The Tables had again been "supplicating" in the old fashion, vindication of the past and determination to go on for the future in the same course, being set forth with all deep humility. The king answered them in a denunciatory proclamation intrusted to Hamilton. Times were changed, however, and it was no longer that the king's lieutenant played a game at hide-and-seek with those who were to neutralise his Proclamation by a Protestation. The authorities in Edinburgh would neither announce the proclamation nor permit it to be announced. They sent a remonstrance to Hamilton, with the old professions of loyalty and humility, but pointing out to him that this document which comes from abroad, and has no sanction from the local government of Scotland, "carries a denunciation of the high crime of treason against all such as do not accept the offer therein contained." "Whereas your grace knows well that by the laws of this kingdom, treason and the forfeiture of the lands, life, and estate of the meanest subject within the same cannot be declared but either in Parliament or in a supreme justice court, after citation and lawful probation; how much less of the whole peers and body of the kingdom, without either court, proof, or trial." They are convinced that it is not the doing of their gracious king, but "a deep plot contrived by the policy of the devilish malice of the known and cursed enemies of this Kirk and State." 1

On the 20th of May the Scots army was paraded on the links of Leith by their commander-in-chief, Leslie. The articles of war under which they took themselves bound to serve were read to them. Next day the march towards the English border began. They were accompanied by several clergymen, who filled the regimental chaplain department to superfluity. Fortunately for the entertainment and instruction of later times, Baillie was among them, and left some picturesque notices of his experience. He was chaplain to the contingent from Ayrshire, where he ministered, and he says: "I furnished to half-a-dozen of good fellows muskets and pikes, and to my

1 Burnet's Memoirs.

boy a broadsword. I carried myself, as the fashion was, a sword and a couple of Dutch pistols at my saddle; but I promise for the offence of no man except a robber on the way, for it was our part alone to pray and preach for the encouragement of our countrymen.' It may be questioned if any army since the time of chivalry had in it so much of the aristocratic element as this which went to make war upon the sovereign. Baillie says: “Our crouners [that is, colonels], for the most part, were noblemen. Rothes, Lindsay, Sinclair, had among them two full regiments, at least, from Fife. Balcarras, a horse troop; Loudon, Montgomery, Erskine, Boyd, Fleming, Kirkcudbright, Yester, Dalhousie, Eglinton, and others, either with whole or half regiments. Montrose's regiment was above fifteen hundred men.' His clerical mind was surprised that so large a representative force of the territorial aristocracy of Scotland should defer to the soldier of fortune who commanded in chief: "We were feared that emulation among our nobles might have done harm when they should be met in the fields; but such was the wisdom and authority of that old, little, crooked soldier, that all with ane incredible submission from the beginning to the end gave over themselves to be guided by him, as if he had been great Solomon." 3

1 Letters, &c., i. 211.

2 Letters, &c., i. 211.

3 Ibid., 213, 214. Old Leslie was popular in England. The author possesses a slim quarto pamphlet with the title, "General Lesley's Speech in the Parliament of Scotland, the 25th of October 1641, in Defence of himself upon certain Slanders which are reported of him -wherein he expresseth his Affection to the King and Kingdom of England. Also concerning the Traytors of Scotland which did lay a Plot to take away his Life. Printed at London for T. B., 1641. There is a woodcut on the title-page representing the general, in much more than complete armour, careering away on a thundering war-steed. The speech is in keeping with this-a rodomontade of turgid English sprinkled with Latin. It must have taken skill to make anything so absolutely at odds with the tough old practical Scots soldier, who had spent his life abroad, and had a dubious reputation as to reading and writing. The interest in the existence of such a document is in the fact that it should have been fabricated for the English. On turning to the Lord Lyon's diary of the session of 1641, to find whether Leslie did or could address the House on the

There was a strong element of religious enthusiasm in that host, yet perhaps it was not quite so strong as some have believed it was. Through the whole struggle the working of the religious element was in the hands of the loudest speakers, while those whose impulses were of a secular character were more reserved in their communications. What Baillie says of his own entranced inner feelings may have applied to his brother clergy and a few others. The soldiers from the Swedish camp had been taught to submit to religious ordinances as part of the soldier's discipline. The same practice will in some measure account for the sound of psalm-singing and praise which fed the ears of Baillie with spiritual luxuries. That there was somewhat of swearing and brawling, and the other rough usages of the camp, was also an element which he was too honest to conceal.1

Argyle was there with a few of his Highlanders. The bulk of the army did not relish the fellowship of such troops, and it had been prudently settled that their main body should remain in Scotland in the rear of the march, to be a terror to our neutralists or masked friends, to make all without din march forward, lest his uncanny trewsmen should light on to call him up in the rear." The

66

25th of October 1641, the response is: "25th October-Monday.— No meeting of Parliament."-Balfour, iii. 119.

1 The short passage on which the text is a commentary is singularly interesting: "Had ye lent your ear in the morning, or especially at even, and heard in the tents the sound of some singing psalms, some praying and some reading Scripture, ye would have been refreshed: true, there was swearing and cursing and brawling in some quarters, whereat we were grieved; but we hoped, if our camp had been a little settled, to have gotten some way for these misorders; for all of any fashion did regret, and all did promise to contribute their best endeavours for helping all abuses. For myself, I never found my mind in better temper than it was all that time frae I came from home, till my head was again homeward; for I was as a man who had taken my leave from the world, and was resolved to die in that service without return. I found the favour of God shining upon me, and a sweet, meek, humble, yet strong and vehement spirit leading me all along; but I was no sooner in my way westward, after the conclusion of peace, than my old security returned."-Letters, &c., i. 214.

small group of Argyleshire mountaineers who crossed the border were an object of wonder, like the French Mamelukes, or the other strange allies that armies employed on distant Oriental warfare bring home with them for ornament rather than use. They came from districts as utterly unknown in England as the interior of Africa, and their people had a terrible name for rapine and ferocity. "It was thought," says Baillie, "the country of England was more afraid for the barbarity of his Highlanders than of any other terror. These of the English that came to visit our camp did gaze much with admiration on these supple fellows, with their plaids, target, and dorlachs." Thus it was in the cause of the Covenant that Highland troops first marched southward, and threatened England.

The army had an excellent commissariat, in which their own sagacious organisation was assisted by fortunate contingencies. The account of the material condition of the host would be spoilt if given in any other than Baillie's own words: "None of our gentlemen was anything worse of lying some weeks together in their cloak and boots on the ground, or standing all night in arms in the greatest storm. Whiles, through storm of weather and neglect of the commissaries, our bread would be too long in coming, which made some of the eastland soldiers half mutiny; but at once order being taken for our victuals from Edinburgh, East Lothian, and the country about us, we were answered better than we could have been at home. Our meanest soldiers were always served in wheat-bread, and a groat would have gotten them a lamb-leg, which was a dainty world to the most of them. There had been an extraordinary crop in that country the former year, beside abundance which still was stolen away to the English camp for great prices; we would have feared no inlake for little money in some months to come. Marche and Tevidaill are the best mixt and most plentiful shires both for grass and corn, for fleshes and bread, in all our land. We were much obliged to the town of Edinburgh for moneys. Harie Rollock, by his sermons, moved them to shake out their purses. The garners of non-Covenanters, especially of James Maxwell and my Lord Wintoun, gave

us plenty of wheat. One of our ordinances was to seize on the rents of non-Covenanters ; for we thought it but reasonable, since they sided with these who put our lives and our lands for ever to seile, for the defence of our Church and country, to employ for that cause (wherein their interest was as great as ours, if they would be Scottish-men) a part of their rent for ane year; but for all that, few of them did incur any loss.by that our decree, for the peace prevented the execution." 1

The army, thus effectively equipped, contained twentytwo thousand footmen and five hundred horsemen. It will give some conception of the skill and perseverance of those who sent it forth, to note that, in mere proportion to the number of the inhabitants of Scotland, it was such a feat as if a British war minister of the present day could place an army of some six hundred thousand effective men on the march.

When the army had reached Dunglas, on the Berwickshire coast, the Lord Holland handed to the general a proclamation issued by the king at Newcastle on the 14th of May. It stated that he found the Scots nation were apprehensive that, contrary to his intentions, he had come to invade them. He wishes to remove this impression; "if all civil and temporal obedience be effectually and timely given and shown," there is to be no invasion. The document is full of indistinct matter of this kind; but it contained one positive declaration fit to be a ground of action,-if the Scots came within ten miles of the Border, they were to be treated as "rebels and invaders of this our kingdom of England," and to be attacked by the English army. A council of war was held in the Scots camp, and it was resolved in the mean time to obey the proclamation, and to keep themselves ten miles distant from the Border. An inexplicable incident connects itself with this transaction. A large detachment of the Scots-four or five thousand-were stationed at Keiso. Whether or

2

1 Letters, &c., i. 213.

"The proclamation is printed from a MS., in Peterkin's Records,

220.

3 Gordon's Scots Affairs, iii. 5.