The reign of Charles I. opened with every sign of the tempests which were
to follow. England and Scotland were both seething with religious fears
and hatreds. Both parties in England, Puritans and Anglicans, could be
satisfied with nothing less than complete domination. In England the
extreme Puritans, with their yearning after the Genevan presbyterian
discipline, had been threatening civil war even under Elizabeth. James
had treated them with a high hand and a proud heart. Under Charles,
wedded to a "Jezebel," a Catholic wife, Henrietta Maria, the Puritan
hatred of such prelates as Laud expressed itself in threats of murder;
while heavy fines and cruel mutilations were inflicted by the party in
power. The Protestant panic, the fear of a violent restoration of
Catholicism in Scotland, never slumbered. In Scotland Catholics were at
this time bitterly persecuted, and believed that a presbyterian general
massacre of them all was being organised. By the people the Anglican
bishops and the prayer-book were as much detested as priests and the
Mass. When Charles placed six prelates on his Privy Council, and
recognised the Archbishop of St Andrews, Spottiswoode, as first in
precedence among his subjects, the nobles were angry and jealous. Charles
would not do away with the infatuated Articles of Perth. James, as he
used to say, had "governed Scotland by the pen" through his Privy
Council. Charles knew much less than James of the temper of the Scots,
among whom he had never come since his infancy, and _his_ Privy Council
with six bishops was apt to be even more than commonly subservient.
In Scotland as in England the expenses of national defence were a cause
of anger; and the mismanagement of military affairs by the king's
favourite, Buckingham, increased the irritation. It was brought to a
head in Scotland by the "Act of Revocation," under which all Church lands
and Crown lands bestowed since 1542 were to be restored to the Crown.
This Act once more united in opposition the nobles and the preachers;
since 1596 they had not been in harmony. In 1587, as we saw, James VI.
had annexed much of the old ecclesiastical property to the Crown; but he
had granted most of it to nobles and barons as "temporal lordships." Now,
by Charles, the temporal lords who held such lands were menaced, the
judges ("Lords of Session") who would have defended their interests were
removed from the Privy Council (March 1626), and, in August, the temporal
lords remonstrated with the king through deputations.
In fact, they took little harm--redeeming their holdings at the rate of
ten years' purchase. The main result was that landowners were empowered
to buy the tithes on their own lands from the multitude of "titulars of
tithes" (1629) who had rapaciously and oppressively extorted these tenths
of the harvest every year. The ministers had a safe provision at last,
secured on the tithes, in Scotland styled "teinds," but this did not
reconcile most of them to bishops and to the Articles of Perth. Several
of the bishops were, in fact, "latitudinarian" or "Arminian" in doctrine,
wanderers from the severity of Knox and Calvin. With them began,
perhaps, the "Moderatism" which later invaded the Kirk; though their
ideal slumbered during the civil war, to awaken again, with the teaching
of Archbishop Leighton, under the Restoration. Meanwhile the nobles and
gentry had been alarmed and mulcted, and were ready to join hands with
the Kirk in its day of resistance.
In June 1633 Charles at last visited his ancient kingdom, accompanied by
Laud. His subjects were alarmed and horrified by the sight of prelates
in lawn sleeves, candles in chapel, and even a tapestry showing the
crucifixion. To this the bishops are said to have bowed,--plain
idolatry. In the Parliament of June 18 the eight representatives of each
Estate, who were practically all-powerful as Lords of the Articles, were
chosen, not from each Estate by its own members, but on a method
instituted, or rather revived, by James VI. in 1609. The nobles made the
choice from the bishops, the bishops from the nobles, and the elected
sixteen from the barons and burghers. The twenty-four were all thus
episcopally minded: they drew up the bills, and the bills were voted on
without debate. The grant of supply made in these circumstances was
liberal, and James's ecclesiastical legislation, including the sanction
of the "rags of Rome" worn by the bishops, was ratified. Remonstrances
from the ministers of the old Kirk party were disregarded; and--the thin
end of the wedge--the English Liturgy was introduced in the Royal Chapel
of Holyrood and in that of St Salvator's College, St Andrews, where it
has been read once, on a funeral occasion, in recent years.
In 1634-35, on the information of Archbishop Spottiswoode, Lord Balmerino
was tried for treason because he possessed a supplication or petition
which the Lords of the minority, in the late Parliament, had drawn up but
had not presented. He was found guilty, but spared: the proceeding
showed of what nature the bishops were, and alienated and alarmed the
populace and the nobles and gentry. A remonstrance in a manly spirit by
Drummond of Hawthornden, the poet, was disregarded.
In 1635 Charles authorised a Book of Canons, heralding the imposition of
a Liturgy, which scarcely varied, and when it varied was thought to
differ for the worse, from that of the Church of England. By these
canons, the most nakedly despotic of innovations, the preachers could not
use their sword of excommunication without the assent of the Bishops.
James VI. had ever regarded with horror and dread the licence of
"conceived prayers," spoken by the minister, and believed to be
extemporary or directly inspired. There is an old story that one
minister prayed that James might break his leg: certainly prayers for
"sanctified plagues" on that prince were publicly offered, at the will of
the minister. Even a very firm Presbyterian, the Laird of Brodie, when
he had once heard the Anglican service in London, confided to his journal
that he had suffered much from the nonsense of "conceived prayers." They
were a dangerous weapon, in Charles's opinion: he was determined to
abolish them, rather that he might be free from the agitation of the
pulpit than for reasons of ritual, and to proclaim his own headship of
the Kirk of "King Christ."
This, in the opinion of the great majority of the preachers and populace,
was flat blasphemy, an assumption of "the Crown Honours of Christ." The
Liturgy was "an ill-mumbled Mass," the Mass was idolatry, and idolatry
was a capital offence. However strange these convictions may appear,
they were essential parts of the national belief. Yet, with the most
extreme folly, Charles, acting like Henry VIII. as his own Pope, thrust
the canons and this Liturgy upon the Kirk and country. No sentimental
arguments can palliate such open tyranny.
The Liturgy was to be used in St Giles' Church, the town kirk of
Edinburgh (cleansed and restored by Charles himself), on July 23, 1637.
The result was a furious brawl, begun by the women, of all presbyterians
the fiercest, and, it was said, by men disguised as women. A gentleman
was struck on the ear by a woman for the offence of saying "Amen," and
the famous Jenny Geddes is traditionally reported to have thrown her
stool at the Dean's head. The service was interrupted, the Bishop was
the mark of stones, and "the Bishops' War," the Civil War, began in this
brawl. James VI., being on the spot, had thoroughly quieted Edinburgh
after a more serious riot, on December 17, 1596. But Charles was far
away; the city had not to fear the loss of the Court and its custom, as
on the earlier occasion (the removal of the Council to Linlithgow in
October 1637 was a trifle), and the Council had to face a storm of
petitions from all classes of the community. Their prayer was that the
Liturgy should be withdrawn. From the country, multitudes of all classes
flocked into Edinburgh and formed themselves into a committee of public
safety, "The Four Tables," containing sixteen persons.
The Tables now demanded the removal of the bishops from the Privy Council
(December 21, 1637). The question was: Who were to govern the country,
the Council or the Tables? The logic of the Presbyterians was not always
consistent. The king must not force the Liturgy on them, but later,
their quarrel with him was that he would not, at their desire, force the
absence of the Liturgy on England. If the king had the right to inflict
Presbyterianism on England, he had the right to thrust the Liturgy on
Scotland: of course he had neither one right nor the other. On February
19, 1638, Charles's proclamation, refusing the prayers of the
supplication of December, was read at Stirling. Nobles and people
replied with protestations to every royal proclamation. Foremost on the
popular side was the young Earl of Montrose: "you will not rest," said
Rothes, a more sober leader, "till you be lifted up above the lave in
three fathoms of rope." Rothes was a true prophet; but Montrose did not
die for the cause that did "his green unknowing youth engage."
The Presbyterians now desired yearly General Assemblies (of which James
VI. had unlawfully robbed the Kirk); the enforcement of an old
brief-lived system of restrictions (_caveats_) on the bishops; the
abolition of the Articles of Perth; and, as always, of the Liturgy. If
he granted all this Charles might have had trouble with the preachers, as
James VI. had of old. Yet the demands were constitutional; and in
Charles's position he would have done well to assent. He was obstinate
in refusal.
The Scots now "fell upon the consideration of a band of union to be made
legally," says Rothes, their leader, the chief of the House of Leslie
(the family of Norman Leslie, the slayer of Cardinal Beaton). Now a
"band" of this kind could not, by old Scots law, be legally made; such
bands, like those for the murder of Riccio and of Darnley, and for many
other enterprises, were not smiled upon by the law. But, in 1581, as we
saw, James VI. had signed a covenant against popery; its tenor was
imitated in that of 1638, and there was added "a general band for the
maintenance of true religion" (Presbyterianism) "_and of the King's
person_." That part of the band was scarcely kept when the Covenanting
army surrendered Charles to the English. They had vowed, in their band,
to "stand to the defence of our dread Sovereign the King's Majesty, his
person and authority." They kept this vow by hanging men who held the
king's commission. The words as to defending the king's authority were
followed by "in the defence and preservation of the aforesaid true
religion." This appears to mean that only a presbyterian king is to be
defended. In any case the preachers assumed the right to interpret the
Covenant, which finally led to the conquest of Scotland by Cromwell. As
the Covenant was made between God and the Covenanters, on ancient Hebrew
precedent it was declared to be binding on all succeeding generations.
Had Scotland resisted tyranny without this would-be biblical pettifogging
Covenant, her condition would have been the more gracious. The signing
of the band began at Edinburgh in Greyfriars' Churchyard on February 28,
1638.
This Covenant was a most potent instrument for the day, but the fruits
thereof were blood and tears and desolation: for fifty-one years common-
sense did not come to her own again. In 1689 the Covenant was silently
dropped, when the Kirk was restored.
This two-edged insatiable sword was drawn: great multitudes signed with
enthusiasm, and they who would not sign were, of course, persecuted. As
they said, "it looked not like a thing approved of God, which was begun
and carried on with fury and madness, and obtruded on people with
threatenings, tearing of clothes, and drawing of blood." Resistance to
the king--if need were, armed resistance--was necessary, was laudable,
but the terms of the Covenant were, in the highest degree impolitic and
unstatesmanlike. The country was handed over to the preachers; the
Scots, as their great leader Argyll was to discover, were "distracted men
in distracted times."
Charles wavered and sent down the Marquis of Hamilton to represent his
waverings. The Marquis was as unsettled as his predecessor, Arran, in
the minority of Queen Mary. He dared not promulgate the proclamations;
he dared not risk civil war; he knew that Charles, who said he was ready,
was unprepared in his mutinous English kingdom. He granted, at last, a
General Assembly and a free Parliament, and produced another Covenant,
"the King's Covenant," which of course failed to thwart that of the
country.
The Assembly, at Glasgow (November 21, 1638), including noblemen and
gentlemen as elders, was necessarily revolutionary, and needlessly
riotous and profane. It arraigned and condemned the bishops in their
absence. Hamilton, as Royal Commissioner, dissolved the Assembly, which
continued to sit. The meeting was in the Cathedral, where, says a
sincere Covenanter, Baillie, whose letters are a valuable source, "our
rascals, without shame, in great numbers, made din and clamour." All the
unconstitutional ecclesiastical legislation of the last forty years was
rescinded,--as all the new presbyterian legislation was to be rescinded
at the Restoration. Some bishops were excommunicated, the rest were
deposed. The press was put under the censorship of the fanatical lawyer,
Johnston of Waristoun, clerk of the Assembly.
On December 20 the Assembly, which sat on after Hamilton dissolved it,
broke up. Among the Covenanters were to be reckoned the Earl of Argyll
(later the only Marquis of his House), and the Earl, later Marquis, of
Montrose. They did not stand long together. The Scottish Revolution
produced no man at once great and successful, but, in Montrose, it had
one man of genius who gave his life for honour's sake; in Argyll, an
astute man, not physically courageous, whose "timidity in the field was
equalled by his timidity in the Council," says Mr Gardiner.
In spring (1639) war began. Charles was to move in force on the Border;
the fleet was to watch the coasts; Hamilton, with some 5000 men, was to
join hands with Huntly (both men were wavering and incompetent); Antrim,
from north Ireland, was to attack and contain Argyll; Ruthven was to hold
Edinburgh Castle. But Alexander Leslie took that castle for the
Covenanters; they took Dumbarton; they fortified Leith; Argyll ravaged
Huntly's lands; Montrose and Leslie occupied Aberdeen; and their party,
in circumstances supposed to be discreditable to Montrose, carried Huntly
to Edinburgh. (The evidence is confused. Was Huntly unwilling to go?
Charles (York, April 23, 1639) calls him "feeble and false." Mr Gardiner
says that, in this case, and in this alone, Montrose stooped to a mean
action.) Hamilton merely dawdled and did nothing: Montrose had entered
Aberdeen (June 19), and then came news of negotiations between the king
and the Covenanters.
As Charles approached from the south, Alexander Leslie, a Continental
veteran (very many of the Covenant's officers were Dugald Dalgettys from
the foreign wars), occupied Dunse Law, with a numerous army in great
difficulties as to supplies. "A natural mind might despair," wrote
Waristoun, who "was brought low before God indeed." Leslie was in a
strait; but, on the other side, so was Charles, for a reconnaissance of
Leslie's position was repulsed; the king lacked money and supplies;
neither side was of a high fighting heart; and offers to negotiate came
from the king, informally. The Scots sent in "a supplication," and on
June 18 signed a treaty which was a mere futile truce. There were to be
a new Assembly, and a new Parliament in August and September.
Charles should have fought: if he fell he would fall with honour; and if
he survived defeat "all England behoved to have risen in revenge," says
the Covenanting letter-writer, Baillie, later Principal of Glasgow
University. The Covenanters at this time could not have invaded England,
could not have supported themselves if they did, and were far from being
harmonious among themselves. The defeat of Charles at this moment would
have aroused English pride and united the country. Charles set out from
Berwick for London on July 29, leaving many fresh causes of quarrel
behind him.
Charles supposed that he was merely "giving way for the present" when he
accepted the ratification by the new Assembly of all the Acts of that of
1638. He never had a later chance to recover his ground. The new
Assembly made the Privy Council pass an Act rendering signature of the
Covenant compulsory on all men: "the new freedom is worse than the old
slavery," a looker-on remarked. The Parliament discussed the method of
electing the Lords of the Articles--a method which, in fact, though of
prime importance, had varied and continued to vary in practice. Argyll
protested that the constitutional course was for each Estate to elect its
own members. Montrose was already suspected of being influenced by
Charles. Charles refused to call Episcopacy unlawful, or to rescind the
old Acts establishing it. Traquair, as Commissioner, dissolved the
Parliament; later Charles refused to meet envoys sent from Scotland, who
were actually trying, as their party also tried, to gain French mediation
or assistance,--help from "idolaters"!
In spring 1640 the Scots, by an instrument called "The Blind Band,"
imposed taxation for military purposes; while Charles in England called
The Short Parliament to provide Supply. The Parliament refused and was
prorogued; words used by Strafford about the use of the army in Ireland
to suppress Scotland were hoarded up against him. The Scots Parliament,
though the king had prorogued it, met in June, despite the opposition of
Montrose. The Parliament, when it ceased to meet, appointed a Standing
Committee of some forty members of all ranks, including Montrose and his
friends Lord Napier and Stirling of Keir. Argyll refused to be a member,
but acted on a commission of fire and sword "to root out of the country"
the northern recusants against the Covenant. It was now that Argyll
burned Lord Ogilvy's Bonny House of Airlie and Forthes; the cattle were
driven into his own country; all this against, and perhaps in consequence
of, the intercession of Ogilvy's friend and neighbour, Montrose.
Meanwhile the Scots were intriguing with discontented English peers, who
could only give sympathy; Saville, however, forged a letter from six of
them inviting a Scottish invasion. There was a movement for making
Argyll practically Dictator in the North; Montrose thwarted it, and in
August, while Charles with a reluctant and disorderly force was marching
on York Montrose at Cumbernauld, the house of the Earl of Wigtoun made a
secret band with the Earls Marischal, Wigtoun, Home, Atholl, Mar, Perth,
Boyd, Galloway, and others, for their mutual defence against the scheme
of dictatorship for Argyll. On August 20 Montrose, the foremost, forded
Tweed, and led his regiment into England. On August 30, almost
unopposed, the Scots entered Newcastle, having routed a force which met
them at Newburn-on-Tyne.
They again pressed their demands on the king; simultaneously twelve
English peers petitioned for a parliament and the trial of the king's
Ministers. Charles gave way. At Ripon Scottish and English
commissioners met; the Scots received "brotherly assistance" in money and
supplies (a daily 850 pounds), and stayed where they were; while the Long
Parliament met in November, and in April 1641 condemned the great
Strafford: Laud soon shared his doom. On August 10 the demands of the
Scots were granted: as a sympathetic historian writes, they had lived for
a year at free quarters, "and recrossed the Border with the handsome sum
of 200,000 pounds to their credit."
During the absence of the army the Kirk exhibited symptoms not favourable
to its own peace. Amateur theologians held private religious gatherings,
which, it was feared, tended towards the heresy of the English
Independents and to the "break up of the whole Kirk," some of whose
representatives forbade these conventicles, while "the rigid sort"
asserted that the conventiclers "were esteemed the godly of the land." An
Act of the General Assembly was passed against the meetings; we observe
that here are the beginnings of strife between the most godly and the
rather moderately pious.
The secret of Montrose's Cumbernauld band had come to light after
November 1640: nothing worse, at the moment, befell than the burning of
the band by the Committee of Estates, to whom Argyll referred the matter.
On May 21, 1641, the Committee was disturbed, for Montrose was collecting
evidence as to the words and deeds of Argyll when he used his commission
of fire and sword at the Bonny House of Airlie and in other places.
Montrose had spoken of the matter to a preacher, he to another, and the
news reached the Committee. Montrose had learned from a prisoner of
Argyll, Stewart the younger of Ladywell, that Argyll had held counsels to
discuss the deposition of the king. Ladywell produced to the Committee
his written statement that Argyll had spoken before him of these
consultations of lawyers and divines. He was placed in the castle, and
was so worked on that he "cleared" Argyll and confessed that, advised by
Montrose, he had reported Argyll's remarks to the king. Papers with
hints and names in cypher were found in possession of the messenger.
The whole affair is enigmatic; in any case Ladywell was hanged for
"leasing-making" (spreading false reports), an offence not previously
capital, and Montrose with his friends was imprisoned in the castle.
Doubtless he had meant to accuse Argyll before Parliament of treason. On
July 27, 1641, being arraigned before Parliament, he said, "My resolution
is to carry with me fidelity and honour to the grave." He lay in prison
when the king, vainly hoping for support against the English Parliament,
visited Edinburgh (August 14-November 17, 1641).
Charles was now servile to his Scottish Parliament, accepting an Act by
which it must consent to his nominations of officers of State. Hamilton
with his brother, Lanark, had courted the alliance and lived in the
intimacy of Argyll. On October 12 Charles told the House "a very strange
story." On the previous day Hamilton had asked leave to retire from
Court, in fear of his enemies. On the day of the king's speaking,
Hamilton, Argyll, and Lanark had actually retired. On October 22, from
their retreat, the brothers said that they had heard of a conspiracy, by
nobles and others in the king's favour, to cut their throats. The
evidence is very confused and contradictory: Hamilton and Argyll were
said to have collected a force of 5000 men in the town, and, on October
5, such a gathering was denounced in a proclamation. Charles in vain
asked for a public inquiry into the affair before the whole House. He
now raised some of his opponents a step in the peerage: Argyll became a
marquis, and Montrose was released from prison. On October 28 Charles
announced the untoward news of an Irish rising and massacre. He was, of
course, accused of having caused it, and the massacre was in turn the
cause of, or pretext for, the shooting and hanging of Irish prisoners--men
and women--in Scotland during the civil war. On November 18 he left
Scotland for ever.
The events in England of the spring in 1642, the attempted arrest of the
five members (January 4), the retreat of the queen to France, Charles's
retiral to York, indicated civil war, and the king set up his standard at
Nottingham on August 22. The Covenanters had received from Charles all
that they asked; they had no quarrel with him, but they argued that if he
were victorious in England he would use his strength and withdraw his
concessions to Scotland.
Sir Walter Scott "leaves it to casuists to decide whether one contracting
party is justified in breaking a solemn treaty upon the suspicion that in
future contingencies it might be infringed by the other." He suggests
that to the needy nobles and Dugald Dalgettys of the Covenant "the good
pay and free quarters" and "handsome sums" of England were an
irresistible temptation, while the preachers thought they would be
allowed to set up "the golden candlestick" of presbytery in England
('Legend of Montrose,' chapter i.) Of the two the preachers were the
more grievously disappointed.
A General Assembly of July-August 1642 was, as usual, concerned with
politics, for politics and religion were inextricably intermixed. The
Assembly appointed a Standing Commission to represent it, and the powers
of the Commission were of so high a strain that "to some it is terrible
already," says the Covenanting letter-writer Baillie. A letter from the
Kirk was carried to the English Parliament which acquiesced in the
abolition of Episcopacy. In November 1642 the English Parliament,
unsuccessful in war, appealed to Scotland for armed aid; in December
Charles took the same course.
The Commission of the General Assembly, and the body of administrators
called Conservators of the Peace, overpowered the Privy Council, put down
a petition of Montrose's party (who declared that they were bound by the
Covenant to defend the king), and would obviously arm on the side of the
English Parliament if England would adopt Presbyterian government. They
held a Convention of the Estates (June 22, 1643); they discovered a
Popish plot for an attack on Argyll's country by the Macdonalds in
Ireland, once driven from Kintyre by the Campbells, and now to be led by
young Colkitto. While thus excited, they received in the General
Assembly (August 7) a deputation from the English Parliament; and now was
framed a new band between the English Parliament and Scotland. It was an
alliance, "The Solemn League and Covenant," by which Episcopacy was to be
abolished and religion established "according to the Word of God." To
the Covenanters this phrase meant that England would establish
Presbyterianism, but they were disappointed. The ideas of the
Independents, such as Cromwell, were almost as much opposed to presbytery
as to episcopacy, and though the Covenanters took the pay and fought the
battles of the Parliament against their king, they never received what
they had meant to stipulate for,--the establishment of presbytery in
England. Far from that, Cromwell, like James VI., was to deprive them of
their ecclesiastical palladium, the General Assembly.
Foreseeing nothing, the Scots were delighted when the English accepted
the new band. Their army, under Alexander Leslie (Earl of Leven), now
too old for his post, crossed Tweed in January 1644. They might never
have crossed had Charles, in the autumn of 1643, listened to Montrose and
allowed him to attack the Covenanters in Scotland. In December 1643,
Hamilton and Lanark, who had opposed Montrose's views and confirmed the
king in his waverings, came to him at Oxford. Montrose refused to serve
with them, rather he would go abroad; and Hamilton was imprisoned on
charges of treason: in fact, he had been double-minded, inconstant, and
incompetent. Montrose's scheme implied clan warfare, the use of exiled
Macdonalds, who were Catholics, against the Campbells. The obvious
objections were very strong; but "needs must when the devil drives": the
Hanoverian kings employed foreign soldiers against their subjects in 1715
and 1745; but the Macdonalds were subjects of King Charles.
Hamilton's brother, Lanark, escaped, and now frankly joined the
Covenanters. Montrose was promoted to a Marquisate, and received the
Royal Commission as Lieutenant-General (February 1644), which alienated
old Huntly, chief of the Gordons, who now and again divided and paralysed
that gallant clan. Montrose rode north, where, in February 1644, old
Leslie, with twenty regiments of foot, three thousand horse, and many
guns, was besieging Newcastle. With him was the prototype of Scott's
Dugald Dalgetty, Sir James Turner, who records examples of Leslie's
senile incompetency. Leslie, at least, forced the Marquis of Newcastle
to a retreat, and a movement of Montrose on Dumfries was paralysed by the
cowardice or imbecility of the Scottish magnates on the western Border.
He returned, took Morpeth, was summoned by Prince Rupert, and reached him
the day after the disaster of Marston Moor (July 2, 1644), from which
Buccleuch's Covenanting regiment ran without stroke of sword, while
Alexander Leslie also fled, carrying news of his own defeat. It appears
that the Scottish horse, under David Leslie, were at Marston Moor, as
always, the pick of their army.
Rupert took over Montrose's men, and the great Marquis, disguised as a
groom, rode hard to the house of a kinsman, near Tay, between Perth and
Dunkeld. Alone and comfortless, in a little wood, Montrose met a man who
was carrying the Fiery Cross, and summoning the country to resist the
Irish Scots of Alastair Macdonald (Colkitto), who had landed with a force
of 1500 musketeers in Argyll, and was believed to be descending on
Atholl, pursued by Seaforth and Argyll, and faced by the men of Badenoch.
The two armies {181} were confronting each other when Montrose, in plaid
and kilt, approached Colkitto and showed him his commission. Instantly
the two opposed forces combined into one, and with 2500 men, some armed
with bows and arrows, and others having only one charge for each musket,
Montrose began his year of victories.
The temptation to describe in detail his extraordinary series of
successes and of unexampled marches over snow-clad and pathless mountains
must be resisted. The mobility and daring of Montrose's irregular and
capricious levies, with his own versatile military genius and the heroic
valour of Colkitto, enabled him to defeat a large Covenanting force at
Tippermuir, near Perth: here he had but his 2500 men (September 1); to
repeat his victory at Aberdeen {182} (September 13), to evade and
discourage Argyll, who retired to Inveraray; to winter in and ravage
Argyll's country, and to turn on his tracks from a northern retreat and
destroy the Campbells at Inverlochy, where Argyll looked on from his
galley (February 2, 1645).
General Baillie, a trained soldier, took the command of the Covenanting
levies and regular troops ("Red coats"), and nearly surprised Montrose in
Dundee. By a retreat showing even more genius than his victories, he
escaped, appeared on the north-east coast, and scattered a Covenanting
force under Hurry, at Auldearn, near Inverness (May 9, 1645).
Such victories as Montrose's were more than counterbalanced by Cromwell's
defeat of Rupert and Charles at Naseby (June 14, 1645); while presbytery
suffered a blow from Cromwell's demand, that the English Parliament
should grant "freedom of conscience," not for Anglican or Catholic, of
course, but for religions non-Presbyterian. The "bloody sectaries," as
the Presbyterians called Cromwell's Independents, were now masters of the
field: never would the blue banner of the Covenant be set up south of
Tweed.
Meanwhile General Baillie marched against Montrose, who outmanoeuvred him
all over the eastern Highlands, and finally gave him battle at Alford on
the Don. Montrose had not here Colkitto and the western clans, but his
Gordon horse, his Irish, the Farquharsons, and the Badenoch men were
triumphantly successful. Unfortunately, Lord Gordon was slain: he alone
could bring out and lead the clan of Huntly. Only by joining hands with
Charles could Montrose do anything decisive. The king, hoping for no
more than a death in the field "with honour and a good conscience,"
pushed as far north as Doncaster, where he was between Poyntz's army and
a great cavalry force, led by David Leslie, from Hereford, to launch
against Montrose. The hero snatched a final victory. He had but a
hundred horse, but he had Colkitto and the flower of the fighting clans,
including the invincible Macleans. Baillie, in command of new levies of
some 10,000 men, was thwarted by a committee of Argyll and other noble
amateurs. He met the enemy south of Forth, at Kilsyth, between Stirling
and Glasgow. The fiery Argyll made Baillie desert an admirable
position--Montrose was on the plain, Baillie was on the heights--and
expose his flank by a march across Montrose's front. The Macleans and
Macdonalds, on the lower slope of the hill, without orders, saw their
chance, and racing up a difficult glen, plunged into the Covenanting
flank. Meanwhile the more advanced part of the Covenanting force were
driving back some Gordons from a hill on Montrose's left, who were
rescued by a desperate charge of Aboyne's handful of horse among the red
coats; Airlie charged with the Ogilvies; the advanced force of the
Covenant was routed, and the Macleans and Macdonalds completed the work
they had begun (August 15). Few of the unmounted Covenanters escaped
from Kilsyth; and Argyll, taking boat in the Forth, hurried to Newcastle,
where David Leslie, coming north, obtained infantry regiments to back his
4000 cavalry.
In a year Montrose, with forces so irregular and so apt to go home after
every battle, had actually cleared militant Covenanters out of Scotland.
But the end had come. He would not permit the sack of Glasgow. Three
thousand clansmen left him; Colkitto went away to harry Kintyre. Aboyne
and the Gordons rode home on some private pique; and Montrose relied on
men whom he had already proved to be broken reeds, the Homes and Kers
(Roxburgh) of the Border, and the futile and timid Traquair. When he
came among them they forsook him and fled; on September 10, at Kelso, Sir
Robert Spottiswoode recognised the desertion and the danger.
Meanwhile Leslie, with an overpowering force of seasoned soldiers, horse
and foot, marched with Argyll, not to Edinburgh, but down Gala to Tweed;
while Montrose had withdrawn from Kelso, up Ettrick to Philiphaugh, on
the left of Ettrick, within a mile of Selkirk. He had but 500 Irish, who
entrenched themselves, and an uncertain number of mounted Border lairds
with their servants and tenants. Charteris of Hempsfield, who had been
scouting, reported that Leslie was but two or three miles distant, at
Sunderland Hall, where Tweed and Ettrick meet; but the news was not
carried to Montrose, who lay at Selkirk. At breakfast, on September 13,
Montrose learned that Leslie was attacking. What followed is uncertain
in its details. A so-called "contemporary ballad" is incredibly
impossible in its anachronisms, and is modern. In this egregious
doggerel we are told that a veteran who had fought at Solway Moss a
century earlier, and at "cursed Dunbar" a few years later (or under
Edward I.?), advised Leslie to make a turning movement behind Linglie
Hill. This is not evidence. Though Leslie may have made such a
movement, he describes his victory as very easy: and so it should have
been, as Montrose had only the remnant of his Antrim men and a rabble of
reluctant Border recruits.
A news letter from Haddington, of September 16, represents the Cavaliers
as making a good fight. The mounted Border lairds galloped away. Most
of the Irish fell fighting: the rest were massacred, whether after
promise of quarter or not is disputed. _Their captured women were hanged
in cold blood some months later_. Montrose, the Napiers, and some forty
horse either cut their way through or evaded Leslie's overpowering
cavalry, and galloped across the hills of Yarrow to the Tweed. He had
lost only the remnant of his Scoto-Irish; but the Gordons, when Montrose
was presently menacing Glasgow, were held back by Huntly, and Colkitto
pursued his private adventures. Montrose had been deserted by the clans,
and lured to ruin by the perfidious promises of the Border lords and
lairds. The aim of his strategy had been to relieve the Royalists of
England by a diversion that would deprive the Parliamentarians of their
paid Scottish allies, and what man might do Montrose had done.
After his first victory Montrose, an excommunicated man, fought under an
offer of 1500 pounds for his murder, and the Covenanters welcomed the
assassin of his friend, Lord Kilpont.
The result of Montrose's victories was hostility between the Covenanting
army in England and the English, who regarded them as expensive and
inefficient. Indeed, they seldom, save for the command of David Leslie,
displayed military qualities, and later, were invariably defeated when
they encountered the English under Cromwell and Lambert.
Montrose never slew a prisoner, but the Convention at St Andrews, in
November 1645, sentenced to death their Cavalier prisoners (Lord Ogilvy
escaped disguised in his sister's dress), and they ordered the hanging of
captives and of the women who had accompanied the Irish. "It was certain
of the clergy who pressed for the extremest measures." {186a} They had
revived the barbarous belief, retained in the law of ancient Greece, that
the land had been polluted by, and must be cleansed by, blood, under
penalty of divine wrath. As even the Covenanting Baillie wrote, "to this
day no man in England has been executed for bearing arms against the
Parliament." The preachers argued that to keep the promises of quarter
which had been given to the prisoners was "_to violate the oath of the
Covenant_." {186b}
The prime object of the English opponents of the king was now "to hustle
the Scots out of England." {187} Meanwhile Charles, not captured but
hopeless, was negotiating with all the parties, and ready to yield on
every point except that of forcing presbytery on England--a matter which,
said Montereuil, the French ambassador, "did not concern them but their
neighbours." Charles finally trusted the Scots with his person, and the
question is, had he or had he not assurance that he would be well
received? If he had any assurance it was merely verbal, "a shadow of a
security," wrote Montereuil. Charles was valuable to the Scots only as a
pledge for the payment of their arrears of wages. There was much
chicanery and shuffling on both sides, and probably there were
misconceptions on both sides. A letter of Montereuil (April 26, 1646)
convinced Charles that he might trust the Scots; they verbally promised
"safety, honour, and conscience," but refused to sign a copy of their
words. Charles trusted them, rode out of Oxford, joined them at
Southwell, and, says Sir James Turner, who was present, was commanded by
Lothian to sign the Covenant, and "barbarously used." They took Charles
to Newcastle, denying their assurance to him. "With unblushing
falsehood," says Mr Gardiner, they in other respects lied to the English
Parliament. On May 19 Charles bade Montrose leave the country, which he
succeeded in doing, despite the treacherous endeavours of his enemies to
detain him till his day of safety (August 31) was passed.
The Scots of the army were in a quandary. The preachers, their masters,
would not permit them to bring to Scotland an uncovenanted king. They
could not stay penniless in England. For 200,000 pounds down and a
promise, never kept, of a similar sum later, they left Charles in English
hands, with some assurances for his safety, and early in February 1647
crossed Tweed with their thirty-six cartloads of money. The act was
hateful to very many Scots, but the Estates, under the command of the
preachers, had refused to let the king, while uncovenanted, cross into
his native kingdom, and to bring him meant war with England. But _that_
must ensue in any case. The hope of making England presbyterian, as
under the Solemn League and Covenant, had already perished.
Leslie, with the part of the army still kept up, chased Colkitto, and, at
Dunavertie, under the influence of Nevoy, a preacher, put 300 Irish
prisoners to the sword.
The parties in Scotland were now: (1) the Kirk, Argyll, the two Leslies,
and most of the Commons; (2) Hamilton, Lanark, and Lauderdale, who had no
longer anything to fear, as regards their estates, from Charles or from
bishops, and who were ashamed of his surrender to the English; (3)
Royalists in general. With Charles (December 27, 1647) in his prison at
Carisbrooke, Lauderdale, Loudoun, and Lanark made a secret treaty, _The
Engagement_, which they buried in the garden, for if it were discovered
the Independents of the army would have attacked Scotland.
An Assembly of the Scots Estates on March 3, 1648, had a large majority
of nobles, gentry, and many burgesses in favour of aiding the captive
king; on the other side Argyll was backed by the omnipotent Commission of
the General Assembly, and by the full force of prayers and sermons. The
letter-writer, Baillie, now deemed "that it were for the good of the
world that churchmen did meddle with ecclesiastical affairs only." The
Engagers insisted on establishing presbytery in England, which neither
satisfied the Kirk nor the Cavaliers and Independents. Nothing more
futile could have been devised.
The Estates, in May, began to raise an army; the preachers denounced
them: there was a battle between armed communicants of the preachers'
party and the soldiers of the State at Mauchline. Invading England on
July 8, Hamilton had Lambert and Cromwell to face him, and left Argyll,
the preachers, and their "slashing communicants" in his rear. Lanark had
vainly urged that the west country fanatics should be crushed before the
Border was crossed. By a march worthy of Montrose across the fells into
Lanarkshire, Cromwell reached Preston; cut in between the northern parts
of Hamilton's army; defeated the English Royalists and Langdale, and cut
to pieces or captured the Scots, disunited as their generals were, at
Wigan and Warrington (August 17-19). Hamilton was taken and was
decapitated later. The force that recrossed the Border consisted of such
mounted men as escaped, with the detachment of Monro which had not joined
Hamilton.
The godly in Scotland rejoiced at the defeat of their army: the levies of
the western shires of Ayr, Renfrew, and Lanark occupied Edinburgh: Argyll
and the Kirk party were masters, and when Cromwell arrived in Edinburgh
early in October he was entertained at dinner by Argyll. The left wing
of the Covenant was now allied with the Independents--the deadly foes of
presbytery! To the ordinary mind this looks like a new breach of the
Covenant, that impossible treaty with Omnipotence. Charles had written
that the divisions of parties were probably "God's way to punish them for
their many rebellions and perfidies." The punishment was now beginning
in earnest, and the alliance of extreme Covenanters with "bloody
sectaries" could not be maintained. Yet historians admire the
statesmanship of Argyll!
If the edge which the sword of the Covenant turned against the English
enemies of presbytery were blunted, the edge that smote Covenanters less
extreme than Argyll and the preachers was whetted afresh. In the Estates
of January 5, 1649, Argyll, whose party had a large majority, and the
fanatical Johnston of Waristoun (who made private covenants with Jehovah)
demanded disenabling Acts against all who had in any degree been tainted
by the _Engagement_ for the rescue of the king. The Engagers were
divided into four "Classes," who were rendered incapable by "The Act of
Classes" of holding any office, civil or military. This Act deprived the
country of the services of thousands of men, just at the moment when the
English army, the Independents, Argyll's allies, were holding the Trial
of Charles I.; and, in defiance of timid remonstrances from the Scottish
Commissioners in England, cut off "that comely head" (January 30, 1649),
which meant war with Scotland.
SCOTLAND AND CHARLES II.
This was certain, for, on February 5, on the news of the deed done at
Whitehall, the Estates proclaimed Charles II. as Scottish King--if he
took the Covenant. By an ingenious intrigue Argyll allowed Lauderdale
and Lanark, whom the Estates had intended to arrest, to escape to
Holland, where Charles was residing, and their business was to bring that
uncovenanted prince to sign the Covenant, and to overcome the influence
of Montrose, who, with Clarendon, of course resisted such a trebly
dishonourable act of perjured hypocrisy. During the whole struggle,
since Montrose took the king's side, he had been thwarted by the
Hamiltons. They invariably wavered: now they were for a futile policy of
dishonour, in which they involved their young king, Argyll, and Scotland.
Montrose stood for honour and no Covenant; Argyll, the Hamiltons,
Lauderdale, and the majority of the preachers stood for the Covenant with
dishonour and perjury; the left wing of the preachers stood for the
Covenant, but not for its dishonourable and foresworn acceptance by
Charles.
As a Covenanter, Charles II. would be the official foe of the English
Independents and army; Scotland would need every sword in the kingdom,
and the kingdom's best general, Montrose, yet the Act of Classes, under
the dictation of the preachers, rejected every man tainted with
participation in or approval of the Engagement--or of neglecting family
prayers!
Charles, in fact, began (February 22) by appointing Montrose his
Lieutenant-Governor and Captain-General in Scotland, though Lauderdale
and Lanark "abate not an ace of their damned Covenant in all their
discourses," wrote Hyde. The dispute between Montrose, on the side of
honour, and that of Lanark, Lauderdale, and other Scottish envoys, ended
as--given the character of Charles II. and his destitution--it must end.
Charles (January 22, 1650) despatched Montrose to fight for him in
Scotland, and sent him the Garter. Montrose knew his doom: he replied,
"With the more alacrity shall I abandon still my life to search my death
for the interests of your Majesty's honour and service." He searched his
death, and soon he found it.
On May 1, Charles, by the Treaty of Breda, vowed to sign the Covenant; a
week earlier Montrose, not joined by the Mackenzies, had been defeated by
Strachan at Carbisdale, on the south of the Kyle, opposite Invershin, in
Sutherlandshire. He was presently captured, and crowned a glorious life
of honour by a more glorious death on the gibbet (May 21). He had kept
his promise; he had searched his death; he had loyally defended, like
Jeanne d'Arc, a disloyal king; he had "carried fidelity and honour with
him to the grave." His body was mutilated, his limbs were exposed,--they
now lie in St Giles' Church, Edinburgh, where is his beautiful monument.
Montrose's last words to Charles (March 26, from Kirkwall) implored that
Prince "to be just to himself,"--not to perjure himself by signing the
Covenant. The voice of honour is not always that of worldly wisdom, but
events proved that Charles and Scotland could have lost nothing and must
have gained much had the king listened to Montrose. He submitted, we
saw, to commissioners sent to him from Scotland. Says one of these
gentlemen, "_He_ . . . sinfully complied with what _we_ most sinfully
pressed upon him, . . . _our_ sin was more than _his_."
While his subjects in Scotland were executing his loyal servants taken
prisoners in Montrose's last defeat, Charles crossed the sea, signing the
Covenants on board ship, and landed at the mouth of Spey. What he gained
by his dishonour was the guilt of perjury; and the consequent distrust of
the wilder but more honest Covenanters, who knew that he had perjured
himself, and deemed his reception a cause of divine wrath and disastrous
judgments. Next he was separated from most of his false friends, who had
urged him to his guilt, and from all Royalists; and he was not allowed to
be with his army, which the preachers kept "purging" of all who did not
come up to their standard of sanctity.
Their hopeful scheme was to propitiate the Deity and avert wrath by
purging out officers of experience, while filling up their places with
godly but incompetent novices in war, "ministers' sons, clerks, and such
other sanctified creatures." This final and fatal absurdity was the
result of playing at being the Israel described in the early historic
books of the Old Testament, a policy initiated by Knox in spite of the
humorous protests of Lethington.
For the surer purging of that Achan, Charles, and to conciliate the party
who deemed him the greatest cause of wrath of all, the king had to sign a
false and disgraceful declaration that he was "afflicted in spirit before
God because of the impieties of his father and mother"! He was helpless
in the hands of Argyll, David Leslie, and the rest: he knew they would
desert him if he did not sign, and he yielded (August 16). Meanwhile
Cromwell, with Lambert, Monk, 16,000 foot and horse, and a victualling
fleet, had reached Musselburgh, near Edinburgh, by July 28.
David Leslie very artfully evaded every attempt to force a fight, but
hung about him in all his movements. Cromwell was obliged to retreat for
lack of supplies in a devastated country, and on September 1 reached
Dunbar by the coast road. Leslie, marching parallel along the
hill-ridges, occupied Doonhill and secured a long, deep, and steep
ravine, "the Peaths," near Cockburnspath, barring Cromwell's line of
march. On September 2 the controlling clerical Committee was still
busily purging and depleting the Scottish army. The night of September 2-
3 was very wet, the officers deserted their regiments to take shelter.
Says Leslie himself, "We might as easily have beaten them as we did James
Graham at Philiphaugh, if the officers had stayed by their own troops and
regiments." Several witnesses, and Cromwell himself, asserted that,
owing to the insistence of the preachers, Leslie moved his men to the
lower slopes on the afternoon of September 2. "The Lord hath delivered
them into our hands," Cromwell is reported to have said. They now
occupied a position where the banks of the lower Broxburn were flat and
assailable, not steep and forming a strong natural moat, as on the higher
level. All night Cromwell rode along and among his regiments of horse,
biting his lip till the blood ran down his chin. Leslie thought to
surprise Cromwell; Cromwell surprised Leslie, crossed the Broxburn on the
low level, before dawn, and drove into the Scots who were all unready,
the matches of their muskets being wet and unlighted. The centre made a
good stand, but a flank charge by English cavalry cut up the Scots foot,
and Leslie fled with the nobles, gentry, and mounted men. In killed,
wounded, and prisoners the Scots are said to have lost 14,000 men, a
manifest exaggeration. It was an utter defeat.
"Surely," wrote Cromwell, "it is probable the Kirk has done her do." The
Kirk thought not; purging must go on, "nobody must blame the Covenant."
Neglect of family prayers was selected as one cause of the defeat!
Strachan and Ker, two extreme whigamores of the left wing of the godly,
went to raise a western force that would neither acknowledge Charles nor
join Cromwell, who now took Edinburgh Castle. Charles was reduced by
Argyll to make to him the most slavish promises, including the payment of
40,000 pounds, the part of the price of Charles I. which Argyll had not
yet touched.
On October 4 Charles made "the Start"; he fled to the Royalists of
Angus,--Ogilvy and Airlie: he was caught, brought back, and preached at.
Then came fighting between the Royalists and the Estates. Middleton, a
good soldier, Atholl, and others, declared that they must and would fight
for Scotland, though they were purged out by the preachers. The Estates
(November 4) gave them an indemnity. On this point the Kirk split into
twain: the wilder men, led by the Rev. James Guthrie, refused
reconciliation (the Remonstrants); the less fanatical would consent to
it, on terms (the Resolutioners). The Committee of Estates dared to
resist the Remonstrants: even the Commissioners of the General Assembly
"cannot be against the raising of all fencible persons,"--and at last
adopted the attitude of all sensible persons. By May 21, 1651, the
Estates rescinded the insane Act of Classes, but the strife between
clerical Remonstrants and Resolutioners persisted till after the
Restoration, the _Remonstrants_ being later named _Protesters_.
Charles had been crowned at Scone on January 1, again signing the
Covenants. Leslie now occupied Stirling, avoiding an engagement. In
July, while a General Assembly saw the strife of the two sects, came news
that Lambert had crossed the Forth at Queensferry, and defeated a Scots
force at Inverkeithing, where the Macleans fell almost to a man; Monk
captured a number of the General Assembly, and, as Cromwell, moving to
Perth, could now assail Leslie and the main Scottish force at Stirling,
they, by a desperate resolution, with 4000 horse and 9000 foot, invaded
England by the west marches, "laughing," says one of them, "at the
ridiculousness of our own condition." On September 1 Monk stormed and
sacked Dundee as Montrose sacked Aberdeen, but if he made a massacre like
that by Edward I. at Berwick, history is lenient to the crime.
On August 22 Charles, with his army, reached Worcester, whither Cromwell
marched with a force twice as great as that of the king. Worcester was a
Sedan: Charles could neither hold it nor, though he charged gallantly,
could he break through Cromwell's lines. Before nightfall on September 3
Charles was a fugitive: he had no army; Hamilton was slain, Middleton and
David Leslie with thousands more were prisoners. Monk had already
captured, at Alyth (August 28), the whole of the Government, the
Committee of Estates, and had also caught some preachers, including James
Sharp, later Archbishop of St Andrews. England had conquered Scotland at
last, after twelve years of government by preachers acting as
interpreters of the Covenant between Scotland and Jehovah.