Meanwhile James"s relations with England, where Elizabeth saw with dismay his victory over her allies, his clergy, were unfriendly. Plots were encouraged against him, but it is not probable that England was aware of the famous and mysterious conspiracy of the young Earl of Gowrie, who was warmly welcomed by Elizabeth on his return from Padua, by way of Paris. He had been summoned by Bruce, James"s chief clerical adversary, and the Kirk had high hopes of the son of the man of the Raid of Ruthven. He led the opposition to taxation for national defence in a convention of June-July 1600. On August 5, in his own house at Perth, where James, summoned thither by Gowrie"s younger brother, had dined with him, Gowrie and his brother were slain by John Ramsay, a page to the king.
This affair was mysterious. The preachers, and especially Bruce, refused to accept James"s own account of the events, at first, and this was not surprising. Gowrie was their one hope among the peers, and the story which James told is so strange that nothing could be stranger or less credible except the various and manifestly mendacious versions of the Gowrie party. {156}
James"s version of the occurrences must be as much as possible condensed, and there is no room for the corroborating evidence of Lennox and others. As the king was leaving Falkland to hunt a buck early on August 5, the Master of Ruthven, who had ridden over from his brother"s house in Perth, accosted him. The Master declared that he had on the previous evening arrested a man carrying a pot of gold; had said nothing to Gowrie; had locked up the man and his gold in a room, and now wished James to come instantly and examine the fellow. The king"s curiosity and cupidity were less powerful than his love of sport: he would first kill his buck. During the chase James told the story to Lennox, who corroborated. Ruthven sent a companion to inform his brother; none the less, when the king, with a considerable following, did appear at Gowrie"s house, no preparation for his reception had been made.
The Master was now in a quandary: he had no prisoner and no pot of gold. During dinner Gowrie was very nervous; after it James and the Master slipped upstairs together while Gowrie took the gentlemen into the garden to eat cherries. Ruthven finally led James into a turret off the long gallery; he locked the door, and pointing to a man in armour with a dagger, said that he "had the king at his will." The man, however, fell a-trembling, James made a speech, and the Master went to seek Gowrie, locking the door behind him. At or about this moment, as was fully attested, Cranstoun, a retainer of Gowrie, reported to him and the gentlemen that the king had ridden away. They all rushed to the gate, where the porter, to whom Gowrie gave the lie, swore that the king had not left the place. The gentlemen going to the stables pa.s.sed under the turret-window, whence appeared the king, red in the face, bellowing "treason!" The gentlemen, with Lennox, rushed upstairs, and through the gallery, but could not force open the door giving on the turret. But young Ramsay had run up a narrow stair in the tower, burst open the turret-door opening on the stair, found James struggling with the Master, wounded the Master, and pushed him downstairs. In the confusion, while the king"s falcon flew wildly about the turret till James set his foot on its chain, the man with the dagger vanished. The Master was slain by two of James"s attendants; the Earl, rushing with four or five men up the turret-stair, fell in fight by Ramsay"s rapier.
Lennox and his company now broke through the door between the gallery and the turret, and all was over except a riotous a.s.semblage of the town"s folk. The man with the dagger had fled: he later came in and gave himself up; he was Gowrie"s steward; his name was Henderson; it was he who rode with the Master to Falkland and back to Perth to warn Gowrie of James"s approach. He confessed that Gowrie had then bidden him put on armour, on a false pretence, and the Master had stationed him in the turret. The fact that Henderson had arrived (from Falkland) at Gowrie"s house by half-past ten was amply proved, yet Gowrie had made no preparations for the royal visit. If Henderson was not the man in the turret, his sudden and secret flight from Perth is unexplained. Moreover, Robert Oliphant, M.A., said, in private talk, that the part of the man in the turret had, some time earlier, been offered to him by Gowrie; he refused and left the Earl"s service. It is manifest that James could not have arranged this set of circ.u.mstances: the thing is impossible. Therefore the two Ruthvens plotted to get him into their hands early in the day; and, when he arrived late, with a considerable train, they endeavoured to send these gentlemen after the king, by averring that he had ridden homewards. The dead Ruthvens with their house were forfeited.
Among the preachers who refused publicly to accept James"s account of the events in Gowrie"s house on August 5, Mr Bruce was the most eminent and the most obstinate. He had, on the day after the famous riot of December 1596, written to Hamilton asking him to countenance, as a chief n.o.bleman, "the G.o.dly barons and others who had convened themselves," at that time, in the cause of the Kirk. Bruce admitted that he knew Hamilton to be ambitious, but Hamilton"s ambition did not induce him to appear as captain of a new congregation. The chief need of the ministers" party was a leader among the great n.o.bles. Now, in 1593, the young Earl of Gowrie had leagued himself with the madcap Bothwell. In April 1594, Gowrie, Bothwell, and Atholl had addressed the Kirk, asking her to favour and direct their enterprise. Bothwell made an armed demonstration and failed; Gowrie then went abroad, to Padua and Rome, and, apparently in 1600, Mr Bruce sailed to France, "for the calling," he says, "of the Master of Gowrie"-he clearly means "the Earl of Gowrie." The Earl came, wove his plot, and perished. Mr Bruce, therefore, was averse to accepting James"s account of the affair at Gowrie House. After a long series of negotiations Bruce was exiled north of Tay.
UNION OF THE CROWNS.
In 1600 James imposed three bishops on the Kirk. Early in 1601 broke out Ess.e.x"s rebellion of one day against Elizabeth, a futile attempt to imitate Scottish methods as exhibited in the many raids against James. Ess.e.x had been intriguing with the Scottish king, but to what extent James knew of and encouraged his enterprise is unknown. He was on ill terms with Cecil, who, in 1601, was dealing with several men that intended no good to James. Cecil is said to have received a sufficient warning as to how James, on ascending the English throne, would treat him; and he came to terms, secretly, with Mar and Kinloss, the king"s envoys to Elizabeth. Their correspondence is extant, and proves that Cecil, at last, was "running the Scottish course," and making smooth the way for James"s accession. (The correspondence begins in June 1601.)
Very early on Thursday, March 24, 1603, Elizabeth went to her account, and James received the news from Sir Robert Carey, who reached Holyrood on the Sat.u.r.day night, March 26. James entered London on May 6, and England was free from the fear of many years concerning a war for the succession. The Catholics hoped for lenient usage: disappointment led some desperate men to engage in the Gunpowder Plot. James was not more satisfactory to the Puritans.
Encouraged by the fulsome adulation which grew up under the Tudor dynasty, and free from dread of personal danger, James henceforth governed Scotland "with the pen," as he said, through the Privy Council. This method of ruling the ancient kingdom endured till the Union of 1707, and was fraught with many dangers. The king was no longer in touch with his subjects. His best action was the establishment of a small force of mounted constabulary which did more to put down the eternal homicides, robberies, and family feuds than all the sermons could achieve.
The persons most notable in the Privy Council were Seton (later Lord Dunfermline), Hume, created Earl of Dunbar, and the king"s advocate, Thomas Hamilton, later Earl of Haddington. Bishops, with Spottiswoode, the historian, Archbishop of Glasgow, sat in the Privy Council, and their progressive elevation, as hateful to the n.o.bles as to the Kirk, was among the causes of the civil war under Charles I. By craft and by illegal measures James continued to depress the Kirk. A General a.s.sembly, proclaimed by James for July 1604 in Aberdeen, was prorogued; again, unconst.i.tutionally, it was prorogued in July 1605. Nineteen ministers, disobeying a royal order, appeared and const.i.tuted the a.s.sembly. Joined by ten others, they kept open the right of way. James insisted that the Council should prosecute them: they, by fixing a new date for an a.s.sembly, without royal consent; and James, by letting years pa.s.s without an a.s.sembly, broke the charter of the Kirk of 1592.
The preachers, when summoned to the trial, declined the jurisdiction. This was violently construed as treason, and a jury, threatened by the legal officers with secular, and by the preachers with future spiritual punishment, by a small majority condemned some of the ministers (January 1606). This roused the wrath of all cla.s.ses. James wished for more prosecutions; the Council, in terror, prevailed on him to desist. He continued to grant no a.s.semblies till 1608, and would not allow "caveats" (limiting the powers of Bishops) to be enforced. He summoned (1606) the two Melvilles, Andrew and his nephew James, to London, where Andrew bullied in his own violent style, and was, quite illegally, first imprisoned and then banished to France.
In December 1606 a convention of preachers was persuaded to allow the appointment of "constant Moderators" to keep the presbyteries in order; and then James recognised the convention as a General a.s.sembly. Suspected ministers were confined to their parishes or locked up in Blackness Castle. In 1608 a General a.s.sembly was permitted the pleasure of excommunicating Huntly. In 1610 an a.s.sembly established Episcopacy, and no excommunications not ratified by the Bishop were allowed: the only comfort of the G.o.dly was the violent persecution of Catholics, who were nosed out by the "constant Moderators," excommunicated if they refused to conform, confiscated, and banished.
James could succeed in these measures, but his plan for uniting the two kingdoms into one, Great Britain, though supported by the wisdom and eloquence of Bacon, was frustrated by the jealousies of both peoples. Persons born after James"s accession (the post nati) were, however, admitted to equal privileges in either kingdom (1608). In 1610 James had two of his bishops, and Spottiswoode, consecrated by three English bishops, but he did not yet venture to interfere with the forms of Presbyterian public worship.
In 1610 James established two Courts of High Commission (in 1615 united in one Court) to try offences in morals and religion. The Archbishops presided, laity and clergy formed the body of the Court, and it was regarded as vexatious and tyrannical. The same terms, to be sure, would now be applied to the interference of preachers and presbyteries with private life and opinion. By 1612 the king had established Episcopacy, which, for one reason or another, became equally hateful to the n.o.bles, the gentry, and the populace. James"s motives were motives of police. Long experience had taught him the inconveniences of presbyterial government as it then existed in Scotland.
To a Church organised in the presbyterian manner, as it has been practised since 1689, James had, originally at least, no objection. But the combination of "presbyterian Hildebrandism" with factions of the turbulent n.o.blesse; the alliance of the Power of the Keys with the sword and lance, was inconsistent with the freedom of the State and of the individual. "The absolutism of James," says Professor Hume Brown, "was forced upon him in large degree by the excessive claims of the Presbyterian clergy."
Meanwhile the thievish Border clans, especially the Armstrongs, were a.s.sailed by hangings and banishments, and Ulster was planted by Scottish settlers, willing or reluctant, attracted by promise of lands, or planted out, that they might not give trouble on the Border.
Persecution of Catholics was violent, and in spring 1615 Father Ogilvie was hanged after very cruel treatment directed by Archbishop Spottiswoode. In this year the two ecclesiastical Courts of High Commission were fused into one, and an a.s.sembly was coerced into pa.s.sing what James called "Hotch-potch resolutions" about changes in public worship. James wanted greater changes, but deferred them till he visited Scotland in 1617, when he was attended by the luckless figure of Laud, who went to a funeral-in a surplice! James had many personal bickerings with preachers, but his five main points, "The Articles of Perth" (of these the most detested were: (1) Communicants must kneel, not sit, at the Communion; (4) Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost must be observed; and (5) Confirmation must be introduced), were accepted by an a.s.sembly in 1618. They could not be enforced, but were sanctioned by Parliament in 1621. The day was called Black Sat.u.r.day, and omens were drawn by both parties from a thunderstorm which occurred at the time of the ratification of the Articles of Perth by Parliament in Edinburgh (August 4, 1621).
By enforcing these Articles James pa.s.sed the limit of his subjects" endurance. In their opinion, as in Knox"s, to kneel at the celebration of the Holy Communion was an act of idolatry, was "Baal worship," and no pressure could compel them to kneel. The three great festivals of the Christian Church, whether Roman, Genevan, or Lutheran, had no certain warrant in Holy Scripture, but were rather repugnant to the Word of G.o.d. The king did not live to see the bloodshed and misery caused by his reckless a.s.sault on the liberties and consciences of his subjects; he died on March 27, 1625, just before the Easter season in which it was intended to enforce his decrees.
The ungainliness of James"s person, his lack of courage on certain occasions (he was by no means a constant coward), and the feebleness of his limbs might be attributed to pre-natal influences; he was injured before he was born by the sufferings of his mother at the time of Riccio"s murder. His deep dissimulation he learnt in his bitter childhood and hara.s.sed youth. His ingenious mind was trained to pedantry; he did nothing worse, and nothing more congenial to the cruel superst.i.tions of his age, than in his encouragement of witch trials and witch burnings promoted by the Scottish clergy down to the early part of the eighteenth century.
His plantation of Ulster by Scottish settlers has greatly affected history down to our own times, while the most permanent result of the awards by which he stimulated the colonisation of Nova Scotia has been the creation of hereditary knighthoods or baronetcies.
His encouragement of learning left its mark in the foundation of the Town"s College of Edinburgh, on the site of Kirk-o"-Field, the scene of his father"s murder.
The south-western Highlands, from Lochaber to Islay and Cantyre, were, in his reign, the scene of constant clan feuds and repressions, resulting in the fall of the Macdonalds, and the rise of the Campbell chief, Argyll, to the perilous power later wielded by the Marquis against Charles I. Many of the sons of the dispossessed Macdonalds, driven into Ireland, were to const.i.tute the nucleus of the army of Montrose. In the Orkneys and Shetlands the constant turbulence of Earl Patrick and his family ended in the annexation of the islands to the Crown (1612), and the Earl"s execution (1615).
CHAPTER XXIV. CHARLES I.
The reign of Charles I. opened with every sign of the tempests which were to follow. England and Scotland were both seething with religious fears and hatreds. Both parties in England, Puritans and Anglicans, could be satisfied with nothing less than complete domination. In England the extreme Puritans, with their yearning after the Genevan presbyterian discipline, had been threatening civil war even under Elizabeth. James had treated them with a high hand and a proud heart. Under Charles, wedded to a "Jezebel," a Catholic wife, Henrietta Maria, the Puritan hatred of such prelates as Laud expressed itself in threats of murder; while heavy fines and cruel mutilations were inflicted by the party in power. The Protestant panic, the fear of a violent restoration of Catholicism in Scotland, never slumbered. In Scotland Catholics were at this time bitterly persecuted, and believed that a presbyterian general ma.s.sacre of them all was being organised. By the people the Anglican bishops and the prayer-book were as much detested as priests and the Ma.s.s. When Charles placed six prelates on his Privy Council, and recognised the Archbishop of St Andrews, Spottiswoode, as first in precedence among his subjects, the n.o.bles were angry and jealous. Charles would not do away with the infatuated Articles of Perth. James, as he used to say, had "governed Scotland by the pen" through his Privy Council. Charles knew much less than James of the temper of the Scots, among whom he had never come since his infancy, and his Privy Council with six bishops was apt to be even more than commonly subservient.
In Scotland as in England the expenses of national defence were a cause of anger; and the mismanagement of military affairs by the king"s favourite, Buckingham, increased the irritation. It was brought to a head in Scotland by the "Act of Revocation," under which all Church lands and Crown lands bestowed since 1542 were to be restored to the Crown. This Act once more united in opposition the n.o.bles and the preachers; since 1596 they had not been in harmony. In 1587, as we saw, James VI. had annexed much of the old ecclesiastical property to the Crown; but he had granted most of it to n.o.bles and barons as "temporal lordships." Now, by Charles, the temporal lords who held such lands were menaced, the judges ("Lords of Session") who would have defended their interests were removed from the Privy Council (March 1626), and, in August, the temporal lords remonstrated with the king through deputations.
In fact, they took little harm-redeeming their holdings at the rate of ten years" purchase. The main result was that landowners were empowered to buy the t.i.thes on their own lands from the mult.i.tude of "t.i.tulars of t.i.thes" (1629) who had rapaciously and oppressively extorted these tenths of the harvest every year. The ministers had a safe provision at last, secured on the t.i.thes, in Scotland styled "teinds," but this did not reconcile most of them to bishops and to the Articles of Perth. Several of the bishops were, in fact, "lat.i.tudinarian" or "Arminian" in doctrine, wanderers from the severity of Knox and Calvin. With them began, perhaps, the "Moderatism" which later invaded the Kirk; though their ideal slumbered during the civil war, to awaken again, with the teaching of Archbishop Leighton, under the Restoration. Meanwhile the n.o.bles and gentry had been alarmed and mulcted, and were ready to join hands with the Kirk in its day of resistance.
In June 1633 Charles at last visited his ancient kingdom, accompanied by Laud. His subjects were alarmed and horrified by the sight of prelates in lawn sleeves, candles in chapel, and even a tapestry showing the crucifixion. To this the bishops are said to have bowed,-plain idolatry. In the Parliament of June 18 the eight representatives of each Estate, who were practically all-powerful as Lords of the Articles, were chosen, not from each Estate by its own members, but on a method inst.i.tuted, or rather revived, by James VI. in 1609. The n.o.bles made the choice from the bishops, the bishops from the n.o.bles, and the elected sixteen from the barons and burghers. The twenty-four were all thus episcopally minded: they drew up the bills, and the bills were voted on without debate. The grant of supply made in these circ.u.mstances was liberal, and James"s ecclesiastical legislation, including the sanction of the "rags of Rome" worn by the bishops, was ratified. Remonstrances from the ministers of the old Kirk party were disregarded; and-the thin end of the wedge-the English Liturgy was introduced in the Royal Chapel of Holyrood and in that of St Salvator"s College, St Andrews, where it has been read once, on a funeral occasion, in recent years.
In 1634-35, on the information of Archbishop Spottiswoode, Lord Balmerino was tried for treason because he possessed a supplication or pet.i.tion which the Lords of the minority, in the late Parliament, had drawn up but had not presented. He was found guilty, but spared: the proceeding showed of what nature the bishops were, and alienated and alarmed the populace and the n.o.bles and gentry. A remonstrance in a manly spirit by Drummond of Hawthornden, the poet, was disregarded.
In 1635 Charles authorised a Book of Canons, heralding the imposition of a Liturgy, which scarcely varied, and when it varied was thought to differ for the worse, from that of the Church of England. By these canons, the most nakedly despotic of innovations, the preachers could not use their sword of excommunication without the a.s.sent of the Bishops. James VI. had ever regarded with horror and dread the licence of "conceived prayers," spoken by the minister, and believed to be extemporary or directly inspired. There is an old story that one minister prayed that James might break his leg: certainly prayers for "sanctified plagues" on that prince were publicly offered, at the will of the minister. Even a very firm Presbyterian, the Laird of Brodie, when he had once heard the Anglican service in London, confided to his journal that he had suffered much from the nonsense of "conceived prayers." They were a dangerous weapon, in Charles"s opinion: he was determined to abolish them, rather that he might be free from the agitation of the pulpit than for reasons of ritual, and to proclaim his own headship of the Kirk of "King Christ."
This, in the opinion of the great majority of the preachers and populace, was flat blasphemy, an a.s.sumption of "the Crown Honours of Christ." The Liturgy was "an ill-mumbled Ma.s.s," the Ma.s.s was idolatry, and idolatry was a capital offence. However strange these convictions may appear, they were essential parts of the national belief. Yet, with the most extreme folly, Charles, acting like Henry VIII. as his own Pope, thrust the canons and this Liturgy upon the Kirk and country. No sentimental arguments can palliate such open tyranny.
The Liturgy was to be used in St Giles" Church, the town kirk of Edinburgh (cleansed and restored by Charles himself), on July 23, 1637. The result was a furious brawl, begun by the women, of all presbyterians the fiercest, and, it was said, by men disguised as women. A gentleman was struck on the ear by a woman for the offence of saying "Amen," and the famous Jenny Geddes is traditionally reported to have thrown her stool at the Dean"s head. The service was interrupted, the Bishop was the mark of stones, and "the Bishops" War," the Civil War, began in this brawl. James VI., being on the spot, had thoroughly quieted Edinburgh after a more serious riot, on December 17, 1596. But Charles was far away; the city had not to fear the loss of the Court and its custom, as on the earlier occasion (the removal of the Council to Linlithgow in October 1637 was a trifle), and the Council had to face a storm of pet.i.tions from all cla.s.ses of the community. Their prayer was that the Liturgy should be withdrawn. From the country, mult.i.tudes of all cla.s.ses flocked into Edinburgh and formed themselves into a committee of public safety, "The Four Tables," containing sixteen persons.
The Tables now demanded the removal of the bishops from the Privy Council (December 21, 1637). The question was: Who were to govern the country, the Council or the Tables? The logic of the Presbyterians was not always consistent. The king must not force the Liturgy on them, but later, their quarrel with him was that he would not, at their desire, force the absence of the Liturgy on England. If the king had the right to inflict Presbyterianism on England, he had the right to thrust the Liturgy on Scotland: of course he had neither one right nor the other. On February 19, 1638, Charles"s proclamation, refusing the prayers of the supplication of December, was read at Stirling. n.o.bles and people replied with protestations to every royal proclamation. Foremost on the popular side was the young Earl of Montrose: "you will not rest," said Rothes, a more sober leader, "till you be lifted up above the lave in three fathoms of rope." Rothes was a true prophet; but Montrose did not die for the cause that did "his green unknowing youth engage."
The Presbyterians now desired yearly General a.s.semblies (of which James VI. had unlawfully robbed the Kirk); the enforcement of an old brief-lived system of restrictions (caveats) on the bishops; the abolition of the Articles of Perth; and, as always, of the Liturgy. If he granted all this Charles might have had trouble with the preachers, as James VI. had of old. Yet the demands were const.i.tutional; and in Charles"s position he would have done well to a.s.sent. He was obstinate in refusal.
The Scots now "fell upon the consideration of a band of union to be made legally," says Rothes, their leader, the chief of the House of Leslie (the family of Norman Leslie, the slayer of Cardinal Beaton). Now a "band" of this kind could not, by old Scots law, be legally made; such bands, like those for the murder of Riccio and of Darnley, and for many other enterprises, were not smiled upon by the law. But, in 1581, as we saw, James VI. had signed a covenant against popery; its tenor was imitated in that of 1638, and there was added "a general band for the maintenance of true religion" (Presbyterianism) "and of the King"s person." That part of the band was scarcely kept when the Covenanting army surrendered Charles to the English. They had vowed, in their band, to "stand to the defence of our dread Sovereign the King"s Majesty, his person and authority." They kept this vow by hanging men who held the king"s commission. The words as to defending the king"s authority were followed by "in the defence and preservation of the aforesaid true religion." This appears to mean that only a presbyterian king is to be defended. In any case the preachers a.s.sumed the right to interpret the Covenant, which finally led to the conquest of Scotland by Cromwell. As the Covenant was made between G.o.d and the Covenanters, on ancient Hebrew precedent it was declared to be binding on all succeeding generations. Had Scotland resisted tyranny without this would-be biblical pettifogging Covenant, her condition would have been the more gracious. The signing of the band began at Edinburgh in Greyfriars" Churchyard on February 28, 1638.
This Covenant was a most potent instrument for the day, but the fruits thereof were blood and tears and desolation: for fifty-one years common-sense did not come to her own again. In 1689 the Covenant was silently dropped, when the Kirk was restored.
This two-edged insatiable sword was drawn: great mult.i.tudes signed with enthusiasm, and they who would not sign were, of course, persecuted. As they said, "it looked not like a thing approved of G.o.d, which was begun and carried on with fury and madness, and obtruded on people with threatenings, tearing of clothes, and drawing of blood." Resistance to the king-if need were, armed resistance-was necessary, was laudable, but the terms of the Covenant were, in the highest degree impolitic and unstatesmanlike. The country was handed over to the preachers; the Scots, as their great leader Argyll was to discover, were "distracted men in distracted times."
Charles wavered and sent down the Marquis of Hamilton to represent his waverings. The Marquis was as unsettled as his predecessor, Arran, in the minority of Queen Mary. He dared not promulgate the proclamations; he dared not risk civil war; he knew that Charles, who said he was ready, was unprepared in his mutinous English kingdom. He granted, at last, a General a.s.sembly and a free Parliament, and produced another Covenant, "the King"s Covenant," which of course failed to thwart that of the country.
The a.s.sembly, at Glasgow (November 21, 1638), including n.o.blemen and gentlemen as elders, was necessarily revolutionary, and needlessly riotous and profane. It arraigned and condemned the bishops in their absence. Hamilton, as Royal Commissioner, dissolved the a.s.sembly, which continued to sit. The meeting was in the Cathedral, where, says a sincere Covenanter, Baillie, whose letters are a valuable source, "our rascals, without shame, in great numbers, made din and clamour." All the unconst.i.tutional ecclesiastical legislation of the last forty years was rescinded,-as all the new presbyterian legislation was to be rescinded at the Restoration. Some bishops were excommunicated, the rest were deposed. The press was put under the censorship of the fanatical lawyer, Johnston of Waristoun, clerk of the a.s.sembly.
On December 20 the a.s.sembly, which sat on after Hamilton dissolved it, broke up. Among the Covenanters were to be reckoned the Earl of Argyll (later the only Marquis of his House), and the Earl, later Marquis, of Montrose. They did not stand long together. The Scottish Revolution produced no man at once great and successful, but, in Montrose, it had one man of genius who gave his life for honour"s sake; in Argyll, an astute man, not physically courageous, whose "timidity in the field was equalled by his timidity in the Council," says Mr Gardiner.
In spring (1639) war began. Charles was to move in force on the Border; the fleet was to watch the coasts; Hamilton, with some 5000 men, was to join hands with Huntly (both men were wavering and incompetent); Antrim, from north Ireland, was to attack and contain Argyll; Ruthven was to hold Edinburgh Castle. But Alexander Leslie took that castle for the Covenanters; they took Dumbarton; they fortified Leith; Argyll ravaged Huntly"s lands; Montrose and Leslie occupied Aberdeen; and their party, in circ.u.mstances supposed to be discreditable to Montrose, carried Huntly to Edinburgh. (The evidence is confused. Was Huntly unwilling to go? Charles (York, April 23, 1639) calls him "feeble and false." Mr Gardiner says that, in this case, and in this alone, Montrose stooped to a mean action.) Hamilton merely dawdled and did nothing: Montrose had entered Aberdeen (June 19), and then came news of negotiations between the king and the Covenanters.
As Charles approached from the south, Alexander Leslie, a Continental veteran (very many of the Covenant"s officers were Dugald Dalgettys from the foreign wars), occupied Dunse Law, with a numerous army in great difficulties as to supplies. "A natural mind might despair," wrote Waristoun, who "was brought low before G.o.d indeed." Leslie was in a strait; but, on the other side, so was Charles, for a reconnaissance of Leslie"s position was repulsed; the king lacked money and supplies; neither side was of a high fighting heart; and offers to negotiate came from the king, informally. The Scots sent in "a supplication," and on June 18 signed a treaty which was a mere futile truce. There were to be a new a.s.sembly, and a new Parliament in August and September.
Charles should have fought: if he fell he would fall with honour; and if he survived defeat "all England behoved to have risen in revenge," says the Covenanting letter-writer, Baillie, later Princ.i.p.al of Glasgow University. The Covenanters at this time could not have invaded England, could not have supported themselves if they did, and were far from being harmonious among themselves. The defeat of Charles at this moment would have aroused English pride and united the country. Charles set out from Berwick for London on July 29, leaving many fresh causes of quarrel behind him.
Charles supposed that he was merely "giving way for the present" when he accepted the ratification by the new a.s.sembly of all the Acts of that of 1638. He never had a later chance to recover his ground. The new a.s.sembly made the Privy Council pa.s.s an Act rendering signature of the Covenant compulsory on all men: "the new freedom is worse than the old slavery," a looker-on remarked. The Parliament discussed the method of electing the Lords of the Articles-a method which, in fact, though of prime importance, had varied and continued to vary in practice. Argyll protested that the const.i.tutional course was for each Estate to elect its own members. Montrose was already suspected of being influenced by Charles. Charles refused to call Episcopacy unlawful, or to rescind the old Acts establishing it. Traquair, as Commissioner, dissolved the Parliament; later Charles refused to meet envoys sent from Scotland, who were actually trying, as their party also tried, to gain French mediation or a.s.sistance,-help from "idolaters"!
In spring 1640 the Scots, by an instrument called "The Blind Band," imposed taxation for military purposes; while Charles in England called The Short Parliament to provide Supply. The Parliament refused and was prorogued; words used by Strafford about the use of the army in Ireland to suppress Scotland were h.o.a.rded up against him. The Scots Parliament, though the king had prorogued it, met in June, despite the opposition of Montrose. The Parliament, when it ceased to meet, appointed a Standing Committee of some forty members of all ranks, including Montrose and his friends Lord Napier and Stirling of Keir. Argyll refused to be a member, but acted on a commission of fire and sword "to root out of the country" the northern recusants against the Covenant. It was now that Argyll burned Lord Ogilvy"s Bonny House of Airlie and Forthes; the cattle were driven into his own country; all this against, and perhaps in consequence of, the intercession of Ogilvy"s friend and neighbour, Montrose.
Meanwhile the Scots were intriguing with discontented English peers, who could only give sympathy; Saville, however, forged a letter from six of them inviting a Scottish invasion. There was a movement for making Argyll practically Dictator in the North; Montrose thwarted it, and in August, while Charles with a reluctant and disorderly force was marching on York Montrose at c.u.mbernauld, the house of the Earl of Wigtoun made a secret band with the Earls Marischal, Wigtoun, Home, Atholl, Mar, Perth, Boyd, Galloway, and others, for their mutual defence against the scheme of dictatorship for Argyll. On August 20 Montrose, the foremost, forded Tweed, and led his regiment into England. On August 30, almost unopposed, the Scots entered Newcastle, having routed a force which met them at Newburn-on-Tyne.
They again pressed their demands on the king; simultaneously twelve English peers pet.i.tioned for a parliament and the trial of the king"s Ministers. Charles gave way. At Ripon Scottish and English commissioners met; the Scots received "brotherly a.s.sistance" in money and supplies (a daily 850), and stayed where they were; while the Long Parliament met in November, and in April 1641 condemned the great Strafford: Laud soon shared his doom. On August 10 the demands of the Scots were granted: as a sympathetic historian writes, they had lived for a year at free quarters, "and recrossed the Border with the handsome sum of 200,000 to their credit."
During the absence of the army the Kirk exhibited symptoms not favourable to its own peace. Amateur theologians held private religious gatherings, which, it was feared, tended towards the heresy of the English Independents and to the "break up of the whole Kirk," some of whose representatives forbade these conventicles, while "the rigid sort" a.s.serted that the conventiclers "were esteemed the G.o.dly of the land." An Act of the General a.s.sembly was pa.s.sed against the meetings; we observe that here are the beginnings of strife between the most G.o.dly and the rather moderately pious.
The secret of Montrose"s c.u.mbernauld band had come to light after November 1640: nothing worse, at the moment, befell than the burning of the band by the Committee of Estates, to whom Argyll referred the matter. On May 21, 1641, the Committee was disturbed, for Montrose was collecting evidence as to the words and deeds of Argyll when he used his commission of fire and sword at the Bonny House of Airlie and in other places. Montrose had spoken of the matter to a preacher, he to another, and the news reached the Committee. Montrose had learned from a prisoner of Argyll, Stewart the younger of Ladywell, that Argyll had held counsels to discuss the deposition of the king. Ladywell produced to the Committee his written statement that Argyll had spoken before him of these consultations of lawyers and divines. He was placed in the castle, and was so worked on that he "cleared" Argyll and confessed that, advised by Montrose, he had reported Argyll"s remarks to the king. Papers with hints and names in cypher were found in possession of the messenger.
The whole affair is enigmatic; in any case Ladywell was hanged for "leasing-making" (spreading false reports), an offence not previously capital, and Montrose with his friends was imprisoned in the castle. Doubtless he had meant to accuse Argyll before Parliament of treason. On July 27, 1641, being arraigned before Parliament, he said, "My resolution is to carry with me fidelity and honour to the grave." He lay in prison when the king, vainly hoping for support against the English Parliament, visited Edinburgh (August 14-November 17, 1641).