THE COVENANT
Young as Montrose was, discerning eyes had already marked him for
one likely to play a conspicuous part on whichever side he might
engage. The news that he had joined their enemies filled the Episcopal
party in Scotland with consternation. So highly, it is said, did the
bishops esteem his talents, that they thought it time to prepare for
a storm when he had declared against them. Nor did his allies show
themselves less conscious of his worth. They at once appointed him to
an important place in their councils. The movement had assumed such
proportions that it was found necessary to devise some less unwieldy
method of conducting business than a large and tumultuous body of men
with no very clear notion of what they wanted or how to secure it.
It was above all things necessary for Rothes and his friends to keep
the controlling power in their own hands. A committee of sixteen,
representing the four Estates of the kingdom, was framed for this
purpose. It was known as the Tables, from the rule that all motions
were to be formally _tabled_, or recorded, before discussion, and
was authorised to act as the responsible agent and mouthpiece of the
party. The four noblemen chosen were Rothes, Loudon, Lindsay of the
Byres (one of Montrose's college friends), and Montrose himself. His
nephew, by marriage with Napier's daughter, Sir George Stirling of
Keir, was one of the four representatives of the lesser barons.
Meanwhile Charles had abated no jot of his arbitrary policy. He
had been advised by the Treasurer, Lord Traquair, to withdraw the
offending liturgy, and to content himself with enforcing his civil
authority. The advice was good, but it may well be doubted whether
Baillie was not right in holding that affairs had now gone too far
for Charles to follow it. At all events it was not followed. A
proclamation was issued announcing the King's entire approval of the
new liturgy, his responsibility for it, and his determination to
regard all further opposition to it as treasonable. This inflammatory
document was read at the city-cross in Edinburgh amid frequent and
open expressions of derision. So soon as the heralds had finished, and
before, owing to the crowd, they could come down from the platform, a
protest prepared for the occasion was read aloud by Warriston from a
scaffold raised for that purpose by the side of the old cross. He was
supported by a party of sixteen noblemen. Among them was Montrose,
who, in the exuberance of his zeal, had mounted on a cask that stood
upon the scaffold. Rothes, who was of course present, remarking the
young enthusiast's elevated position, and remembering that the place
where they were standing was also the place of public execution, said
laughingly to him, "James, you will never be at rest till you be
lifted up there above the rest in a rope." And this grim jest, its
chronicler adds, "was afterwards accomplished in earnest in that same
place; and some even say that the same supporters of the scaffold were
made use of at Montrose's execution."
And now the work was done, and Scotland was ripe for the Covenant.
Whatever may have been the motives of its originators, there can be no
question of the feelings with which the bulk of the people regarded
it. Never, even in the heat of the Reformation, had the stern Scottish
nature been stirred to such a depth and fervour of passion. Its two
strongest feelings had been artfully inflamed, national sentiment
and religious enthusiasm. It would be difficult to separate the two,
and to apportion to each its share in the general movement. But it
is clear that love for the religion they had deliberately chosen and
established with tears and blood was at this time strongly deepened by
the thought that it was menaced by a king of the hated English.
The place and time for the great ceremony were chosen. The time was
the last day of February, 1638. The place was the church but lately
raised beneath the shadow of the great castle whence had issued but
a few short years previously, with all the pomp of a monarch moving
amid a rejoicing people to assume the crown of his fathers, the King
whose authority they were now met to renounce. Of all the historical
spots in that beautiful city there is none that an Englishman surveys
with more mingled feelings than the churchyard of the Greyfriars.
There at the appointed hour came the leading members of the Tables,
with Warriston to read the sacred document and Henderson to explain
it for any who still wavered. Loudon and Rothes spoke with all their
artful eloquence, reiterating their professions of love for their
religion and loyalty to their King. Then Warriston read aloud the
Covenant from a parchment of an ell square. There were few doubters,
and they were soon and easily satisfied. The Earl of Sutherland, the
highest nobleman present, was the first to sign his name. One after
another, all within the church followed him. Then, as the shadows of
the winter evening deepened over the solemn scene, the parchment was
carried outside and read once more to the eager crowd which thronged
every corner of the churchyard. As the last words were spoken--"that
religion and righteousness may nourish in the land, to the glory of
God, the honour of our King, and peace and comfort of us all"--all
hands were raised to heaven in token of assent, while old men, in
whose ears the fiery tones of Knox might have rung, wept tears of
joy to see that the spirit of the great Reformer still lived among
his countrymen. The parchment was then spread upon a tombstone, and
all who could get near pressed forward in turn to sign it. During
the next two days it was carried round the city, accompanied by a
sobbing, praying multitude. Signatures came in apace from citizens of
all classes and every age. Even serving-women and little children, who
could neither write nor read, pledged themselves to the good cause
with the assistance of a notary. It is said that many in the ecstasy
of the moment wrote their names in blood drawn from their own veins.
Copies were made of it, bearing the names of the chief subscribers,
and entrusted to all who would undertake the office of recruiting for
this holy war. Nobles and gentlemen galloped about the country with
these copies in their pockets. Agents were sent round to all the
principal towns and to the Universities. Ministers read aloud the call
to arms from their pulpits, and exhorted their congregations to sign.
Those who refused were threatened, and even violence was sometimes
employed. Names are of course easily collected, if only trouble
enough be taken to collect them. Many signed the Covenant, as many
have always signed and will always sign whatever is laid before them,
without any clear understanding to what they were pledging themselves,
simply because others had done so. Many signed through fear of the
consequences of a refusal. But when allowance has been made for all
the arts commonly employed to foment a popular disturbance, and for
all the motives which have power to influence the popular mind at
such times, it is impossible to doubt that, so far as the Covenant
was understood to be taken in defence of the national religion, it
reflected the current of the national thought.
Scotland was now practically in a state of rebellion, and the Tables
began to assume the airs of a sovereign. Munitions of war were
collected and moneys levied. Several of the leaders had already
come forward with voluntary subscriptions, Montrose heading the
list with a contribution of twenty-five dollars. It was determined
to supplement this with a more certain source of supply. A general
tax was levied of a dollar on every thousand marks of rent. Though
delicately called a contribution, it was in effect a tax, and a tax,
moreover, levied with a strictness to which Scotsmen had hitherto
been strangers. A committee was appointed for the purpose, soon to
be known by the appropriate title of the War Committee. It was clear
that some more serious effort must be made to maintain the royal
authority than the issue of proclamations that were only laughed at.
Hamilton was accordingly commissioned to treat with the Covenanters.
He was empowered to make certain concessions, such as the King fondly
conceived, or pretended to conceive, should be sufficient to assure
all loyal Scotsmen that he had no design on either their religion or
their laws. He might promise, for example, that the new Canons and the
new Liturgy should not be pressed except in what Charles was pleased
to call a fair and legal way. Some modifications also might be made
in the Court of High Commission, a harmless invention of the previous
reign with nothing but the name in common with that tribunal so odious
to Englishmen, but which nevertheless was equally odious to Scotsmen,
as relegating to bishops that moral supervision of the Church
previously vested in the Presbyteries. But on one point the King was
firm. No concession was to be made, nothing was to be promised, until
the Covenant had been rescinded. In vain did all his advisers, Scots
and English, clerics and laymen, assure him that negotiation on these
terms was hopeless. It mattered not. The Covenant, he answered, was
a standard of rebellion, and until it was taken down he had no more
power in Scotland than a Doge of Venice.
On this bootless errand Hamilton arrived in Edinburgh early in June,
and took up his quarters in Holyrood. An immense concourse assembled
to see him enter the city. The road between Leith and Musselburgh
was lined with nearly sixty thousand people. At the most conspicuous
spot five hundred ministers were congregated in their black gowns.
The Commissioner, according to Baillie, was moved to tears at such a
sign of the national feeling. Hamilton's powers of dissimulation were
indeed remarkable; but it may be doubted whether on this occasion the
good Covenanter's emotion, and the pride he felt at the noble display
made by his own cloth, did not a little overcome his usual acuteness.
It is certain, however, that the Commissioner was extremely gracious,
bowing and smiling on every side, though he skilfully managed to
evade a speech which had been prepared in welcome by Mr. William
Livingstone, "the strongest in voice," as Baillie naïvely remarks,
"and austerest in countenance of us all." This, Hamilton suggested,
might be more properly appreciated at a private audience.
The Tables had selected six of their number as commissioners on their
part, three noblemen and three ministers. Among the former were
that inseparable pair Rothes and Loudon; the third was Montrose. To
Henderson and Dickson was added a colleague rejoicing in the ominous
name of Cant. They presented their demands: the withdrawal of the new
Liturgy, the Book of Canons, and the Court of High Commission, and
the summons first of a free General Assembly, instead of a packed
body of subservient courtiers such as had restored Episcopacy at the
will of the late King, and then of a Parliament to finally settle
all matters concerning religion. Hamilton demanded as an inevitable
preliminary to all concessions the renunciation of the Covenant and
their return to their lawful allegiance. They professed themselves
to be still as always loyal subjects, and declared that they would
as soon renounce their baptism as the Covenant. All through June the
controversy dragged its fruitless length along. Hamilton by turns
argued, pleaded, warned, and threatened. The King, he said, was ready
to grant all that honour would permit him, and all that was necessary
to establish their religion and liberties; beyond that they should
not press him. By so doing they would forfeit the sympathies of those
in England who wished well to sufferers, but would never wish well to
rebels. If they still persisted in their unreasonable and seditious
course, the King would come in person to settle the matter with forty
thousand men at his back. Unfortunately for Hamilton's argument,
Rothes and Loudon were as well informed on the state of affairs
in England as himself. They had sharp spies at Court, even in the
King's own household. They knew exactly what were the Commissioner's
instructions, and had no fear of forfeiting the sympathy of their
English partisans by persisting in their demands. There is no doubt
that the firm front of the Covenanters was now greatly strengthened
by assurances from the English Opposition. As usual, too, Hamilton
played a double part. For this indeed he had some excuse. He had
received permission from Charles to employ all means to gain time,
short of giving any promise that would have afterwards to be revoked
or of recognising the lawfulness of the Covenant. Time was of the
utmost importance now, for it soon became clear to Hamilton, and he
made it clear to the King, that an appeal to force was the inevitable
end of the negotiations, and that all that remained for him to do was
to prolong the time till force was ready. But it is doubtful whether
Charles would have understood this permission to include an assurance
to his rebellious subjects that to stand firm was the only and the
certain way of gaining their ends. Yet a very circumstantial story
seems to fix this treachery on the King's Commissioner. He had brought
with him to Scotland two forms of the royal declaration against the
Covenant; in the first it was plainly denounced as an act of rebellion
and its immediate surrender demanded; in the second somewhat more
general and conciliatory language was employed. In one of his earliest
letters Hamilton had assured the King that it would be impossible
to publish the more outspoken document; he now wished to leave even
the gentler one unread. But on that point Charles was firm. Hamilton
might return to England for further counsel and instruction, but the
declaration in its milder form must be published. The Commissioner
had recourse to one of those ignoble artifices which were his idea
of diplomacy. Pretending that he had resolved not to publish either
declaration (of whose existence the Covenanters were very well aware)
he left Edinburgh, but returning suddenly at noon of the next day
the second and milder declaration was read at the cross. But he had
to do with men as cunning as himself. A few had been deceived by his
pretended departure, but only a few. Before the herald had finished
a crowd had assembled, and among them was the inevitable Warriston
with his protest and a trusty band of supporters. The document was
longer, less respectful, and more explicit than the one hitherto used,
leaving indeed no further doubt, had any previously existed, of the
nature and extent of the Covenanters' demands, and of their resolution
to be satisfied with no compromise. The Liturgy, the Book of Canons,
the Court of High Commission must go; a free General Assembly and a
free Parliament must be summoned; the Covenant must be maintained. The
applauding crowd, excited by Hamilton's foolish attempt to overreach
them, were with difficulty restrained from putting to the sword the
few who had the courage to raise their voices for the King. So strong
was the popular feeling against the declaration that those members
of the Council who had given a grudging assent to it now wished to
retract, and threatened that, if not allowed to do so, they would
themselves take the Covenant. While Hamilton was arguing with them a
deputation from the Covenanters was announced. They came to protest
against the declaration. When they had been heard, Hamilton, excusing
himself to his colleagues, withdrew with them into another room where
he addressed them in these remarkable words: "My Lords and Gentlemen,
I spoke to you before those Lords of the Council as the King's
Commissioner; now there being none present but yourselves, I speak to
you as a kindly Scotsman. If you go on with courage and resolution you
will carry what you please, but if you faint and give ground in the
least you are undone--a word is enough to wise men." The authority
for this monstrous speech rests on two of the deputation, who heard
it and repeated it in identical terms within four-and-twenty hours of
its being spoken. One of these was Montrose himself, the other was
his colleague, the minister Cant. They told it separately to Bishop
Guthrie, then a minister at Stirling, in whose Memoirs it may be
read. The Bishop adds that the incident created an uneasy feeling in
Montrose's mind that Hamilton was playing both sides false in order to
advance those designs on the crown of Scotland of which he had been,
it will be remembered, already accused, and which many at least of his
own countrymen still believed him to entertain. He told Guthrie that
he should form no rash conclusions, but that meantime he should keep
his eyes open and look carefully to his own steps.
It will but anticipate the course of events by a few months to wind up
at once the tangled skein of these negotiations. Twice again in 1638
did Hamilton visit Scotland. Each time he came with fresh concessions,
too late to be of any real service, yet enough to convince the
Covenanters of the truth of the Commissioner's ill-omened words that
everything would be gained by standing firm. Once again a royal
proclamation was heard from the city-cross; once again it was followed
by a protest, more defiant than any of its predecessors. The King had
proposed a Covenant on his own account, made up of those of 1580 and
1590, the latter binding all who signed it to stand by the King in
"suppressing of the Papists, promotion of true religion, and settling
of his Highness's estate, and obedience in all the countries and
corners of the realm." To sign this, said the indignant protesters,
would be to make themselves guilty of mocking God, inasmuch as they
of all men needed no adjuration to suppress Popery. On another point
their language was still more emphatic. Charles had granted the demand
for a General Assembly, and had promised that the obnoxious Liturgy
should be absolutely revoked, together with the Book of Canons and
the Court of High Commission, that the practice of the Articles of
Perth should be for the present suspended till Parliament should
pronounce its final decision on them, and that the authority of the
bishops should be made subject to the authority of the Assembly. In a
word, all that they asked was conceded; but the hour for concessions
had passed. Episcopacy must go root and branch. All that the King
made by his submission was to hear that he had no power to make or
withhold it. Matters of religion were not in his hands, but in the
divinely appointed hands of the Assembly, and in theirs only. Thus
the Covenanters cast to the winds the last shred of their professed
loyalty, and practically declared war against the King's authority.
These things were done at the end of September. On November 21st the
General Assembly was to meet at Glasgow. The intervening time was
spent by Hamilton in vain attempts to influence the elections and to
procure signatures for the new or King's Covenant, as it was called.
In both he was equally unsuccessful. The Assembly was constituted
after a fashion which left no doubt what its temper was likely to be.
Going back to an Act of 1587, it was resolved to elect lay as well
as ecclesiastical members. This was what Hamilton wished to prevent.
The ministers alone he thought he might still be able to persuade
to show some respect for the prerogative of a King who was ready to
grant so much, and who had already shown himself both willing and
able to make their position easier and more secure. Nor were the
ministers themselves well pleased to see the office that was rightly
theirs shared among men who, as they knew well, were for the most part
influenced by no real love for religion, and whose lives were in too
many instances at direct variance with its teaching. But the nobles,
in Baillie's expressive phrase, had now got their feet in the stirrup,
and were not to be stopped from the game they had started. Moreover,
it was in them that the real strength of the Covenant as a national
movement against an arbitrary king still lay. The people knew this,
and the ministers were not strong enough to dictate to the people. The
Tables were the controlling power of the elections, and of that body
no member was now busier or more resolute than Montrose. The King's
Covenant proved a lamentable failure. Few could be found to sign
it compared with the crowds that still thronged daily to subscribe
its rival, and of these nearly one-half came from Aberdeen and the
neighbourhood, which through all the trouble had stood stoutly by the
Throne; while a mad woman named Margaret Nicholson, who went about the
country proclaiming herself empowered to declare the National Covenant
a direct gift from heaven, and the King's from another place, was
generally accepted as an inspired prophetess.
On the appointed day the Assembly met, a day not less momentous
in the history of Scotland than that on which two years later the
Long Parliament met in the old chapel of St. Stephen was destined
to prove in the history of England. The place appointed was the
venerable cathedral, one of the few triumphs of Gothic art which had
been preserved by the affectionate pride of the citizens from the
furious zeal of Knox's Vandals. On a high chair of state sat Hamilton
in all the pomp, the barren pomp as he was now conscious, of the
representative of the Crown. The Privy Council were ranged below
him. Directly opposite were placed seats for the Moderator and his
clerk. At a long table in the body of the church sat the Lords of the
Covenant, while the representatives of the Presbyteries had to be
content with humbler places on either side behind them. Beyond these
again was a stage for the accommodation of the sons of the Covenanting
nobility and other distinguished spectators, while every unoccupied
part of the building was thronged with a vast and miscellaneous crowd,
including many gentlewomen. Not a single bishop was present. Only
two indeed, the Bishops of Ross and Argyll, had ventured to enter
the city; they had come under the protection of Hamilton and his
friends, and were now lodged safely in the castle. Swords and daggers
were to be seen on all sides. The regularly elected members numbered
two hundred and forty in all, of whom one hundred were laymen. But
besides these there were almost as many again who had no vote nor
lawful place in the Assembly and professed to be there only in the
capacity of friends, _amici curiæ_ as it were, to impart confidence by
their presence, and perhaps aid by their counsels. Many of them could
neither read nor write, but they were strong in numbers and loud of
voice. Great care had been taken to exclude all who had not subscribed
the Covenant. The provost had issued a number of leaden tickets
stamped with his arms, without which no spectator was admitted into
the building, and the distribution of these was solely in the hands
of the Covenanters. To add to Hamilton's discomfiture, he was aware
that he could no longer trust even the members of his own council so
far as any vote on Episcopacy was concerned. "What then," he wrote
to the King on the day after this Assembly had met, "what then can
be expected but a total disobedience to authority, if not a present
rebellion?"
It was soon made clear that nothing else was to be expected, for that
nothing else was intended. After Hamilton had read his commission, and
a protestation on behalf of the bishops had been refused a hearing,
Henderson was chosen for Moderator and Warriston for his clerk. Then
began a dreary week of disputing and protesting on all sides on
every conceivable subject, to the utter weariness of everybody but
the clerk, who received a piece of gold with each fresh protest. Few
appear to have contributed more to this waste of time than Montrose
himself, who was, moreover, responsible for a general wrangle in which
the Moderator did not display the quality to be expected from his
title, and which the Commissioner found some difficulty in quelling.
It arose on a disputed election in which the Tables had overridden the
authority of the Presbyteries. Montrose was of course on the side of
the former, the dispute having indeed arisen on a rather high-handed
exercise of his power as a member of the Tables, which the more wary
of the party were desirous of concealing, and Montrose of course,
through all his life the sworn foe of all compromise, insisted on
justifying. It was doubly unfortunate for him that the candidate
he opposed should have been his brother-in-law young Carnegie, and
that his opposition should have led to an unseemly display of temper
between him and his father-in-law Southesk. The dispute did Montrose
no good with either party. The Covenanters were annoyed to find so
young a man disposed to take too much upon himself against the wiser
counsels of his elders; and Hamilton was, as will be seen, enabled to
speak another bad word for him in the King's ear.
It was not till the 28th that the real business began. The unfortunate
bishops were as usual the cause of war. They had declined to accept
the jurisdiction of the Assembly as at present constituted, and the
Moderator now put the question to the vote. Hamilton then rose. He
read again the King's offer to abolish all grievances, and to make
bishops for the future subject to the authority of the Assemblies;
but he refused to acknowledge the authority of an Assembly in which
laymen were allowed to speak and vote. A warm debate ensued. The
Moderator declined to reopen a question which the Assembly had
already decided in its own favour. "If the bishops," said Loudon,
"decline the judgment of a National Assembly, I know not a competent
judgment-seat for them but the King of Heaven." "I stand to the King's
prerogative," replied Hamilton, "as supreme judge over all causes,
civil and ecclesiastical, to whom I think they may appeal, and not let
the causes be reasoned here." It was all in vain. The Assembly were
determined to have no bishops on any terms, and no king save on their
own terms. Nothing remained for Hamilton, as representing the Crown,
but to declare the Assembly an illegal body and to dissolve it. This
he accordingly did, with tears in his eyes as some said, and left the
cathedral while the inevitable protest against his action was being
read. Returning to Edinburgh he made such preparations as time and
means allowed for garrisoning the castle, and then left the country,
not to return to it again but as leader of the King's forces against
rebels in arms.
The Assembly, thus freed from all control, made short work of the
bishops. Six out of the fourteen were simply deposed; the rest were
deposed and excommunicated on charges sometimes of the most heinous
nature, which the most trivial evidence, when any was offered at
all, was considered amply sufficient to establish. Baillie owns, for
instance, that certain acts of gross immorality brought against the
Bishop of Galloway were not in his opinion conclusively proved; but he
adds, as though to make up for this injustice, that the unfortunate
prelate had at least "all the ordinary faults of a bishop," besides
the capital one of being the first who had dared to flaunt the robes
of his office in Edinburgh. The new Liturgy, the Book of Canons, the
Court of High Commission, and the Articles of Perth all followed the
bishops one after another into the limbo of unholy things. Sentence
of excommunication was also pronounced against many clergymen who had
shown, or were suspected of, a leaning to Episcopacy: the six General
Assemblies which had sat under Episcopal government were declared
to have been illegal; and the Scottish Church was thus restored
to the pure Presbyterianism established by the Act of 1592. Thus,
when on December 20th this memorable body dissolved itself, it had
accomplished in longer time, but with equal thoroughness, a revolution
not less momentous than that which seventy-eight years earlier had in
a single day transferred the national faith from Rome to Geneva.
Nor was this the Covenanters' only triumph. The departure of Hamilton
was the signal for the appearance of an invaluable convert.
Archibald, Earl of Argyll, then in his fortieth year, and but lately
succeeded to the title and vast estates of his father, was reckoned
the most powerful subject in the kingdom. His only rival in the
Highlands was Huntly, and his revenues were larger and he could bring
a larger following into the field than the chief of the Gordons. In
intellect there was no comparison between them. Argyll, according
to Clarendon, wanted nothing but courage and honesty to make him a
very great man. The want of honesty was too common a want in the
politicians of those days to mark a man among his peers, but cowardice
was indeed rare among all classes; and though he was destined to
show that, like so many men whose nerves are uncertain, he could
face inevitable death with calmness and dignity, in the presence of
danger it is indisputable that Argyll's physical courage was, to say
the least, not conspicuous. Cool, cunning, and sagacious, he had,
though at once a Privy Councillor and a rigid Presbyterian, been
hitherto careful to identify himself prominently with neither party.
But Hamilton had gauged him truly when he warned Charles to beware
of him as the most dangerous man in the State. The same warning had
indeed been previously conveyed to the infatuate King by one who had
still better cause to know the truth than Hamilton. There had been
trouble between father and son, and Charles, with whom the latter
had been always a favourite, had ordered the Earl, who in his old
age had turned Catholic at the bidding of a young wife, to leave the
kingdom. The father obeyed without remonstrance, but before he went
he warned the King to beware of his son. "Sir," he said, "I must
know this young man better than you can do. You may raise him, which
I doubt you will live to repent, for he is a man of craft, subtlety,
and falsehood, and can love no man, and if ever he finds it in his
power to do you a mischief, he will be sure to do it." So powerful
an ally was received of course with open arms by the Covenanters.
Hitherto they had been doubtful whether they should regard him as
friend or foe. His conduct, said Baillie, had been ambiguous. This
was now explained by Argyll's assurance that he had always secretly
been on their side and had only delayed declaring himself for them
while he conceived that this ambiguity might best serve their
interests; matters had now come, he said, to such a height that no
honest man could hold back. His speech was long, pious, and profuse
in good advice. The Moderator and the rest of the ministers professed
themselves enraptured, and all parted on the best terms with each
other.
Two days before Hamilton dissolved the Assembly, but when it had
already clearly shown him what he was to expect from it, he despatched
a long letter to the King, warning him what the issue was almost
certain to be, pointing out the precautions to be taken, and taken at
once if his warnings were proved true, and commenting on the character
of the movement and of its leaders with a frankness unusual in him. In
this letter Montrose is mentioned in a way which tends still further
to confirm the truth of Heylin's story. "Now for the Covenanters,"
the passage runs, "I shall only say this, in general they may all be
placed in one roll, as they now stand. But certainly, sir, those that
have both broached the business, and still hold it aloft, are Rothes,
Balmerino, Lindsay, Lothian, Loudon, Yester, Cranston. There are many
others as forward in show, amongst whom none more vainly foolish than
Montrose." This is precisely the language of a man anxious to remind
his correspondent what he had predicted of a third party, and to point
out how exactly his prediction had been proved true.