trines, and to admit into the army by way of reinforcing it such of the moderate Presbyterians or Engagers, and even of the Royalists or Malignants, as were inclined to make a formal confession of their former errors. Now this caused a division of the strict Presbyterians into two parts, which may be called the strict and the more strict or stricter. The stricter Presbyterians, in particular the Presbyterians of the western counties, may be also styled the democratic as distinguished from the aristocratic Presbyterians, the root of whose Presbyterianism was the plunder of the church lands. Of these democratic Presbyterians or Remonstrators, as they were called, there assembled an army of about four thousand men under Colonels Kerr and Strachan. They were resolved to oppose both the king's forces, and the forces of the parliament of England. After some fights between Major General Lambert and them, the leaders, says Captain Hodgson, "came in to us, and desired protection, and proved very faithful." That their political opinions did not differ much from those of the English Parliament appears from a declaration of their Commissioners sent to the English head-quarters. The purport of this declaration is that they will not own the interest of king and lords; that, as to the executive part of the kingly power, they do not think it fit the king should be admitted to it, until he had given better satisfaction to their kirk; that his father was justly put to death for his acts of tyranny, though there might be some miscarriages in the way; that the Commissioners and kirk had done very ill in provoking the English, but the English Parliament were much to blame for sending an army to make an invasion, to proceed to blood before they gave them warning.'

The dispatches of the English officers make frequent 1 Captain Hodgson's Memoirs, pp. 2 Relation of the Campaign in Scot149, 150. land, p. 334.

mention of what they term the robberies and murders committed by "those villanous moss-troopers." This term, though formerly appropriated to the freebooters of the Borders, the English applied to all the small bands of men who lurked among the mountains and morasses, and took every advantage which the nature of the country abounding in difficult passes afforded them to annoy the English troops, and cut off small parties, or straggling soldiers. But the rigid discipline of Cromwell's troops, and the stern promptitude with which redress was exacted, furnished those moss-troopers and their åbettors with some experience which was new to them. Thus we read of a letter to the sheriff of Cumberland, "to be speeded away to Mr. John Scott, bailiff and brother to the lord of Buccleugh, for demanding restitution upon his tenants, the moss-troopers, for the horses by them stolen the night we quartered in their country; since which promises have been made of restitution; and we doubt not to receive it very suddenly, or else to take satisfaction another way ourselves." 1 And again, "Major Browne hath with a party of horse possessed a strong house, not far from Dalkeith, called Dalhouz [Dalhousie], it was suspected to have been an harbour for those villanous moss-troopers who murdered some of our men, that were either straggling or going for provisions."

12

There is one feature of the battle of Dunbar, which as having probably led to the unjust imputations of Clarendon and others, on the courage of the Scots, may require some explanation. Though by Cromwell's own account in his letter to the Speaker, "the enemy made a gallant resistance, and there was a very hot dispute at sword's point

1 Relation of the Campaign in Scot- 2 Ibid. pp. 333, 334. land, p. 327.

between our horse and theirs ;" and as regarded the foot "at push of pike and butt-end of musket ;" yet he says of Dunbar, “I do not believe we have lost 20 men.” This however is probably an understatement. For another letter from head-quarters says-" we lost not 40 men-no officer but Major Rooksby, who died of his wounds next day ;Captain Lloyd sorely wounded." Also at the battle of Worcester Cromwell says "it was as stiff a contest for 4 or 5 hours, as ever I have seen, yet I do not think we have lost 200 men." It is possible that neither Lord Clarendon nor Mrs. Hutchinson ever heard of the battle of Bannockburn. If they had, the fact that at Bannockburn thirty thousand English, including 200 knights and 700 esquires were left dead upon the field,' while the loss of the Scots in the battle was as small in proportion as that of the English at Dunbar, might have led them to pause before making their imputations upon the courage of the Scots. The explanation of this great disproportion between the loss of the conquered and of the conquerors at Bannockburn and Dunbar is that at both those times, as in ancient warfare, battles not being determined by artillery and musketry, and the defensive armour being then of at least some avail, it was not till one side had turned their backs, that the carnage commenced. It is stated that at the battle of Pharsalia Cæsar lost 200 men, at that of Thapsus 50, at that of Munda (as stiff a business, Cæsar said, like Cromwell at Worcester, as ever he had seen) a thousand; while the loss of his enemies at Pharsalia was estimated at 15,000,2 at Thapsus at 10,000,3 at Munda at 30,000, "et si quid

1 Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 314, 319.

2 Cæsar, De Bello Civili, iii. 99. 3 This is the statement in the book De Bello Africano (c. 86) of which

Hirtius, who served under Cæsar in the Gallic war, is generally supposed to be the author. Plutarch's statement is 50,000.-Life of C. Cæsar, c. 53.

amplius." " And in all these cases it was Romans opposed to Romans. The disproportion between the loss of the conquerors and that of the conquered at Cannæ is still more striking. These facts will be sufficient to show, the mode of warfare being the same or nearly so, that nothing could be more illogical, to say no more, than the inferences of some English writers against the Scottish troops, the unfortunate men slaughtered at Dunbar and Worcester, or reserved for a worse fate, to perish of sheer starvation, or be sold for slaves, a somewhat different treatment from that which the conquered after the battle of Pharsalia received from the conqueror who freely forgave all who had borne arms against him. The return made for that magnanimous clemency did not perhaps encourage the English Parliament to follow that example. Notwithstanding Cæsar's humanity, he could not always succeed in giving quarter. Thus at Thapsus, in spite of his earnest entreaties to his soldiers to spare them, many Romans were slaughtered after they had thrown down their arms and begged for quarter.3 The facts above stated, however, when the armies opposed to each other were both composed of the best soldiers of the ancient world, will show that the disproportion between the numbers of the slain on the two sides arose simply from the mode of warfare and not from the side that had the vastly disproportioned number of slain having, as Clarendon says of the Scots at Dunbar, fled without fighting. It is indeed true that the larger proportion of the Scots had no op

1 See the book De Bello Hispanico, (c. 31)-attributed by some to C. Oppius, another friend of Cæsar.

2 There are some interesting remarks on the causes of this disproportion in a book published at Paris in 1836 under the title "Précis des Guerres de Jules César, par NAPOLEON, écrit à l'Ile de St. Hélène sous la dictée de

l'Empereur, par M. Marchand "— which bears considerable marks of authenticity.

3 De Bello Afric. c. 85. "Ii omnes Scipionis milites, quum fidem Cæsaris implorarent, inspectante ipso Cæsare, et a militibus deprecante, eis uti parcerent, ad unum sunt interfecti."

portunity of fighting, having been thrown into irretrievable confusion, as I have shown, by the combined operation of the nature of the ground and of their right wing being driven in upon them, so that they necessarily "routed one another."

I have in a note in a former page referred to the battle of Flodden, as a battle fought at a time when the Scottish nobility were a military aristocracy. That battle is remarkable as a battle in which, though fought as in ancient warfare, the disproportion between the numbers of the slain on the two sides was less than in any of the battles above mentioned; for the loss of the English was about five thousand men, that of the Scots about twice that number. The cause was, that the main division of the Scots commanded by the king in person could not be broken. Night fell without the battle's being absolutely decided. But during the night the remnant of the Scottish army drew off "in silent despair" from the bloody field on which they left their king and nearly all their nobility. And yet, according to Lord Clarendon and other writers of his time, the Scots were a nation of cowards. There is another point in which the battle of Dunbar forms a strong contrast with the battle of Flodden. At Dunbar it was a regiment of Highlanders that fought the most obstinately. At Flodden the Highlanders who formed one division of the Scottish army, being annoyed by the volleys of the English arrows, broke their ranks, and were routed with great slaughter; which circumstance was the principal cause of the disproportion between the loss of the Scots and that of the English in that battle.