Having thus, as he supposed, provided the means of checkmating Argyll and his faction, Montrose returned to the army. He found it on the point of entering England. The spot chosen was the ford over the Tweed at Coldstream. It was a strange irony of fate that twenty years later led another army southwards by the same ford to restore to his throne the exiled King for whom Montrose had given his life, and against whose father he was this day in arms! The river was in flood, and for three days the army halted on the plain of Hirselhaugh. On August 20th the passage was practicable. But whether at the last moment they shrank from incurring the charge of rebellion against which they had all so strenuously protested, but which, when the Rubicon was once passed, they would no longer be able to avoid, or from a preconcerted plan to test Montrose's good faith, there was a strange unwillingness among the leaders to be the first to make the passage. It was agreed to cast lots. The lot fell on Montrose. Instantly he sprang from his horse, and entering the stream waded through waist-high to the farther bank. Then returning he led his division across. The whole army followed, each captain wading on foot at the head of his men. The passage was begun at four in the afternoon, and by midnight five-and-twenty thousand armed Scotchmen were encamped on English ground.
His earliest biographer, the loyal and affectionate Wishart, maintains that it was Montrose's purpose, when once fairly across the Border, to carry his own men over to the English camp; and that, if his friends had kept their faith, so large a part of the Scottish army had gone with him that the rest could have effected nothing. It is possible that some such plan may have crossed his mind for the moment. His own regiments, men of Perthshire and Forfarshire, raised under his own supervision and many of them his own tenants, would have followed whithersoever he chose to lead them. Nor is it impossible that many of his colleagues who, like him, had put their hands prematurely to the plough, and were now, like him, looking back, might have welcomed any opportunity of extricating themselves from a false position. But Wishart vouchsafes no authority for his statement. No hint of such a design is to be found elsewhere. It was not made a charge against Montrose during his trial before the Estates in the following year, though it is impossible to suppose that a secret shared by so many would not have leaked out when the tide had turned against its author. We may therefore suppose that the generous biographer was only endeavouring to find for an action which he conceived to need some explanation, an excuse which his own uncompromising loyalty would prevent him from seeing in its true light. Against treason treachery itself would in his eyes be fair. To Wishart the Covenant had always been an unlawful and impious league, masking under dishonest professions of reverence to God and King designs subversive of the authority of both. He had himself stood stoutly out against it from the first, for which he had been deprived of his ministry, despoiled of his property, and flung a prisoner into the Tolbooth. Such a man may be pardoned for failing to understand his hero's conduct at this crisis; he may be pardoned for being unable to appreciate the peculiar nature of that loyalty to the Throne which could allow a man to bear arms against its occupant. Even passive adherence to the Covenant was incompatible in his plain mind with duty to his King; he would have preferred to believe his hero capable of treachery to the rebels whose commission he had accepted, rather than of disloyalty to the monarch whom he professed to serve. But we must hope that Wishart was mistaken; and that if such a course of action at any time crossed Montrose's mind, he put it away from him as unworthy of an honest man. Yet in truth it is not easy to reconcile Montrose's behaviour during the past few months with his presence in the army which was now at open war with its sovereign. The time was indeed critical enough to have perplexed an older and a cooler head. Even were he now convinced that to declare frankly for the King was the only course consistent with his duty to his country, to do so before he was strong enough to make his declaration good might for ever ruin his prospects of serving either country or King. By still siding with the Covenant he might yet be able to guide it to a sense of its true purpose. With what feelings Montrose saw the royal cavalry flying in disgraceful panic before his countrymen at Newburn, and Newcastle unbar its gates at the first sound of the Scottish drum, we cannot tell. That he bore his part like a brave and skilful captain we may be sure; but that figure wading sword in hand through the swollen waters of the Tweed is the sole glimpse of Montrose that history affords through the brief and inglorious campaign to which it has given the name of the Second Bishops' War. Once, indeed, he is mentioned in a way which suggests how keenly the Royalists kept their eyes on him both as a present foe and a possible friend. Writing to the King from Darlington on August 30th Strafford reports as the most significant item of news a rumour that Montrose had fallen in the affair at Newburn. His signature also appears, along with Leslie's, Almond's, and the rest of his principal colleagues, to one of those extraordinary documents in which the Covenanters still continued to profess their peaceful and loyal intentions. Of this there will be more to say hereafter. For the present we may leave to the historian the narrative of the events which led to the Treaty of Ripon and to the King's second and last visit to Scotland. Montrose had pressed him to come; and when he came Montrose was a prisoner in the hands of their common enemies.
[CHAPTER VI]
THE PLOT AND THE INCIDENT
The suspicions which Montrose had managed to allay for a time in the field, now broke out against him with renewed force when arms once more gave place to diplomacy. While the Scots lay in garrison at Newcastle, letters passed freely between them and the English camp. Before crossing the Tweed a general order had been issued by Leslie that no communication should be held with the enemy except under his warrant. Anything in the nature of a secret correspondence was declared treasonable, and he who held it liable to the punishment of a traitor. With this offence Montrose was now charged. While the negotiations for the Treaty of Ripon were proceeding, word was brought to Leslie that a letter had gone from Montrose to the King which had never passed under the eyes of the Committee. How the secret was discovered is not clear. It may have been, as Wishart and other contemporaries have maintained, through the treachery of some member of the King's own household. It may have been through sheer accident, according to Burnet's story. The manner of the discovery is unimportant; the fact of the letter is certain. When taxed with it before the Committee, Montrose made no attempt at denial or excuse. At once and boldly avowing what he had done, he challenged any man present to say that he had done wrong. He had written to the King, professing his obedience and loyalty. What then? Had they not all, but the other day, signed a humble petition to his majesty in the character of his most loyal and obedient subjects? Their articles of war forbade all secret correspondence with the enemy. What man among them would venture to call his sovereign an enemy? Did not the same articles declare that, "If any man shall open his mouth against the King's majesty's person or authority, or shall presume to touch his sacred person, he shall be punished as a traitor"? The Committee was in a strait. They knew that Montrose was fooling them, but they could not gainsay him. Leslie indeed, more apt at war than council and impatient of such nice distinctions, muttered that he had known princes lose their heads for less faults. But his colleagues dared not accept the alternative Montrose offered them. They could not deny the letter of their own law, and they did not feel strong enough to refuse his wide interpretation of its spirit. They were in truth in the uncomfortable position of being caught in their own snare.
But though victory was for the time with Montrose, it was but a momentary gleam. His enemies were ever on the watch to catch him tripping, and they soon found graver matter against him. In the following November the young Lord Boyd, Montrose's relation and one of the signatories of the Cumbernauld Bond, lay dying of a malignant fever. In his delirium he uttered some rambling words about a secret which, reported to Argyll, were enough to put those quick wits on the track. Almond was then at his house at Callendar on leave from Newcastle, and from him Argyll soon contrived to learn all about the Bond and who had signed it. Montrose was at once summoned to Edinburgh to answer this new accusation of treason. He took the same course before the Estates that he had taken before the Committee at Newcastle. He avowed what he had done, and justified it by the dangers then threatening Scotland and the Covenant. There was hot debate, and some, especially among the clergymen, would have made it a capital offence. But Argyll knew that his party was not yet strong enough to carry matters with so high a hand. Montrose did not stand alone. Some good Covenanters had shared in his treason, Almond and Mar and Marischal. And there were others whom half Leslie's army would have marched on the capital to save or revenge. Montrose himself was quite as much feared as he was hated by his accusers. They knew he had many friends among the Covenanters, and suspected he might have more than they knew. He must be separated from them before it would be safe to proceed to extremities against him. Moreover there were some who still thought it might not be too late to win this high spirit and ready genius to their side. He was ambitious, and events might so shape their course that the Covenant would be able to feed his ambition more liberally than the King. So this offence too was passed over. The Bond was surrendered and burned: the subscribers signed a declaration that they had meant nothing by it against the common weal; and once again the Covenant was outwardly at peace with itself.
But even after these two warnings Montrose could not keep quiet. The very opposite to Argyll on every side of his character, while the latter bided the time that he foresaw must come with eyes and ears ever open and tongue ever still, Montrose roamed restlessly about the country between the army at Newcastle and his own home, talking wildly to whomsoever would listen. The purpose of the burned Bond, Argyll's dictatorship, his meditated attack on the royal authority,—he poured all these dangerous secrets out to his comrade of the hour, careless who he might be. Once he talked in this strain in the presence of no less a person than old Leslie himself, as they were riding from Chester to Newcastle with a Colonel Cochrane. The prudent Colonel did not care for such talk in such company, and begged his rash lordship to change the subject. There might have been more dangerous listeners than Leslie, who was an honest man not given to making mischief, and, so long as his pay was safe and he did his duty by his soldiers, caring as little for one faction as the other. But it had been all one with Montrose who was by to hear him. Everything was going wrong. He could no longer trust the Covenant; he could not yet trust the King. His associates in the Bond, with one or two exceptions, had made their peace with the enemy. The Bond itself had been promptly burned, and the wildest stories circulated of its language and purpose.[9] Even among the more moderate Covenanters there were many who believed these stories, and looked askance at Montrose as an ambitious, unscrupulous, designing man, careless of his country and intent only on his own ends. Conscious of the popular suspicions, chafing against a false position from which he saw no present means of escape, uneasy, discontented, doubtful where to turn and whom to trust—there could be but one issue to the struggle between such a man in such a mood and Argyll. Nor could the issue be far distant. Argyll had but to sit still and wait. He could not play his game better than his rival was playing it for him.
In the spring of 1641, while the Scottish army still lay at Newcastle and their commissioners still wrangled in London over the price of their return, a family party of four used to meet almost daily in Edinburgh at Montrose's lodgings in the Canongate, or at Napier's old house of Merchiston on the Borough Moor. Besides the two brothers-in-law there were their nephew Sir George Stirling of Keir, and Sir Archibald Stewart of Blackhall who had married Keir's sister. Of course the talk ran on the old lines. How was this unhappy country to be saved, and who could save it? It was agreed that the only possible saviour was the King. He must come to Edinburgh when the Parliament met in the summer, and satisfy his Scottish subjects that he meant fairly by them, as these four had satisfied themselves he could and would. To establish their religion and liberties would be to establish his own authority; the people would rally to the Throne when they recognised that only under the shadow of the Throne could they hope to enjoy the blessings of a settled government, just laws, and a free religion. "For they assured themselves" (so runs Montrose's vindication) "that the King giving God His due, and the people theirs, they would give Cæsar that which was his." It was necessary to communicate with Charles, and most necessary to find a trusty messenger. They fixed upon a certain Walter Stewart of Traquair, who was on the eve of journeying to London on his own business, and whom, from his name, they conceived likely to get easy access to the Court. It was decided to approach the King through his cousin the Duke of Lennox, who was in high favour with his majesty, and had been employed in a similar capacity by the supplicants of 1637 to plead their grievances against Laud's prayer-book. There exists a paper in Napier's handwriting,—but evidently, from its similarity to the discourse on sovereign power mentioned in the last chapter, in great part, if not wholly, Montrose's composition,—which is believed to be the substance of the letter sent to Charles, and the tenor of his answer to Montrose strengthens the belief. All things, the King is told, depend on his personal presence in Scotland, the success of his affairs, the security of his authority, the peace and happiness of his subjects. It is useless to send a commissioner, no matter whom; he must come in person. The people bear him no ill-will, nor the Throne, nor will they suffer any attack to be made on it; their religion, as chosen by themselves, and their liberties as settled by the law of the land, are all they want. Let what they ask, if it be for their good, be granted, for that which tends to their good will assuredly include his own. But though the people should be justly treated and reasonably indulged, they should not be suffered to dispute his power. The sovereign power, he is warned, in words almost identical with those addressed to Montrose's Noble Sir, "is an instrument never subject yet handled well." A king's authority should be maintained to the height allowed by the law of God and Nature, and the fundamental laws of the country. If not it sinks into contempt; and "weak and miserable is that people whose prince hath not power sufficient to punish oppression, and to maintain peace and justice." On the other hand, he is warned not to aim at absoluteness, which of all people the Scots will least endure. "Practice, sir, the temperate government. It fitteth the humour and disposition of the nation best. It is most strong, most powerful, and most durable of any. It gladdeth the hearts of your subjects, and then they erect a throne for you to reign." He is bid to beware of Rehoboam's counsellors: "they are flatterers, and therefore cannot be friends; they follow your fortune and love not your person." Finally, he is urged to settle the high offices of State upon men chosen by himself according to his own knowledge of their ability and honesty. Men who owe their preferment to the recommendation of others will not serve him well if it must be to the prejudice of their patrons. Whether this wise and liberal letter was the only letter entrusted to Stewart by the Plotters, as they soon came to be called, is not clearly known, but of that hereafter. For the present, having seen his messenger safely off on his journey south, Montrose himself left Edinburgh on a visit to Lord Stormont at Scone Abbey.