by John Buchan
That was one omen for those who had eyes to read it; the Scots, who had at the moment the vantage, were suggesting a higher price for peace than the bills of expenses which Leslie was patiently presenting. Another was the swift movement in Parliament to exact retribution from those who, like Strafford and Laud, were commonly held to be the pillars of monarchical policy. There was a third — most fateful of all; for the Huntingdonshire grazier, who had been so active in defending the rights of the fen commoners, was now at Westminster. On a certain November day, at the opening of the session, a young courtier, Sir Philip Warwick, very proud of his fine clothes, found a member speaking in the House whom he did not know, a gentleman in a plain suit made by a bad country tailor, his linen not very clean, and a speck of blood on his little band.” His stature was of a good size, his sword stuck close to his side, his countenance swollen and reddish, his voice sharp and untunable, and his eloquence full of fervour.” This was he of whom John Maidston, his servant and no flatterer, wrote that “a larger soul hath seldom dwelt in a house of clay.” Oliver Cromwell had set his foot upon the road which was to lead him to the mastery of England.
III
1640
Montrose may have hoped to find a solution of his doubts in swift action in the field, but the easy victory of Newburn brought no comfort. Of his part in that campaign we know nothing, except that in his opponents’ eyes he was one of the Covenanting leaders, and that Strafford hastened to report from Darlington to the king the false rumour that he had been killed by Wilmot. A man of active temper and complete honesty, if he cannot see his way plain, is apt to make a sorry business of waiting. Perplexities thickened about the path of the undecided Montrose. He saw clearly the necessity of asserting and safeguarding the central authority, the king’s, if Scotland was to be saved from anarchy, and he saw no less clearly the direction of Argyll’s thoughts; but he still believed that the Covenanters as a whole were willing to listen to moderate counsels, and that if he bided his time he might yet lead his countrymen into reasonable ways. After the fiasco of Newburn and the ready capitulation of Newcastle, he may have argued that Scotland had sufficiently vindicated her rights against Charles, and that the time was ripe for insisting that the royal rights in turn should be safeguarded. He did not know how closely the interests of the Covenant were linked with Pym and his followers in the English Parliament, whose maxim it was rapidly becoming that the king could do no right. Nor did he realize the direction of the thoughts of the Scottish commissioners and their grandiose scheme for imposing Presbytery on England. He looked about for like-minded associates, and found few. He was not a simple-souled royalist like Airlie, who saw the problem as a plain choice between honour and dishonour, or a mediæval satrap like Huntly, who thought in terms of family pride and ancestral enmities. He had a philosophy of politics, which we shall presently consider, and he explored the nobility of Scotland to see if he could find others, besides Napier, who subscribed to it. So he became zealous in discussing public affairs, and thereby played into Argyll’s hand.
1640-41
Suspicion of him had grown among the Covenanting leaders, and he was closely watched. From Newcastle he wrote to the king a simple protestation of loyalty, and the letter came to the knowledge of the Committee — picked up by accident, says Burnet; disclosed by spies in the royal bedchamber, says Wishart. He was accused of “having intelligence with the enemy,” and made the unanswerable reply that the king, against whose person and authority any aspersion was made treason by the articles of war, could not be “the enemy.” In Baillie’s report of the incident he is spoken of as one “whose pride long ago was intolerable and meaning very doubtful.” November found Montrose back in Scotland, summoned to explain the Cumbernauld Bond, the contents of which had come to Argyll’s ear through hints dropped by Lord Boyd on his deathbed. The Committee of Estates called before them the signatories, who acknowledged and justified their action. Some of the ministers demanded the death of the accused, but these were too powerful to receive more than censure, since some of them commanded regiments, and all were territorial magnates. “They consulted to patch up the business after a declaration under their hands that they intended nothing against the public, together with a surrendering of the bond, which the Committee, having gotten, caused it to be burned.” The breach between Montrose and his former allies had become very wide. He returned to the army, and his indignation made his tongue run loose. In January 1641 he told Colonel Cochrane, in the presence of old Leslie, that he could prove that certain leaders in Scotland were scheming to depose the king, and he left no doubt in the mind of his embarrassed hearers that he referred to Argyll.
1641
In the beginning of 1641 it would appear that Montrose and his few friends decided upon a policy. They must induce the king to come to Scotland and satisfy every reasonable Covenanting demand; that done, he would be able, with the country behind him, to resist the follies of fanatical preachers, to check the aggression of selfish nobles, and above all to curb the ambition of Argyll, whose treason they would be in a position to prove. In a letter to Charles, written in the early months of the year, Montrose offered wise advice to his sovereign.
“Your ancient and native kingdom of Scotland is in a mighty distemper. It is incumbent on your Majesty to find out the disease, remove the cause, and apply convenient remedies. The disease in my opinion is contagious, and may infect the rest of your Majesty’s dominions. It is a falling sickness, for they are like to fall from you, and from the obedience due to you, if, by removing the cause, and application of wholesome remedies, it be not speedily prevented. The cause is a fear and apprehension, not without some reason, of changes in religion, and that superstitious worship shall be brought in upon it, and therewith all their laws infringed and their liberties invaded. Free them, sir, from this fear, as you are free from any such thoughts; and undoubtedly you shall thereby settle the State in a firm obedience to your Majesty in all time coming. They have no other end but to preserve their religion in purity, and their liberties entire. That they intend the overthrow of monarchial government is a calumny. They are capable of no other, for many and great reasons; and ere they will admit another than your Majesty, and after you your son and nearest of your posterity, to sit upon your throne, many thousands of them will spend their dearest blood. You are not like a tree lately planted, which oweth a fall to the first wind. Your ancestors have governed theirs, without interruption of race, two thousand years or thereabouts, and taken such root as it can never be plucked up by any but yourselves. If any others shall entertain such treasonable thoughts, which I do not believe, certainly they will prove as vain as they are wicked.
“The remedy of this dangerous disease consisteth only in your Majesty’s presence for a space in that kingdom. It is easy to you in person to settle their troubles, and to disperse these mists of apprehension and mistaking — impossible to any other. If you send down a commissioner, whatever he be, he shall neither give nor get contentment, but shall render the disease incurable. The success of your Majesty’s affairs, the security of your authority, the peace and happiness of your subjects, depend upon your personal presence. The disease is of that kind which is much helped by conceit and the presence of the physician. Now is the proper time and the critical days. For the people love change, and expect from it much good — a new heaven and a new earth; but, being disappointed, are as desirous of a re-change to the former estate.
“Satisfy them, sir, in point of religion and liberties, when you come here, in a loving and free manner; that they may see your Majesty had never any other purpose, and doth not intend the least prejudice to either. For religious subjects, and such as enjoy their lawful liberties, obey better and love more than the godless and the servile, who do all out of base fear, which begets hate. Any difference that may arise upon the Acts passed in the last Parliament, your Majesty’s presence, and the advice and endeavour of your faithful servants will easily accommodate. Let your Majesty be please
d to express your favour and care of your subjects’ weal by giving way to any just notion of theirs for relief of the burdens these late troubles have laid on them, and by granting what else may tend to their good; which your Majesty may do with assurance that therein is included your own.
“Suffer them not to meddle or dispute of your power. It is an instrument never subjects yet handled well. Let not your authority receive any diminution of that which the law of God and Nature and the fundamental laws of the country alloweth; for then it shall grow contemptible; and weak and miserable is the people whose prince hath not power sufficient to punish oppression and to maintain peace and justice.
“On the other side, aim not at absoluteness. It endangers your estate and stirs up trouble. The people of the western parts of the world could never endure it any long time, and they of Scotland less than any. Hearken not to Rehoboam’s counsellors. They are flatterers, and therefore cannot be friends; they will follow your fortune, and love not your person. Pretend what they will, their hasty ambition and avarice make them persuade an absolute government that the exercise of the same (may be put) on them, and then they know how to get wealth . . .
“Practise, sir, the temperate government. It fitteth the humour and disposition of the nation best. It is most strong, most powerful, most desirable of any. It gladdeth the heart of your subjects, and then they erect a throne there for you to reign. Firmissimum imperium quo obedientes gaudent. Let your last act there be the settling the offices of State upon men of known integrity and sufficiency. Take them not upon credit and other men’s recommendation; they prefer men for their own ends and with respect to themselves. Neither yet take them at a hazard, but upon your own knowledge, which fully reacheth to a great many more than will fill those few places. Let them not be such as are obliged to others than yourself for their preferment; not factious nor popular; neither such as are much hated; for these are not able to serve you well, and the others are not willing if it be prejudice to those upon whom they depend. They who are preferred and obliged to your Majesty will study to behave them well and dutifully in their places, if it were for no other reason yet for this, that they make not your Majesty ashamed of your choice.
“So shall your Majesty secure your authority for the present, and settle it for the future time. Your journey shall be prosperous, your return glorious. You shall be followed with the blessings of your people, and with that contentment which a virtuous deed reflecteth upon the mind of the doer. And more true and solid shall your glory be than if you had conquered nations and subdued a people.
“. . . . pax una triumphis
Innumeris potior.”
This sagacious letter might be elaborately annotated from contemporary history. There was no sentence in it which future events were not to justify abundantly, save that optimism about Scottish opinion which was to prove to Montrose a deceptive light. What could Argyll offer on the other side? It would be a mistake to take too seriously the gossip about his monarchical ambitions. The chief of the Campbells was far too shrewd a man to let a glittering dream divert him from a practicable purpose. His aim was to be dictator of Scotland, and his abilities were adequate to the task. Had he had military genius, he might well have played in Scotland the part of Cromwell, and wholly upturned the old foundations of sovereignty. But what had he to put in its place? Another autocracy without the sanctions of the old. He had made the cumbrous mediæval Parliament a more efficient and representative thing, but this reform merely strengthened the hands of the new oligarchy. He was sworn to the creed of intolerant Presbyterian domination in its extremest form. Above all, he was the clan chief, who supported his friends and did not forgive his enemies. To Montrose the alternative was unthinkable, for it would bring to Scotland not peace but a naked sword. He himself, in his young enthusiasm for the national religion and liberties, had been led into courses which were alien to his beliefs. He had assented to the constraint of private consciences, when he approved of the compulsory signature of the Covenant; he had given his approval to feudal barbarities when he signed Argyll’s commission for the subjection of the North. But his eyes were now opened, and he hastened to draw aside from that perilous road.
Montrose was an ingenuous conspirator, for in his eagerness to discover like-mindedness and make converts he talked freely to the wrong people. At Scone, during a visit to Lord Stormont, he heard from Atholl, Stewart of Grandtully, and John Stewart of Ladywell, the commissary of Dunkeld, reports of treasonable speeches made by Argyll during the Perthshire expedition of the previous year. He spoke of them to his friend, Mr. Robert Murray, the minister of Methven, who mentioned them to Mr. John Graham, the minister of Auchterarder, who repeated the story to the Auchterarder presbytery, whence it came to the ear of Argyll. Graham and Murray were asked for their authority, and they named Montrose, who accepted responsibility and in turn cited his evidence. His witnesses, he said, were Lindsay of the Byres, Cassilis, Mar, and Stewart of Ladywell. The witnesses were summoned before the Committee of Estates, and proved unsatisfactory. Lindsay remembered the conversation, but said that he had not named Argyll. Ladywell stood by his words, signed a written statement, and was thereupon, on 31st May, sent to Edinburgh castle.
There something happened. Either Ladywell’s nerve broke down, or he was worked on by friends of Argyll, like Balmerino; for next day he saw Argyll, recanted the charges against him, and declared that he had forged them out of malice. He did more, for he confessed that he had been privy to discussions between Montrose, Napier, his nephew Sir George Stirling of Keir, and Keir’s brother-in-law, Archibald Stewart of Blackhall, and that, acting on their instructions, he had sent a report of Argyll’s treason to the king. The messenger who carried it was a certain Walter Stewart of the Traquair family, and on the return journey he was captured by the Committee. Among the papers found on him was a short note from the king to Montrose about his coming to Scotland, to which no exception could be taken, and certain papers written in a strange jargon, which was in all likelihood the product of Stewart’s own half-witted fancy, but which to the Committee had an ugly look of a secret cypher. Stewart was ready with a confused but dark-sounding interpretation, and on this document Montrose, Napier, Stirling, and Stewart of Blackhall were arrested and confined in separate rooms in the castle.
It is not likely that Ladywell’s first story was true. Argyll was too cautious a man to speak rashly on such matters in uncertain company; if he talked of the deposition of kings, it is probable that it was as an abstract proposition of kings in general. Nor did he show the desire of the rest of the Committee for the summary punishment of Ladywell — which would have been natural if Ladywell had been an inconvenient witness whom it was politic to silence. We know from Guthry, a hostile witness, that he consulted the Lord Advocate to see if a more lenient sentence could not be imposed. The wretched man was duly convicted under the old Scottish statute of “leasing-making,” and publicly beheaded in Edinburgh on 28th July.
Meantime there was the far graver business of Montrose. Argyll could afford to neglect the wild gossip of the commissary of Dunkeld, but it was another matter to have responsible Scottish nobles, with influence in the army, negotiating behind his back with the king. Napier was offered release as a favour, but declined to accept it; he declared that if any one was guilty he was, and he would not be separated from his companions. Montrose refused to answer any question before the Committee, and demanded a public trial by his peers. Traquair angrily denied any complicity with his preposterous kinsman, Walter Stewart. The king wrote on 12th June to Argyll to clear himself; his letter to Montrose was “fit for me to write, both for the matter, and the person to whom it is written;” he had made no promise to any one as to the distribution of offices; he was coming to Scotland for no other purpose than to settle the affairs of the kingdom “according to the articles of the treaty.” This might seem sufficient to clear Montrose, but his opponents, having got him under duress, did not intend to let him readily go. His house was
broken into and his papers ransacked, but nothing more dangerous to the peace of the realm could be found than a paper justifying the Cumbernauld Bond, and “some letters from ladies to him in his younger years, flowered with Arcadian compliments.” On 27th July he was brought before Parliament, and declared that he had nothing to confess or to defend. “Truth doth not seek corners, it needeth no favour.” He awaited their lordships’ questions or commands. “My resolution is to carry along with me fidelity and honour to the grave.” They could make nothing of such a man, and sent him back to prison. He was brought again before Parliament on 6th August, and a third time on 14th August. On the evening of the latter day the king arrived in Edinburgh.