HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

1639. March.

Plan of the campaign.

CHAPTER LXXXVIII.

THE FIRST BISHOPS' WAR.

WAR was now universally recognised as inevitable. The plan of campaign adopted by Charles was to a great extent the same as that which had been suggested by Wentworth. Carlisle and Berwick were to be firmly held, and an army on the Borders was to protect England from invasion. Pennington's ships were to hover about the Firth of Forth, to cut off the petty commerce which enriched Fife and the Lothians. The great blow, however, was to be struck, not at Leith, but at Aberdeen. Hamilton was to carry a force of 5,000 men to Huntly's support. As soon as he arrived, the two marquises would move southwards together, collecting as they went those scattered bodies of loyalists who were supposed to be burning to throw off the yoke of Covenanting tyranny. From Hamilton's point of view, it was necessary that he should appear at the head of a Scottish party. To land simply in command of an English force was a course reconcileable neither with his feelings nor with his interests. He could not treat Scotland, as Wentworth treated it, as a mere land of rebels.

In the midst of Charles's deliberate preparations, the Covenanters suddenly assumed the offensive. The walls of the

castles of Edinburgh and Dumbarton were strong, but their

nanters seize

the castles of men.

and Dum

barton.

The Cove garrisons had no heart to fight against their countryAt Edinburgh the outer gate was burst open Edinburgh with a petard, and the walls were scaled, whilst the soldiers within looked on in stupified amazement. The strongest fortress in Scotland was 'won without a stroke.' At Dumbarton the Governor was so much at his ease that he took some of his men with him to perform their devotions in a church outside the fortifications. He and his companions were seized, and the rest of the garrison capitulated on the following day. Stirling was still in the friendly keeping of the Earl of Mar.

March 24. Dalkeith

Un

At Dalkeith, Traquair had hoped to make a stand. The regalia of Scotland were there, and powder and arms had been stored in the cellars for the use of that Royalist up army which was to be raised in the southern countaken. ties as soon as the King reached the Borders. luckily for the scheme, the place was not defensible by any means at Traquair's disposal. The Covenanters from Edinburgh climbed over the walls, and bore off the crown and sceptre with every sign of reverence.2 Other fortified houses belonging to the loyal nobility were easily reduced to submission, and before the end of March Nithsdale's castle of Caerlaverock was the only defensible position untaken to the south of the Tay. For Charles the result was no mere military disaster. Nowhere amongst his few followers in the Southern Lowlands had there been found that desperate fidelity which springs from devotion to a great cause cheerfully embraced. The king who in time of danger is unable to awaken enthusiasm is lost already.

Worse news still came from Aberdeen. All through February, Montrose had been busy, levying men and money in his February. native Forfarshire. Once he dashed northwards as Montrose's far as Turriff, to rally the gentry of the district, who were good Covenanters because they feared Huntly. In March he had sterner work before him. On the 16th

prepara

tions.

1 Baillie, i. 195.

2 Rushworth, ii. 906.

1639

March 16. March 17.

MONTROSE IN THE NORTH.

3

Huntly received a commission of lieutenancy from the King, and the next day a large consignment of arms followed. He was ordered to take the aggressive.1 No English forces were as yet ready to support him. Neither Charles nor Hamilton had any notion of the value of time in war, and they seem to have fancied that the Covenanters would be as slow in their preparations as they were themselves. On the 25th Huntly was at Inverury at the head of 5,000 The Covenanters, he was told, were in full march to the North. Without succour from England, he was no Huntly at match for the enemy. Amongst the gentry of the neighbourhood, the Frazers and the Forbeses, the Covenanting army was sure of a welcome. If Huntly had been a Montrose, he would have struck one stroke for the King in spite of the odds against him. Huntly, however, was He dismisses not a Montrose. He called a council of war.

men.

March 25.

Inverury.

March 26.

his troops.

to its fate.2

March 30.

Aberdeen.

On

its advice, he dismissed his troops, and left Aberdeen

In the town everything was in confusion. Sixty of the principal citizens, accompanied by the greater number of the Confusion in Doctors, shipped themselves to offer their services to Aberdeen. the King. Others took refuge in friendly houses in the neighbourhood. On the 30th Montrose marched into Aberdeen with Leslie at his side, and 6,000 men at Montrose in his heels. His allies from the country round made up 3,000 more. The young commander had a keen eye for the value of a symbol or a flag. He heard that the Gordons had adopted a red ribbon as a mark of loyalty. Montrose bade his men sling blue scarfs over their blue badges. shoulders, and tie bunches of blue ribbons on their bonnets. Montrose's whimsies, as they were called, were soon to become famous when the blue bonnets crossed the border. He did not neglect more serious work.

Montrose's

1 Gordon, ii. 213. Burnet, 113.

Leaving a garrison

2 Gordon's story that Hamilton sent a direct message to Huntly to dismiss his troops may, I think, be rejected. There may have been orders not to fight till Hamilton arrived. We have no actually contemporary

evidence, and must be content with probabilities.

behind him, he pushed on for Inverury, where he quartered his men on the opponents of the Covenant. Meal chests were broken open and cattle slaughtered. Houses standing empty were stripped of their contents. The language was enriched with a new verb, 'to plunder,' imported by Leslie and his followers from the German war, as the synonymous verb 'to loot' has, in our days, been imported from the plains of Northern India.

of the North.

1

Despairing of aid from the South, Huntly sought an interview with Montrose. On April 5 a compromise was arrived at. Huntly was to throw no hindrance in the way of any April 5. Pacification of his followers who were pressed to sign the Covenant. Those of them who were unwilling to do so, and especially the numerous Catholics amongst them, were to enter into an engagement to maintain the laws and liberties of Scotland. On these conditions they were to be left without molestation as long as they remained quiet. Huntly himself was allowed to return to Strathbogie.2

As far as the mass of the population was concerned, the compromise thus arrived at was eminently wise. No possible good could have arisen to the national cause from the compulsory signature of the Covenant by friend or foe. It does not follow that it was equally wise to leave Huntly and his sons at liberty to form a centre of resistance as soon as pressure was withdrawn. So, at least, thought the Northern Covenanters, whose quarrel was rather with the Gordons than with Episcopacy. On the plea that without his aid it was impossible to arrive at a permanent settlement, the Marquis was invited to Aberdeen, under a safe-conduct signed by Montrose and the other leaders, assuring him full liberty to return home as soon as the conference was over.

On the 12th Huntly was at Aberdeen. The next day,

1 Latham's Johnson gives the word on Fuller's authority as having been introduced in 1642. Gordon, however, says of this expedition, this they called for to plunder them' (ii. 229). It is used in a MS. letter of Sir H. Vane in 1640.

Spalding, i. 160. Gordon, ii. 224. The evidence of the latter is worth more than usual here, as his father was engaged in the negotiation.

1639

Aberdeen.

HUNTLY'S CAPTURE.

5

Montrose's language was that of a man seeking for a pretext to excuse in his own eyes a breach of his plighted April 12. Huntly at word. He began by preferring unexpected demands. Would Huntly pay the expenses of the Covenanting April 13. army? Would he seize certain Highland robbers in the neighbourhood? Would he give the hand of friendship to his brother's murderer, Crichton of Frendraught? The last request could only be made to be refused. Between Crichton and Huntly lay the bitter memory of the night when the young Lord Meldrum, coming on an errand of mercy, was decoyed into the Tower of Frendraught, only to be awakened by the roaring flames. Montrose's request was met, as it could not but have been met, with an unhesitating refusal. carried to My Lord," said Montrose, "seeing we are all now Edinburgh. friends, will ye go south to Edinburgh with us?" After some further conversation, Huntly asked a plain question: Was he to go as a captive, or of his own free will? "Make your choice," was Montrose's reply. In that case, said Huntly, he would rather not go as a captive. The form of liberty made little difference to the fact of compulsion. Montrose may have been, as has been suggested, overruled by the committee by which he was controlled; but whether this were the case or not, he had played but a mean and shabby part.

Huntly

66

It had been intended that Huntly should have been accompanied by his two eldest sons-Lord Gordon and Lord Aboyne-who alone of his numerous family had reached man's estate. Aboyne asked leave to go home and fetch money for his journey; and Montrose, ashamed perhaps of his treatment of the family, gave the required permission on promise of a Aboyne's escape.

quick return. Aboyne, regardless of an engagement made to one whose faith had not been kept, took the opportunity to place himself beyond the reach of pursuit. His father and elder brother were conducted to Edinburgh. There Huntly was pressed to take the Covenant. "For my own part," he replied, "I am in your power, and resolved not to leave that foul title of traitor as an inheritance upon my posterity. You may take my

April 20. Huntly refuses to

sign the

Covenant.