deteyn Sir John Chieslie until Mr. Rowe be returned to you or that you have other order from the Parliament or this Council." On the 5th of March it was also ordered "that it be delivered to Captain Dolphin as a verbal instruction that if the Earl of Lothian, Sir John Chieslie, and Mr. Lendonyng will bear their own charges by land, that he is to let them do it, notwithstanding anything in his Instructions."

On the 7th of March the following "Additional Instruction for Captain Dolphin" was entered in the minutes. "Whereas the Earl of Lothian, Sir John Chieslie, and Mr. Lendonyng have signified that they will bear their own charges in their journey and not accept the defraying of their charge by this State; you have therefore herewith imprested to you upon account £100 in lieu of the £200 formerly appointed for that service, which is for supply of such extraordinary occasions which may fall out in your journey." And on the same day a post warrant is ordered to be granted to Captain Dolphin for the taking up of twenty horses upon the way for the use of the Scots Commissioners and their retinue, they paying for them the rates usual upon the road. The warrant, after reciting that the Scots Commissioners had resolved to make use of horses from stage to stage for themselves and their retinue, requires all justices of the peace, &c. "upon sight hereof to furnish twenty good and sufficient horses with two sufficient guides from stage to stage and place to place from Blackwall to Berwick for the said service, they the said Earl of Lothian, &c. paying for the same the ordinary and usual rates." 2 At the same time the discharge of the "ship John of Kircaldie" is notified in the minutes.

1 Order Book of the Council of State, Die Lunæ, March, 1648. MS. State Paper Office.

2 Order Book of the Council of State, 7 March, 164. MS. State Paper

Office.

All this appeared a proceeding of a very high nature on the part of a government the leading members of which were designated by Mr. Denzil Holles as "mean tradesmen," and who certainly were men who did not trouble themselves to go for their pedigrees beyond the battle of Naseby, towards an oligarchy of which the principal members valued themselves on the imagination of pedigrees going back to or beyond the Flood.

It appears from the Order Book of the Council of State that the English rulers were fully aware that they would have a war with Scotland upon their hands soon. The following orders evince their unrelaxing vigilance. "That

all the guns which were at Pontefract Castle (except only the two guns and mortar-piece belonging to the garrison of Hull) be delivered to such as Sir Arthur Haselrig shall appoint for the better defence of the garrison at Berwick."1 "That a letter be written to Sir Arthur Haselrig [governor of Newcastle] to have special care that Berwick and Carlisle be carefully garrisoned." "That it be reported to the House that the letter sent to the Parliament of England by that of Scotland is of such a nature as it lays an incapacity of prosecuting the former demands by way of treaty. And Sir H. Vane is to make the report.'

2

3

"That a letter be written to the commander of the two troops of horse of Col. Hacker's regiment that lately were about Carlisle to continue in those parts till they receive further order and in the meantime that they do what they can to repress the mischiefs that are daily done to the country by the moss-troopers." 4 "That a letter be written to the

1 Order Book of the Council of State, à Meridie, 26 March, 1649. MS. State Paper Office.

2 Order Book of the Council of State,

Die Lunæ, 2 July, 1649. MS. State
Paper Office.

3 Ibid. same day.

Ibid. 23 Octob. 1649, à Meridie.

U

Commissioners for the Customs to give order unto the several ports of England, That no goods whatsoever which may be made use of for the furnishing of arms or raising of war be permitted to go out of this nation into Scotland upon any pretence whatsoever."

We have seen that one of the instructions given to the Scottish commissioners who were sent to treat with Prince Charles was to insist on his putting from him all who had assisted his father in the war, particularly Montrose. On the other hand Montrose advised Charles to reject the terms of the Presbyterians, and offered his services to place him on the throne by force of arms. Charles was willing to treat with both of these parties at the same time; and he granted a commission to Montrose to attempt a descent on Scotland, while he kept on foot a negotiation with the Presbyterian commissioners.

3

Montrose, who was somewhat more than suspected of having headed or directed the royalist ruffians who murdered Dorislaus, the resident of the English Commonwealth in Holland, and who is reported by Clarendon and proved by other evidence to have offered to assassinate the Hamiltons and Argyle, but who must be admitted to have been, as Scott has said of Dundee, careless of facing death him

1 Order Book of the Council of State, Die Veneris, 23 Nov. 1649. MS. State Paper Office.

2 Even Hume says that the royalists who murdered Dorislaus were "chiefly retainers of Montrose." Chap. 60, Burnet says "Whitford, son to one of their [Scotch] bishops before the wars -the person that had killed Dorislaus in Holland-had committed many barbarous murders with his own hands in Piedmont of women and children." Hist. of His Own Times, vol. iii. p.

115. 8vo. Oxford, 1833; and see Whitelock, p. 460.

3 Hume endeavours to prove that Clarendon must have been mistaken in ascribing such an offer to Montrose ; since, during the time when he was reported to have undertaken the assassination, Montrose was in prison. But see the evidence taken before a secret committee of the Parliament, and published by Mr. Laing, in his History of Scotland.

self, if he was ruthless in inflicting it upon others, accordingly set out on this his last expedition. The events of this expedition showed that in his former enterprises what might at first sight have looked like rashness partook not a little of a daring yet wise and far-sighted policy. But in the present enterprise there appeared far more of rashness than of wisdom of any kind. If it be true, as has been alleged, that he was misled by a pretended prophecy or prediction that to him alone it was reserved to restore the king's authority in all his dominions, we must bear in mind that in that age the giving credence to such predictions did not by any means warrant such inferences respecting the minds of those who gave such credence as it would do now. To say nothing of minor instances, Wallenstein was a believer in astrology, a man who in the excesses committed by his brutal soldiery and perhaps in some other points, bore some resemblance to Montrose, though with far greater forces at his disposal than Montrose ever had, Wallenstein never showed either Montrose's military genius, or his personal hardihood and endurance of fatigue and privation.

In the spring of 1650 Montrose sailed from Hamburgh for the Orkney Islands with some arms and money and about six hundred German mercenaries, officered chiefly by Scottish exiles. The fishermen who inhabited those remote islands were unprepared for resistance, and about eight hundred of them were forced into his service, though unaccustomed to the use of arms. He then crossed to the main land, where he hoped amid the northern clans to be able to raise a large army. But as he marched through Caithness and Sutherland, the natives fled at his approach, remembering his former cruelties. Strachan, an officer under David Leslie, was dispatched against him with about two

hundred and thirty horse,' while Leslie followed with four thousand more. Montrose had no horse to bring him intelligence, and his cause must have been as unpopular in that part of the country as it was formerly in the neighbourhood of Philiphaugh, where none of the country people gave him any information of the nearness of the enemy. But he probably thought that his affairs were in that condition that he must advance at any risk. However that might be, here as at Philiphaugh, Montrose, whom his enemies on other occasions had never found unprepared, was surprised. As he advanced beyond the pass of Invercharron, on the confines of Ross-shire, Strachan issued from an ambuscade in three divisions and attacked him. The first division was repulsed; but the second, headed by Strachan himself, routed the whole of Montrose's troops. The Orkney men threw down their arms, the Germans retreated to a wood and surrendered; the few Scottish companions of Montrose made a brave but vain resistance. Montrose's own horse had been shot under him. His friend Lord Frendraught gave him his, and the marquis throwing off his cloak bearing the star, fled from this his last fight. He afterwards changed clothes with an ordinary Highland kern, and swam across the river Kyle. Exhausted with fatigue and hunger, he was at length taken by a Rossshire chief who was out with a party of his men in arms. Montrose discovered himself to this man, who had once been one of his own followers, as to a friend. But, tempted by a reward of four hundred bolls of meal, this chief delivered his old commander into the hands of David Leslie.

The career and fate of Montrose furnish an instructive example of the evils of civil war; and the accounts given

1 Balfour, vol. iv. p. 9. He adds: "Capt. William Rosse and Capt. John

Rosse came up to the execution with 80 foot out of the country forces."