It was then that Charles, in his desperation, turned to Montrose. Montrose was too skilful and experienced a general to think lightly of the struggle before him, but he formed a plan by which Scotland was to be invaded on the west by the earl of Antrim from Ireland, while he himself, reinforced by royalist troops, would fall on the Scotch who were on the border. But the reinforcements he expected hardly amounted, when they came, to one thousand one hundred men, and these being composed of the two nations were constantly quarrelling, which added to the difficulties of the commander. At Dumfries he halted, and read a proclamation stating that 'he was king's man, as he had been covenanter, for the defence and maintenance of the true Protestant religion, his majesty's just and sacred authority, the laws and privileges of Parliament, the peace and freedom of oppressed and thralled subjects.' Adding that 'if he had not known perfectly the king's intention to be such and so real as is already expressed' he would 'never have embarked himself in his service,' and if he 'saw any appearance of the king changing' from these resolutions he would continue no longer 'his faithful servant.'
Thus he said, and thus we may believe he felt, but none the less not a man joined his standard as he marched along the border. He tried to reach prince Rupert, the king's nephew, in Yorkshire, but Marston Moor had been lost before he arrived there. Then, dressed as a groom, he started for Perthshire, and after four days arrived at the house of his kinsman Graham of Inchbrackie, where he learned that the whole of the country beyond the Tay was covenanting, with the single exception of the territory of the Gordons. No one knew of his presence, for he still wore his disguise, and slept in a little hut in the woods, where food was brought him. All day he wandered about the lonely hills, thinking over the tangled state of affairs, and waiting for the right moment to strike.
One afternoon when he was lying on the heather, wondering if he ought not to come out of his hiding, and join either the Gordons or prince Rupert, he beheld a man running quickly over the moor, holding in his hand the Fiery Cross, which, as every Highlander knew, was the call to arms. Starting to his feet, Montrose stopped the man and asked the meaning of the signal, and whither he was going.
"A great army of Irishmen have swooped down on the Atholl".
'To Perth,' answered the messenger, 'for a great army of Irishmen have swooped down in the Atholl country, and Alastair Macdonald is their leader. I myself have seen them, and I must not tarry,' so on he sped, leaving Montrose with his puzzle solved. The Irishmen whom he expected had arrived, and he would go to meet them.
There was no need for hiding any more, and glad was he to throw off his disguise and put on his Highland dress again. Then, accompanied by the laird of Inchbrackie, he walked across the hills to join Macdonald, bearing the royal standard on his shoulder.
As soon as he reached the meeting-place where the clans and the Irish were already waiting, he stuck the standard in the ground, and, standing by it, he read aloud the king's commission to him as lieutenant-general. Shouts of joy made answer when he had done, and next Montrose went round the ranks to inspect the troops he was to fight with, and find out what arms they had. The numbers only amounted to about two thousand three hundred, and it was not long before the clans began to quarrel with each other, and all with the Irish. As to their weapons, the Irish had matchlock guns, which took a long time to load, and one round of ammunition apiece, while the Highlanders had seized upon anything that happened to be in their cottages and showed a medley of bows, pikes, clubs, and claymores—a kind of broad sword. As to horses, they could only muster three.