swered by deposing the bishops, and suppressing the liturgy, and then
dissolving itself; and the earl of Argyll, soon to be Montrose's
deadliest enemy, joined the covenanters.

* * * * *

One town only remained loyal, and this was Aberdeen, situated in the
country of the Gordons, whose chief, the marquis of Huntly, was Argyll's
brother-in-law. Huntly, like Leslie, who held a command in the
covenanting army under Montrose, had seen much foreign service, so
Charles appointed him his lieutenant in the north, though he bound him
hand and foot by orders to do nothing save with Hamilton's consent.
Chafing bitterly under these restrictions, Huntly was forced to disband
his army of two thousand men, and had the mortification of seeing the
covenanters enter Aberdeen the following week, wearing their badge of
blue ribbons in their Highland bonnets.

The citizens were granted easy terms, and all pillage was strictly
forbidden. Huntly himself was given a promise of safe conduct, but was
afterwards held as a prisoner and sent with his son to Edinburgh castle.
It is not clear how far Montrose himself was guilty of this breach of
faith. The covenanters had always detested Huntly, and it is possible
that he found it difficult to act against them, but at any rate he does
not appear to have taken any active steps to stop their proceedings, and
in after days paid a heavy penalty for his weakness.

Shortly after the English army, consisting of nineteen ships and five
thousand men, arrived in the Firth of Forth, but so dense were the
crowds on both shores that Hamilton, who commanded it, saw that landing
was impossible. Suddenly the multitude gathered at Leith (the port of
Edinburgh) parted asunder, and down the midst rode an old lady with a
pistol in her hand. Hamilton looked with the rest and turned pale at the
sight, for the old lady was his own mother, who in a voice that almost
seemed loud enough to reach the vessel where her son stood, declared she
would shoot him dead before he should set foot on land.

The time was evidently not ripe for invasion, so the men encamped on the
little islands in the Forth, and spent their days in drill.

* * * * *

As often during Montrose's wars, Aberdeen was again the centre of
fighting, but again the general preserved the city from pillage, against
the express wishes, and even orders, of the covenanters. Then came the
news that a pe