopped, as they were leaving Edinburgh, by the citizens, who would not suffer their champions to place themselves in the King's power. But among the six was Montrose.
It is an infinite pity that no report exists of any interview between Montrose and the King during this visit. We know that Hamilton was instructed to confer with the Covenanting chiefs, and to use any device necessary to discover their intentions. We know that there was a stormy scene between Charles and Rothes, in which the latter was twice called a liar to his face. But how it fared between Montrose and his sovereign history is silent. How it was believed in Scotland to have fared between them is sufficiently shown by an incident which occurred soon after the meeting of Parliament. A paper was found one morning on the door of Montrose's lodgings bearing the inscription,Invictus armis verbis vincitur. It began now to be whispered abroad that the gallant young enthusiast who had led the soldiers of the Covenant to their first victory had in his turn been conquered by gracious looks and fair speeches.
The belief was natural in a society where no man could trust his neighbour. And there was possibly this much foundation for it, that Charles had succeeded in persuading Montrose that he was now really sincere in his intention to abolish Episcopacy and leave Scotland free to worship God after her own fashion. It is at least unlikely that Hamilton, whatever language he might speak, should have persuaded him to anything. And the change that is now perceptible in Montrose's attitude both towards King and Covenant is compatible with our belief in his intelligence and honesty only on the ground that he believed the work of the Covenant, as he interpreted it, to have been done, that he believed Charles to have learnt his lesson,and that thenceforth it was the part of every true Scotsman to stand by the King so long as the King stood by his word.
But in truth Montrose understood his countrymen as little as he understood the King. He had framed for himself an ideal constitution as unlike anything possible in such a country and at such a time as the ideal sovereign of his imagination was unlike the reality. His political views were in truth a dream like Dante's, but, like the great Italian's, a dream based on what had been in the past, and an anticipation in part at least of what was to be again in the future,—the dream of a real State, a government based on justice and law and supported by obedience. A parallel has been drawn between Montrose and that singularly interesting and attractive man, William Drummond of Hawthornden. Fanciful as the resemblance may at first seem between the fiery ambitious man of action and the shy meditative man of letters, the parallel is on one side good. Drummond, it is said, was a passive or theoretical Montrose, Montrose a rampant or practical Drummond. The latter'sIreneindeed embodies, in more elaborate detail and more fanciful language, the peculiar form of Scottish Conservatism which Montrose was afterwards to express in a remarkable paper rescued by the industry of his biographer from two centuries of neglect. The plan of each discourse is very similar. Both draw a picture of the hopeless state of anarchy and confusion into which Scotland must fall if certain evil counsels prevail. Montrose, writing later in time and influenced by personal dislike as well as disappointment, aims clearly at Hamilton and Argyll; while Drummond includes in hiscensure all the noblemen who had joined the Covenant, and Montrose among them, openly accusing the majority of acting solely under the influence of private revenge and ambition. Both then proceed to appeal to each Estate particularly, to the nobles, the clergy, and the people. In both is the same recognition of the necessity for a paramount authority in the State, and the conviction that from the temper of the times that authority must be vested in the hands of a king. In both is the same dislike of all clerical interference, whether Episcopalian or Presbyterian, in matters of State. Both show the same mistrust of any alliance between the aristocracy and the people. Both warn the latter in almost the same strain that they are not fit for power, and that the nobles who would persuade them otherwise can do so only for their own selfish ends. Both, in short, may be said to preach the doctrine of passive obedience; but both imagine a king under whose wise and beneficent rule passive obedience should mean no more than happy and prosperous quiescence in the secure enjoyment of their religion and liberties. Of the two Drummond was readiest to push his doctrine to its last conclusion, as the man of theory always will be. Resolved on no consideration and in no extremity to suffer himself to be dragged into the vortex of politics, in the solitude of his beautiful home on the wooded banks of the Esk he could weave his fairy fabric without any disturbing sense of its impracticability. Montrose, with his active experience of men and things, could not quite blind himself to the possibility of a king under whom passive obedience might be only another name for tyranny. Yet he was practical to this extent, that, while the otherwas content to dream, he was ready to put his dream into action. He would carry into the sphere of working politics the reform on which they were both agreed. He would be the active exponent of the ideal Constitution under Charles the ideal King. Yet both are at one in recommending the subject patience even under the worst sovereign. It is better, they argue, to bear the ills we have and trust to time to cure them, than to fly to others we know nothing of. And of all forms of tyranny, says Montrose, the tyranny of subjects over their king is "the most fierce, insatiable, and unsupportable in the world." Drummond, who could on occasion speak boldly enough for the liberty of the subject, and who disliked religious intolerance in any shape and from any quarter, foresaw that in this respect at least the Covenant was likely to chastise with scorpions where Charles had chastised with whips. Passive obedience to a king who had shown himself (as he, like Montrose, believed) ready to remove the old yoke and resolved to add no new one, was surely more tolerable than passive obedience to a league of self-seeking nobles and fanatical clergymen.[7]
In the summer of 1639 Montrose had not formally broken with the Covenant, nor was his scheme of political reform probably as yet fully matured. Nevertheless, he was soon to have an opportunity of making trial ofhis countrymen's temper, and of learning how utterly he had misconceived it.
The first act of the new Assembly was to sweep Episcopacy off the face of Scottish earth. The first act of the new Parliament was to ratify the decision of the Assembly. But before it could effect this ecclesiastical reform it had to consider a question of political reform which was infinitely more important to the King's authority. Hitherto the committee known as the Lords of the Articles had been so formed as to be practically no more than the mouthpiece of the Crown; and as no bills could be presented to Parliament till they had passed this committee, and, when so presented, could only be accepted or rejected in their entirety without amendment or alteration, it is clear that the power of the Scottish Parliament as a national assembly was little more than a cipher. This state of things was due to the influence possessed by the bishops in the formation of the committee. But now that the bishops had gone, by whom was this influence to be exercised? Charles would have been glad to see it exercised by a corresponding number of ministers, who might at some more tranquil time be translated into bishops. But this was obnoxious to all parties. The nobles would not consent to share their power with the clergy, and the clergy would not consent to see any of their order elevated abovethe rest. Business was made possible by a compromise; but as the compromise entailed a majority of Covenanters on the committee, the business was not palatable to the King. It was now that the two great rivals, Montrose and Argyll, were first brought into direct conflict. Montrose would not support Charles in filling the bishops' places with other clergymen, though they should wear the black gown of Geneva instead of the hated lawn-sleeves. But he had no mind to see the authority of the Crown a cipher, and the King without a voice among the new Lords of the Articles. He proposed, therefore, that the bishops' places should be taken by a corresponding number of noblemen to be chosen by the King. In his ideal State the Crown and the nobility should mutually support and counterpoise each other, both acting together against the dangerous encroachments of the people. Far different were Argyll's views. With clearer eyes than Montrose he read the signs of the times, and saw what the victory of the Covenant really meant. He saw that it meant the inevitable rise of the middle classes to a share in the control of public affairs. He saw that the old monarchical supremacy and the old aristocratic supremacy were alike doomed, and that henceforth his order, if it would retain any vestige of its ancient influence, could do so only by acquiescing in a partition it was powerless to prevent. Henceforth the Scottish Parliament, like the English Parliament, must represent the voice, not of the sovereign, but of the people. Nor was this recognition unpleasing to an ambition far other and more dangerous than the generous desire for fame which swelled the heart of Montrose. As a member of the old aristocracyhe was but one among many, richer, indeed, and more powerful than most, but subject like the rest to the caprice of a king, and to the jealousy, the intrigues, and the violence of his peers. But with a national Parliament at his back, speaking and acting as the mouthpiece and agent of a people, he might rise in fact to that power his countrymen would no longer brook in name. Conscious of mental abilities and a genius for statecraft immeasurably superior to those around him, he felt confident of wielding to his own ends this new force that he saw rising on the ruins of the old. And Argyll carried the day, though not without a hard struggle. By a majority of only one it was determined that in future each Estate should choose its own Lords. Henceforth the nobles would be represented by eight votes, the lesser barons and burghers by sixteen; and thus at one stroke the voice of the sovereign was silenced in the Scottish Parliament. In the first direct struggle between Montrose and Argyll there could be no doubt with whom victory rested. Under their new constitution the Covenanting majority carried all before them. Episcopacy was abolished, not, as Charles would have had, as contrary to the usage of the Scottish Church, but as actually unlawful. A general tax was to be levied, to cover the expenses of the late war, on Royalists as well as on Covenanters. The castles of Edinburgh, Stirling, and Dumbarton were to be entrusted to the charge of none but Scottish subjects, who, though chosen by the King, were to be approved by Parliament. No more drastic Reform Bill has, in short, been passed even in our own century. Charles at once sent orders to Traquair to prorogue a Parliament under which the veryexistence of the Crown was at stake. The Treasurer was at once met with the answer that Parliament could not be prorogued without its own consent. A short adjournment was therefore arranged, and two Covenanting lords, Loudon and Dunfermline, were despatched to plead their case in London.
Charles had been informed of Montrose's action during this momentous time by that Earl of Airth whose disgrace and subsequent reinstatement has been already mentioned. The result was a summons to Court for the repentant Covenanter. But Montrose excused himself on the ground that the visit would breed suspicion both of himself and of the King, and so tend to prevent the accommodation of existing difficulties which they both desired. "I hope," he wrote, "that your Majesty will do me the honour to think that this is no shift,—for all of that kind is too much contrary to my humour, chiefly in what your Majesty or your service is concerned in—but that, as I have ever been bold to avow, there are no things your Majesty shall be pleased to command me in—persuading myself they will be still such as befits and do suit with all most incumbent duties—that I shall not think myself born to perform as your Majesty's most loyal and faithful subject and servant."
These things passed in the autumn of 1639. The winter wore itself out in barren diplomacies and preparations for war on both sides. The Scottish Commissioners could do nothing with the King, and Parliament was prorogued till the following June. Strafford was now supreme in the royal councils, and that imperious voice was never for submission. At this time,moreover, a discovery was made which gave fresh weight to Strafford's arguments and fresh heart to his perplexed master. A letter had fallen into Traquair's hands addressed by some of the leading Covenanters to the French King, praying him to come to their aid. This, it was thought, would surely establish the treasonable nature of the Scottish movement. But when the letter was read before the English Parliament, which met on April 13th, it made no impression on either House. Both were too intent on their own affairs—the pressing question of Ship-Money among others—to interfere in a matter which, so far as it concerned them at all, made for their own interests. The Scottish Covenanters were the very good neighbours of the English malcontents, and no obstacle was to be put in their way to work out their own salvation. Lewis, to whom a second letter had been addressed on the miscarriage of the first, was too cautious to enter into a quarrel which could be safely trusted to shape itself to his own gain. Loudon, who was then in London as one of the Commissioners, and whose name was subscribed to the letter, was indeed sent to the Tower on a charge of treasonable conspiracy; but nothing could be brought home to him, and he was soon released. Parliament did not choose to adopt Charles's interpretation of words that could be strained to bear a less criminal significance; and the affair passed quickly out of sight.[8]
Among the signatories to the French King was Montrose. Whether this was done to lull the growing suspicions of his colleagues, or done through fresh mistrust of Charles's clerical policy, it is hard to determine. Probably both motives were at work in a mind that could as yet see firm ground nowhere. At all events, when on reassembling in June the Scottish Parliament aimed a further blow at the royal authority by the appointment of a permanent Committee of Estates with supreme power both in military and civil matters, Montrose was named among the noblemen, with his kinsmen, Napier and Stirling, among the lesser barons. In obedience to the orders of this new power he at once proceeded to his own territories to levy men for the army a second time mustering under Leslie for the Border. While engaged in this business he was commissioned to effect the reduction of Airlie Castle, the main stronghold of the loyalists in the shire of Angus. The chief of the Ogilvies, lately raised to the earldom of Airlie, was then with the King, having left his house in charge of his eldest son. The work was accomplished without resort to arms or any violence. Lord Ogilvy, after conference with the commissioner, rendered his father's castle quietly, being in truth in no position to defend it, for the good of the public, as the convenient phrase ran; and Montrose, leaving a garrison of his own men in charge of it, marched south to join Leslie.
Unfortunately for the loyal North, and most unfortunately for the House of Airlie, others besides Montrose had been entrusted with the charge of "pacification." Commissions had been also issued for that purpose to Monro, one of the roughest and most brutal pupils of the German wars, and to Argyll. To Monro was assigned the district of Aberdeen, while Argyll was to take order with the more southern Highlands. Commissions of fire and sword the style ran, and seldom can it have been more literally vindicated. Monro harried Aberdeen and the surrounding country, destroying what he could not remove, putting some of the citizens to torture after a fashion practised in his school of war, and carrying back a crowd of prisoners to Edinburgh. Argyll did his work even more thoroughly. Montrose had advised him of the surrender of Airlie Castle, and that all was now quiet on the braes of Angus. But not thus was Argyll to be balked of his vengeance. Between the Campbells and the Ogilvies there had been feud for many generations, and so rare a chance of masking private vengeance under the cloak of duty was not to be lost. Montrose's garrison was dismissed, and the Bonny House of Airlie burned to the ground. Forthar, the seat of Lord Ogilvy, was next served in the same fashion, the young lord's wife, who was then daily expecting her confinement, being turned out of doors, her own family only venturing at their own risk, and after permission had been asked and refused, to shelter the unhappy outcast. Craig, an unfortified building, and therefore not rightly within this strange peacemaker's commission, but also the property of an Ogilvy, shared the same fate. Argyll next turned his attention to the lands of Breadalbane, butfinding his way barred by Athole with a force almost amounting to one-fourth of his own, he preferred to effect by diplomacy what he dared not put to the trial of the sword. Athole, unmindful of the fate of Huntly, was caught in the same snare. Under promise of a safe-conduct he was persuaded with his captains to meet Argyll in conference. The conference was an ambuscade. The whole party were seized and sent as prisoners to Edinburgh. Then, after settling a longstanding account with the Macdonalds, against whom he held a twofold grudge as hereditary foes of his House and as friends and in some sort vassals of the House of Gordon, and laying Badenoch waste from Lochaber to Braemar, this great warrior returned in triumph to Edinburgh to impeach Montrose for treason against the Covenant in dealing too leniently with its enemies.
From this ridiculous charge Montrose found little difficulty in exonerating himself. Argyll would have had him tried by court-martial, but neither Leslie nor the Committee of Estates would entertain the proposal, and Montrose was unanimously pronounced to have done his duty as a true soldier of the Covenant. But he had now far more serious matter for thought than this paltry ebullition of temper. While in Leslie's camp at Dunse a proposal was submitted to him, which of all men in Scotland he was the last to hear calmly. Already there had been some secret debate among the extreme party of the right of subjects to depose a faithless king, and Argyll had already maintained in Parliament the right of the Estates to pass laws without the royal sanction. How far matters had gone Montrose did not yet know, but he had other grounds than merepique for suspecting Argyll and his faction of some deep design against the King's authority. The plan now submitted to him confirmed his worst suspicions. It inflamed his jealousy of Argyll, while threatening to break for ever the dream he still cherished of placing Charles at the head of a constitutional government with a Presbyterian Church. The precise details of the scheme are rather obscure; for when it afterwards became matter of public inquiry, those most directly concerned repudiated all knowledge of it. There seem in fact to have been more than one scheme, that submitted to Montrose having been chosen as least likely to alarm his inconvenient loyalty, while at the same time offering a sop to his ambition by assigning him a share in the executive. According to this the government of Scotland was to be placed in the hands of a Triumvirate, consisting of Argyll, Mar, and Cassillis. Argyll was to rule all the lands beyond the Forth, while the southern counties were to be in charge of his colleagues. A committee or council was to work with the Triumvirate, and in this Montrose's name had been inserted. But though the particulars of the various schemes may have differed, they all practically tended to the same end. Whether he was to stand alone, an absolute dictator, or to be one of a nominal council, Argyll was the only man who could save Scotland in her present straits.
But Montrose had a party as well as Argyll. Besides the few who, like Napier and Stirling, looked to him as their head, there were many who, while not sharing his sanguine loyalty, and perhaps not altogether trusting him, were agreed with him that the time had come when the Covenant needed to be saved from itself.They were indeed in much the same predicament as Montrose himself, though his peculiar temperament and aspiring genius made impossible for him what was merely troublesome for men of commoner mould. They had subscribed the Covenant not to destroy their king, but to save their religion. They had subscribed it, in short, without sufficiently considering whether it must inevitably lead them among such a people and at such a time, unless Charles were to undergo some marvellous change in his nature and ideas which only dreamers could hope for, and which, it is not too much to say, no man then wearing a crown was likely to undergo. To dethrone Charles merely to set up Argyll in his place was to their taste neither as Scotsmen nor Covenanters. To this party Montrose determined to appeal. A conversation held with Lindsay during a hasty visit to Edinburgh convinced him that this idea of a dictatorship was no mere fancy of Argyll's ambitious brain, nor promoted only by his creatures.
In seasons of great peril'Tis good that one bear sway.
In seasons of great peril'Tis good that one bear sway.
In seasons of great peril'Tis good that one bear sway.
Almost in these words, and using this very illustration from the practice of ancient Rome, did Lindsay in private approve a scheme of which he afterwards publicly disowned all knowledge. Montrose accordingly resolved to play these men at their own game, and to form a counter-plot in the interests of Scotland, her Covenant, and her King. This was the origin of the secret alliance known as the Cumbernauld Bond, from the place where it was signed, the house of Montrose's uncle Lord Wigton. "Montrose's damnablebond," Baillie calls it, "by which he thought to have sold us to the enemy;" but he is careful not to quote it, nor to give the names of the subscribers. Among them were Mar, the governor of Stirling Castle, Almond, Leslie's second in command on the Border, and Erskine, whose accession to the cause Baillie had welcomed but a short while since as a signal instance of God's mercy. The presence of such names sufficiently proves the genuine nature of the bond, and disposes of the assertion that it was merely designed by Montrose to further his own personal aggrandisement or in treachery to the Covenant. The purpose of its subscribers is plainly declared in the clause levelled against the "particular and indirect practising of a few," by which the Covenant that they had signed and pledged themselves anew to promote "to the hazard of their lives, fortunes, and estates," was now brought into danger, and with the Covenant the country. That Argyll and his scheme of dictatorship were the danger ahead was of course understood by all who signed; but this danger was as manifest to Mar, Almond, and Erskine as to Montrose.
Having thus, as he supposed, provided the means of checkmating Argyll and his faction, Montrose returned to the army. He found it on the point of entering England. The spot chosen was the ford over the Tweed at Coldstream. It was a strange irony of fate that twenty years later led another army southwards by the same ford to restore to his throne the exiled King for whom Montrose had given his life, and against whose father he was this day in arms! The river was in flood, and for three days the army halted on theplain of Hirselhaugh. On August 20th the passage was practicable. But whether at the last moment they shrank from incurring the charge of rebellion against which they had all so strenuously protested, but which, when the Rubicon was once passed, they would no longer be able to avoid, or from a preconcerted plan to test Montrose's good faith, there was a strange unwillingness among the leaders to be the first to make the passage. It was agreed to cast lots. The lot fell on Montrose. Instantly he sprang from his horse, and entering the stream waded through waist-high to the farther bank. Then returning he led his division across. The whole army followed, each captain wading on foot at the head of his men. The passage was begun at four in the afternoon, and by midnight five-and-twenty thousand armed Scotchmen were encamped on English ground.
His earliest biographer, the loyal and affectionate Wishart, maintains that it was Montrose's purpose, when once fairly across the Border, to carry his own men over to the English camp; and that, if his friends had kept their faith, so large a part of the Scottish army had gone with him that the rest could have effected nothing. It is possible that some such plan may have crossed his mind for the moment. His own regiments, men of Perthshire and Forfarshire, raised under his own supervision and many of them his own tenants, would have followed whithersoever he chose to lead them. Nor is it impossible that many of his colleagues who, like him, had put their hands prematurely to the plough, and were now, like him, looking back, might have welcomed any opportunity of extricating themselvesfrom a false position. But Wishart vouchsafes no authority for his statement. No hint of such a design is to be found elsewhere. It was not made a charge against Montrose during his trial before the Estates in the following year, though it is impossible to suppose that a secret shared by so many would not have leaked out when the tide had turned against its author. We may therefore suppose that the generous biographer was only endeavouring to find for an action which he conceived to need some explanation, an excuse which his own uncompromising loyalty would prevent him from seeing in its true light. Against treason treachery itself would in his eyes be fair. To Wishart the Covenant had always been an unlawful and impious league, masking under dishonest professions of reverence to God and King designs subversive of the authority of both. He had himself stood stoutly out against it from the first, for which he had been deprived of his ministry, despoiled of his property, and flung a prisoner into the Tolbooth. Such a man may be pardoned for failing to understand his hero's conduct at this crisis; he may be pardoned for being unable to appreciate the peculiar nature of that loyalty to the Throne which could allow a man to bear arms against its occupant. Even passive adherence to the Covenant was incompatible in his plain mind with duty to his King; he would have preferred to believe his hero capable of treachery to the rebels whose commission he had accepted, rather than of disloyalty to the monarch whom he professed to serve. But we must hope that Wishart was mistaken; and that if such a course of action at any time crossed Montrose's mind, he put it away from himas unworthy of an honest man. Yet in truth it is not easy to reconcile Montrose's behaviour during the past few months with his presence in the army which was now at open war with its sovereign. The time was indeed critical enough to have perplexed an older and a cooler head. Even were he now convinced that to declare frankly for the King was the only course consistent with his duty to his country, to do so before he was strong enough to make his declaration good might for ever ruin his prospects of serving either country or King. By still siding with the Covenant he might yet be able to guide it to a sense of its true purpose. With what feelings Montrose saw the royal cavalry flying in disgraceful panic before his countrymen at Newburn, and Newcastle unbar its gates at the first sound of the Scottish drum, we cannot tell. That he bore his part like a brave and skilful captain we may be sure; but that figure wading sword in hand through the swollen waters of the Tweed is the sole glimpse of Montrose that history affords through the brief and inglorious campaign to which it has given the name of the Second Bishops' War. Once, indeed, he is mentioned in a way which suggests how keenly the Royalists kept their eyes on him both as a present foe and a possible friend. Writing to the King from Darlington on August 30th Strafford reports as the most significant item of news a rumour that Montrose had fallen in the affair at Newburn. His signature also appears, along with Leslie's, Almond's, and the rest of his principal colleagues, to one of those extraordinary documents in which the Covenanters still continued to profess their peaceful and loyal intentions. Of thisthere will be more to say hereafter. For the present we may leave to the historian the narrative of the events which led to the Treaty of Ripon and to the King's second and last visit to Scotland. Montrose had pressed him to come; and when he came Montrose was a prisoner in the hands of their common enemies.
The suspicions which Montrose had managed to allay for a time in the field, now broke out against him with renewed force when arms once more gave place to diplomacy. While the Scots lay in garrison at Newcastle, letters passed freely between them and the English camp. Before crossing the Tweed a general order had been issued by Leslie that no communication should be held with the enemy except under his warrant. Anything in the nature of a secret correspondence was declared treasonable, and he who held it liable to the punishment of a traitor. With this offence Montrose was now charged. While the negotiations for the Treaty of Ripon were proceeding, word was brought to Leslie that a letter had gone from Montrose to the King which had never passed under the eyes of the Committee. How the secret was discovered is not clear. It may have been, as Wishart and other contemporaries have maintained, through the treachery of some member of the King's own household. It may have been through sheer accident, according to Burnet's story. The manner of the discovery is unimportant; the fact of the letter is certain. When taxed with it before theCommittee, Montrose made no attempt at denial or excuse. At once and boldly avowing what he had done, he challenged any man present to say that he had done wrong. He had written to the King, professing his obedience and loyalty. What then? Had they not all, but the other day, signed a humble petition to his majesty in the character of his most loyal and obedient subjects? Their articles of war forbade all secret correspondence with the enemy. What man among them would venture to call his sovereign an enemy? Did not the same articles declare that, "If any man shall open his mouth against the King's majesty's person or authority, or shall presume to touch his sacred person, he shall be punished as a traitor"? The Committee was in a strait. They knew that Montrose was fooling them, but they could not gainsay him. Leslie indeed, more apt at war than council and impatient of such nice distinctions, muttered that he had known princes lose their heads for less faults. But his colleagues dared not accept the alternative Montrose offered them. They could not deny the letter of their own law, and they did not feel strong enough to refuse his wide interpretation of its spirit. They were in truth in the uncomfortable position of being caught in their own snare.
But though victory was for the time with Montrose, it was but a momentary gleam. His enemies were ever on the watch to catch him tripping, and they soon found graver matter against him. In the following November the young Lord Boyd, Montrose's relation and one of the signatories of the Cumbernauld Bond, lay dying of a malignant fever. In his delirium he uttered some rambling words about a secret which, reported toArgyll, were enough to put those quick wits on the track. Almond was then at his house at Callendar on leave from Newcastle, and from him Argyll soon contrived to learn all about the Bond and who had signed it. Montrose was at once summoned to Edinburgh to answer this new accusation of treason. He took the same course before the Estates that he had taken before the Committee at Newcastle. He avowed what he had done, and justified it by the dangers then threatening Scotland and the Covenant. There was hot debate, and some, especially among the clergymen, would have made it a capital offence. But Argyll knew that his party was not yet strong enough to carry matters with so high a hand. Montrose did not stand alone. Some good Covenanters had shared in his treason, Almond and Mar and Marischal. And there were others whom half Leslie's army would have marched on the capital to save or revenge. Montrose himself was quite as much feared as he was hated by his accusers. They knew he had many friends among the Covenanters, and suspected he might have more than they knew. He must be separated from them before it would be safe to proceed to extremities against him. Moreover there were some who still thought it might not be too late to win this high spirit and ready genius to their side. He was ambitious, and events might so shape their course that the Covenant would be able to feed his ambition more liberally than the King. So this offence too was passed over. The Bond was surrendered and burned: the subscribers signed a declaration that they had meant nothing by it against the common weal; and once again the Covenant was outwardly at peace with itself.
But even after these two warnings Montrose could not keep quiet. The very opposite to Argyll on every side of his character, while the latter bided the time that he foresaw must come with eyes and ears ever open and tongue ever still, Montrose roamed restlessly about the country between the army at Newcastle and his own home, talking wildly to whomsoever would listen. The purpose of the burned Bond, Argyll's dictatorship, his meditated attack on the royal authority,—he poured all these dangerous secrets out to his comrade of the hour, careless who he might be. Once he talked in this strain in the presence of no less a person than old Leslie himself, as they were riding from Chester to Newcastle with a Colonel Cochrane. The prudent Colonel did not care for such talk in such company, and begged his rash lordship to change the subject. There might have been more dangerous listeners than Leslie, who was an honest man not given to making mischief, and, so long as his pay was safe and he did his duty by his soldiers, caring as little for one faction as the other. But it had been all one with Montrose who was by to hear him. Everything was going wrong. He could no longer trust the Covenant; he could not yet trust the King. His associates in the Bond, with one or two exceptions, had made their peace with the enemy. The Bond itself had been promptly burned, and the wildest stories circulated of its language and purpose.[9]Even among the more moderate Covenanters there were many who believed these stories, and lookedaskance at Montrose as an ambitious, unscrupulous, designing man, careless of his country and intent only on his own ends. Conscious of the popular suspicions, chafing against a false position from which he saw no present means of escape, uneasy, discontented, doubtful where to turn and whom to trust—there could be but one issue to the struggle between such a man in such a mood and Argyll. Nor could the issue be far distant. Argyll had but to sit still and wait. He could not play his game better than his rival was playing it for him.
In the spring of 1641, while the Scottish army still lay at Newcastle and their commissioners still wrangled in London over the price of their return, a family party of four used to meet almost daily in Edinburgh at Montrose's lodgings in the Canongate, or at Napier's old house of Merchiston on the Borough Moor. Besides the two brothers-in-law there were their nephew Sir George Stirling of Keir, and Sir Archibald Stewart of Blackhall who had married Keir's sister. Of course the talk ran on the old lines. How was this unhappy country to be saved, and who could save it? It was agreed that the only possible saviour was the King. He must come to Edinburgh when the Parliament met in the summer, and satisfy his Scottish subjects that he meant fairly by them, as these four had satisfied themselves he could and would. To establish their religion and liberties would be to establish his own authority; the people would rally to the Throne when they recognised that only under the shadow of the Throne could they hope to enjoy the blessings of a settled government, just laws, and a free religion. "For they assured themselves" (so runsMontrose's vindication) "that the King giving God His due, and the people theirs, they would give Cæsar that which was his." It was necessary to communicate with Charles, and most necessary to find a trusty messenger. They fixed upon a certain Walter Stewart of Traquair, who was on the eve of journeying to London on his own business, and whom, from his name, they conceived likely to get easy access to the Court. It was decided to approach the King through his cousin the Duke of Lennox, who was in high favour with his majesty, and had been employed in a similar capacity by the supplicants of 1637 to plead their grievances against Laud's prayer-book. There exists a paper in Napier's handwriting,—but evidently, from its similarity to the discourse on sovereign power mentioned in the last chapter, in great part, if not wholly, Montrose's composition,—which is believed to be the substance of the letter sent to Charles, and the tenor of his answer to Montrose strengthens the belief. All things, the King is told, depend on his personal presence in Scotland, the success of his affairs, the security of his authority, the peace and happiness of his subjects. It is useless to send a commissioner, no matter whom; he must come in person. The people bear him no ill-will, nor the Throne, nor will they suffer any attack to be made on it; their religion, as chosen by themselves, and their liberties as settled by the law of the land, are all they want. Let what they ask, if it be for their good, be granted, for that which tends to their good will assuredly include his own. But though the people should be justly treated and reasonably indulged, they should not be suffered to dispute his power. The sovereign power, he is warned, in wordsalmost identical with those addressed to Montrose's Noble Sir, "is an instrument never subject yet handled well." A king's authority should be maintained to the height allowed by the law of God and Nature, and the fundamental laws of the country. If not it sinks into contempt; and "weak and miserable is that people whose prince hath not power sufficient to punish oppression, and to maintain peace and justice." On the other hand, he is warned not to aim at absoluteness, which of all people the Scots will least endure. "Practice, sir, the temperate government. It fitteth the humour and disposition of the nation best. It is most strong, most powerful, and most durable of any. It gladdeth the hearts of your subjects, and then they erect a throne for you to reign." He is bid to beware of Rehoboam's counsellors: "they are flatterers, and therefore cannot be friends; they follow your fortune and love not your person." Finally, he is urged to settle the high offices of State upon men chosen by himself according to his own knowledge of their ability and honesty. Men who owe their preferment to the recommendation of others will not serve him well if it must be to the prejudice of their patrons. Whether this wise and liberal letter was the only letter entrusted to Stewart by the Plotters, as they soon came to be called, is not clearly known, but of that hereafter. For the present, having seen his messenger safely off on his journey south, Montrose himself left Edinburgh on a visit to Lord Stormont at Scone Abbey.
It was an unfortunate visit. The company gathered to welcome Montrose was the worst he could have met in his present temper. Stormont had himself been asubscriber to the Bond, and was one of the few who had not made his peace with the enemy. There too was Athole, still smarting under the indignities suffered at Argyll's hands, and with Athole was his faithful henchman, John Stewart of Ladywell, Commissary of Dunkeld. It is easy to guess what were the subjects of conversation among such spirits. Unfortunately Montrose was not content with unburdening his sore mind to his friends. Some Covenanting ministers in the neighbourhood came ostensibly to pay their respects to him, and doubtless also to learn what such an ominous conjunction of malcontents might mean, and Montrose must needs also talk to them. He knew them all personally. They were John Graham of Auchterarder hard by his own castle of Kincardine, John Robertson of Perth, and Robert Murray of Methven. To the latter he was particularly anxious to explain himself, as one of the chief instruments of his subscription to the Covenant whose interests he was now accused of having sold. All the secret history of the Bond was accordingly poured into Murray's curious ears, of the treason it was designed to thwart, of the Dictatorship and the Triumvirate, of his intention to clear himself by challenging Argyll to his face before Parliament. It was known that Murray had been talking to Montrose, and his colleagues were not long in extracting from him all he had to tell. This was reported, doubtless with some embellishments, at the next meeting of the Presbytery at Auchterarder, and of course at once carried down to Argyll. Graham, when summoned to answer for his words, quoted Murray: Murray quoted Montrose; and so at last the long-gathering storm burst.
Never in any crisis of his life was Montrose slow to accept the consequences of his own acts. He frankly owned that Argyll, whom Murray had not dared to name before the Committee, was the man he aimed at; that he had done so partly on his own knowledge, partly on the authority of others who would bear him out; and he concluded by a direct appeal to Argyll to say what he knew of the business. Argyll swore that he had never heard of it before, and that the man who said he had ever uttered treason against the King was a base liar. Montrose then named his witnesses. Lord Lindsay of the Byres, he said, had spoken to him of the Dictatorship. The man who had reported the talk against the King was John Stewart of Ladywell. For the Triumvirate, he referred the Committee to Argyll's proposed colleagues, Cassillis and Mar, and to others, also named, who were present when the plan was framed.
Ladywell was instantly summoned, and corroborated all that his word had been pledged for. Argyll broke into a storm of passionate denial, but the witness stood firm. "My lord," he said, "I heard you speak these words in Athole in presence of a great many people, whereof you are in good memory." Lindsay was next examined. He admitted the conversation, but persisted that he had not named Argyll. Montrose could say no more than that if his memory had played him false on this point, at least the tenor of Lindsay's words had left him in no doubt at whom they were aimed. This relieved the Committee from an embarrassing position. Lindsay's admissions, coming on the back of Ladywell's sworn evidence, had grievously disturbed them. IfMontrose was right, two of their stoutest champions had been dabbling in what their own articles condemned as treason. But as Montrose had admitted the possibility of being mistaken in one instance it was open to assume that he had been mistaken in all. They accordingly reported to that effect. Lindsay's words, they found, did not bear Montrose's interpretation.
There still remained Ladywell to deal with. A man cursed with such an inconvenient memory could not safely be suffered to go at large, and the unfortunate creature had already been for days under close ward in the Castle. All good Covenanters were now rejoiced, and probably not much surprised, to hear that he had confessed to have done Argyll wrong. The treasonable speeches made in Athole were, he now said, his own fabrication, and further that he had been persuaded to send copies of them to the King by Montrose's messenger, Walter Stewart. A watch was accordingly set for Stewart; he was arrested on his way home at Cockburnspath, between Berwick and Dunbar, and sent to keep his namesake company in the Castle.
A man who denies his oath under pressure of fear is not easily believed, except by those who expect to profit by his denial. But it is probable that Ladywell's second story was the true one. For, after all, his confession amounted to no more than this, that Argyll's conversation had been rather historical than personal; he had spoken generally of the relation of subjects to their kings, not directly of Charles and Scotland. This is certainly more consistent with Argyll's character, who was not wont to let his tongue go too freely in any company, and would hardly have selected an audienceof loyal Ogilvies and Atholemen for such confidences. Argyll indeed still swore that he had not broached the subject at all, and brought a crowd of Campbells to bear him out. But Ladywell's amended version was corroborated by the only one of his witnesses who was summoned. It seems on the whole impossible to doubt that Argyll had been making some experiments on the national temper in the direction of what even his own party was as yet obliged to call treason. These things were in the air. Clarendon's report of his conversation with Henry Martin at Westminster shows what was in many minds at this time, and Argyll's own speeches in Parliament during the previous year had gone some little way on the same road. Ladywell's partial recantation did not save him. Perhaps it was too partial; perhaps his exoneration of Montrose from any share in his deception disappointed his judges; perhaps they resolved not to run the risk of a third version. At all events, when he had signed his confession, he was sent back to prison, tried under that old statute of leasing-making which had raised such an outcry when revised four years ago by Charles against Balmerino, found guilty, and executed. To Guthrie, who attended him on the scaffold, the poor creature asserted at the last that he had been induced to bear false witness against himself by promises of pardon and reward. But when a man once begins to go back on his own words, even his most probable version must be received cautiously.
The other prisoner, Walter Stewart, proved a more valuable prize. To clear Argyll was after all no great matter, for Argyll was strong enough to clear himself. The important point was to convict Montrose. A letterto him from the King was discovered in the lining of Stewart's saddle. There was nothing in its language capable of being turned to his discredit, but it could be construed as an answer to some previous communication, and it certainly established the fact of a secret correspondence between the two which was contrary to the articles of the Covenant. And this was not all. Papers of a more suspicious nature were discovered—papers in Stewart's own hand, written in a strange jargon, where letters, phrases, and sometimes the names of animals were substituted for the names of persons. Stewart explained these as the heads of certain instructions entrusted to him by the Plotters to be delivered to the King through the hands of Lennox and Traquair. TheElephantorSerpentstood for Hamilton, theDromedaryfor Argyll, Montrose himself was theGenero, the lettersA B Csignified the four conspirators—and so forth. The papers also contained some suggestions as to the preferment of Montrose and himself, and a warning that if they were neglected it would go ill with the King.
Stewart, like his namesake, did not keep to one story. He altered much, added something, contradicted himself many times. Traquair, who was then in London, flatly denied all knowledge of the papers, nor would he believe that Montrose or any man of sense, if minded to play such a dangerous game, would have taken into his confidence a timorous half-witted fool like Stewart. The King wrote in his own hand to Argyll one of his ambiguous letters, committing himself to nothing beyond a declaration that his journey to Scotland had not been prompted by Montrose or Traquair to their own ends, but was intended solely to settle all disputes on theterms of the new treaty, and that he had given no promises of office to any man. He avowed his letter to Montrose as one fit to be written by a king to a good subject. Finally, he requested Argyll to do him right in this matter, and not permit him to be unjustly suspected. The day before this letter reached Edinburgh the four Plotters were arrested and sent as prisoners to the Castle.
Stewart's story, or stories, unquestionably rested on some foundation of truth, but on how much no man can tell. The accused, with the exception of Montrose, confessed to have talked with Stewart, but denied all knowledge of his hieroglyphics. Keir, indeed, owned to have been shown a paper by him containing some general propositions on public affairs which he understood to have been submitted to Charles by Lennox, and the King's answers. He gave a copy of it to Napier, but nothing seems to have been said either then or afterwards as to the author. Beyond this we cannot go. From this point of view Argyll and his faction were of course justified in regarding Montrose and his friends as conspirators. They were conspiring against Argyll, whom they believed to be the worst enemy of their country no less than of the King. Under his rule the Covenant had sunk to a mere faction, in which no honest patriot could any longer bear part or lot. They had persuaded themselves that salvation could come only by the King. He had promised all that a reasonable people could expect from him, and if he would hesitate no more nor go back again upon his word all would be well. While Argyll was carrying all before him, they could only work for their country's good in secret. So far they wereundoubtedly conspirators. Napier would have been soon set free at an early stage of the proceedings. He was an old man, much respected and liked by all parties. But he would not accept a favour which would imply, he said, a tacit confession of his guilt. Whatever their crime might be, they all shared it equally. Montrose refused, always courteously but persistently refused, to answer any questions before the Committee. If he was guilty, he said, let him be brought to a public trial. He was declared contumacious, and an order issued to make search for further evidence of treason against him. His servants were examined, his houses ransacked, his cabinets broken open, and his private papers read; but only one document was found that could by any ingenuity be turned against him. This was a defence of the Cumbernauld Bond, written, he assured the Committee, for his own private satisfaction only, now that the Bond had been burned and the whole affair, as he had supposed, laid for ever to rest. The Covenanting historians have described it as an "infamous and scurvey libel, full of vain humanities, magnifying to the skies his own courses, and debasing to hell his opposites." But as they have omitted to allow posterity the means of determining the justice of their description, and as Montrose's public writings and speeches certainly do not justify it, we may conclude that party feeling had something to do with these tremendous epithets. The Covenanters had in truth a profound belief in the wisdom of the advice embodied at a later day in the well-known formula,Give your judgment, but never give your reasons. They burned the Bond, they burned its justification, and then they thundered against both in safety. And they tookthe same prudent course in another matter. In one of Montrose's cabinets were found some letters written in earlier and happier years by ladies with whom the young gallant had danced and exchanged compliments in the flowery fashion of the time. Their contents were never made public, but evil things were freely circulated of them to the edification of the sterner sort of Puritans; though others held that Lord Sinclair, who had been entrusted with the search, had played no honourable part in chattering of such private matters.
Such was the position of affairs when the King arrived in Edinburgh on the evening of August 14th, 1641. As usual he was received with every semblance of respect. The nobles thronged to Holyrood to kiss his hand; Argyll made flattering speeches to him in Parliament; he was entertained at a splendid banquet, where his health was drunk in right loyal fashion. He attended the Presbyterian service zealously, and talked much with Henderson. He drove with Leslie, who had now brought his army back from England, through the city amid the cheers of a delighted crowd. But this halcyon weather could not last long. The time came to fill those vacant offices of State which Montrose was accused of claiming for himself and his friends; then Argyll put forth his hand, and the mortified King soon found that it was the hand which now practically wielded the sceptre of Scotland. An Act was passed, making the King's choice of his ministers dependent on the will of Parliament. It was next moved that Parliament should have the right of submitting their own nominees to the King, and that no one who had sided with him during the late troubles should be eligible. These arbitrarymeasures provoked indeed much discontent among the nobles, who had not stood up against the King to crouch under Argyll. "If this be what you call liberty," cried Perth, "God give me the old slavery again." But under their new Lords of the Articles the nobles, even if united, could no longer command a majority in Parliament; each Estate now chose its own lords, and out of the three two almost to a man followed Argyll. Outside the House, however, they had still to be reckoned with, and there the clamour against the popular leader was rising high. For the moment it was aimed even more against Hamilton, who, with his brother Lanark, was now openly courting Argyll, as against a renegade who had deserted both his faith and his friend. Ker, Lord Roxburgh's son, a headstrong young man who had once quarrelled and fought under the flag of the Covenant, publicly challenged Hamilton as a traitor. He was forced to apologise before the House, but he came up the High Street to make his submission escorted by six hundred armed retainers, and there were many who took a less tumultuous way of showing their sympathy with his action. Even Charles now found it a hard matter to keep his belief in the favourite unshaken.
At this juncture the King received a letter on which, after much reflection, he determined to take counsel. Twice already had Montrose written from his prison praying for an interview on matters of the deepest moment. The King would not see him nor answer his letters; a man in Montrose's position, he said, would promise much to secure an audience. Montrose now wrote a third time, no longer vaguely hinting of danger, but directly offering to prove some one, whom he did notname, but who was clearly Hamilton, a traitor. It was impossible to disregard warnings that now began to match so well with his own suspicions. Charles determined to lay the letter before the Chancellor, Loudon, and others, including Argyll himself, and to ask their advice.
Suddenly all Edinburgh broke into uproar. The news spread like wildfire that a plot had been discovered to murder Argyll, Hamilton, and Lanark, and that they had fled the city in fear of their lives. It was true that they had gone. Late on the evening of October 11th, the evening of the day on which the King had received Montrose's last letter, the three men had been warned of their danger by Leslie, and on the next day they left the city. But what was the danger, and from what quarter did it come? Leslie, when questioned, answered carelessly that the whole affair was a foolish business not worth talking of. On the afternoon of the 12th the King went down to Parliament to declare all he knew of the mystery. All he knew, if he told them all, was little enough. It really amounted to no more than that Hamilton had talked strangely to him of plots and calumnies, that he was very fond of Hamilton, and that it hurt him grievously to find himself distrusted by his friend. Finally he urged that his own credit, no less than Hamilton's, demanded an instant and public inquiry before the whole House. But Parliament insisted on the examination being conducted by a select committee; and after an unseemly wrangle lasting over several days, the King had to give way. The truth is that the Parliament had already begun to make inquiries, and what they had learned suggested the possibility of someawkward disclosures. The Earl of Crawford, a fiery old Papist who had learned fighting in the German wars and had carried Ker's challenge to Hamilton, had already been arrested, with some lesser men. It was known that Montrose had been in communication with the King, and they not unreasonably suspected both of being at least privy to the plot, if not of favouring it. It is impossible even to guess how much the King knew, but there can be little doubt that Montrose was in the secret. The story, first circulated by Clarendon, that he had offered at a private interview with the King to kill both Hamilton and Argyll, as the surest and speediest means of bringing a couple of traitors to their deserts, is now generally and justly discredited. But Clarendon, it should be remembered, gave two versions of this perplexing affair. The King, he writes, was warned by certain persons in the confidence of Montrose that Argyll and Hamilton were playing him false, and his leave was asked to bring them to justice. The majority of the nobles, he was told, were on his side, and ready, if he consented, to take the two traitors out of the reach of their retainers and lodge them securely in prison to await fair trial. While the King, doubtful of the chance of bringing their guilt home to such high offenders, was pondering these things, the two men (Lanark's name is not mentioned in Clarendon's story) suddenly and secretly left the capital on the plea that their enemies were plotting to murder them. Then followed a confused period of debates in Parliament, appointment of committees, examination of witnesses, charges and counter-charges, after which the fugitives returned to Edinburgh, acknowledging to the King that the danger,though assuredly no mere fancy, was perhaps less pressing than they had been led to believe; and so the trouble passed gradually away. Such in substance is Clarendon's original version of what is known in Scottish history as the Incident, and two centuries of research have enabled us to add little to it. But such is not the version that first appeared in Clarendon's pages. Twenty years after he had finished the greater part of the History of the Rebellion, he began, in banishment at Montpellier, to write the history of his own life. Many passages were subsequently transferred from the more private narrative to the pages of the History, and among them one in which Montrose's share in the Incident takes a new and startling complexion. He is now directly charged with offering to play the assassin. No authority is vouchsafed for the new story. For the old one Charles, and indirectly Montrose himself, stand sponsors. Clarendon did not live to finally revise the transcript of his History, and we can only therefore conjecture his reasons for changing an intelligible, if meagre, narrative of events, matching well with all that has been subsequently learned concerning them, for a grave personal charge which there is no tittle of evidence to prove. Such as it was, however, the History was published with all its imperfections on its head, nor did the world learn till more than a century later that there was another version of this strange story, clearing the memory of a brave and honourable man from an odious imputation.[10]
In this earlier version we probably have the true story of the Incident in outline. But all attempts to fill the outline in lead only to confusion. It is certain that there was a strong party among the nobles violently incensed against Hamilton and Argyll. Some, like Montrose, were no doubt convinced that these two men were playing both their king and country false; others were merely jealous of an influence won and exercised at their expense. The former were bent only on a fair trial; but to talk of a fair trial was idle while the culprits went at large with five thousand armed men at their back; the sole chance of proving their guilt was to render them incapable of resistance during its proof. Such was probably the original plan of the Incident, and if not devised by Montrose would assuredly have found no opposition from him; and such, it is not unreasonable to suppose, would have been his proposal to the King had his petition for a private interview been granted. Strange diseases, to borrow Argyll's own words, need strange remedies; and to enforce justice by violence, if it could be secured in no other way, would have shocked few Scotsmen of that day. Such at least, if the witnesses spoke truth, was the plan as it had shaped itself in Almond's mind, who intended andwould tolerate no more than was needed to ensure the straight course of the law. But the secret was shared by more unscrupulous spirits than Montrose or Almond. Carnwath had been heard to say with many curses that there were now three kings in Scotland, and that two of them must lose their heads. Crawford, who was to have been entrusted with the seizure, was reported to have declared that the best way to bring traitors to justice was to cut their throats. It was probably through such wild speeches that the plot miscarried. Many a man, and Montrose among them, had doubtless been well pleased to see Argyll or Hamilton at his sword's point on a fair field, who would lend no countenance to stabber's work. But it is not safe to put much reliance on the evidence of the witnesses. All of them contradicted each other, and many contradicted themselves. Conspicuous among them was William Murray, a member of the royal household and high in his master's confidence, who, unless foully wronged by history, was the most unconscionable rogue of all that treacherous time. He seems indeed to have been no better than a spy in the pay both of the Scottish Covenant and the English Parliament, and he was certainly intriguing at the same time with both Hamilton and Montrose. But in truth a suspicion of insincerity hangs over the whole inquiry. The Parliament were manifestly unwilling to press matters too closely. They would have been well pleased to prove the plot, could they have selected the plotters, and they did not want to hear too much about its intended victims.
On one point, however, they were firm. They determined to know the truth of the correspondence betweenMontrose and the King. Charles showed them the last letter, the letter on which he had decided to ask their advice before the storm of the Incident burst. Nothing was to be learned from it. It was couched in general terms, promising, if admitted to an interview, "to acquaint his Majesty with a business which not only did concern his honour in a high degree, but the standing and falling of his crown likewise." Montrose was twice examined on the meaning of these ambiguous words, once in the presence of the King at Holyrood by a special committee, and again before the general committee of inquiry. Both examinations were fruitless. Of the first there is no record; but from the meagre report preserved of the second Montrose seems to have adhered at both to the literal text of his letter, and to have declined to commit himself to any more definite statement. He did not intend, he is reported to have said, "neither could he, nor would he, wrong any particular person whatsoever." This answer, it is naïvely added, did not give the House satisfaction.
It was all the satisfaction they were to get. Wearied with an examination that would plainly not discover what they wished to find, and might discover what they wished to conceal, with fresh and more serious matters for thought in the startling news of the Irish rising, Parliament suffered the Incident to die a natural death. The fugitives were welcomed back to the capital with the assurance that they were honest men, loyal subjects, and good patriots. Argyll on his return carried all before him. The offices of State were filled with his nominees. The Privy Council was carefully weeded to make room for his friends. The unfortunate King, tofill the cup of his humiliation full, scattered titles with a lavish hand. Argyll was raised to a marquisate; Almond was created Earl of Callendar; bluff old Leslie took his seat among the peers of Scotland as Earl of Leven. To complete the burlesque, Crawford was released from custody without more ado, at the particular request of the magnanimous heroes whose throats he was to have cut. Even Montrose and his friends were suffered to share in the general amnesty, though after a colder fashion. On November 16th, after an imprisonment of five months without a trial, and without any specific allegation of offence, they were discharged with a caution "to carry themselves soberly and discreetly" for the future, and to appear for trial when required. Charles bound himself never to employ their services again without the consent of Parliament, or suffer them to approach his presence; and on the 18th of November he left Scotland for the last time, a contented prince, as he professed to believe, taking leave of a contented people.
It was not till the following March that the case against the Plotters was finally closed. The mockery of their trial was continued at intervals throughout the winter, but no fresh evidence was found against them, no report of their examination was ever published, nor indeed was any formal judgment ever delivered. It had been decided that sentence should be left to the King. The committee, in short, was playing the same game that had already proved so successful in the affairs of the Bond and the Incident. By keeping the inquiry secret the real weakness of their case was concealed, and by refraining from a punishment thatthey could not inflict they acquired an easy reputation for mercy, while leaving the accused open to every charge that the imagination of fear or faction could devise. It was even intimated that the prisoners owed their escape to Argyll's clemency. Argyll's clemency consisted in refusing to press matters to an extremity which he foresaw might prove more inconvenient to his friends than to his enemies. But in truth he could have afforded to be merciful. For the second time Montrose had challenged him on his own ground, and for the second time victory, even more signally than before, had declared for him.