After disbanding his army—or what was left of it—in the king's name, and thanking them for their services, Montrose went to Forfarshire to await the ship which was to convey him to France. But day after day passed without a sign of it, and the marquis soon became convinced that treachery was intended, and took measures to prevent it. Leaving old Montrose, he went to Stonehaven, another little town on the coast, and settled with a Norwegian captain to lie off Montrose on a certain day. So when, on August 31, the covenanting captain at last appeared, and declared his ship would not be ready to sail for another eight days—by which time, of course, Montrose's life would be forfeit—he found his bird flown; for the exile and a friend had disguised themselves and put off one morning in a small boat to the larger vessel that was waiting for them, and in a week were safe across the North Sea at Bergen.
But Norway was merely a stepping-stone to Paris, where the queen of England was living under the protection of her sister-in-law, Anne of Austria, and of the young king Louis XIV. The handsome pension allowed her in the beginning gradually ceased when the civil war of the Fronde broke out in 1648, and, as we know, she was found one day by a visitor sitting with her little girl, whom she had kept in bed because she could not afford a fire. And even at this time, in 1647, she always spent whatever she had, so from one cause or another no money was forthcoming to help Montrose, who perhaps did not understand the situation, and thought that she was unkind and careless of her husband's welfare. As often before, he spoke out his feelings when he would have done better to be silent, and pressed on the queen advice that was not asked for, and may not have been possible to follow. Yet, if he felt that there was no place for him in the little English court, ample evidence was given him of the high respect in which he was held elsewhere. The all-powerful minister, cardinal Mazarin, desired to enlist him in the French service, and the greatest nobles paid court to him. Montrose, however, was not the sort of man to find healing for his sorrows in honours such as these. He gave a grateful and courteous refusal to all proposals, and bidding farewell to his hosts, made his way to the Prague to offer his sword to the emperor Ferdinand. Like the rest, the emperor received him warmly, and created him a field-marshal, but there was no post for Montrose in the Austrian army, and in the end he joined some friends in Brussels, whence he kept up an intimate correspondence with Elizabeth of Bohemia, Charles I.'s sister, who was staying at the Hague with her niece, Mary of Orange, and the young prince of Wales.
There in February arrived the news of the king's execution, and when he heard it Montrose vowed that the rest of his life should be spent in the service of his son, and in avenging his master. Charles II. did not like him; he was too grave and too little of a courtier; and besides, the new king had listened and believed the stories to his discredit brought by men whose fortunes had been ruined in their own country, and who sought to build them up in Holland! Charles soon found for himself how untrue were these tales, and though the two never could become friends, he recognised Montrose's loyalty and ability and appointed him commander-in-chief of the royal forces and lieutenant-governor of Scotland, and gave him leave to get what mercenaries he could from Sweden and Denmark.
Full of hope, Montrose at once set off on his recruiting journey, and sent off some troops to the Orkneys to be drilled under the earls of Kinnoull and Morton; but Morton in a very short time caught fever and died. Meanwhile his friend, Elizabeth of Bohemia, looked on with distrust and alarm at her nephew's proceedings, for well she knew—as did Charles himself—that the surrender of Montrose would be the first article of any treaty made by the covenant. She even wrote to put Montrose on his guard; but he, judging the king by himself, believed the assurances of help and support given in Charles' own letters, accompanied by the gift of the garter, as a pledge of their fulfilment. He was bidden to lose no time in opening the campaign, but one thousand out of the one thousand two hundred men whom he despatched went down in a great gale, and only two hundred reached the shore. So April had come before the general had collected sufficient soldiers to march southwards, and by that time the forces of the enemy were ready to meet him.
It was on April 27 that Montrose's last battle was fought at Carbisdale, near the Kyle, where the rivers Shin and Oykel reach the sea. The earl of Sutherland secured the passes of the hills, while colonel Strachan and a large body of cavalry approached from the south. When they arrived within a few miles of the royalist camp at the head of the Kyle, Strachan ordered two divisions of his cavalry to proceed under cover of some woods and broken ground, and only suffered a few horse, led by himself, to remain visible. These were seen, as they were meant to be, by Montrose's scouts, who, as at Philiphaugh, were either careless or treacherous or very stupid, and they brought back the report that the covenanting force was weak. Montrose, taking for granted the truth of their report, disposed of his foot on a flat stretch of ground, and ordered his horse to advance. Then the trees and the hills 'started to life with armed men'; the Orkney islanders fled without striking a blow; and though the foreign troops made a stout resistance, they were overpowered by numbers, and those of their leaders who were not dead were taken prisoners. Montrose, who was badly wounded, fought desperately on foot, but at length after much entreaty accepted the horse ridden by Sutherland's nephew and dashed away into the hills, throwing away as he did so his star, sword and cloak—a fatal act, which brought about his discovery and death. Their horses were next abandoned, and Montrose changed clothes with a peasant, and with young lord Kinnoull and Sinclair of Caithness plunged into the wild mountains that lay on the west.
For two days they sought in vain for a road to take them to Caithness.