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not with them."1 This was an instance of the spirit which made it a scandal in that age to employ such instruments in warfare. This was the third visit paid by Montrose to Aberdeen. In the two former he had chastised the community until he brought them into conformity with the Covenant, and now he made compensation by chastising them for having yielded to his inflictions.

He wandered through the Gordon country only to experience a mortifying illustration of the character of Highland politics. All his efforts to communicate with the head of the house were baffled. Whether it was that Huntly would not co-operate with the man who had betrayed him, or that, as some said, he had hidden himself from his enemies so effectively that even his friends could not find him, Montrose never got the use of his name for raising his people, and therefore appealed to their sense of loyalty in vain. So nimbly, indeed, did they evade the messengers sent among them, that the country appeared empty of men.

The point of wonder in Montrose's operations henceforth is, the apt use he made of the peculiar qualities of his force in rapid movements from place to place. For some time in the north he and Argyle were close to each other, and their contest was like that of the hawk and the heron-Montrose never permitted the two to come so close together as to touch each other unless when he was prepared to wound. In winter Argyle retired to his own castle at Inverary. It was a current belief that the passes into the Argyle country, difficult in summer, were utterly impracticable in winter. They were therefore carelessly protected, and the lord of the domain was abiding in indolent security in his castle. Montrose's stanch follower, Macdonald of Kolkitto, had been absent raising men in the far north-west, and had returned with a large reinforcement. Thus strengthened, Montrose resolved to try the mettle of his Highlanders by a winter raid in the territories of the dreaded MacCallum Mohr. He was so expeditious and silent that he all but caught his great enemy

1 Ibid., 407, 408.

VOL. VI.

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in his lair. Argyle escaped by sea.

From December 1644 to February 1645 the poor people of his country were scourged and harassed by relentless marauders. Then these returned again home with their booty, and Montrose's policy became that of the fugitive.

Argyle was gathering forces at Inverlochy, under the shadow of Ben Nevis, in the north-west corner of his territory. From another side the Lord Seaforth threatened Montrose with a large body of the Covenanters of the far north. The exigency was one to try the resources of a military genius, and it was duly met. He carried his

small army, winter as it was, over those terrible mountains, where travellers sometimes die of cold in summer, and pounced on Argyle, abiding in security on the level banks of Loch Linnhe. The surprise was complete; and Argyle's people, after an ineffective resistance, fled to the hills. Argyle himself has been bitterly reproached for betaking himself to his galley instead of remaining at the head of his people. The act was stigmatised as cowardice. In truth, however, a man in Argyle's position had heavy difficulties to contend with. He had great ability, and much of this ability was shown in controlling men ; but it was in civil policy, not in war. He was not naturally a soldier; yet in that day there was no transferring the military command of a clan-nature had pointed out the leader, and no other could supply his place. His political conduct was not that of a coward, and his death was heroic.1

After having kept his small army alive and out of sight in the northern Highlands for some weeks, we find Montrose, in the beginning of April, pouncing suddenly on the town of Dundee. The outline of the doings of his little savage army there makes it not uncharitable to suspect, that had a minute chronicler like Spalding been present,

1 Baillie, when telling how he threw his lot in with the Covenant party at the Assembly of 1638, when the step was dangerous, says: "It has been the equity of our cause which has been the only motive to make that man, in that necessar time, to the extreme hazard of his head and all he possesses, to encourage us openly by his assistance." -Letters, i. 146.

he might have given even a drearier picture of pillage and cruelty than the sack of Aberdeen. The stay, however, here was brief. The Committee of Estates had thought it necessary to bring over General William Baillie to oppose Montrose's career. It will be observed that as yet he had not been face to face with any commander who was a trained soldier. A small detachment of rank and file seems to have been at the same time sent from the army in England, for we have frequent reference to a thousand trained soldiers belonging to the army of the Covenant.

By the presence of these and of Baillie, and another old soldier, John Hurry or Urry, Montrose's nimble motions were guided. They were at the same time influenced by the fluctuations in his own army. When he had three thousand men in hand, he could haunt the Covenanting forces in the low country; but when he had only a third of that number, he had to keep the mountains, where he was inaccessible. He was at one time joined by a body of the Gordons; but they disappeared suddenly one day, and neither the commander nor any other person could discover why they deserted. In May he found himself in Morayland with three thousand men, in face of Urry, who had with him the best troops of the Covenanting army. Montrose's policy was the defensive; and he made a small fortified camp of the village of Auldearn, in the county of Nairn. Here on the 9th of May he was vigorously attacked by Urry, who threatened to force his left, where Kolkitto commanded. Some mistake made by a subordinate commander on Urry's side tempted Montrose to try the aggressive. He ordered his whole force to throw themselves on the enemy, and again the Highland rush was effective in scattering them.1 Urry carried his

1 Spalding says: "This overthrow was attribute to ane Crowner or Major Drummond, who wheeled about unskilfully through his own foot, and brake their ranks, whereby they were all slain by the enemy; and for the whilk, by council of war holden thereafter at Inverness, he was shot, standing on his feet, but not at ane post. There was reckoned to be slain here at this bloody battle above two thousand men to Hurry, and some twenty-four gentlemen hurt to

broken forces to join Baillie, and both ascended the valley of the Don in Aberdeenshire, where Montrose appeared to be retreating before them. He ascertained however, that though the two experienced generals were in the army, the thousand trained troops were elsewhere, under the command of the Lord Lindsay.

He took up a strong position near the village of Alford. It was a low hill westward of the village, forming a ridge running east and west, and rising towards the west, where it has a full view of the surrounding country. The ground whence it rises is now well cultivated, but it was then a marsh or bog. The Covenanter generals believed that he was avoiding battle, and had the temerity to cross the river to attack him. The two armies were about equal in foot, neither having more than two thousand; but the Covenanters had a considerable superiority in horse. The fight was an obstinate one, but in the end the Covenanters were again beaten. Montrose's name was now to the Covenanters an object of terror and exasperation. There was a general feeling that the faithful must rise throughout the land and suppress him. In Fifeshire-an early stronghold of the Covenanters-the old spirit was rekindled, and burned vehemently. One army was fast gathering there, and another among the western Whigs, where the Covenanting spirit was of more recent planting, but had been of rapid and powerful growth. It was now the policy of Montrose to strike a decided blow at the existing army before it was enlarged by the new-comers. He was in a fitter condition for such a feat than he ever had been before, since the fame of his two victories in the northern Lowlands had penetrated far through the mountains, and brought him reinforcements from the distant clans of the west of Inverness-shire and Ross-shire.

The movements of the two forces had now shifted the theatre of war to the south side of the Forth, nearly two

Montrose, and some few Irish killed—which is miraculous, and only foughten with God's own finger, as would appear, so many to be murdered and cut down upon the ane side, and so few on the other." -Memorials, ii. 474.

Mon.

hundred miles from the scenes of the late battles. trose kept within the range of the Campsie Hills, where he could at any time secure himself. Baillie, his antagonist, had the larger force-six thousand in all, including the valued thousand who had been thoroughly trained to arms. Whether it was owing to Baillie's own imprudence, or to the conceited obstinacy of the Committee of Estates, who controlled him, the mistake was again made of supposing that Montrose shunned a battle. For the purpose of finishing the war before the enemy was reinforced, he courted a meeting, provided it were at his own time and place. The valley behind the small town of Kilsyth, where he waited for his enemy, is now a small lake or reservoir for supplying water to works close by. But enough of it is visible to show that it was excellent ground for Highland warfare. The battle began with some legitimate fighting, in which the Ogilvies and other Lowland Cavaliers took part. But the Highland

onset was again tried at the right time. The human torrent rushed down the brae with a wild roar or yell, and carried all before it. As at Tippermuir, there was a long and bloody pursuit. The slaughter was far beyond any usual proportion to the number engaged. It was a boast, indeed, of the Cavaliers, that not one unmounted Covenanter escaped alive. The defeated general maintained that he was not responsible for the calamity, that the Committee of Estates had interfered so with his functions as a military commander, that he resolved to let them command in reality, abiding in his place only that he might do his best under them to save the army from destruction at a juncture when "the loss of the day would be the loss of the kingdom." 1

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Baillie's Letters, ii. 421. Argyle, a bad soldier, appears to have dictated in name of the committee: My lord marquis asked me what was next to be done. I answered the direction should come from his lordship and those of the committee. My lord demanded what reason was for that. I answered I found myself so slighted in everything belonging to ane commander-in-chief, that for the short time I was to stay with them I should absolutely submit to their direction and follow it." So far as the loss of the battle was caused

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