and every distinguished stranger was welcomed by the corporation to a wine-banquet, or "cup of bon-accord," as it was termed, in the words of the motto on the corporation arms. When this hospitality was offered to the new visitors it was disdainfully refused." They would not have fellowship with the uncovenanted. "They would drink none with them till first the Covenant was subscribed." This was an insult "whereof the like was never done to Aberdeen in no man's memory." The materials for the feast were distributed among the city paupers a disposal with a certain satisfactory touch of disdain in it.1

The three clerical commissioners desired to occupy the city pulpits next Sunday, but the clergymen to whom these belonged thought fit to use them for their own ordinary ministrations. The visitors had one important supporter in the district, the Earl Marischal, whose winter hotel was in the centre of the town, and in the place now known as Marischal Street. The house had wooden benches or galleries in front, and there the three ministers preached in succession, judiciously occupying the intervals between the regular church services. The community of this isolated district, with the group of scholars belonging to its cathedral and colleges, and its Episcopalian tastes, was liker to one of the smaller cathedral towns of England than any other part of Scotland was. Hence the ways of the new-comers were as strange and peculiar there as they would have been in Canterbury.2 The strangers had a considerable audience, but an audience neither sympathetic nor reverential. So each party, with very little trouble, had managed to cast tokens of bitter despite at the other.

The strife which had thus been sown first broke forth in print. The attack was begun by six of the Aberdeen clergy, called familiarly in the correspondence of the day, "The Aberdeen Doctors." These were-John Forbes of Corse; Robert Baron, Professor of Divinity; Alexander

1 Spalding's Memorials, i. 91, 92.

2 Ibid., i. 92; Gordon's Scots Affairs, i. 84.

Scrogie; William Leslie, Principal of King's College; James Sibbald, and Alexander Ross. They were all men of ability and learning; but two at least of their names had a wide renown, Forbes and Baron. Alexander Ross, too, has a celebrity, but it is vicarious, from confounding him with his more eminent contemporary and fellowtownsman, who furnished Butler with the three-syllabled rhyme. The Ross who was one of "the Doctors" died in 1639, before the bulk of the other's many volumes appeared. They began by issuing 'General Demands concerning the late Covenant, propounded by the Ministers and Professors of Divinity in Aberdeen to some Reverend Brethren who came thither to recommend the late Covenant to them, and to those who were committed to their charge.' The controversy spread over several papers on both sides; and the whole of these documents were arranged and printed by "the Aberdeen Doctors," under the nomenclature of the stages in a suit of law. To the Demands there were 66 Answers," to these came Replies by the Doctors; and then second Answers, and finally "Duplies " by the Doctors. A piece of dry humour was no doubt intended in these titles; but it is not likely to be enjoyed in the present day, nor are the papers in substance very attractive. The position taken by the Doctors is the unassailable one of the dry sarcastic negative. Whatever the Covenant might be-good or bad-and whatever right its approvers had to bind themselves to it, how were they entitled to force it on those who desired it not? And when their adversaries became eloquent on its conformity to Scripture and the privileges of the Christian Church, the Doctors ever went back to the same negative position—even if it were so, which we do not admit, yet why force it upon us ?2

66

1 See Grub's Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, ii. 313.

2 The "Doctors" had the gratification to receive from the king a brief but favourable criticism of their part in the controversy. They were commended for their loyal service, and particularly for "hindering some strange ministers" from preaching in their churches. The king said he had not had time to consult some of their own profession, whose judgment he proposed to ask on their merits. But from his

The commissioners having canvassed the town and county of Aberdeen, returned with a scanty list of adherents to the Covenant. It gradually increased, however; for there was a political party there, as well as elsewhere, to whom it was convenient. Some who chafed under the power of the Gordons-such as the Frasers, the Forbeses, and the Keiths, whose chief, the Earl Marischal, had already helped the Covenanters-ultimately joined them, to the weakening of Huntly's power. Early in the year 1639, the Tables, who saw a greater war before them, resolved to deal, in the first place, with the malignants of the north, and relieve themselves from an enemy in the rear.

A fine small army of some three or four thousand men was thus gathered and disciplined under the command of Montrose, with the experienced Leslie as his lieutenant. In February, and before it had been put in marching order, the commander heard that the few friends of his cause in Aberdeenshire were to meet in Turriff, on the border of Banffshire, then a market-town of some importance, but now a mere village. He heard, also, that the Gordons were to assemble in force to disperse them; and he resolved, by one of those bold and original feats in which his strength lay, to protect his friends. Taking with him not quite two hundred men, he moved this light body, by the unfrequented drove-roads of the uplands, across the Grampians, by Fettercairn and the Cairn o' Month, and had them placed behind the churchyard-wall of Turriff, as a breastwork to them, before the Gordons arrived. These were a large body-two thousand, it was said-with Huntly at their head. He, so far as the king was concerned, had been named the royal lieutenant in the north; but he shrank from then drawing the first blood, though he might have been secure of victory, and allowed the Covenanters to have their way. It was said that

66 own reading of them "-he does not say how far it had gone-he says, we do hold them, both with learning and a peaceable moderate style, answerable to men of your profession and place."-Documents, Spalding's Memorials, i. 98, 99.

there was a policy in his abstinence. He had been instructed not to proclaim his lieutenancy until some great emergency occurred. The Turriff meeting was in the middle of February, and he proclaimed his commission a month later. It was desirable that he should forbear until the royal forces were at hand, lest, if he came to issue with the strong army of the Covenanters while free to act, it might crush him and extinguish the only available ally whom the royal army was to find in Scotland.1 At the same time his authority was in an awkward position. His commission as lieutenant had been "stopped at the Seals." It had not received, and was not now likely to receive, official attestation, as sealed and certified by the proper Government officers.2

Meanwhile the citizens of Aberdeen were fortifying their town, and the general tone of tacit menace in the district prompted the Tables to strike a blow in the north before their hands became full elsewhere. The force at their disposal was too overwhelming to be safely resisted. It is said that nine thousand marched northwards, and were joined by two thousand from those families who were zealous against the house of Gordon, if not for the Covenant.

The commissary-clerk of Aberdeen, whose descriptive powers had probably been exercised on inventories of furniture and commodities, brings before our eyes this well-ordered army with a distinctness such as we often seek vainly in the pompous technical narratives of those who profess an acquaintance with military science. Perhaps his very ignorance of the apparatus of war, and the

1 Gordon's Scots Affairs, ii. 210, 313, 314; Spalding's Memorials, i. 145. "A commission for the lieutenancy of the north of Scotland was sent to the Marquis of Huntly; but he was ordered to keep it up as long as possible, and carefully to observe two things. One was, not to be the first aggressor, except he were highly provoked, or his majesty's authority signally affronted; the other was, that he should keep off with long weapons till his majesty were on the Borders, lest, if he should begin sooner, the Covenanters might overwhelm him with their whole force, and either ruin him or force him to lay down his arms."-Burnet's Memoirs, 113.

2 Spalding's Memorials, i. 168.

novelty of the sight, made its impression on his mind all the clearer: "They came in order of battle, well armed, both on horse and foot, ilk horseman having five shot at the least, where he had ane carbine in his hand, two pistols by his side, and other two at his saddle-tor. The pikemen in their ranks, with pike and sword; the musketeers in their ranks, with musket, musket-staff, bandeleer, sword, powder, ball, and match. Ilk company, both on horse and foot, had their captains, lieutenants, ensigns, sergeants, and other officers and commanders, all for the most part in buffle coats and goodly order. They had five colours or ensigns, whereof the Earl of Montrose had one, having this motto drawn in letters, 'FOR RELIGION, THE COVENANT, AND THE COUNTRY.' The Earl Marisal had one, the Earl of Kinghorn had one, and the town of Dundee had two. They had trumpeters to ilk company of horsemen, and drummers to ilk company of footmen. They had their meat, drink, and other provisions, bag and baggage, carried with them.-Done all by advice of his excellency Felt-Marshal Leslie, whose counsel General Montrose followed in this business. Now, in seemly order and good array, this army came forward and entered the burgh of Aberdeen about ten hours in the morning, at the Over-Kirkgate Port, syne came down through the Broadgate, through the Castlegate, out at the Justice Port to the Queen's Links directly."1

The Covenanting clergy now got possession of the Aberdeen pulpits, where, in the month of April, they were able to proclaim against the bishop the doom that had been pronounced in December. He and all other persons of note who would not take the Covenant had fled from the town. Those who remained submitted quietly to the test, whether with sincerity or not. All things were orderly. No plundering was allowed. The community were required to compel the suspicious people to furnish provisions, but they were paid for. A contribution of ten thousand marks was levied on the community at large, out of which the individual creditors of

1 Spalding's Memorials, i. 154.