The Covenanters had not lingered in pursuit, and on the night of the 14th the two armies bivouacked within three miles of each other. Baillie would have preferred to wait for Lanark, but the committee overruled him. To delay even an hour was folly. Their enemy lay in an open space surrounded by hills, in a trap, as these wiseheads thought, from which there must be no escape.Numbers, too, were on their side. The Royalists had but a little over four thousand foot and five hundred horse to set against the six thousand foot and eight hundred horse nominally commanded by Baillie. Montrose was equally confident. He had shown his men the enemy, and asked if they would fight or retreat. The answer was unanimous for fight. He bade his soldiers strip to their shirts, for the day was hot, and they would have to charge uphill. He could not suppose that even such generals as Argyll and Elcho would forego their advantage of ground, while rough or smooth was all one to his men. Yet even this monstrous folly was forced on the unfortunate Baillie. The hills surrounding the meadow in which the Royalists lay were for the most part steep and rugged, up which a Highlander would scamper like a deer, but the heavier-footed and heavier-armed Lowland troops would hardly descend in good order. But on the right of the Covenanters' position lay a smoother and gentler declivity, by which they might march directly down upon Montrose's left flank—if Montrose would let them. In vain Baillie warned his sapient advisers that a flank movement was a perilous one in the face of an enemy, that it would lead them from a superior position to one where they would have small advantage if they gained it, and which the enemy could easily seize first if he detected their design. In vain he reminded them that this was their last chance, and that the loss of this day would be the loss of the kingdom. The committee persisted, and Baillie, disclaiming all further responsibility, proceeded to carry his fatal orders into effect.
There was only one chance for the Covenanters. Bykeeping behind the crest of the hills they might conceal their movements from the enemy till they had reached their ground. This chance was lost. A party of soldiers crept down from their ranks over the ridge and attacked Montrose's advanced guard of Highlanders, which was posted under Macdonald in some enclosures on the slope above the meadow. Macdonald easily drove them back, and then started up the hillside in pursuit. It was done against orders, but it was well done. Right up the hill pressed the nimble Highlanders, and over it into the very heart of the straggling column. At the same time Montrose, seeing Baillie's design, sent some of the Gordon infantry round to the left to anticipate it. They were not enough, and a party of their mounted kinsmen, whom Aboyne led to their aid, recoiled before the heavy cuirassiers of the Covenant. For a time things looked badly for the Royalists in this quarter, but for a time only. Montrose ordered Airlie to the rescue. The gallant old Earl led his Ogilvies to the charge up the smoother ground; Nathaniel Gordon followed with the rest of his cavalry; while Montrose led his main body up the hill after the Highlanders. The head and centre of his column being now in hopeless confusion, the men fighting at random and the officers asking each other what was to be done, Baillie galloped to the rear to bring up the Fife levies. They were already in flight. There was nothing now left for those who could do so but to follow their example. The stupid authors of all this disaster were among the first to leave the field. Some fled to Stirling, some to the Firth where they took ship for Berwick. Among the latter was Argyll, who thus for the third timeescaped by water from the man he dared not face on land. Most of the cavalry were able to save themselves, but on the luckless foot the slaughter in Methven Wood was amply avenged. For fourteen miles the ground was strewn with dead bodies; out of six thousand who had begun the fatal flank march at morning, scarce one hundred were alive at nightfall. The strength of the Covenant was broken in pieces like a potter's vessel. Montrose had fulfilled his boast. He was now in very truth master of all Scotland.
The results of this crowning victory were soon manifested. Lanark fled to Berwick; the Western levies melted into air. Glasgow welcomed the conqueror with open gates and a promise of money. The Lowland lords came in from every side with greetings and proffers of service. The shires of Lanark, Renfrew, and Ayr, which had ever been a stronghold of fanaticism, sent deputations to sue for pardon. Edinburgh followed the example of Glasgow. The submission of her citizens was indeed complete and abject. The prisons were thrown open at the first sound of the victor's trumpet, and the captives implored to intercede for their jailers. They confessed their sins; they had been misled by crafty and seditious spirits; henceforward they would be true and loyal subjects, and would hold no communion with rebels. Men they could not offer for their King's service, for the pestilence had been raging in their narrow and crowded streets, but money was freely promised. All suppliants were graciously received, and bidden not to despair of the royal pardon.[18]
Montrose had now nobly redeemed his pledge. In six pitched battles he had swept the armies of the Covenant from off the face of Scotland. Wherever he had met them, under whatever conditions, he had out-generalled and out-fought them. From Dan to Beersheba the country, which twelve short months since had been the hotbed of rebellion, lay in abject submission at the feet of its defied and insulted sovereign. And this had been accomplished in the face of every discouragement, of broken promises, of cold or treacherous allies, without the material or supplies of a regular army, by the resolution, the courage, and the skill of a single man. There is nothing like it in the history of war.
And what was to come of it? Already before the battle of Kilsyth the King had made an effort to join his one victorious general, and had failed. Would he be more successful now? Digby was sanguine, and with Digby at his side Charles never lost heart. Rumours came down from the North of another victory, and this time on the English side of the Border. In this new dawn of hope the defeat on Rowton Heath faded into insignificance. Everything was arranged. On September 26th Charles was at Denbigh with two thousand cavalry, the only force now left him in the North. On the morrow he would march for Scotland. But on the morrow came a despatch from Byron at Chester, with intelligence that changed the wholeaspect of affairs. Another battle had indeed been fought, but not on the English side. A single day, a single hour almost, had destroyed the harvest of a year's victories. Montrose was in flight; his army had been cut to pieces; the Covenant was once more master of Scotland.
As usual jealousy and intrigue had been at work. The Highlanders, disappointed at being refused the plunder of Glasgow, and seeing no prospect of further booty, began to murmur. They had fought enough for King Charles; there was an enemy nearer home with whom they had not yet settled all accounts. Macdonald's thoughts were also turning in the same direction. He had just been knighted in the presence of the whole army by Montrose, who now bore the King's commission as Captain-General and Viceroy of Scotland, and had been profuse in expressions of gratitude for what still ranked among the highest honours in the sovereign's gift. But the thought of the vengeance and plunder to be won by leading his kinsmen to a fresh raid against the accursed Campbells was too much for Sir Alaster's loyalty. Before the end of August he had left the camp with the Highlanders, who had named him their captain, and most of his Irishmen. He promised indeed to return when his services were required; but it is doubtful whether his promise was ever intended to be kept, and it is certain that he and Montrose never met again. Five hundred of his men refused to follow him, vowing that not even at their own leader's call would they desert the general who had led them so often to victory. Aboyne was the next to go. Ever since the day ofKilsyth he had been out of humour. He was not treated with sufficient respect in camp; his services had not been sufficiently represented to the King; it was all Ogilvy now with Montrose, and the heir of the Gordons would give place to no Ogilvy. The jealous young fool accordingly called his men out, and rode off to his own place. Four hundred horse and a large body of foot went with him. Out of all the gentlemen of his name, Nathaniel Gordon alone remained faithful. When Montrose broke up his camp at Bothwell and marched for the Border, his whole following numbered no more than five hundred Irishmen and less than a hundred troopers.
Still his heart was as high as ever, nor was his confidence less. The messenger who had brought his commission as Viceroy of Scotland had brought also an urgent message to lose no time in advancing to the Tweed, where the long-desired junction with the King was at last to be effected. The great Border Earls, Home and Roxburgh, had promised their co-operation. Traquair had hastened to make his peace with the stronger power, and his son Linton arrived in Montrose's camp with a troop of horse to confirm his father's loyalty. Douglas and Ogilvy were raising the West and Middle Marches, and though the House of Douglas was but a shadow of that great power which had once bearded kings upon their throne, it was still a name to conjure with in the Scottish Lowlands. If his new allies stood firm, all would yet go well for King Charles.
It was all a delusion. His new allies had never intended from the first to risk anything for King Charles, and most assuredly would they risk nothingfor his Viceroy. But they were equally resolved to run no risk for the Covenant, and even in his weakness Montrose was still a formidable foe. For the present, therefore, it was their cue to be loyal; but though profuse in their welcome to the King's General, as he drew down through the Lothians to the Tweed, they kept a watchful eye for the advancing banner of the Covenant. The news of Kilsyth and the humiliation of Edinburgh had stirred the Scottish troops in England to fury. All the horse they could muster, four thousand strong, was pressing fast northwards under David Leslie, one of the best cavalry officers of the age. As they streamed across the Border at Berwick, reinforced by two thousand foot from Newcastle, Home and Roxburgh surrendered without lifting a hand, and were even accused of having petitioned for arrest to save them from the possible vengeance of Montrose.
Montrose was already at Kelso when he learned the news. It was now impossible for him to advance. Of all his new allies Douglas had alone proved true. He had joined Montrose on the Gala with such troops as he had been able to raise; but, with the exception of his own personal friends and the gentlemen of his House, they were mostly raw clowns unused to arms and scarce able to manage their horses. Nor, such as they were, could they be trusted. Even the voice of a Douglas could hardly persuade his tenants to fight for a cause and under a leader whom they both feared and hated. The success of the King signified, in their eyes, the destruction of their religion; the success of Montrose signified a carnival of murder, lust, and rapine for the wild Irish savages whom he led to the destruction of his country. Thisfeeling had been carefully fostered by the Covenanters, till the simple peasants of the Lowlands heard the name of Montrose with the same feelings of terror and hatred that forty years later were inspired among their sons by the name of Dundee. On the eastern Border it was plain that there was no hope; but something might yet be done in the West which had promised so much but a short while since. Montrose broke up his camp at Kelso, and, striking off on a north-westerly course, came on the evening of September 12th to Selkirk.
It had been Leslie's design to make straight for the Forth to bar his enemy's retreat to the Highlands. But on his way through the Lothians he heard how weak that enemy was. It was commonly believed that the traitor was Traquair, a belief that receives some support from the fact that he about this time recalled his son from the Royalist camp. Through whatever channel the news came it at once changed Leslie's plans. He turned abruptly south and marched rapidly down Gala Water to meet Montrose.
The main body of the Royalists was encamped on Philiphaugh, a long and level meadow on the left bank of the Ettrick, immediately below its junction with the Yarrow. Behind rose the hills; in front ran the river; at the western end the ground sloped upwards to a wooded declivity known as Harehead-shaw. This strong position had been still further secured by some trenches hastily thrown up on either flank. Here lay the Irish infantry, with the country levies horse and foot, less than two thousand strong in all. But by some strange infatuation Montrose had fixed his own quarters in the town onthe opposite bank of the river with the best part of the horse and all his principal captains. His little army was thus divided in half, and his men separated from their officers, at the moment when the bravest and most skilful foe he had yet encountered was creeping on him through the darkness at the head of a force more than four times his strength. It is not surprising that Montrose should have been ignorant of Leslie's change of route when we remember that he was in the midst of a population bitterly hostile to himself and his cause. But that his own scouts should have suffered so large a force to advance unobserved within a mile of his lines is indeed inexplicable. If it be true, as one account reports, that they were mostly Traquair's tenants employed on this service as familiar with the country, the explanation is found. Wishart confesses that Montrose, whose custom had always hitherto been to post his own sentinels and give his own orders to his scouts, on this night left the duty to his officers, being busy with despatches for the King. The duty may have been negligently performed; the quarter from which Leslie was advancing may have been inefficiently patrolled, or even left altogether open. The night was dark and the morning misty. But even had the mist been thick as that which shrouded the "last, dim, weird battle of the west," it is not in the course of nature for four thousand horsemen and two thousand foot to draw within a mile without signifying their approach to the most careless ears. It is hard not to believe that there were some men abroad on the morning of the 13th, either in Selkirk or on Philiphaugh, who were aware of Leslie's advance. No excuse will serve to acquit Montrose and his officers of grave negligence;but only treachery can make intelligible the extraordinary and overwhelming suddenness of Leslie's attack.[19]
Montrose had passed most of the night over his despatches and in consultation with his council, Crawford, Airlie, and Napier,—for the old man was not so unfit for fighting that he could not strike one blow for the King. From time to time reports were brought to him that all was well. At dawn his scouts came in swearing that they had scoured the country far and wide, and that there was not an enemy within ten miles. The day broke dark and chill, and the mist still lay heavy on the river-banks when Leslie, at the head of his troopers, burst in upon Philiphaugh. He had reached Melrose on the previous evening. Only six miles of country, patrolled, if Montrose's scouts spoke truth, in every direction,separated the two armies during the night. Before dawn he was on the march for Selkirk. A countryman guided him to a ford by which he crossed the Ettrick a mile below the town. As the soldiers of the royal army were getting leisurely under arms for an early parade the enemy was in their midst.
A scout came galloping into Selkirk with the news as Montrose sat at breakfast. Leaping into the saddle he dashed through the river, followed by his officers and a few score of troopers. Many of his cavalry never came into action at all. When he reached the ground his left wing was already broken; the raw Borderers had fled at the first sound of Leslie's trumpets. On the right the Irish stood firm. For these poor Ishmaelites there was no hope but in victory, and with their backs to the wood they fought like men to the last. So fiery was Montrose's charge that twice, at the head of one hundred and fifty horsemen, he drove back the whole strength of Leslie's squadrons. The gallant Airlie and his son, Napier and the young Master, Crawford and Douglas and Nathaniel Gordon, fought like paladins at their General's side. It was of no avail. A force that had been detached to cross the river above Selkirk broke in upon the right wing from the rear. Man after man the Irish were falling in their ranks; horse after horse broke riderless from those desperate charges. But still Montrose fought on, as though determined to die on the field he could not save. Then his friends urged retreat. The cause was not lost, they said, for a single repulse. Gathering the survivors round him for a last effort, he cut his way out through the press, and, followed by about fifty horsemen, galloped off thefield. Both the standards were saved. All else was lost.
About one hundred Irishmen still remained alive. They threw down their arms and asked for quarter. It was granted them; but for their wretched wives and children and the unarmed rabble of the camp there was no mercy. The horrid scene in Methven Wood was acted again, and they were slaughtered with every circumstance of the most inhuman brutality.[20]Nor was the bitterness of death past even for those who had trusted to Leslie's honour. On the morning after the battle they were brought out into the courtyard of Newark Castle and shot down in cold blood. On the march to Glasgow many prisoners were taken. Those of rank were reserved for trial. Eighty women and children, who had escaped the shambles at Philiphaugh, and were found wandering naked and half-starved among the hills, were flung in batches from the bridge at Linlithgow.
Never, perhaps, was the indomitable energy of Montrose more signally manifested than at this tremendous crisis. Within four days after he had spurred in headlong flight over Minchmoor he was busy in Athole issuing orders and raising fresh levies for the King, as though the rout at Philiphaugh had been but an evil dream. The Napiers were still with him, and Airlie and Crawford with a few troopers. If Macdonald would bring his men back, if the Gordons could once more be stirred to action, the royal banner wouldsoon wave over a fresh army in Scotland. And for a time things promised well. Macdonald, indeed, gave no sign; but the trusty Atholemen rose to the call, and with these Montrose hurried over the Grampians into the Gordons' country. Aboyne seemed to have shaken off his ill-humour, and joined him with a large muster of horse and foot. The enemy was divided. Middleton with the bulk of the cavalry lay at Turriff, watching Huntly who had again begun to show some signs of life; Leslie was still at Glasgow. It was to Glasgow that Montrose's hopes pointed; for there lay not only his most dangerous enemy but some of his dearest friends: the gallant Ogilvy, the good Spottiswoode, Nathaniel Gordon, and others, prisoners under sentence of an ignominious death. It were shame not to strike a blow for those who had never failed him. Duty, too, called him south as well as friendship. Glasgow lay between him and the Borders, and still, as ever, it was on the Borders that he looked for the King. Within less than a month Montrose, at the head of a stronger force than he had led into defeat at Philiphaugh, was once more on the march for the South.
It was a fatal move. Had he crushed Middleton first, he would have relieved Huntly from a present danger, and might have fixed the Gordons to his side. Now it was but the old story again. Aboyne was ordered by his father to return, and did not choose to disobey him. It is vain to speculate on Huntly's motives. Whether he acted from a sense of self-preservation, or from sheer jealousy of Montrose, he acted a part unworthy of the man who had once fearlessly professed his loyalty in the face of his enemies and washereafter to seal it with his life. Montrose had now no choice but to leave the prisoners in Glasgow to their fate. Had he known that Digby was then actually at Dumfries with the long-promised reinforcements, he might have pushed on at all hazards, and shortened the story of his life by a chapter. But he never learned the news of Charles's desperate effort to keep faith with him till long after it had failed. With a heavy heart he turned back to the shelter of the friendly mountains, and Digby, a bolder general in council than in the field, took refuge in the Isle of Man.
The clouds were now gathering fast round Montrose. As he re-entered Athole word was brought to him of his wife's death. To us she is but the shadow of a name, nor is there reason to suppose that she had ever shared her husband's feelings or shown any sympathy with his career. But she was the bride of his youth, the mother of the gallant boy who had fought at his side and who had been already snatched from him by an untimely fate. At the risk of his life he saw her buried in the town of Montrose, and was hunted back into Athole from the grave-side by Middleton's troopers. There a fresh sorrow awaited him. During his absence the aged Napier, worn out with the long struggle, had breathed his last, and was now carried to his well-earned rest in the church of Blair. The new year brought little comfort, though an interview with Huntly seemed for the moment likely to bear fruit. In the invigorating presence of Montrose the chief of the Gordons swore to hesitate no longer, and his sons, in Wishart's vigorous words, "wished damnation to themselves" if they were not true men for the future. If the Powers of Darkness took them at their wordthey were assuredly damned. The Gordons were indeed summoned to arms, and some languid operations commenced; but no arguments, no supplications even on Montrose's part, could induce Huntly to co-operate with him. Meanwhile, his friends met the fate from which he was powerless to save them. The Irish officers who had been brought alive from Philiphaugh had already been hanged without a trial in Edinburgh. Sir William Rollo, Sir Philip Nisbet, and young Ogilvy of Innerquharity, a handsome boy not eighteen years old, were beheaded at Glasgow.[21]Nathaniel Gordon, Alexander Guthrie, and William Murray now suffered the same fate at St. Andrews. Staunch Covenanter as he was, Tullibardine could not win his brother's life—even after a respite on the plea of insanity. Sir Robert Spottiswoode was the next victim. He had never borne arms against the Covenant, and had only a cane in his hand when taken prisoner in the flight from Philiphaugh; but as the King's Secretary for Scotland he had signed Montrose's commission, and he was the son of an Archbishop. Lord Ogilvy only escaped through the courage of his sister, who, with his wife and mother, had been permitted to visit him in prison. She took her brother's place in bed, while he passed out through the guards in her clothes. Argyll was furious at the escape of one of the hated House of Airlie, and all the influence of the Hamiltons was needed to save the brave woman from his anger.
Yet still Montrose, hoping against hope, struggled on. All his relatives and friends were dead, in prison, or in exile. His lands had been laid waste, his castles burned to the ground. Only his sword was left that he could call his own. But he had drawn that sword at his King's command, and only at his King's command would he sheath it.
And now that command was given. Charles had fled in disguise from Oxford to the Scottish camp. He seems to have persuaded himself that he would be welcomed as an ally by men who were growing weary of a struggle now fast shaping itself to issues they had never dreamed of and for which they would assuredly have never fought. He found himself insulted as a prisoner. On the very day of his arrival he was imperiously requested by Lothian, as President of the Committee, to command James Graham to lay down his arms. "He who made you an Earl," was the spirited answer, "made James Graham a Marquis." But the time for such spirit was past. On May 19th Charles wrote from Newcastle directing Montrose to disband his forces, to leave Scotland, and to await further instructions in France. "This may at first justly startle you," wrote the unhappy King; "but I assure you that if for the present I should offer to do more for you, I could not do so much." Montrose replied that he should not presume to question his Majesty's commands, but obey them in all humility. Only he would venture to remind the King that something was due to those who had endured and risked so much for him, and that some measures should be taken for securing their lives and properties when no longer allowed arms to defend them.The King bade him accept the terms offered him. "The most sensible part of my misfortunes," he wrote, "is to see my friends in distress, and not to be able to help them. And of this kind you are the chief. Wherefore, according to that real freedom and friendship which is between us, as I cannot absolutely command you to accept of unhandsome conditions, so I must tell you that I believe your refusal will put you in a far worse estate than your compliance will." If Montrose refused he was warned that he must do so on his own responsibility. The King could no longer avow him.
The terms were better than might have been expected. Middleton, who conducted the negotiations, had no wish to press too hard on a brave enemy. All Montrose's followers were to go free in life and lands, save one whose estates had been already made prize of and could not be reclaimed. Three men only were excepted. Montrose himself, Crawford, and Hurry (who had changed sides again after his defeat at Auldearn) were to leave the kingdom by the first of September in a vessel provided by the Estates. After that day their lives would be forfeit. The terms were accepted. At Rattray in Perthshire, on July 30th, Montrose called round him for the last time the survivors of that devoted band which he had led so often to victory, and had found so faithful in defeat. In the King's name he bade them farewell, and released them from the King's service. Many implored with tears to be allowed to share his fortunes whatever they might be, and swore on their knees to follow him to the world's end. But he would not suffer them to risk their hard-won pardon.He reminded them that they were serving their King still by obeying him, and withdrew with a few chosen followers to the bare and battered halls of Old Montrose to prepare for his departure.
The danger was not yet past. The Covenanters were furious when they learned Middleton's easy terms; and Montrose soon found that, though they could not openly repudiate them, they were bent on annulling them by secret treachery. If he was found on Scottish soil after the first day of September his life would not be worth an hour's purchase. The ship provided for his voyage did not come into the port of Montrose till the last day of August, and her captain, a morose Covenanter, swore that he could not be ready to sail for another week. The exiles were not unprepared. Arrangements had been made for their transport with a Norwegian skipper lying off Stonehaven. On the morning of September 3rd he took his passengers on board and weighed anchor. In the evening the Marquis, in disguise and with a single companion, slipped into a wherry in the port of Montrose and rejoined his friends on the open sea. A few days later they were all safely landed at Bergen.
Montrose knew the temper of the men who now ruled Scotland too well to share in the delusions that had brought Charles into their power. From the Scottish to the English camp would prove, he felt certain, but a short step. As clearly as we see it now, though from a different point of view, he saw that the time for compromise was past, and that on one side or the other the victory must be absolute and unconditional. But though right in his conviction that peace could only be won at the sword's point, Montrose did not recognise that the power of the sword had passed for ever from the King. He even flattered himself that the tide was on the turn at the very moment when he had been ordered to lay down his arms, and that a few weeks would have seen all the Royalists in Scotland united as one man to rescue their sovereign from the cruel and treacherous hands into which he had fallen. It was a delusion as complete as the delusion of Charles. He might, indeed, have continued a desultory campaign among the mountains so long as he remained alive and free; he might have indulged the King with another Kilsyth, or the Macdonalds with another Inverlochy; but no man living,not Oliver himself, could have succeeded where Montrose had failed. Statesman and soldier had alike been powerless to persuade or compel those unstable chiefs and their wild followers to the order, discipline, and concord necessary to ensure success in all military operations. In another generation another Graham had to face the same problem; but Dundee, more fortunate than his kinsman, was saved from the same failure by a glorious death on the field of battle.
And yet the course of Scottish affairs during the next two years seems at first to suggest that the genius of Montrose might have guided them to different issues. The jealousy and irresolution of Huntly must always have paralysed every effort that he might permit to assist him. But the strange outburst of popular feeling which culminated in the abortive enterprise known as Hamilton's Engagement, might under a vigorous and skilful leader have at least saved the King's life. There was no such leader then in Scotland save Montrose alone. Yet the certainty of victory under Montrose would never have tempted the men who cheerfully followed Hamilton to inevitable defeat. It may be true that Lanark professed himself willing to serve under Montrose in the capacity even of a sergeant; but the words, if sincere, were not spoken till after the annihilation of his party, when he was himself a fugitive and his brother a prisoner. At the time when Hamilton dared to make a stand against the tyranny of Argyll, Montrose, outside the little circle of his own friends and followers, was the object of general aversion to all Scotland. Royalists like Huntly and trimmers like Traquair were jealous of him. The extreme Covenanters, headed by Argyll and includingthe large majority of the clergy, hated him with the deadly hatred that only fear can inspire. By the more moderate Presbyterians, who now called themselves Royalist, he was distrusted as a renegade from the Covenant and the champion, as they conceived him, of Episcopacy. Nor did they even call their cause the same. The restoration of the monarchy was their rallying cry as it had been his; but while they were arming against an English foe, his victories had been won against his own countrymen. The cruelties practised in the name of the Covenant had excited no indignation; for they had been practised in remote parts of the kingdom either on men who were regarded as little better than wild beasts, or on men who were fighting against the sacred cause of religion and liberty. Even the butchery after Philiphaugh was but the just vengeance of God. But thousands of homes had been left desolate, and thousands of innocent lives lost, to gratify the vain and furious ambition of Montrose. Such in times of disorder will always be the reasoning of the stronger side. It is possible, indeed, that the enthusiasm of these new Royalists was in some degree due to the feeling that it would not be forced to submit to the dictation of a man whose ways were not theirs. Only among the Highlanders could Montrose have found allies, and among their mountains was his only battle-ground. They knew nothing of Kirk or Covenant, of Presbyterian or Independent. The men of Macdonald bore no grudge against the destroyer of the Campbells; the men of Athole would have heard without a murmur that every Mackenzie had been put to the sword from Kintail to Loch Broom. They didnot care, probably the majority did not know, for what they had been marching, plundering, and fighting from Aberdeen to Inverary. They knew only that they were following a captain who led them always to revenge and booty. But in the Lowlands Montrose had no party, and to the Lowlands his allies would not follow him. It is a hard thing to say, but it is the plain truth, that all his brilliant exploits, his dauntless courage, his ardent and unselfish devotion to a noble, if mistaken, ideal had proved of no real service to his master. Had Strafford lived to join hands with Montrose the history of the Great Rebellion might have been differently written. But Montrose stood alone, the champion of a lost cause, the martyr of an impossible loyalty. All the circumstances of the time were against him, its spirit and its temper, its ideals and its convictions. At the moment when he was ordered to disband his forces, Montrose was the King's most dangerous ally.
The scene was now shifted from the Highlands of Scotland to the French capital, but the play was the same. Here Montrose had expected to find the promised instructions from the King and the necessary credentials, but if they ever reached Paris they never came into his hands. His plan for renewing the war had been already submitted to the Queen, and had received her gracious approval. But fair words were all he was to get from Henrietta Maria. Help she would not, or could not give. Money was scarce among the exiles; the Queen was extravagant and her courtiers greedy. She did nothing without the advice of Jermyn, and the advice of the favourite was never given against his own interests. He kept the purse, and would allow no strange fingersin it. Not a pistole could be spared from the maintenance and amusements of the little household for the wild schemes of an enthusiast who could no longer be useful and might prove troublesome. At such a court Montrose could not be welcome. Nor does his own behaviour seem to have been altogether judicious. He was accused of setting too high a claim on his past services, of a manner unbecoming a subject in the presence of his Queen; and the publication of Wishart's narrative of his exploits, which might indeed have been postponed to a more favourable time, is said to have been seriously resented, as likely to offend the Presbyterian party to whom the Royalists were now turning for help. So ran the gossip of the time, perhaps not entirely without reason. Montrose had always worn his heart upon his sleeve. For the King's sake he was ready to undergo every hardship, to submit to every indignity. But it was not in his nature to waive what he considered his just claims before men who had sat idle while he fought, and now rejected him when he had failed. He may well have been galled to see these proud carpet-knights preferred to those who had borne the burden and heat of the day, to find himself and his faithful followers slighted and in want, while money was freely lavished on the Queen's French servants and English favourites.
But though Montrose won no honour among his own countrymen, his pride might have been soothed by the admiration he excited elsewhere. He was the first person whom visitors to Paris desired to see. De Retz begged for the honour of an interview, praised him everywhere, and introduced him to Mazarin. TheCardinal at once offered him high employment and liberal pay, and promised more. But Montrose had no taste for the French service, nor belief in the Cardinal's promises. He thought that he might serve both his King and himself better at the Austrian Court. In the spring of 1648, after one more attempt to gain the Queen to his side, and finding her now pledged to the Presbyterian alliance, he left Paris and, travelling through Switzerland and the Tyrol, came to the Emperor at Prague.
Ferdinand received him graciously, conferred on him the baton of a field-marshal, and lent a ready ear to his plans. Montrose was commissioned to levy regiments for his King in Flanders, and furnished with letters of recommendation to the Emperor's brother Leopold, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands. His reception by the Archduke, whom he found at Tournay, was no less gracious; but the crushing defeat inflicted by Condé on the Imperial forces at Lens made any active aid from this quarter impossible, and Montrose went on to join his friends at Brussels.
The Prince of Wales had now broken from the irksome bondage of his mother and Jermyn, and was settled at the Hague with Sir Edward Hyde for his Chancellor. There, too, were his brother the Duke of York, and his aunt Elizabeth of Bohemia, the gifted and unfortunate Queen of Hearts, with her son Prince Rupert. With the latter Montrose at once opened a correspondence. Rupert answered cordially, but his new duties as Admiral of the Fleet left him, he said, no present leisure for an interview. At the Hague, as at Paris, Montrose had his enemies. One friend,indeed, supported him with all the ardour of a brave and generous woman. Between the nature of Elizabeth of Bohemia and the nature of Montrose there was much in common, and the warm sympathy that sprang up between these two noble spirits forms the one pleasant incident of this dark and miserable time.[22]But the rest, though more gracious than their countrymen in Paris, still held aloof. The complete and ignominious failure of Hamilton's Engagement had poured a fresh body of exiles into Holland, who persisted in assuring the Prince that only through Presbyterian Scotland could salvation come, and in warning him against the employment of a man so universally detested as Montrose. Charles was, on one side at least, the true son of his father. He was determined to keep friends with both parties, and to commit himself to neither. But for the present it was clearly not his interest to offend the Presbyterians, who had the advantage of numbers and were moreover on the spot. Hyde was therefore commissioned to hold a secret interview with Montrose, and was on the point of leaving the Hague for that purpose, when a fresh and terrible turn was given to affairs by the news of the King's execution.
Wishart tells us that on the receipt of the intelligence Montrose fell down in a swoon. On recovering he brokeinto passionate exclamations of grief, declaring that there was nothing now left for him in life. His chaplain, in the spirit rather of the Cavalier than the clergyman, reminded him that vengeance was still left, and that the murdered King's son still lived. "It is so," answered Montrose; "and therefore I swear before God, angels, and men, that I will dedicate the remainder of my life to avenging the death of the royal martyr, and re-establishing his son upon his father's throne." He then retired to his room, and would see no one for two days. On the third morning, Wishart, being admitted, found that the Marquis had embodied his vow in the following lines, which may be admired for their passion if not for their elegance:
Great, Good, and Just, could I but rateMy grief with thy too rigid fate,I'd weep the world in such a strainAs it should deluge once again;But since thy loud-tongued blood demands suppliesMore from Briareus' hands than Argus' eyes,I'll sing thine obsequies with trumpet-sounds,And write thine epitaph in blood and wounds.
Great, Good, and Just, could I but rateMy grief with thy too rigid fate,I'd weep the world in such a strainAs it should deluge once again;But since thy loud-tongued blood demands suppliesMore from Briareus' hands than Argus' eyes,I'll sing thine obsequies with trumpet-sounds,And write thine epitaph in blood and wounds.
Great, Good, and Just, could I but rateMy grief with thy too rigid fate,I'd weep the world in such a strainAs it should deluge once again;But since thy loud-tongued blood demands suppliesMore from Briareus' hands than Argus' eyes,I'll sing thine obsequies with trumpet-sounds,And write thine epitaph in blood and wounds.
A new element was now added to the factions which seethed round the little Court at the Hague. Charles the Second had been proclaimed in Edinburgh immediately on the news of his father's death, and commissioners now arrived from the Estates to dictate to him, whom they had just acknowledged as their King, the sole conditions under which he could be allowed to enter his kingdom. The Estates meant Argyll; the chief commissioners were his sworn friends, Cassillis and Robert Baillie; the terms they offered were those the late Kinghad lost his life by refusing. The moderate Presbyterians, the survivors of the Engagement, were represented by Lanark and Lauderdale. As they were now outcasts equally with Montrose, it might have been thought that they would make common cause with him against the common enemy. The King used all his courtliest arts to effect a reconciliation which might give him the power of dictating instead of accepting terms; but his arguments and entreaties were alike vain. Sworn foes on all other points, Engagers and Covenanters were at one in their denunciation of the bloody murderer James Graham. Among the former the bitterest was Lauderdale, whose name was destined to become a byword throughout Scotland for brutality. Hyde attempted to reason with him. He was told that it was in the nature of such a war as had lately raged in Scotland to give no quarter on either side; he was reminded that Montrose had never been guilty of such deliberate cruelties as his adversaries had freely perpetrated, that he had taken no man's life in cold blood, nor ever broken his faith with a prisoner. That Hyde spoke truth Lauderdale could not deny, but the truth mattered nothing. He swore passionately that, greatly as he desired the King's restoration, he would rather that it should never be effected, than effected with the help of this cruel and inhuman James Graham. How much of this indignation was sincere, and how much assumed as a cloak for the intrigues of faction, it would be hard to say. That there was a deep and widespread feeling in Scotland against Montrose is certain; but it is difficult to believe that pity for human suffering can at any time have strongly moved such a man as Lauderdale.The rest of the party followed his lead. They would not meet Montrose in council; they would not stay in the royal presence when he came into it; they desired the King not to permit Wishart to preach before him, on the ostensible grounds that he, like Montrose, was under the ban of the Kirk, but in reality because he was Montrose's chaplain and had written a narrative of his exploits. This foolish and insolent violence had the natural effect. Charles turned to Montrose, and frankly asked for his advice on the commissioners' proposals. It was as frankly given. The King was warned that his hereditary right of succession was being changed for "a conditional election ofansandifs" which must inevitably leave him a mere tool in the hands of Argyll and the Kirk; that to sign their Solemn League and Covenant would be to condemn his father's memory by countenancing the origin of the rebellion that had cost him his kingdom and life. He was reminded that the very men who had proclaimed him King were even now slandering, persecuting, and murdering his faithful subjects whose only crime was loyalty to the Throne. Finally he was recommended to be resolute and bold, and to trust the justice of his cause to God. The disease was gone too far for gentle remedies; in vigorous and active measures lay the only human means of success. And such measures Montrose was ready to undertake so soon as the King should sanction them. The suspicious nature of that loyalty which shoutedGod save the King!while it struck at the King's most faithful subjects was an argument that came home. The violent language used against Montrose added fresh point to it every day; and the same ship that brought the commissionersto the Hague brought also the news of Huntly's death. His brother-in-law Argyll had sent him to the scaffold, pathetically lamenting with his last breath that he had done so little in the cause for which he suffered.
It was the misfortune of Montrose to serve two masters who could never be trusted. As the father had been, so was the son. Charles knew that part of this advice was good; that if he accepted the conditions of the Estates he could be a king only in name; and he must have had a shrewd suspicion that, while Cromwell was master in England, he would not long even in name be king in Scotland. That he believed at this time in the chance of vigorous action is not impossible. The infatuation of exiles is proverbial, and there were undoubtedly others besides Montrose who shared his views. It would be unjust therefore to brand Charles with the deliberate treachery of sending a brave man to inevitable death. But he could not resist the attractions of that double game which had led his father to the block. If Montrose succeeded, Charles would be free for ever from the patronage of Kirk and Covenant; if he failed, these unwelcome allies might still be left to fall back upon. The terms of the Estates were therefore declined, but in such a way as to leave an opening for future negotiations; and a commission was issued appointing the Marquis of Montrose Lieutenant-Governor of Scotland and Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Forces, and at the same time Ambassador-Extraordinary to solicit aid from the Northern Courts in the name of the King of England.
Montrose at once set to work. Though the Powers on whose help he relied were more generous in complimentsand promises than in substantial aid, he contrived by the end of August to despatch a small force, mostly Germans and Danes, under the Earl of Kinnoull, to the Orkneys. He had chosen these islands for the place of muster, partly because they belonged to the Earl of Morton, Kinnoull's uncle, who was believed to be well affected, and partly because he thought that the terror of his name might not have penetrated to that remote part of the kingdom. Kinnoull was ordered to establish his men at Kirkwall, and to occupy himself in levying and drilling the islanders till his chief joined him at the end of the year.
But the hand of fate was against this wild venture from the first. Morton and Kinnoull were both dead of a fever within a few weeks after they had met at Kirkwall. Sir James Douglas, Morton's brother, was sent to Denmark with a message to Montrose urging his immediate coming to Scotland. He need not wait to bring an army with him; his own presence in the country would at once raise twenty thousand men for the King's service. Kinnoull had found time, before the fatal sickness seized him, to announce his safe arrival, and to assure his chief that he was "gaped after with that expectation that the Jews look after their Messiah." All agreed that Scotland was weary of the bondage of the Covenant, and impatient for a deliverer. But Montrose had been advised that despatches were on their way from the King in Jersey, and had no choice but to wait for them. It were better for the reputation of Charles that those despatches had never been written. They contained, indeed, the George and riband of the Garter, with many flattering words; but they containedalso words which, written on the eve of the fatal conference of Breda, and read, as we now read them, by the light of its results, convict the King, if not of deliberate treachery, at least of a cruel disregard of his general's honour and life. They told him of the reopened negotiations with the Covenant and of the approaching conference: they urged him to instant and vigorous action; and they assured him that nothing should be conceded on his sovereign's part which could offer the least impediment to his proceedings, or the least diminution of his authority. And all the while Charles knew well that the one inevitable condition, whatever else might be taken or left, without which no basis of an understanding with the Covenant was possible, must be the dismissal of James Graham from his service. Elizabeth of Bohemia, who knew her nephew's disposition too well, had always foreseen this risk. "I pray God keep the King in his constancy to you and his other true friends and servants," she had written to Montrose; and through all her letters to him ran the half-concealed warning that more danger was to be expected from this quarter than from his open foes. But Montrose, if he had ever shared the Queen's fears or remembered them now, had no eyes for any part of this cruel letter but that which counselled instant action. He had already, in default of his own presence, despatched another and much larger force to the Orkneys under Kinnoull's brother William Hay, who had now succeeded to the title. But again the fates were adverse. A violent storm arose on the passage; the greater part of the little fleet went down at sea, or was dashed to pieces on those rugged coasts; out of twelve hundred men only twohundred, with a few field-pieces, came safe to land. Montrose himself did not reach Kirkwall till the end of March, accompanied by many of his old officers and a small but eager body of gentlemen volunteers.
It is idle to say that the delay was fatal to the success of an enterprise which could never in any circumstances have succeeded. But it was fatal to the continuance of that feeling which had prompted the letter of Kinnoull and the message of Douglas. The feeling had never indeed, even since the execution of Charles, been such or so widespread as they persuaded themselves with the exaggeration in all ages characteristic of the supporters of a lost cause. But through the greater part of the year 1649 the courage and hopes of the ultra-Royalists or Cavalier party in Scotland undoubtedly stood higher than at any time since the days immediately following the battle of Kilsyth. A rising of the Mackenzies under Pluscardine, Seaforth's brother, had indeed been easily suppressed in the spring; but it showed that the flame once kindled by Montrose was not yet wholly dead. Along with this reviving loyalty, though separate from it, was a strong and growing dislike, even among those who had hitherto held aloof from the Engagers, against the tyranny of the extreme Covenanters, the men of the Solemn League, who were led by Argyll. The moderate Presbyterians who shared this dislike would have welcomed the restoration of the young King as gladly as the Cavaliers; but they were not prepared to welcome him on the same terms. It was the misfortune of the Cavaliers to confound this partial and calculating sentiment with their own unconditional loyalty; and of this mistake Montrose was thevictim. It was a mistake of which Argyll was not slow to take advantage. His emissaries proclaimed everywhere that the desired restoration was to be accomplished, not by the brutal violence of the excommunicated traitor James Graham at the head of an army of foreign mercenaries and Highland savages, but by the peaceful and ready consent of the exiled King to the wishes of his loving subjects. Argyll had not been deceived in his estimate of Charles. When the conference met at Breda the King promised everything demanded of him. Montrose was given up with the rest. He was publicly ordered to lay down his arms, to disband his forces, to withdraw from the kingdom. He was told that the King would not forget his interests when in a position to remember them. At the same time the bearer of this cruel and unkingly order was privately instructed, with the characteristic duplicity of these unhappy Stuarts, to ascertain Montrose's strength before delivering it, and to withhold it if he should be found sufficiently strong to enable Charles to break his word with the Covenant when once safe in Scotland. These orders never reached Montrose; they were not indeed written till some days after his defeat and capture. When he landed at the head of his army in Scotland he was still acting in obedience to the King's commands.[23]But the mischief had been done. Thedeclaration which he published immediately on landing was burned by the common hangman at the cross in Edinburgh. A counter-declaration was issued denouncing him in terms of the most scurrilous abuse, and calling upon all in whom the fear of their God, duty to their King, and love for their country, were not utterly extinguished, to aid in bringing this traitor to justice. Every pulpit in Scotland thundered curses on his head. Those who dared to speak a good word for him were flung into prison. From one end of the country to the other he was held up to execration as a wretch abhorred of God and man.
It is improbable that Montrose had ever allowed himself to reflect on the desperate hazard of his venture. He had never been apt to calculate the chances against him, and he was not likely to do so now. That he can have felt confident or even hopeful of success seems incredible tous. In his little army were indeed some stout soldiers, Danes and Germans, who, like all mercenaries, could be trusted to sell their lives dearly; but at least one half was composed of raw Orkney men, unused to arms and with little heart for a cause they can hardly have understood. Hurry and some of his old officers were still with him; and among the gentlemen volunteers were the Earl of Kinnoull, Viscount Frendraught, Sir James Douglas (Morton's brother), Sir William Hay of Dalgetty, Colonel James Hay of Naughton, Drummond of Balloch, Menzies of Pitfoddels, Ogilvy of Powrie. His only cavalry consisted of the horses which carried himself, his principal officers, and some of the volunteers. The whole force did not exceed fifteen hundred men with a few brass field-pieces. He hoped indeed to find allies as he advanced, especially among the Mackenzies, whose chief, the vacillating Seaforth, though he preferred to stay by the King's side, had sanctioned a rising of his clan. But past experience can hardly have encouraged him to count much on such hopes. On the other hand, he knew that his old antagonist, David Leslie, was arrayed against him, and that though the Scottish army had been nominally disbanded it had only been quartered about the country ready for muster at a day's notice. Yet the orders issued to his officers were as firm and confident as ever. They are such, indeed, as almost to suggest a doubt whether his mind was able to realise the full gravity of his position. We read in them of life-guards and regiments and squadrons, as though he had the full complement of a regular army at his disposal. The truth is, that his ardent and romantic imagination, which had always seemed tobelong rather to some knight-errant of the Middle Ages than to a man of the modern world, was now exalted to a height of enthusiasm whence all things looked possible. He conceived himself to stand before the eyes of Europe as the peculiar champion of fallen and insulted monarchy. Resolute as he was to obey his sovereign's commands in all matters of life and death, the thought of avenging the father was probably even nearer his heart than the thought of restoring the son. The standards he had caused to be prepared for his expedition indicate the spirit in which it was undertaken. The royal banner displayed a bleeding head upon a black ground. On his own, wrought of white damask, were embroidered two rocks divided by a deep chasm; on the top of one a lion crouched for the spring, and beneath was the motto,Nil Medium. It was his favourite boast: