own strong house or castle. Montrose now formed the project of destroying these strongholds one by one. He began with the Tower of Gight. It was defended by Johnston, the victor at Turriff, one of the officers trained in the foreign wars, and threatened a tough resistance. Montrose had no siege-train, and his small field-pieces. had little effect on the thick stone walls. He set himself down, however, for a steady siege, in which he worked for two days, when, suddenly changing his purpose, he broke up his camp, and retreated to Edinburgh as rapidly as if an enemy had been at his heels.

This was a mistake caused by false information. He learned that Aboyne, with his commission as Lieutenant, had brought a fleet into the roadstead of Aberdeen having a land-force on board. He knew that Aboyne had got an order from the king for two thousand men, but did not know that, as we have seen, the order had been ineffectual. As to Aboyne's fleet, it was represented by a sorry colliership from the Tyne and two pinnaces. They carried the contribution supplied by Hamilton under the king's order, and landed some brass cannon and other munitions, and a few trained officers, the most important among whom was Crowner or Colonel Gun, a native of Caithness, who had served abroad.1

The retreat of Montrose did far more for the cause of the northern Cavaliers than the assistance brought by Aboyne. The dispersed army of the Barons again gathered round the Castle of Strathbogie, and Aboyne was able to march on Aberdeen with some two thousand footmen and five hundred horse. He had a copy of the English oath of allegiance to the king-this he proclaimed on his way, and tendered for signature as an anti-Covenant declara

1 Gun's career was a fair type of the fortunes of the more successful of the Scots officers who served abroad. According to the historian of the house of Sutherland, who says that Gun was born in that county, he returned to Germany, became a major-general in the imperial army and a baron of the empire, marrying "a rich and noble lady beside the imperial city of Ulm, upon the Danube" (Note, Gordon's Scots Affairs, ii. 266). It will be seen that he was not likely to have obtained high preferment at home.

tion. Aberdeen was now again at the command of the Cavaliers, and those who had taken the Covenant, and continued to adhere to it, had to disappear. A curious and expressive chapter of local history might be filled by a description of the revolutions of "the gude toun," alternately under the military domination of either party. The local historian laments over this hard fate as exceptional to the peace enjoyed by the other towns: "No doubt but this vexation was grievous to Aberdeen to be overthrown by ilk party who by might and strength could be master of the fields, whereas all the other burghs within Scotland lived first and last at great rest and quietness.'

As we shall presently see, the Tables-now a strong, settled, central government-were solemnly preparing to measure swords with England, or with so much of England as the king could command. With all the rest of Scotland fairly in hand, and contributing their due proportion of taxes and levies for the great national war, it was provoking to find so tough an obstacle in one corner of the country. Critical as the position was of the army in the south, it was necessary, before the situation became still more critical, to send a force sufficient to crush an opposition which, amid the general unanimity in which their policy prevailed elsewhere, had naturally taught them to consider the Cavaliers of the north as traitors to their country's cause.

The knowledge which experience had given Montrose of the duty to be done marked him as the proper commander of the expedition, and he marched northward in the middle of June. It happened that his enemies came so far to meet him. Having an officer of experience like Gun to command them, the Cavaliers in Aberdeen took the strong step of a march southwards, that, picking up adherents as they went, they might come upon the rear of the Covenanting force in the south, while the English Royalist army was dealing with them in front. The ordnance, powder, and heavy baggage for this expedition were to be conveyed along the coast in the three ships brought

1 Memorials, i. 186.

by Aboyne; but in a storm off shore these drifted out to sea and were heard of no more. When the Cavaliers had reached the Castle of Muchalls, five miles to the north of Stonehaven, Montrose was two miles on the other side, sheltered by Dunnottar, the great fortress of his ally the Earl Marischal. All seemed ready for a critical battle; and that something almost worse than a defeat befel the Cavaliers was attributed to the treachery of Gun, their leader. Their array is thus told: "The van was given to a troop of volunteer gentlemen quiraciers, about one hundred in number, who for the colours carried a handkerchief upon a lance. These wanted nothing to have made them serviceable but some officer to lead them who had had more honesty than Colonel Gunne. The citizens of Aberdeen got the first place of all the foot, who had there a foot regiment of gallant firemen, well appointed, to the number of about four hundred. The Highlanders had the rear, and other troops of horses were put to the wings of the foot."1

-was

Either through accident or false strategy it befell that these Highlanders did the work of the enemy. The cannon-"the musket's mother," as they then called itan arm of war which they would not meet. The near roar of artillery at once dispersed them. It was not that they were influenced so much by ordinary fear, as by a superstition that the dreadful sound warned them of a force which man must not dare to resist. Montrose was strong in ordnance, having been supplied from Dunnottar. A party of the Covenanters advanced beyond their lines as if to attack the Cavaliers, then suddenly turned and rapidly retreated as if in flight. They were followed, and thus the Highlanders were brought in front of a cannonade, with the natural result. While yet untouched themselves, they beheld some casualties from the cannonade among their allies. One gun carried a twenty-pound ball, "which so affrighted the Highlanders, who stood farthest off, that, without expecting any word of command, they ran off all in a confusion, never looking behind them till they were

1 Gordon's Scots Affairs, ii. 271.

got into a moss or fast ground near half a mile distant from the Hill of Meager." The rest of the force became unsteady and disappeared. It was not a retreat, for no order was kept; nor a flight, for there was no pursuit ; but a dispersal, each seeking his own home. And so 66 this,"

says the historian of the affair, "is that action known so well afterwards under the name of the Raid of Stonehive, so ridiculously and grossly managed that in all the war nothing can be recounted like it."i

The sole hope for the Cavalier party in Aberdeen now lay in holding the bridge over the Dee-a work of seven arches, narrow and crooked, as bridges were in that day. To this spot such of the scattered force as could again be gathered was brought. What defence-works of turf and stone the short time permitted were run up at the south end. They were so strong and well served that for a whole day the cannon assailed them, and swept the bridge in vain. Next day Montrose tried a strategy of so simple and transparent a kind that its success, in the face of trained soldiers, was attributed to the treachery of the Cavalier commander. The Covenanting army appeared to be ascending the river to cross by a neighbouring ford. The other party went to defend the ford. There were but fifty left at the bridge, and the barriers were forced without resistance. So it was in this northern section of the contest that the second actual conflict as well as the first was fought. The affair of the bridge of Dee made a nearer approach to the dignity of a battle than the Trot of Turriff; and its results were far more eminent, since they decided the fate not of a mere village, but of an important town, the capital of a district.

Thus again the Covenanters were supreme in Aberdeen. Some conspicuous Malignants were imprisoned, others' dispersed or hid themselves. There was momentous consultation about the fate of the city—whether it should be rased to the ground, and if not, what penalty should be exacted from it. But an event intercepted the decision of these momentous questions. It was on the 19th of June

1 Gordon's Scots Affairs, ii. 275.

"whilst

1639 that the bridge was carried. On the 20th, the poor city was fearing the worst, that very night came there a pinnace from Berwick, with letters both from the king and chief of the Covenanters, ordering all acts of hostility to cease upon both sides, and intimating that the treaty was closed; so that to-morrow all the prisoners were released, the peace proclaimed, and every man began to come back to Aberdeen to their houses. Yet could not Montrose's soldiers be gotten away out of the town of Aberdeen till the town paid five thousand merks Scots for a taxation to them, so ill were they satisfied both with the want of the plunder of Aberdeen and the hasty news of the peace, which Montrose suspected would come before he entered the town." 1

It has been thought best to trace up to a temporary conclusion this episode in the great contest, to prevent confusion and clear all out of the way of the account of the far more momentous, though less picturesque and animated, succession of events through which the main quarrel took its course.

1 Gordon's Scots Affairs, ii. 281, 282.