Whilst the two noblemen were conferring together under such unusual circumstances, they were noticed from the city. The troopers who were waiting below for their adventurous leader were magnified into a great body of horse, and it was assumed that Dundee’s motive for braving the danger of such a climb, and defying the outlawry under which the Governor had been placed by the Convention, was to concert an attack in which he would be supported by the fire of the Castle batteries. The rumour spread and reached the ears of Hamilton. In all probability he knew it to be unfounded; but he also saw how he could avail himself of it to serve his own ends, and he did not neglect the opportunity which chance offered him. The Convention was sitting. With assumed indignation he exclaimed that it was high time they should look to themselves, since their enemies had the audacity to assemble in force, with hostile intent. Pretending to believe that there was danger within as well as without, he commanded the doors to be shut and the keys to be laid on the table before him, so that the traitors in their midst should be held in confinement until all danger from them was over. Then, by his orders, the drums were beat and the trumpets sounded through the city. At the signal, the armed men who had been brought in from the west, and hitherto kept concealed in garrets and cellars, swarmed out into the streets, where their fierce and sullen looks further increased the alarm of the townspeople, who gathered in great crowds about the Parliament House.
When the tumult and confusion had lasted for some hours, and long after the unconscious cause of it had resumed his ride, Hamilton, judging that the proper pitch had been reached, caused the doors to be thrown open again. As the members came out into the square, the Whigs ‘were received with the acclamations, and those of the opposite party, with the threats and curses of a prepared populace.’ The President had attained the object he had in view. As Dalrymple reports, ‘terrified by the prospect of future alarms, many of the adherents of James quitted the Convention and retired to the country; more of them changed sides; only a very few of the most resolute continued their attendance.’ The Whigs were left to themselves to settle the government of the country.
Whilst the Convention was still sitting with doors closed to prevent the egress of the Jacobite members, information was brought by Lord Montgomery, that Dundee had been seen going towards Queensferry after his defiant conference with the outlawed Duke of Gordon. Thereupon Major Buntin with a troop of horse was dispatched in pursuit. At the same time it was ordered that an express should be sent with a letter signed by the President, calling upon the deserter to return to the meeting by the following Friday. Whether it be true that the Major ‘never came within sight’ of the fugitive, or that he was scared by a threat of being sent back to his masters ‘in a pair of blankets,’ the result of his mission was the same.
The messenger may have found the means of delivering his letter at Linlithgow, where the Viscount made his first halt. It was possibly he who brought back the information which, on the next day, the 19th of March, caused the Convention to issue an order for the heritors and militia of Edinburgh and Linlithgow to assemble and ‘dislodge’ Lord Dundee. To give legal justification to these proceedings, an official proclamation was made by herald, charging both Dundee and Livingstone who accompanied him, to return to the Convention, within twenty-four hours, under pain of treason. Next day, a further report was received in Edinburgh, in consequence of which the Magistrates of Stirling were called upon to take suitable measures for seizing on the Viscount, who was understood to be in their neighbourhood. He had, in reality, ridden straight through to Dunblane, where he had an interview with Drummond of Balhaldy, who, as Lochiel’s son-in-law, was doubtless able to give him useful information as to the condition of the Highlands, and where he also wrote to the Duke of Hamilton, as President of the Convention, a letter which has not been preserved, and which may never have reached its destination. About the end of that eventful week, he reached his own home, at Dudhope. But, even here, he was not out of reach of heralds and their proclamations. On the 27th of March it was duly notified to him, with official blast of trumpet, that he was to lay down his arms, under penalty of being dealt with as a rebel to the State. His reply was almost suggested by the terms of the herald’s summons. Dundee had no thought of accepting the new Government, and had never made a secret of his opposition to it. That he was fully prepared to take the field, if he saw a favourable opportunity of doing so, may be looked upon as the natural and necessary sequel to his acceptance of the trust verbally committed to him at his last meeting with James. But, so far, he had done nothing that justified the charge of having taken up arms. From that point of view, he had no difficulty in giving an explanation and a defence of his conduct. He did so in the following letter:—
Dudhope, March 27, 1689.
‘May it please your Grace,—The coming of an herald and trumpeter, to summon a man to lay down arms that is living in peace at home seems to me a very extraordinary thing, and, I suppose, will do so to all that hears of it. While I attended the Convention at Edinburgh, I complained often of many people being in arms without authority, which was notoriously known to be true; even the wild hillmen; and no summons to lay down arms under the pain of treason being given them, I thought it unsafe for me to remain longer among them. And because a few of my friends did me the favour to convey me out of the reach of these murderers, and that my Lord Livingstone and several other officers took occasion to come away at the same time, this must be called being in arms. We did not exceed the number allowed by the Meeting of Estates. My Lord Livingstone and I might have had each of us ten; and four or five officers that were in company might have had a certain number allowed them; which being, it will be found we exceeded not. I am sure it is far short of the number my Lord Lorne was seen to march with. And though I had gone away with some more than ordinary, who can blame me, when designs of murdering me was made appear? Besides, it is known to everybody that, before we came within sixteen miles of this, my Lord Livingstone went off to his brother my Lord Strathmore’s house; and most of the officers, and several of the company, went to their respective homes or relations. And, if any of them did me the favour to come along with me, must that be called being in arms. Sure, when your Grace represents this to the Meeting of the States, they will discharge such a groundless pursuit, and think my appearance before them unnecessary. Besides, though it were necessary for me to go and attend the Meeting, I cannot come with freedom and safety; because I am informed there are men of war, and foreign troops in the passage; and, till I know what they are, and what are their orders, the Meeting cannot blame me for not coming. Then, my Lord, seeing the summons has proceeded on a groundless story, I hope the Meeting of States will think it unreasonable I should leave my wife in the condition she is in. If there be anybody that notwithstanding of all that is said, think I ought to appear, I beg the favour of a delay till my wife is brought to bed; and, in the meantime, I will either give security, or parole, not to disturb the peace. Seeing this pursuit is so groundless, and so reasonable things offered, and the Meeting composed of prudent men and men of honour, and your Grace presiding in it, I have no reason to fear further trouble.—I am, may it please your Grace, your most humble servant,
Dundee.’
‘I beg your Grace will cause read this to the Meeting because it is all the defence I have made. I sent another to your Grace from Dunblane, with the reasons of my leaving Edinburgh. I know not if it be come to your hands.’
It is hardly probable that Dundee seriously expected Hamilton and the Convention to be influenced in the course they were bent on adopting by a letter which, as regarded the past, contained little or nothing but what they had heard already, and which in respect to the future, bound the writer for a very limited period, in consideration of purely private and domestic, and not of political circumstances, except, perhaps, the circumstance that the instructions without which he was not to venture on any act of open hostility had not yet come from Ireland.
He cannot have been greatly surprised to learn that on the 30th of March he had formerly been declared a traitor.