panic, deserted his army, who still maintained their ground, and
gave battle to the royalists. After a vigorous resistance, they were
defeated, and pursued with great slaughter.[*] And the power of the
Campbells (that is Argyle's name) being thus broken, the Highlanders,
who were in general well affected to the royal cause, began to join
Montrose's camp in great numbers. Seaforth's army dispersed of itself,
at the very terror of his name. And Lord Gordon, eldest son of Huntley,
having escaped from his uncle Argyle, who had hitherto detained him, now
joined Montrose, with no contemptible number of his followers, attended
by his brother, the earl of Aboine.

The council at Edinburgh, alarmed at Montrose's progress, began to
think of a more regular plan of defence against an enemy whose repeated
victories had rendered him extremely formidable. They sent for Baillie,
an officer of reputation, from England; and joining him in command with
Urrey, who had again enlisted himself among the king's enemies, they
sent them to the field with a considerable army against the royalists.
Montrose, with a detachment of eight hundred men, had attacked Dundee,
a town extremely zealous for the covenant, and having carried it by
assault, had delivered it up to be plundered by his soldiers; when
Baillie and Urrey, with their whole force, were unexpectedly upon
him.[**] His conduct and presence of mind in this emergence appeared
conspicuous. Instantly he called off his soldiers from plunder, put them
in order, secured his retreat by the most skilful measures; and having
marched sixty miles in the face of an enemy much superior, without
stopping, or allowing his soldiers the least sleep or refreshment, he at
last secured himself in the mountains.

* Rush. vol. vi. p. 985. Wishart, cap. 8.

** Rush. vol. vii. p. 228. Wishart, cap. 9.

Baillie and Urrey now divided their troops, in order the better to
conduct the war against an enemy who surprised them as much by the
rapidity of his marches, as by the boldness of his enterprises. Urrey,
at the head of four thousand men, met him at Alderne, near Inverness;
and, encouraged by the superiority of number, (for the Covenanters were
double the royalists,) attacked him in the post which he had chosen
Montrose, having placed his right wing in strong ground, drew the best
of his forces to the other, and left no main body between them; a defect
which he artfully concealed, by showing a few men