Montrose was strongly suspected of having headed the party who assassinated Dorislaus, a very bad beginning, assassination being the fitting business of thieves, and not of heroes. The fame of Montrose, nevertheless, gave him a good reception in Denmark and other Courts, and he is said to have raised an army of twelve thousand men, and embarked these, and much ammunition and artillery, at Gottenburg, under Lord Kinnoul, in the autumn. The equinoctial gales appeared to have scattered this force in all directions, dashing several of the ships on the rocks, so that Kinnoul landed in October at Kirkwall, in the Orkneys, with only eighty officers, and about one hundred common men. Montrose followed with five hundred more, and having received the Order of the Garter from Charles as a token of his favour, he once more raised his banner in the Highlands, bearing on it a painting of the late king decapitated, and the words, "Judge and avenge my cause, O Lord!" But the Highlanders had been taught caution by the repeated failures of the Royalists, and the chastisements they had received from the stern Covenanters; they stood aloof, and in vain did Montrose march through Caithness and Sutherland, calling on the natives to rise and defend the king before the Covenanters could sell him to the English, as they had done his father. This was a fatal proclamation, for whilst it failed to raise the Highlands, it added to the already deep detestation of him in the Lowlands, where his proclamation was burnt by the common hangman.
The Covenanters did not merely burn his proclamation, they despatched a force of four thousand men against him. Colonel Strachan came almost upon him in Corbiesdale, in Ross-shire, and calling his men around him under the shelter of the high moorland broom, he informed them that God had given "the rebel and apostate Montrose, and the viperous brood of Satan, the accursed of God and the Kirk," into their hands. He gave out a psalm, which they sang, and then he dispersed them in successive companies, the whole not amounting to four hundred men, the main army being with David Leslie at Brechin. As soon as Strachan's handful of men came in sight of Montrose's levies, they were attacked by his cavalry, but scarcely were they engaged, when a second, and then a third detachment appeared. On perceiving this, Montrose believed the whole army of Leslie was marching up, and he ordered his infantry to fall back and screen themselves amongst the brushwood. But first his horse and then the whole of his men were thrown into confusion. His standard-bearer and several of his officers were slain. The foreign mercenaries demanded quarter and received it, the rest made their escape as well as they could. Montrose had his horse killed under him, and though he got another horse, and swam across a rapid river, he was compelled to fly in such haste, that he left behind him the Star and Garter with which he had been so newly invested, his sword, and his cloak. He again made for the mountains of Sutherland with Kinnoul, both disguised as peasants. Kinnoul soon sank with fatigue, and was left behind and perished. Montrose at length reached the house of Macleod of Assynt, who had formerly served under him; but this base man sold him to the Covenanters for four hundred bolls of meal. This treason was soon avenged by the neighbouring Highlanders, who ravaged the lands of Assynt; but the Scottish Parliament recompensed the traitor with twenty thousand pounds Scots, to be raised on the Royalists of Caithness and Orkney. The Orkneys, as well as the Isles of Man, Scilly, Jersey, the colony of Virginia, and the islands of the Caribbean Sea, long held out for the royal cause.
Montrose was at once conveyed to Edinburgh, where he arrived on the 18th of May; and having been carried bareheaded through the city in an open cart, and exposed to the insults and execrations of the mob, he was condemned as a traitor, and hanged on the 21st of May on a gibbet thirty feet high, his head being fixed on a spike in the capital, and his limbs sent for exposure in different towns. Such was the ignominious end of the gallant but sanguinary Montrose. But if the conduct of his enemies was ungenerous, what was that of his prince? No sooner did Charles hear of his defeat, than fearing that his rising might injure him with the Covenanters, he sent to the Parliament, protesting that he had never authorised him to draw the sword; nay, that he had done it contrary to the royal commands. Thus early did this worthless man display the meanness of his character, and practise the wretched maxims of the Stuart doctrine of kingcraft.
Charles had now complied with the demands of the Scottish Parliament, agreeing to take the Covenant, never to tolerate the Catholic religion in any part of his dominions, not even in Ireland, where the Catholics were a majority; to govern entirely by the authority of Parliament, and in religious matters by that of the Kirk. Thus did this man, for the sake of regaining the throne of one of his kingdoms, bind himself to destroy the religion of which he was at heart a believer, and to maintain a creed that he abhorred and despised. He landed in June in the Frith of Cromarty, and a court was established for him at Falkland, and nine thousand pounds sterling were allowed for its expenditure monthly.
But the pious Scots were speedily scandalised at the debauched habits of their royal puppet. He had delayed the expedition for some weeks, because he could not tear himself from his mistress, Mrs. Barlow, and now he came surrounded by a very dissipated crew—Buckingham, Wilmot, and others, whom nothing could induce him to part with, though many others were forbidden the Court.
Whilst these things were taking place in Scotland, in London as active measures were on foot for putting to flight this Covenanting king. On the 14th of June the Commons again appointed Fairfax Commander-in-Chief, and Cromwell Lieutenant-General. Fairfax, so far from favouring the invasion of Scotland, strongly argued against it, as a breach of the Solemn League and Covenant. Fairfax's wife is said to have been resolute against his taking up arms against the second Charles. She had sufficiently shown her spirit—that of a Vere, of the martial house of Vere—on his father's trial; and now Fairfax, not only strongly influenced by his wife, but belonging to the Presbyterian party, resigned his command, and retired to his estates in Yorkshire. It was in vain that a deputation, consisting of Cromwell, Lambert, Harrison, Whitelock, and St. John, waited on him at Whitehall, opening their meeting with prayer. Fairfax stood firm, and on the 26th, two days afterwards, the Parliament appointed Cromwell Commander-in-Chief, in his place. On the 29th, only three days subsequently, Cromwell set out for the north. He had Lambert as Major-General, Whalley as Commissary-General, Pride, Overton, Monk, and Hodgson, as colonels of regiments. The Scottish Parliament had appointed the Earl of Leven generalissimo, but only nominally so out of honour, for he was now old and infirm. David Leslie was the real commander. The Scottish army was ordered to amount to sixty thousand men, and it was to lay waste all the country between Berwick and Edinburgh, to prevent the English from obtaining supplies. To frighten the country people away from the English army, it was rumoured that every male between sixteen and sixty would have their right hands cut off, and the women's breasts be bored through with red-hot irons.
DEATH OF THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH.
Carisbrooke Castle, Sept. 8th, 1650.
After the Painting by C. W. Cope, R.A.