The articles of pacification were preceded by a declaration on the part of the king, in which he stated, that although he could not condescend to ratify and approve of the acts of the Glasgow General Assembly, yet, notwithstanding the many disorders which had of late been committed, he not only confirmed and made good whatsoever his commissioner had granted and promised, but he also declared that all matters ecclesiastical should be determined by the assemblies of the kirk, and matters civil by the parliament and other inferior judicatories established by law. To settle, therefore, “the general distractions” of the kingdom, his majesty ordered that a free general assembly should be held at Edinburgh on the 6th August following, at which he declared his intention, “God willing, to be personally present;” and he moreover ordered a parliament to meet at Edinburgh on the 20th of the same month, for ratifying the proceedings of the general assembly, and settling such other matters as might conduce to the peace and good of the kingdom of Scotland. By the articles of pacification, it was, inter alia, provided that the forces in Scotland should be disbanded within forty-eight hours after the publication of the declaration, and that all the royal castles, forts, and warlike stores of every description, should be delivered up to his majesty after the said publication, as soon as he should send to receive them. Under the seventh and last article of the treaty, the Marquis of Huntly and his son, Lord Gordon, and some others who had been detained prisoners in the castle of Edinburgh by the Covenanters, were set at liberty.
It has been generally supposed that neither party had any sincere intention to observe the conditions of the treaty. Certain it is, that the ink with which it was written was scarcely dry before its violation was contemplated. On the one hand, the king, before removing his army from the neighbourhood of Berwick, required the heads of the Covenanters to attend him there, obviously with the object of gaining them over to his side; but, with the exception of three commoners and three lords, Montrose, Loudon, and Lothian, they refused to obey. It was at this conference that Charles, who apparently had great persuasive powers, made a convert of Montrose, who from that time determined to desert his associates in arms, and to place himself under the royal standard. The immediate strengthening of the forts of Berwick and Carlisle, and the provisioning of the castle of Edinburgh, were probably the suggestions of Montrose, who would, of course, be intrusted with the secret of his majesty’s designs. The Covenanters, on the other hand, although making a show of disbanding their army at Dunse, in reality kept a considerable force on foot, which they quartered in different parts of the country, to be in readiness for the field on a short notice. The suspicious conduct of the king certainly justified this precaution.
The general assembly met on the day fixed upon, but, instead of attending in person as he proposed, Charles appointed the Earl of Traquair to act as his commissioner. After abolishing the articles of Perth, the book of canons, the liturgy, the high commission and episcopacy, and ratifying the late Covenant, the assembly was dissolved on the 30th of August, and another general assembly was appointed to be held at Aberdeen on the 28th of July of the following year, 1640. The parliament met next day, viz., on the last day of August, and as there were no bishops to represent the third estate, fourteen minor barons were elected in their stead. His majesty’s commissioner protested against the vote and against farther proceedings till the king’s mind should be known, and the commissioner immediately sent off a letter apprising him of the occurrence. Without waiting for the king’s answer, the parliament was proceeding with a variety of bills for securing the liberty of the subject and restraining the royal prerogative, when it was unexpectedly and suddenly prorogued, by an order from the king, till the 2d of June in the following year.
If Charles had not already made up his mind for war with his Scottish subjects, the conduct of the parliament which he had just prorogued determined him again to have recourse to arms in vindication of his prerogative. He endeavoured, at first, to enlist the sympathies of the bulk of the English nation in his cause, but without effect; and his repeated appeals to his English people, setting forth the rectitude of his intentions and the justice of his cause, being answered by men who questioned the one and denied the other, rather injured than served him. The people of England were not then in a mood to embark in a crusade against the civil and religious liberties of the north; and they had too much experience of the arbitrary spirit of the king to imagine that their own liberties would be better secured by extinguishing the flame which burned in the breasts of the sturdy and enthusiastic Covenanters.
But notwithstanding the many discouraging circumstances which surrounded him, Charles displayed a firmness of resolution to coerce the rebellious Scots by every means within his reach. The spring and part of the summer of 1640 were spent by both parties in military preparations. Field-Marshal Sir Alexander Leslie of Balgony, an old and experienced officer who had been in foreign service, was appointed generalissimo of the Scots army by the war committee. When mustered by the general at Choicelee, it amounted to about 22,000 foot and 2,500 horse. A council of war was held at Dunse at which it was determined to invade England. Montrose, to whose command a division of the army, consisting of 2,000 foot and 500 horse, was intrusted, was absent when this meeting was held; but, although his sentiments had, by this time, undergone a complete change, seeing on his return no chance of preventing the resolution of the council, he dissembled his feelings and openly approved of the plan. There seems to be no doubt that in following this course he intended, on the first favourable opportunity, to declare for the king, and carry off such part of the army as should be inclined to follow him, which he reckoned at a third of the whole.[248]
The Earl of Argyle was commissioned by the Committee of Estates to secure the west and central Highlands. This, the eighth Earl and first Marquis of Argyle, had succeeded to the title only in 1638, although he had enjoyed the estates for many years before that, as his father had been living in Spain, an outlaw. He was born in 1598, and strictly educated in the protestant faith as established in Scotland at the Reformation. In 1626 he was made a privy councillor, and in 1634 appointed one of the extraordinary lords of session. In 1638, at the General Assembly of Glasgow, he openly went over to the side of the Covenanters, and from that time was recognised as their political head. Argyle, in executing the task intrusted to him by the committee, appears to have been actuated more by feelings of private revenge than by an honest desire to carry out the spirit of his commission. The ostensible reason for his undertaking this charge was his thorough acquaintance with the Highlands and the Highlanders, and his ability to command the services of a large following of his own. “But the cheefe cause,” according to Gordon of Rothiemay,[249] “though least mentioned, was Argylle, his spleene that he carryed upon the accompt of former disobleedgments betwixt his family and some of the Highland clans: therefore he was glade now to gett so faire a colour of revenge upon the publicke score, which he did not lett slippe. Another reasone he had besyde; it was his designe to swallow upp Badzenoch and Lochaber, and some landes belonging to the Mackdonalds, a numerous trybe, but haters of, and aeqwally hated by Argylle.” He had some hold on these two districts, as, in 1639, he had become security for some of Huntly’s debts to the latter’s creditors. Argyle managed to seduce from their allegiance to Huntly the clan Cameron in Lochaber, who bore a strong resentment against their proper chief on account of some supposed injury done to the clan by the former marquis. Although they had little relish for the Covenant, still to gratify their revenge, they joined themselves to Argyle. A tribe of the Macdonalds who inhabited Lochaber, the Macranalds of Keppoch, who remained faithful to Huntly, met with very different treatment at the hands of Argyle, who devastated their district and burnt down their chief’s dwelling at Keppoch.
During this same summer (July 1640), Argyle, who had raised an army of about 5,000 men, made a devastating raid into the district of Forfarshire belonging to the Earl of Airly. He made first for Airly castle, about five miles north of Meigle, which, in the absence of the earl in England, was held by his son Lord Ogilvie, who had recently maintained it against Montrose. When Argyle came up, Ogilvie saw that resistance was hopeless, and abandoned the castle to the tender mercy of the enemy. Argyle without scruple razed the place to the ground, and is said to have shown himself so “extremely earnest” in the work of demolition “that he was seen taking a hammer in his hande and knocking down the hewed work of the doors and windows till he did sweat for heat at his work.”[250] Argyle’s men carried off all they could from the house and the surrounding district, and rendered useless what they were compelled to leave behind.
From Airly, Argyle proceeded to a seat belonging to Lord Ogilvie, Forthar in Glenisla, the “bonnie house o’ Airly,” of the well-known song. Here he behaved in a manner for which it would be difficult for his warmest supporters to find the shadow of an excuse, even taking into consideration the roughness of the times. The place is said by Gordon to have been “no strength,” so that there is still less excuse for his conduct. He treated Forthar in the same way that he did Airly, and although Lady Ogilvie, who at the time was close on her confinement, asked Argyle to stay proceedings until she gave birth to her infant, he without scruple expelled her from the house, and proceeded with his work of destruction. Not only so, however, but “the Lady Drum, Dame Marian Douglas, who lived at that time in Kelly, hearing tell what extremity her grandchild, the Lady Ogilvy, was reduced to, did send a commission to Argyle, to whom the said Lady Drum was a kinswoman, requesting that, with his license, she might admit into her own house, her grandchild, the Lady Ogilvy, who at that time was near her delivery; but Argyle would give no license. This occasioned the Lady Drum for to fetch the Lady Ogilvie to her house of Kelly, and for to keep her there upon all hazard that might follow.”
At the same time Argyle “was not forgetful to remember old quarrels to Sir John Ogilvie of Craigie.” He sent a sergeant to Ogilvie’s house to warn him to leave it, but the sergeant thought Argyle must have made some mistake, as he found it no more than a simple unfortified country house, occupied only by a sick gentlewoman and some servants. The sergeant returned and told this to Argyle, who waxed wroth and told him it was his duty simply to obey orders, commanding him at the same time to return and “deface and spoil the house.” After the sergeant had received his orders, Argyle was observed to turn round and repeat to himself the Latin political maxim Abscindantur qui nos perturbant, “a maxime which many thought that he practised accurately, which he did upon the account of the proverb consequential thereunto, and which is the reason of the former, which Argyle was remarked likewise to have often in his mouth as a choice aphorism, and well observed by statesmen, Quod mortui non mordent.”