from the siege of Hereford. They did not wait his arrival, and he entered the city amidst the joyful acclamations of the inhabitants.[1]
But Charles was not long suffered to enjoy his[a] triumph. Full of confidence, he had marched from Hereford to the relief of Bristol; but at Ragland Castle learned that it was already in possession of the enemy. This unexpected stroke quite unnerved him. That a prince of his family, an officer whose reputation for courage and fidelity was unblemished, should surrender in the third week of the siege an important city, which he had promised to maintain for four months, appeared to him incredible. His mind was agitated with suspicion and jealousy. He knew not whether to attribute the conduct of his nephew to cowardice, or despondency, or disaffection; but he foresaw and lamented its baneful influence on the small remnant of his followers. In the anguish of his mind he revoked the commission of the prince, and commanded him to quit the kingdom; he instructed the council to watch his conduct, and on the first sign of disobedience to take him into custody; and he ordered the arrest of his friend Colonel Legge, and appointed Sir Thomas Glenham to succeed Legge, as governor of Oxford. "Tell my sone," he says in a letter to Nicholas, "that I shall lesse grieeve to hear that he is knoked in the head, than that he should doe so meane an act as is the rendering of Bristoll castell and fort upon the termes it was."[2]
[Footnote 1: Rushworth, vi. 230. May. Guthrie, 194. Baillie, ii. 156, 157, 273. This defeat perplexed the theology of that learned man. I confess I am amazed, and cannot see to my mind's satisfaction, the reasons of the Lord's dealing with that land…. What means the Lord, so far against the expectation of the most clear-sighted, to humble us so low, and by his own immediate hand, I confess I know not."—Ibid.]
[Footnote 2: Clarendon, ii. 693. Rushworth, vi. 66-82. Journals, vi. 584. Ellis, iii. 311. Evelyn's Memoirs, ii. App, 108. The suspicion of Legge's fidelity was infused into the royal mind by Digby. Charles wished him to be secured, but refused to believe him guilty without better proof.—Ibid, 111.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1645. Sept. 10.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1645. Sept. 14.]
Whilst the king thus mourned over the loss of Bristol, he received still more disastrous intelligence from Scotland. The victory of Kilsyth had dissolved the royal army. The Gordons with their followers had returned to their homes; Colkitto. had led back the Highlanders to their mountains; and with the remnants not more than six hundred repaired to the borders to await the arrival of an English force which had been promised, but not provided, by Charles. In the mean while David Leslie had been detached with four thousand cavalry from the Scottish army in England. He crossed the Tweed,[a] proceeded northward, as if he meant to interpose himself between the enemy and the Highlands; and then returned suddenly to surprise them in their encampment at Philiphaugh. Montrose spent the night at Selkirk in preparing despatches for the king; Leslie, who was concealed at no great distance, crossing the Etrick at dawn, under cover of a dense fog, charged unexpectedly into the camp of the royalists, who lay in heedless security on the Haugh. Their leader, with his guard of horse, flew to their succour; but, after a chivalrous but fruitless effort was compelled to retire and abandon them to their fate. The greater part had formed themselves into a compact body, and kept the enemy at bay till their offer of surrender upon terms had been accepted. But then the ministers loudly demanded their lives; they pronounced the capitulation sinful, and therefore void; and had the satisfaction to behold the whole body of captives massacred in
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1645. Sept. 6.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1645. Sept. 13.]
cold blood, not the men only, but also every woman and child found upon the Haugh. Nor was this sacrifice sufficient. Forty females, who had made their escape, and had been secured by the country people, were a few days later delivered up to the victors, who, in obedience to the decision of the kirk, put them to death by throwing them from the bridge near Linlithgow into the river Avon. Afterwards the Scottish parliament approved of their barbarities, on the pretence that the victims were papists from Ireland; and passed an ordinance that the "Irische prisoners taken at and after Philiphaughe, in all the prisons in the kingdom, should be execut without any assaye or processes conform to the treatey betwixt both kingdoms."[1] Of the noblemen and gentlemen who fled with Montrose, many were also taken; and of these few escaped the hands of the executioner: Montrose himself threaded back his way to the Highlands, where he once more raised the royal standard, and, with a small force and diminished reputation, continued to bid defiance to his enemies. At length, in obedience to repeated messages from the king, he dismissed his followers, and reluctantly withdrew to the continent.[2] With the defeat of Montrose at Philiphaugh vanished those brilliant hopes with which the king had consoled himself for his former losses; but the activity of his enemies allowed him no leisure to indulge his grief; they had already formed a lodgment within the
[Footnote 1: Balfour, iii. 341. Thurloe, i. 72. The next year the garrison of Dunavertie, three hundred men, surrendered to David Leslie "at the kingdom's mercie." "They put to the sword," says Turner, "everie mother's sonne except one young man, Machoul, whose life I begged."—Turner's Memoirs, 46, also 48.]
[Footnote 2: Rush. vi. 237. Guthrie, 301. Journals, vi. 584. Wishart, 203.
Baillie, ii. 164.]