MacGregors, MacNabs, MacPhersons, Stewarts of Appin, and Farquharsons, increased Montrose's army by at least 5,000 hardy, brave, and well-armed men, and determined him to fulfil without delay his cherished purpose of carrying the war into the Lowlands.

Charles had intimated his desire and intention to force his way through the north of England and join Montrose, who consequently resolved to push on with the hope of uniting his forces with the King's at the Border. He accordingly marched by Dunkeld and Perth, where Baillie was now posted with 6,000 infantry and some hundreds of horse. Some unimportant skirmishing took place here, which scarcely interrupted Montrose's march. He crossed Kinrossshire, and passing north of Stirling, crossed the Forth at the ford of Frew, at its junction with the Teith. As he passed along the skirts of the Ochill mountains, in view of a stronghold of Argyle's, the Macleans, who had suffered many wrongs inflicted by the Clan Campbell, could not resist attacking the Castle of Gloom. They quitted the line of march, burst the gates of the Castle, and, firing it, left nothing standing but the walls, the ruins of which still form a noble object in its romantic site, a monument of clan vindictiveness.

Baillie, with 7,000 foot and 800 horse, accompanied by Argyle and the Field Committee, a band of ministers whose insolent ignorance was continually

defeating the skilful tactics of the Covenanting generals, for the most part men who had acquired military experience on the Continent under Gustavus Adolphus, had closely followed the Royalists, and both the Field Committee and Montrose were anxious for an engagement. Montrose was aware that the Earl of Eglinton and other Covenanting lords of the south-west of Scotland were raising recruits; and he was eager to fight before they formed a junction with Baillie. This excellent soldier had now passed Stirling, and Montrose, having made a night march to meet him, had taken post about two miles east of Kilsyth, where Baillie, on the morning of August the 15th, unwillingly consented to attack him. Montrose had 5,000 infantry and 500 horse, Baillie at least 2,000 more.

The accounts of this battle are so confused that it is impossible to give an intelligible description of it. One thing, however, is clear-that the incredible presumption of Argyle and his church-militant clergy assured Montrose's victory before a blow was struck— by urging Baillie to fight, to which he was averse, and by repeatedly countermanding his orders and altering the dispositions he had made. The great advantage thus bestowed on the Royalists was jeopardised by a rash and premature attack made by the Macleans and MacDonalds of Clanranald, on ground where they were in imminent danger of being cut to pieces. Montrose instantly saw their perilous error, and

galloping to the gallant old Earl of Airlie, exclaimed -"My Lord, you see into what a hose-net those poor fellows have fallen by their rashness! Unless relieved, they will be trodden down by the enemy's horse. The eyes and hearts of all men turn to your Lordship, and I know of none more worthy to repel the foe and bring off our comrades: forward, then, in the name of God." The brave old man, now nearly seventy years old, immediately made a furious charge on the Covenanters, seconded by Lord Aboyne and the Gordon horse; and the Highlanders, thus relieved, drove the enemy before them. The reserve brigade of three regiments of Fifeshire Whigs, whose comrades had suffered terribly at Tippermuir, deeming the day lost, fled without firing a shot. The whole Highland line now charged, and in a very short time the rout of the Covenanters was complete. They were pursued with great slaughter for many miles, 4,000 or 5,000 of them being slain. Baillie, with some of his officers and a remnant of his 7,000 escaped to Stirling; and Argyle, for the fifth time within a year, fled precipitately (as he had done at Dunkeld, Inverary, Inverlochy, and Alford) for dear life; till, reaching South Ferry and taking ship, he sailed to Berwick-on-Tweed, accompanied by some of his clerico-military friends.

Montrose was now master of the whole open country of Scotland. Outside a few fortresses the Covenanters had no force to oppose him. He was received and

sumptuously entertained in Covenanting Glasgow. Glencairn and other Puritan lords of Ayrshire and the neighbouring counties fled to their brethren in Carrickfergus, and all the Whig western counties submitted to him.

IV.

Nevertheless, the day of disaster was at hand, and in less than a month the remnant of his force remaining with him was annihilated. Still bent on his project of uniting his troops with the King's, he encamped at Bothwell Muir on the Clyde, eight or ten miles from Glasgow, and soon after moved nearer the Border in hopes of receiving reinforcements from the Homes, Kers, Douglases, and other loyal lords of the Border counties. These hopes were grievously, if not traitorously, disappointed. It is hard to believe that Stewart, Earl of Traquair, did not act traitorously While at Bothwell Muir, where forty-four years after was fought the battle of Bothwell Brig, Monmouth commanding the troops of Charles II., and where the Covenanters were addressed, as tradition says, with pithy eloquence never surpassed, as the English force advanced to the charge :-"There they're comin', and

if

you dinna kill them they'll kill you;" and where a friend of mine was informed by a peasant of the

neighbourhood, "a famous battle had been fought,

lang syne, between the Catholics and the Christians." Montrose was here joined by Sir Robert Spottiswoode, Secretary of State for Scotland, bearing a commission (for which crime he was put to death by the Covenanters) appointing the Marquis Lieutenant Governor and Captain General of the Kingdom; and here he reviewed his whole army, "and under the Royal Standard of Scotland opened his new commission, and delivered a brief but eloquent harangue, suited to the wild spirit of his hearers; and with his own good sword he knighted the flower of his Highland heroes-him of the long patronymic-Alaster MacColkeitach - MhicGillespie - MhicCholla - MhicAlasterMhicIan Cattanach"*-Alexander the son of Coll the left-handed-son of Archibald-son of Coll-son of Alexander-son of Warlike John; the first and the two last chiefs of their family, the McDonnells of Isla Cantyre and the Glens, or Clan Donald South.

But now, to the grief of Montrose, at this culmination of his fame, his Highland army fell to pieces. The clans of Athole and the Macleans, 3,000 in number, hearing that their dwellings had been destroyed, and their families left to face the rigour of the coming winter homeless, departed to rebuild what the troops of Baillie in the north, and the Campbells in the west, had burned and overthrown. Others were urged by

*Grant, p. 288.