rse all conventicles; and for that
reason the Covenanters, instead of meeting in small bodies, were obliged
to celebrate their worship in numerous assemblies, and to bring arms for
their security. At Rutherglen, a small borough near Glasgow, they openly
set forth a declaration against prelacy; and in the market place burned
several acts of parliament and acts of council, which had established
that mode of ecclesiastical government, and had prohibited conventicles.
For this insult on the supreme authority, they purposely chose the
twenty-ninth of May, the anniversary of the restoration; and previously
extinguished the bonfires which had been kindled for that solemnity.

Captain Graham, afterwards Viscount Dundee, an active and enterprising
officer, attacked a great conventicle upon Loudon Hill, and was repulsed
with the loss of thirty men. The Covenanters, finding that they were
unwarily involved in such deep guilt, were engaged to persevere, and to
seek, from their valor and fortune alone, for that indemnity which
the severity of the government left them no hopes of ever being able
otherwise to obtain. They pushed on to Glasgow; and though at first
repulsed, they afterwards made themselves masters of that city;
dispossessed the established clergy; and issued proclamations, in which
they declared, that they fought against the king's supremacy, against
Popery and prelacy and against a Popish successor.

How accidental soever this insurrection might appear, there is reason to
suspect that some great men, in combination with the popular leaders
in England, had secretly instigated the Covenanters to proceed to such
extremities,[*] and hoped for the same effects that had forty years
before ensued from the disorders in Scotland.

* Algernon Sidney's Letters, p. 90.

The king also, apprehensive of like consequences, immediately despatched
thither Monmouth with a small body of English cavalry. That nobleman
joined to these troops the Scottish guards, and some regiments of
militia, levied from the well-affected counties; and with great celerity
marched in quest of the rebels. They had taken post near Bothwell
Castle, between Hamilton and Glasgow, where there was no access to them
but over a bridge, which a small body was able to defend against the
king's forces. They showed judgment in the choice of their post,
but discovered neither judgment nor valor in any other step of their
conduct. No nobility and few gentry had joi