THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY, AT EDINBURGH, 1646.

The preceding pages embody, with sufficient fulness and authenticity, the proceedings of the Scottish Parliament and Assembly in the beginning of the year 1645; and it is now our task to revert to contemporary occurrences during the period which intervened betwixt the Assemblies of 1645 and 1646, and which gave a colour and character to these proceedings, and ushered in the latter General Assembly.

Of the occurrences now referred to, by far the most striking and interesting were the military achievements of Montrose, which more immediately operated on the nerves and the policy of the Scottish Conventions in January and February, 1645. In our last sketch, we brought down the notices to the end of January, of that year when Montrose, having devastated Argyleshire, and chased its lord into the Lowlands, bent his steps towards the north, in order to muster the Royalists, and renew his summer aggressions on the dominant Covenanters. He had not, however, proceeded far on his route when he learnt that Argyle had returned to his own country with some Lowland forces, with whom he joined the remnant of his own clan, and had taken up a position at Inverlochie Castle, near Fort William, at the western extremity of the chain of lochs which have recently been connected by the Caledonian Canal. Retracing his steps through the snow-wreathed mountain passes with his wonted celerity, Montrose’s band was once more suddenly and unexpectedly in face of his enemy on the 1st of February, and the outposts partially engaged. Although greatly superior in force to Montrose, and in a position of his own selection, the Lord of Argyle prepared, at the dawn of day next morning, for the coming battle, by securing his own person in a place of safety. The soldiers on both sides had lain all night on their arms; and, when Montrose was in the field, there was little parley to be looked for. Argyle surveyed the contest from the boat in which he had rowed from the shore ere it commenced; and once more the star of Montrose was in the ascendant. The clan Campbell and their allies fought gallantly; but, deserted by their chief, and paralized by the terror of Montrose’s name, fifteen hundred of them were slaughtered before the eyes of their craven lord in the battle and retreat which followed; while this victory was won with the most trivial loss of men on the part of Montrose—among whom was Sir Thomas Ogilvy, of the House of Airlie, one of the most chivalrous adherents of the Royal cause.

Montrose, having thus annihilated Argyle’s power, and tarnished the military and moral influence of that chieftain, proceeded towards the north-east, where the fame of another victory gained him the support of Lord Gordon, and a considerable body of cavalry under his banner. The dismay of the Convention and Assembly, then sitting at Edinburgh, may be gathered from their recorded councils; and although they screwed their courage up while Montrose was traversing the Grampians and the wilds of the Western Highlands, his uniform success, and the increase of his strength, made them tremble for their safety even in the metropolis, though all the castles were in their hands. Baillie, the second in command of their troops in England, and Urry, (both experienced soldiers,) were recalled. These generals for some time manœuvred so as to prevent Montrose from crossing the Tay and Forth; and, as was frequently the case with him, his force was diminished by the retirement of numerous portions of it. With the remnant, however, he attacked the town of Dundee; and, with the irrepressible ardour of his Highland and Irish soldiery, (who had no pay or sustenance save plunder,) it became a scene of devastation, even in the immediate vicinity of Baillie’s army, which was within a mile of the town. Montrose hurriedly recalled his soldiers from the havoc, and effected a retreat northwards, which has been admired as one of the most brilliant of his exploits. In the face of a much superior force and able generals, he effected his retreat without disaster—marching above sixty miles without intermission, and fighting or manœuvring for three days and nights, without rest or refreshment.

The Gordons once more joined Montrose in the north; and Urry being detached to lead the northern Covenanters, and attack him in that quarter, the hostile parties came again into collision at Auldearn, (4th May, 1645,) where Montrose disposed his small band in the most skilful manner, and obtained another victory in that fierce and well fought battle, in which 2,000 of Urry’s troops were cut to pieces. Urry had lost in it about a third part of his soldiers; and being completely disabled and baffled, he was compelled to retreat on Baillie’s main army, and leave Montrose victor of the field. Baillie and Urry still advancing in greater force, Montrose soon again came into contact with them (on the 2d of July) at Alford, where, after a fierce and sanguinary struggle, (in which Lord Gordon was mortally wounded,) the genius of Montrose, and the resistless gallantry of his followers, won the day. They burst through the army of the Covenanters like a living torrent, sweeping everything before them; and thus the most skilful leaders, and some of the best troops of the Covenant, were utterly cut off, or scattered in the north.

The natural effect of this career of victory was a considerable accession to his standard, both of Highlanders and of non-Covenanters in the Lowlands, who had hitherto been borne down by the high-handed power of the Church and Estates, combined against the Royalists of that kingdom; and there was something too, it must be confessed, in the daring, and the devotedness of Montrose to his Sovereign—in his grappling with and surmounting all disadvantages—and in the fame of his uninterrupted triumphs—which was calculated to awaken the martial spirit of Scotland, that we have seen even in later times awakened from the slumber of peace, and shining forth in brightest lustre on the fields of Spain and Belgium.

Notwithstanding the successes which had attended the arms of the Parliaments in England, these successes of Montrose excited the greatest consternation in the councils of those who at that time ruled Scotland. New levies of troops were ordered to the number of 10,000; and the Convention of Estates was driven from Edinburgh by a pestilence, which added to the other horrors of the year 1645 in Scotland. They removed their sittings, in the month of July, first to Stirling, afterwards to Perth—assembled around them all the forces they could muster under the command of Baillie—and sent all the western Lords of the Covenant to their respective shires to quicken new levies.332

Montrose, with ranks more crowded and better appointed than heretofore, descended from the mountains, and passing by the Convention and the troops at Perth, whom he treated with scorn, advanced southward with rapidity. Approaching the northern shore of the Forth, through Kinross-shire, he consigned Castle Campbell (belonging to Argyle) to the flames. He thence proceeded westward, marking his progress by similar acts of vengeance; and crossing the river Forth at a ford some miles above Stirling—the castle of which he had no means of assailing—he then bent his course in a westerly direction for the purpose of dispersing the new levies in the south-western counties, and of advancing to the aid of his royal master in England. When he had advanced as far as Kilsyth, he learned, on the 15th of August, that Baillie, who had decamped from Perth, and taken the shorter route by Stirling Bridge, was advancing towards him. That able commander, knowing full well the spirit of Montrose and of his troops, would have avoided a general engagement, but was overruled by Argyle and other nobles, forming a Committee of the Estates, who urged on the attack. Montrose was advantageously posted, and eager for the fight; his men stripped to their shirts; and thus prepared “to do or die.” The Covenanters, ere yet they were fully formed, began the attack on an outpost; upon which Montrose, seeing and snatching the favourable moment, poured down his daring followers to the combat, to which they rushed in close columns with a wild shout that appalled their antagonists, whose ranks they pierced, and whom they dispersed and slaughtered with scarcely a shew of resistance, for the space of more than ten miles. Four or five thousand of the Covenanters were slain on the field and in the flight; and the only semblance of an army which the Covenanters had on foot in Scotland was thus utterly routed and dissipated. On this, as on former occasions, Argyle sought personal safety in a barque on the Frith of Forth, at the nearest point to the scene of action.

The capital surrendered on his advance, and there, as well as elsewhere, he liberated a number of the King’s friends who were in captivity; and so many persons of rank and consideration joined his standard, that he called a Parliament to be held in Glasgow in the King’s name. For the time, he was the conqueror of Scotland, save only its few castles; but even if he had possessed the means of reducing them, that formed no part of his scheme, which was to reach and join the Royal standard in England. Meanwhile, the leading men of the Convention and others fled for concealment in all directions; and, for a brief space, the power of the Covenanters was completely broken. But, from the very nature of Montrose’s armaments all along, they were liable to frequent mutations. Destitute of what have been emphatically termed “the sinews of war”—the funds for regularly maintaining his followers in the field—they ever and anon, as volunteers, retired to their homes, to the harvesting, and other pursuits, without leave asked or given; and even after the triumphant Battle of Kilsyth, when he had thus become master of Scotland, and might then have trodden the Covenanters under foot, his forces melted away, until it was diminished nearly to the condition in which it had been when he traversed the wilds of Atholl and Badenoch.

Having communicated with the King, whose fortunes were then at the lowest ebb in England, and urged him to draw near the northern border, so as to form a junction of their respective forces, Montrose received, by the hands of Sir Robert Spottiswood, a commission, under the Great Seal, appointing him Captain-General and Lieutenant-Governor of Scotland. Thus fortified, and animated by the sanguine spirit which had already achieved such wonders under the most disadvantageous circumstances, Montrose began his March towards the Border, and, early in the month of September, took up his cantonments at Selkirk; one portion of his little army (the cavalry) being quartered in that hamlet, and the other division of it being encamped at Philiphaugh, on the opposite bank of the Yarrow. Meanwhile the tidings of the disasters and despair of the Covenanters at home had reached the army in England. The chief men of that party were skulking in Berwick and other places near the Border, which were occupied by the Covenanting forces—and David Leslie was detached with five or six thousand of the Scottish auxiliary army, composed chiefly of cavalry, to check the progress of Montrose in Scotland. He crossed the Border at Berwick, and proceeded on the route towards Edinburgh, with the view apparently of intercepting the return of Montrose’s adherents from the north and the Highlands. But he was too good a general either to disclose his real intention, or to overlook any advantage which offered itself in the course of his operations.

When Leslie had advanced so far as Musselburgh, and was within two hours’ march of Edinburgh, he suddenly changed his route, and started across the country by Middleton to Melrose, within four miles of Montrose’s cantonments. Leslie’s troops were quartered at Melrose on the 12th of September, and reposed there and in its vicinity during the night; and early next morning, covered by a thick mist, approached Montrose’s encampment on Philiphaugh. All the chief gentry on the Border being at the time in the interest of the Covenanters, and their vassals and tenantry being, of course, like-minded according to the feudal feelings which then prevailed; and Montrose being lulled to a fatal security by past success, and a belief that Leslie was in or near Edinburgh, had not his scouts on the outlook. Leslie, favoured by these circumstances, suddenly and unexpectedly attacked the camp of Montrose, when unprepared for the contest, on the morning of the 13th of September. Dividing his force into two portions, they respectively attacked Montrose’s infantry on either flank; and the first tidings which their chief heard that an enemy was near, were the sounds of battle from the opposite bank of the Yarrow. Mustering his cavalry in all haste, he rushed to the battle field, but too late for his presence being available. Although his gallant followers fought with their wonted enthusiasm, many of them were already either slaughtered or taken prisoners ere he reached the scene of conflict; and although he and his companions did all that skill or valour could accomplish in such circumstances, it was in vain. Montrose continued the desperate combat until all that remained of his force was only thirty of his cavalry, the greater number being either killed, taken prisoners, or sheltered from the rout in an adjoining wood. With this wreck of his band, he retreated up the Yarrow and crossed over to Peebles, where a few of his followers who had escaped joined him. After this disastrous affair, Montrose once more retreated to the Highlands, where for the present we must leave him.

We cannot pass on from this narrative of the Battle of Philiphaugh, without recording that the successful commander, David Leslie, tarnished his laurels by a cold-blooded massacre of the prisoners he had captured, at the instigation, it has been confidently affirmed, of the Covenanting clergy. Many of the prisoners were taken to Newark Castle; and, while several persons of rank and better condition were reserved for future vengeance, those of an inferior class were butchered in scores in the court-yard of the Castle, like cattle in the shambles: one hundred persons, at least, were put to death on this occasion. A more atrocious outrage against all the usages of civilized warfare never was committed, save in the modern times of Spanish barbarity; and these hapless men, it most be remembered, were taken prisoners while bearing arms under the commission and in the cause of their lawful Sovereign, whose title and authority the Covenanters at that time did not impugn, but, on the contrary, affected to vindicate and uphold. If in future turns of fortune, the Covenanters became the victims of bloody persecution, let it not be forgotten, that this system of wholesale murder originated in the massacre at Newark Castle. It must be stated, however, in palliation of this act of revenge by the Covenanters, that Montrose and his followers, during the progress of their victories, had ravaged, with unsparing severity, every district which they visited; plundering, burning, and desolating, and not unfrequently sacrificing life without mercy or remorse at every stage of their progress.333

The picture which Scotland exhibited at the time referred to, would be incomplete were we to omit mention of the executions in form of Law which soon after followed the massacre of Newark. Douglas, Crawford, Erskine, Fleming, and Napier, escaped along with Montrose from the field of Philiphaugh; but among the prisoners reserved for more deliberate proceedings, were Hartfield, Drummond, Ogilvy, Sir Robert Spottiswood, (a son of the Archbishop and President of the Session,) Sir Alexander Leslie of Auchintool, Sir William Rollock, Sir Philip Nisbet, William Murray, brother of Tullibardine, Alexander Ogilvy of Innerquarity, Nathaniel Gordon, Andrew Guthrie, son of the Bishop of Moray, Stewart the Adjutant, and two Irish Colonels, O’Kyan and Leighton. David Leslie, after his victory at Philiphaugh, fell back on Lothian, where the two Irish officers were tried by martial law and executed. Soon after, at a meeting of the Estates in Glasgow, Sir William Rollock, Sir Philip Nisbet, and Alexander Ogilvy, were found guilty of “rebellion against the State”, and executed there on the 29th of October. On the 26th of November, the Parliament met at St Andrew’s, when Sir Robert Spottiswood, (whose sole crime was carrying the King’s commission to Montrose,) Mr William Murray, Colonel Gordon, and Mr Andrew Guthrie, were tried, condemned, and executed. Lord Ogilvy and Adjutant Stewart made their escape; and Hartfield alone, through the intercession of Argyle, was pardoned. And thus commenced the bloody war of party revenge, which for nearly forty years afterwards polluted and dishonoured the annals of Scotland.

In our last introductory sketch, we had brought down the narrative of events in England to the Treaty at Uxbridge, which commenced in January, 1646. The discussions embraced three great points—religion, the militia, and Irish affairs. On the first of these, the Parliamentary and Scottish Commissioners strenuously insisted on the uniformity of religion, in terms of the League and Covenant; Presbyterianism to be the form of Church Government, and that form, with all its formalities and doctrines, (still unsettled even in the Ecclesiastical Assemblies of both kingdoms,) was sought to be sanctioned and adopted by the King, and enforced coercively on all his subjects of Scotland, England, and Ireland. The other two subjects presented also debatable points; but these are foreign to our purpose; and the King having been required to sanction a bill for the abolition of Prelacy—to confirm the proceedings of the Westminster Assembly, with all the particulars subordinate to such a requisition—the treaty terminated on the 22d of February, without leading to any auspicious results, by the King rejecting overtures so inconsistent with all his principles. Nor although the insurgents were still in the ascendant in the affairs of arms, had the Presbyterian party any good ground of confidence in their ultimate triumph; for henceforward the Independent party became more bold and energetic, and, ere long, acquired a decided preponderance in the councils which ruled the land; and, finally, abolished and tyrannized over both the Episcopalian and Presbyterian establishments; these being completely overborne by a potent combination of wild and mystic sects, whose tenets were too variegated to admit of any adequate description in a sketch of this kind, but who always inculcated the doctrine of unlimited toleration, although in their conduct, as was the fashion of the age, they practically outraged its principles.334

The Acts of the Assembly 1645, contain abundant evidence of the spirit by which it was animated; and we forbear adverting to particulars. We go on, therefore, to remark that the English Parliament, by their self-denying ordinance and new modelling of the army, having invested the leading Independents with the highest power on their side, obtained, on the 14th of June, 1645, the victory at Naseby. The fate of Charles was thereby irretrievably sealed, and his fortunes hopelessly overcast. In this state of affairs, the conflicts betwixt the Presbyterian and Independent parties waxed fiercer in consequence of continued efforts, on the part of the former, to obtain uncontrolled spiritual domination, which was, of course, resisted by the other party; and the English Parliament and leaders having, with the assistance of the Scottish armies, triumphed over the Royalists, in all quarters, were now anxious to get quit of their allies, whose presence in England operated as a check on the predominant English adventurers. Imputations against the Scottish army for rapacity, inactivity, and other real or imaginary backslidings, led to recrimination and heartburning; and the Scotch had a plausible ground of complaint, inasmuch as the pay and allowances which had been promised them by the English Parliament were greatly in arrear. Besides all these causes of discord, the Scottish party was disappointed by the qualified adoption of Presbytery as the Church of England. The conclusions of the Westminster Assembly, after being sanctioned by the Scottish General Assembly and Estates, were adopted indeed as an experiment by the English Parliament, but to be reversed or altered according to circumstances; and during all the sittings of the Westminster Assembly, the English Parliament sturdily refused to render the Church independent of the State, and retained to itself the ultimate power of control in all matters ecclesiastical as well as civil. This sort of erastianism was very unpalatable to the Scotch, who had set the Church above the State, and wished this dominancy to be extended to England as well as Scotland.

While these misunderstandings were at a height, and the King’s power almost annihilated, he endeavoured to avail himself of these distractions by a diplomacy not, perhaps, altogether free of intrigue, with both the parties concerned; and, towards the close of the year 1645, he made overtures for an agreement with the English Parliament; but although quarrelling among themselves, the victorious parties concurred in rejecting those overtures, which, had they been acceded to, might eventually have frustrated the designs of Cromwell and his associates. They resolutely resisted the King’s offers to disband all his forces and go to London, attended only by a royal escort, to pass an act of oblivion, and to do whatever the Parliament should advise for the good and peace of the kingdom, on the single condition of obtaining security for the personal safety of himself and his followers. The absolute rejection of such propositions was a sufficient indication to the unfortunate Charles that he had nothing to expect even from the most humiliating concessions to the ruling party in England; and in this sad extremity of his fortunes, he adopted, perhaps, the only other alternative that remained to him—that of casting himself unreservedly upon the loyalty, the generosity, the gratitude of his Scottish subjects; for assuredly the ample concessions which he had made to them in 1641, by which he had confirmed their favourite ecclesiastical polity, given omnipotence to the Estates, and vested the executive authority entirely in the hands of the ruling party in Scotland—and which he had not, in a single instance, infringed during the space of five years, (unless his commission to Montrose may be so construed,)—gave him reasonable grounds to expect that they would welcome and protect their native King, who had thus lavished his regal prerogatives upon them, and extended their national liberties. We shall soon see the result of this resolution.

The King had been induced to adopt the course now alluded to by the representations of Montreville, a French agent, who assured him he would be safe and welcome in the Scottish camp, then pitched before Newark. On the 27th of April, 1646, Charles left Oxford in disguise, and on horseback, as the lackey of one of his attendants, of whom there were only two, Ashburnham, groom of his bed-chamber, and Hudson, a clergyman; and, after traversing the country by many by-ways and circuits, he at length, on the ninth day after leaving Oxford, reached the camp at Newark. The King’s departure from Oxford, which was soon discovered, and communicated to the Parliament, spread a panic among the factions of which it was composed. They dreaded his appearance in London, as calculated to excite some reaction inimical to their designs; and to harbour or conceal his person was denounced, under all the penalties of treason against the Commonwealth. This dastardly alarm was only quieted by intelligence of his Majesty’s arrival at the Scottish camp, of which the Lord Leven had sent notice to both the Scottish and English Parliaments; and the latter passed a resolution on the sixth day of May, that the Scottish general and commissioners should be required to consent that his Majesty’s person might be at the disposal of the two Houses of Parliament in England, and sent to Warwick Castle. They were also desired to render up the persons of his two companions; a demand to which the Scottish authorities in the camp demurred, on grounds which were honourable to their feelings.335

The Scottish general had received his sovereign, on his arrival at the camp, with all becoming courtesy and respect; but he soon found himself in truth a captive, and reduced to the condition of a mere make-weight in the scale of sordid political negotiations which speedily ensued betwixt the Parliaments of England and Scotland. Leslie, with small difficulty, induced the King, who was now powerless, to issue his orders to the Commander of Newark, for the surrender of that town, which took place on the 6th of May. This was followed by similar orders to other loyalists in various other strengths, which still held out for the King, and by his instructions were rendered up to the Parliamentary forces; and thus the last visible sparks of loyalty, and of regal authority in the person of Charles I. were extinguished in England. Having effected these objects, and having the royal person in his custody, the Scottish general led his army northward, and on the 13th of May 1646, took up his cantonments at Newcastle-upon-Tyne.336

The cessation of arms was succeeded by a vast variety of complicated negotiations, which it is not within our province to detail. The Committee of the Scottish Estates was sitting when the King’s arrival at the camp was made known to it, on which it sent a deputation with a message of seeming loyalty, and an intimation of the lively interest which it took in the safety of his person, and the preservation of his honour; but very speedily he learned that it had given instructions to its Commissioners to act in concert with the two Houses of Parliament in England, and that the Scottish Estates would not agree to anything by which the “unity and uniformity” in religious matters, which was contemplated by the League and Covenant, in the three kingdoms might be affected. Untaught by the lessons of experience—shutting their eyes to the fact that, instead of the “unity and uniformity” which they fondly anticipated from it, that celebrated monument of extraordinary zeal had been productive only of an increase of schisms, divisions, and theological sects, on all hands, and in high places—and forgetful too that by the very terms of that deed, as well as by the Covenant of 1637, they were bound “to defend the Kings Majesties person and authority,” and “the honour of the King”—they allowed themselves to get bewildered in a maze of metaphysical theology and polemics, which set at nought the most obvious dictates of common sense and sound morality, and still persisted in the inforcement of a uniformity which no earthly power ever can command, without an exercise of unmitigated despotism. In this state, and in this mood, were the affairs and the authorities of Scotland when the General Assembly met on the 3d of June, 1646. The political events of the time will become the subject of further review, after exhibiting the proceedings of that Assembly.