his
party after the discovery of the bond.

To one who knew Scotland as well as he it was apparent that the Scotch
Parliament and the English would speedily join hands, and he retired to
one of his houses to watch the course of events. The covenanters tried
to win him back, but Montrose felt that they disagreed among themselves,
and that it would be impossible for him to serve under them. Meanwhile
in England things marched rapidly: Edgehill had been fought; episcopacy
had been abolished by Parliament in England as well as Scotland; and
Hamilton's brother Lanark was using the Great Seal to raise a Scotch
army against the king, for, by a treaty called the Solemn League and
Covenant, Scotland was to fight with the English Parliament against the
king, and England was to abolish bishops and become presbyterian like
Scotland. England, however, did not keep her promise.

It was then that Charles, in his desperation, turned to Montrose.
Montrose was too skilful and experienced a general to think lightly of
the struggle before him, but he formed a plan by which Scotland was to
be invaded on the west by the earl of Antrim from Ireland, while he
himself, reinforced by royalist troops, would fall on the Scotch who
were on the border. But the reinforcements he expected hardly amounted,
when they came, to one thousand one hundred men, and these being
composed of the two nations were constantly quarrelling, which added to
the difficulties of the commander. At Dumfries he halted, and read a
proclamation stating that 'he was king's man, as he had been covenanter,
for the defence and maintenance of the true Protestant religion, his
majesty's just and sacred authority, the laws and privileges of
Parliament, the peace and freedom of oppressed and thralled subjects.'
Adding that 'if he had not known perfectly the king's intention to be
such and so real as is already expressed' he would 'never have embarked
himself in his service,' and if he 'saw any appearance of the king
changing' from these resolutions he would continue no longer 'his
faithful servant.'

Thus he said, and thus we may believe he felt, but none the less not a
man joined his standard as he marched along the border. He tried to
reach prince Rupert, the king's nephew, in Yorkshire, but Marston Moor
had been lost before he arrived there. Then, dressed as a groom, he
started for Perthshire, and after four days arrived at the house of his
kinsman Graham of Inchbrackie, where