"When Leslie was hurrying northwards, after the battle of Kilsyth, he paused at Rotherham, with men and horses so fatigued that, as he himself afterwards declared, they could have made no effectual resistance. The King was within ten miles of him, at Doncaster, at the head of 4,000 Cavaliers, while 3,000 foot, raised by the gentlemen of Yorkshire, were about to join him. He could have annihilated Leslie's force, and had not the impetuous Rupert been absent, that blow would in all probability have been struck.”*

When Montrose, in obedience to Charles's orders, moved towards the Border, he expected zealous aid from the Royalist noblemen and gentlemen of that quarter, and even hoped to be joined by the King himself. He was totally disappointed in both respects. On the 4th of September he moved from Bothwell Muir with 200 horse, all gentlemen, and 700 foot. Most of the latter were Colonel O'Cahan's and Major MacLoghlin's Irish musketeers. On the 6th he received certain intelligence from Lord Erskine that Leslie was at Berwick-on-Tweed. It seems very strange that he did not instantly retreat to his strongholds among the Grampians. Passing south of Edinburgh, and descending the Vale of Gala, he was there joined by the Marquis of Douglas, with a few of the Annandale men, many of those whom his influence had induced to take arms having deserted.

"There, too, he was met by Traquair, and welcomed with warm professions of loyalty and affection; and next day there Napier, p. 371.

repaired to the Royal Standard a well appointed troop of horse led by John Stewart-Lord Linton-the Earl's eldest son. Traquair also undertook the duty, which he had better have left to others-that of acquainting the Marquis of the exact movements of Sir David Leslie."*

In the performance of this task Traquair most egregiously failed; and on the night of the 12th of September, when Montrose's little army of about 1,000 foot and 500 horse was encamped at Philiphaugh, Traquair sent private orders to his son to withdraw his troops, which the young noble immediately obeyed secretly, by favour of the night. In the grey dawn of the next morning, Philiphaugh being covered with a dense fog, Montrose, who had spent the night with some of his officers in Selkirk hard by, writing despatches, was alarmed by the sound of musketry, and instantly seizing his rapier, mounted the first horse he found, and galloped across the Ettrick to the camp, followed by his officers. They soon perceived the hopelessness of the contest, and at first thought merely of selling their lives as dearly as possible, but were persuaded by Sir John Dalziel, of Glenae, to take advantage of their immediate assailants being diverted by the plunder of the baggage, and to cut their way by dint of sword through the enemy. The proposal was adopted; and Montrose, followed by Lords Douglas, Crawford, Napier, and Erskine, and some

* Grant, p. 293.

other gentlemen, fled at full speed up the Yarrow. It is remarkable that Sir John Dalziel was brother of the Earl of Carnwath, the person who took Charles out of the field after the loss of the battle of Naseby, seizing hold of his horse's bridle, and saying, "Will ye go upon your death?"

The main body of the Irish retired to an enclosure on an eminence," which," says Guthry, "they maintained till Stuart, the adjutant, being among them, procured quarter for them from David Leslie, whereupon they delivered up their arms, and came forth to a plain field, as they were directed." The clergy, however, argued that it would be impious to spare the lives of such wretches, that Stuart alone had been admitted to quarter, and that the rest should be put to death, quoting in support of their outrage on "the beggarly elements of justice and humanity":"Now go smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."

In my opinion, it matters not at all whether the quarter was intended to include the Irish or not. What followed was in either case an atrocious massacre 400 of these brave men were on the next morning marched two miles up the Yarrow, enclosed in the courtyard of Lord Cassilis's Castle of Newark, and shot down to a man. The 150 Irish who accom

panied Sir Alaster met the same fate in May, 1646, in Cantyre; 300 women were slain in the camp, and says Grant:

"Eighty other women and children, fugitives from that dreadful scene, were overtaken at Linlithgow by the Covenanters, who flung them over a high bridge into the foaming Avon, fifty feet below; there they were all drowned, for a few who reached the banks were thrust back by pikes and destroyed. Thus man and woman, infant and suckling, perished; for again and again were the conquerors told that the curses which befel those who spared the enemies of God would fall upon him who suffered one Amalekite to escape."

Montrose effected his escape to the Highlands, and during the winter and spring of 1646 used every exertion, with little success, to raise another Royalist army, till Charles wrote him orders from Newcastle on the 19th of May, 1646, to lay down his arms, and retire into France.

Sir Alexander McDonnell, having succeeded in raising 1,200 Highlanders, had been engaged in warfare with the Campbells during the winter; and now Sir David Leslie marched into the Western Highlands to attack him with four regiments of infantry, three troops of horse, and three of dragoons, reinforced by Argyle with a body of his clan burning for revenge. On 25th of May a sanguinary battle was fought in Cantyre, where it borders on Knapdale :

"Sir Alaster, with his native Islesmen, his 150 musketeers, * Grant, p. 301.

and the clan MacDougal, an ancient tribe of Lorne, endeavoured to defend Tarbet, part of his old and lawful patrimony, from which his father had been expelled by the Campbells [and James the Sixth in 1615]. The whole day the strife continued among the mountains, and, armed only with their swords and shields, again and again the Celtic warriors flung themselves upon the serried pikes of the Covenant, and many acts of high individual valour were performed.

By nightfall the contest was ended, but Sir Alaster was completely routed, with the loss of 200 men, eight pieces of cannon, and all his ammunition. By a stratagem he retired to his boats, and sought shelter in the Isles, leaving a garrison of 300 MacDougals and Irishmen in the Castle of Dunaverty," "'* the coast of Cantyre, two or three miles from the Mull-an old castle of the MacDonalds, in which the Lord of the Isles received and sheltered Robert Bruce at the time when his fortunes were at the lowest.

on

Leslie besieged the castle, and the garrison were soon compelled to surrender for want of water. They were butchered to a man; the Rev. John Neaves, Leslie's Chaplain, threatening him with all "the curses which befel Saul for sparing the Amalekites," if he spared the men of Dunaverty.

"Thus urged, 260 gallant soldiers were hurried into eternity; while Argyle and the sanctimonious ruffian, Neaves, walked together among the falling corpses, literally ankledeep in blood. 'Now, Master John,' said the godly Marquis, turning with a sardonic grin to the preacher, for once you have got your fill of blood.'"+

More than fifty years ago I saw the bones of some