CHAP. IV

THE MARQUIS OF HUNTLY

59

His son George, who had lately succeeded him, had been brought up at Court with the young princes in the faith of the English Church, and had married a sister of Argyll. He had for some time commanded the Scottish Guard in France, and had served with distinction in the campaign against Austria; but the lavish state he had maintained as captain of that famous corps had plunged him deep into debt, and it was believed that he would listen to any proposal likely to relieve his desperate fortunes. Overtures had already been made to him from the Covenant on these conditions, and had been rejected. "My house," he said, "has risen by the Kings of Scotland, has ever stood for them, and with them shall fall, nor will I quit the path of my predecessors; and if the event be the ruin of my sovereign, then shall the rubbish that belongs to it bury beneath it all that belongs to mine." The spirit which prompted this gallant answer was sincere, but, as Charles and Montrose were both to find to their cost, it could not always rise superior to more selfish feelings. For the present he had been appointed Lieutenant for the King in the North, instructed to arm his men, and promised succours from England. But he had also been instructed to take his orders from Hamilton, and not to act without them; for the present he had merely to get ready, to stand on the defensive, and above all things to avoid any open act of hostility. Huntly knew well enough the futility of such orders. Not to move without Hamilton was to stay where he was till he was turned out by the Covenanters. Still there was nothing for him but to obey, and hold himself in readiness to join hands with the unwelcome ally who had been thrust upon him.

There was no time to be lost. The King was slowly assembling an army for the Borders, and the Covenanters could not march south with such an enemy in their rear. If Hamilton could effect a juncture with Huntly on the east coast, at the same time as the Irishry under Antrim and Strafford were landed on the west, it would go ill with the Covenanters. They had not been idle. The castles of Edinburgh, Dumbarton, and Dalkeith had been carried by surprise within a few hours of each other, and Mar could be trusted to hold Stirling safe. In the West the power of Hamilton and Douglas had been dealt a serious blow by the seizure of their strongholds in Arran and Clydesdale. Of all the fortresses in Scotland, Lord Nithsdale's Castle of Caerlaverock in Dumfriesshire was alone held for the King. From the Border to the North Sea the Covenant was supreme, save only in that dangerous district which called Huntly lord, and against the power of Huntly the arms of the Covenant were now turned.

The command was given to Montrose. His restless and enterprising spirit marked him for the work among men whose talents appeared to lie rather in debate than in the field. His own estates, moreover, lay near, and though his following was but a handful compared with Huntly's power, he would be more likely to gain recruits than an unknown leader. But Montrose was young, hot-headed, too fond, it was feared, of his own way, possibly also too punctilious. Some older man must go with him, more experienced in war and more accustomed also to obey, who, while nominally Montrose's lieutenant, might keep a watchful eye over him. The man for this purpose was found in Alexander

IV

ALEXANDER LESLIE

61

Leslie, a cadet, though an illegitimate one, of the House of Rothes. Though a little man and deformed, Leslie had won fame and rank in the Thirty Years' War, where so many of his countrymen had been fighting for the Protestant cause under the great Gustavus. During a short visit to Scotland in the spring of 1638 Leslie had seen how the land lay. He had returned to Germany, but not for long. By the end of the year he was back again, with good news and better than news for the Covenanters. During his absence he had been recruiting for them among their countrymen who, like himself, had taken service under the Lion of the North, and collecting stores of military supplies. Some of these were intercepted by the English cruisers, but the most part found their way into Scotland, where Leslie was welcomed with open arms. He was soon appointed general of the Covenanting forces, and they could not have found a better man. Though without the military genius of his nephew David, he was as accomplished in all the mechanism of war as any man of his time, cool, sagacious, and certain never to be hurried into mischief by a misguided enthusiasm for any cause. King and Covenant were much the same to him; but fighting was his trade; the death of Gustavus had set him free to serve another flag; he was a Scotsman and a Protestant, above all a kinsman of Rothes, whose "canniness" was not likely to let so useful an ally go. Leslie was, in short, a favourable specimen of that class of soldier of fortune which the incomparable genius of Walter Scott has fixed for ever in the character of Dugald Dalgetty.

This was not Montrose's first visit to Aberdeen as an agent for the Covenant. He had been there in the pre

vious summer, but in more peaceful guise. Instead of Leslie and a following of armed soldiers, he had been accompanied only by a few laymen of no particular importance, and the three apostles of the Covenant, Henderson, Dickson, and Cant. It was not a very

fruitful visit. The ministers of Aberdeen would not give up their pulpits to the strangers, and the apostles had to deliver their doctrine from a gallery of the Earl Marischal's house, then occupied by his sister Lady Pitsligo, a staunch Puritan after the fashion of Hamilton's mother and of Montrose's own aunt Lady Wigton. Montrose was of course present, sitting at her ladyship's side, to the regret, doubtless, of many who recalled the different circumstances in which they had last seen him, when the bells rang in honour of the gallant young bridegroom who had just been elected a burgess of their loyal town. The apostles wisely chose the hours between the church services so as to make sure of an audience; and an audience they secured, but one not entirely to their taste. The respectful part listened with more curiosity than conviction, and not all were respectful. A few insignificant proselytes were gained, and a grievous insult was cast upon the good city. Aberdeen prided itself upon its hospitality, and when the provost and bailies heard that their young townsman was on the road to visit them, they prepared a collation in his honour and came to welcome him at his lodging. But Montrose treated them with scant ceremony, and refused to receive anything at their hands till they had subscribed the Covenant, an affront which had never before, they vowed, been put upon Aberdeen within the memory of man!

IV

MONTROSE AND HUNTLY

63

They prepared a different welcome now for the young Earl. The citizens were armed and drilled, guns mounted, trenches dug, and the town generally put into such a state of defence as was possible. Meanwhile Montrose was at his own place in Forfarshire, beating up for recruits. While there he heard that the few allies the Covenant could boast in that quarter were to meet at Turriff, a market-town on the borders of Banffshire, mostly gentry of the district, Frasers and Forbeses, who were jealous of the Gordons and ready to join any party against them. Huntly heard also of the meeting and resolved to disperse it. But Montrose was too quick for him. With one of those lightning dashes which were to be the secret of his successes against the Covenant, he now won the first point in the game for it. Taking with him barely two hundred of his own men, he hurried across the Grampians by the most unfrequented routes, and when Huntly at the head of two thousand men marched into Turriff he was greeted with a compact array of musket-barrels levelled at him across the wall of the little churchyard. His orders were explicit. He was not to proclaim his commission till the time came, and that mysterious moment was to be decided not by him but by Hamilton. Moreover he was to avoid all risk of bloodshed for the present. He knew Montrose would fight, and, though he was perhaps the better man for the moment, he knew also that Leslie was at hand with a force more than double his own. Had the positions of the two leaders been reversed there can be no doubt what Montrose would have done. But Huntly was not Montrose. He withdrew to Inverury, and