At this juncture the King received a letter on which, after much reflection, he determined to take counsel. Twice already had Montrose written from his prison praying for an interview on matters of the deepest moment. The King would not see him nor answer his letters; a man in Montrose's position, he said, would promise much to secure an audience. Montrose now wrote a third time, no longer vaguely hinting of danger, but directly offering to prove some one, whom he did not name, but who was clearly Hamilton, a traitor. It was impossible to disregard warnings that now began to match so well with his own suspicions. Charles determined to lay the letter before the Chancellor, Loudon, and others, including Argyll himself, and to ask their advice.
Suddenly all Edinburgh broke into uproar. The news spread like wildfire that a plot had been discovered to murder Argyll, Hamilton, and Lanark, and that they had fled the city in fear of their lives. It was true that they had gone. Late on the evening of October 11th, the evening of the day on which the King had received Montrose's last letter, the three men had been warned of their danger by Leslie, and on the next day they left the city. But what was the danger, and from what quarter did it come? Leslie, when questioned, answered carelessly that the whole affair was a foolish business not worth talking of. On the afternoon of the 12th the King went down to Parliament to declare all he knew of the mystery. All he knew, if he told them all, was little enough. It really amounted to no more than that Hamilton had talked strangely to him of plots and calumnies, that he was very fond of Hamilton, and that it hurt him grievously to find himself distrusted by his friend. Finally he urged that his own credit, no less than Hamilton's, demanded an instant and public inquiry before the whole House. But Parliament insisted on the examination being conducted by a select committee; and after an unseemly wrangle lasting over several days, the King had to give way. The truth is that the Parliament had already begun to make inquiries, and what they had learned suggested the possibility of some awkward disclosures. The Earl of Crawford, a fiery old Papist who had learned fighting in the German wars and had carried Ker's challenge to Hamilton, had already been arrested, with some lesser men. It was known that Montrose had been in communication with the King, and they not unreasonably suspected both of being at least privy to the plot, if not of favouring it. It is impossible even to guess how much the King knew, but there can be little doubt that Montrose was in the secret. The story, first circulated by Clarendon, that he had offered at a private interview with the King to kill both Hamilton and Argyll, as the surest and speediest means of bringing a couple of traitors to their deserts, is now generally and justly discredited. But Clarendon, it should be remembered, gave two versions of this perplexing affair. The King, he writes, was warned by certain persons in the confidence of Montrose that Argyll and Hamilton were playing him false, and his leave was asked to bring them to justice. The majority of the nobles, he was told, were on his side, and ready, if he consented, to take the two traitors out of the reach of their retainers and lodge them securely in prison to await fair trial. While the King, doubtful of the chance of bringing their guilt home to such high offenders, was pondering these things, the two men (Lanark's name is not mentioned in Clarendon's story) suddenly and secretly left the capital on the plea that their enemies were plotting to murder them. Then followed a confused period of debates in Parliament, appointment of committees, examination of witnesses, charges and counter-charges, after which the fugitives returned to Edinburgh, acknowledging to the King that the danger, though assuredly no mere fancy, was perhaps less pressing than they had been led to believe; and so the trouble passed gradually away. Such in substance is Clarendon's original version of what is known in Scottish history as the Incident, and two centuries of research have enabled us to add little to it. But such is not the version that first appeared in Clarendon's pages. Twenty years after he had finished the greater part of the History of the Rebellion, he began, in banishment at Montpellier, to write the history of his own life. Many passages were subsequently transferred from the more private narrative to the pages of the History, and among them one in which Montrose's share in the Incident takes a new and startling complexion. He is now directly charged with offering to play the assassin. No authority is vouchsafed for the new story. For the old one Charles, and indirectly Montrose himself, stand sponsors. Clarendon did not live to finally revise the transcript of his History, and we can only therefore conjecture his reasons for changing an intelligible, if meagre, narrative of events, matching well with all that has been subsequently learned concerning them, for a grave personal charge which there is no tittle of evidence to prove. Such as it was, however, the History was published with all its imperfections on its head, nor did the world learn till more than a century later that there was another version of this strange story, clearing the memory of a brave and honourable man from an odious imputation.[10]
In this earlier version we probably have the true story of the Incident in outline. But all attempts to fill the outline in lead only to confusion. It is certain that there was a strong party among the nobles violently incensed against Hamilton and Argyll. Some, like Montrose, were no doubt convinced that these two men were playing both their king and country false; others were merely jealous of an influence won and exercised at their expense. The former were bent only on a fair trial; but to talk of a fair trial was idle while the culprits went at large with five thousand armed men at their back; the sole chance of proving their guilt was to render them incapable of resistance during its proof. Such was probably the original plan of the Incident, and if not devised by Montrose would assuredly have found no opposition from him; and such, it is not unreasonable to suppose, would have been his proposal to the King had his petition for a private interview been granted. Strange diseases, to borrow Argyll's own words, need strange remedies; and to enforce justice by violence, if it could be secured in no other way, would have shocked few Scotsmen of that day. Such at least, if the witnesses spoke truth, was the plan as it had shaped itself in Almond's mind, who intended and would tolerate no more than was needed to ensure the straight course of the law. But the secret was shared by more unscrupulous spirits than Montrose or Almond. Carnwath had been heard to say with many curses that there were now three kings in Scotland, and that two of them must lose their heads. Crawford, who was to have been entrusted with the seizure, was reported to have declared that the best way to bring traitors to justice was to cut their throats. It was probably through such wild speeches that the plot miscarried. Many a man, and Montrose among them, had doubtless been well pleased to see Argyll or Hamilton at his sword's point on a fair field, who would lend no countenance to stabber's work. But it is not safe to put much reliance on the evidence of the witnesses. All of them contradicted each other, and many contradicted themselves. Conspicuous among them was William Murray, a member of the royal household and high in his master's confidence, who, unless foully wronged by history, was the most unconscionable rogue of all that treacherous time. He seems indeed to have been no better than a spy in the pay both of the Scottish Covenant and the English Parliament, and he was certainly intriguing at the same time with both Hamilton and Montrose. But in truth a suspicion of insincerity hangs over the whole inquiry. The Parliament were manifestly unwilling to press matters too closely. They would have been well pleased to prove the plot, could they have selected the plotters, and they did not want to hear too much about its intended victims.
On one point, however, they were firm. They determined to know the truth of the correspondence between Montrose and the King. Charles showed them the last letter, the letter on which he had decided to ask their advice before the storm of the Incident burst. Nothing was to be learned from it. It was couched in general terms, promising, if admitted to an interview, "to acquaint his Majesty with a business which not only did concern his honour in a high degree, but the standing and falling of his crown likewise." Montrose was twice examined on the meaning of these ambiguous words, once in the presence of the King at Holyrood by a special committee, and again before the general committee of inquiry. Both examinations were fruitless. Of the first there is no record; but from the meagre report preserved of the second Montrose seems to have adhered at both to the literal text of his letter, and to have declined to commit himself to any more definite statement. He did not intend, he is reported to have said, "neither could he, nor would he, wrong any particular person whatsoever." This answer, it is naïvely added, did not give the House satisfaction.
It was all the satisfaction they were to get. Wearied with an examination that would plainly not discover what they wished to find, and might discover what they wished to conceal, with fresh and more serious matters for thought in the startling news of the Irish rising, Parliament suffered the Incident to die a natural death. The fugitives were welcomed back to the capital with the assurance that they were honest men, loyal subjects, and good patriots. Argyll on his return carried all before him. The offices of State were filled with his nominees. The Privy Council was carefully weeded to make room for his friends. The unfortunate King, to fill the cup of his humiliation full, scattered titles with a lavish hand. Argyll was raised to a marquisate; Almond was created Earl of Callendar; bluff old Leslie took his seat among the peers of Scotland as Earl of Leven. To complete the burlesque, Crawford was released from custody without more ado, at the particular request of the magnanimous heroes whose throats he was to have cut. Even Montrose and his friends were suffered to share in the general amnesty, though after a colder fashion. On November 16th, after an imprisonment of five months without a trial, and without any specific allegation of offence, they were discharged with a caution "to carry themselves soberly and discreetly" for the future, and to appear for trial when required. Charles bound himself never to employ their services again without the consent of Parliament, or suffer them to approach his presence; and on the 18th of November he left Scotland for the last time, a contented prince, as he professed to believe, taking leave of a contented people.
It was not till the following March that the case against the Plotters was finally closed. The mockery of their trial was continued at intervals throughout the winter, but no fresh evidence was found against them, no report of their examination was ever published, nor indeed was any formal judgment ever delivered. It had been decided that sentence should be left to the King. The committee, in short, was playing the same game that had already proved so successful in the affairs of the Bond and the Incident. By keeping the inquiry secret the real weakness of their case was concealed, and by refraining from a punishment that they could not inflict they acquired an easy reputation for mercy, while leaving the accused open to every charge that the imagination of fear or faction could devise. It was even intimated that the prisoners owed their escape to Argyll's clemency. Argyll's clemency consisted in refusing to press matters to an extremity which he foresaw might prove more inconvenient to his friends than to his enemies. But in truth he could have afforded to be merciful. For the second time Montrose had challenged him on his own ground, and for the second time victory, even more signally than before, had declared for him.