splendid stuff developed by the army of the New Model. In all directions there is the greatest activity. The mosstroopers of the Border were dragooned into decent dalesmen. The coast towns were made ready to meet the Dutchmen. Arbroath Abbey, for example, was turned into what was deemed a very tenable fort; while the Scots navy, taken in Dundee-sixty sail of 10, 6, and 4 guns along with one that had escaped to Aberdeen, having 6 peeces, and stoare of wines and other good comodityes,' were pressed into the service. To checkmate the Dutch, who set the greatest store upon the Orkneys and Shetland for the Great Fishing, Overton fortified Kirkwall, making tenable the Cathedral Kirk of St. Maans (Magnus) and the Earl of Morton's house, where a regiment cun lodge. Lilburne, writing to Cromwell, tells how the Dutch have especially an eye upon Shetland. 'There have bin sometimes 1800 saile in and about Birssie (Bressay) Sound,' the narrowest part of which he proposes to secure with a strong fort. For a time the Lewes had been thought well worth securing, and here Cobbett worked hard at making a strength at Stornoway. It was found, however, that the course of trade did not at all lie in that direction. Montrose's destructive raid had taught the lesson that there was a real danger from Ireland through the West Highlands, where another Colkitto might any day appear; and so Ayr and Brodick, Dunstaffnage and Dunolly were strongly held. Inverness was relied upon as the chief defence for the central Highlands, and in an interesting letter we read the story of the building of a citadel and particularly of the great feat of dragging a forty ton pinnace across six miles of dry land for service on Loch Ness, 'to the admiration of the spectators. The men broke three cables, seven inches about, with hawling of her

The west end of the Lough is near unto the Irish Sea, it wanting not above six mile of ground to be cut to make the shires north of it an entire island of itself.' Inverlochy, at the western side of the Great Glen, was held strongly to keep down what was the main-stay of the Royalists, the cattle-lifting caterans of Lochaber, the Macdonalds and the Camerons. The attitude of Argyll, the great leader of the Covenant and the rival of Montrose, was a constant source of anxiety. With a caution characteristic of these old times, when the head of the clan remained in one camp

6

while a son or brother stuck by its rival, the Marquis had frequent friendly correspondences with the Roundheads, doing them valuable service, while his son, Lorn, was a leading spirit among the Royalists. In consequence Argyllshire required constant watchfulness, and was often the scene of really plucky marchings and counter-marchings. It would be something even in these days to take, as Colonel Read did, 700 horse, dragoons and foot, from Tarbert to Dunstaffnage after four hard dayes march,' find no provisions there nor in Dunolly, and after a stay of two nights, 'be forced to act the King of France's part,' to face about 'and by a nearer cut return to his base.' A still more toilsome undertaking was the marching and the dragging of guns from Athole over the stiffest part of the Highlands to Inverlochy in Lochaber. Nor again was that a small feat of which we read in a Letter from Paisley, August, 1652. Here we can follow the handful of surly Roundheads as they marched from Inveraray across an impregnable Passe, called Glen Crow (Croe), where onely one could but file over,' for not till a century later did Lascelles' regiment make the present road. The jagged cliffs that frown upon the gloomy tarn at Rest and be Thankful, were dotted over with crowds of excited clansmen, 'to know if the E. of Argyle were our prisoner; yet God, who restrains the fury of the most savage beasts, doth also muzzle the mouthes of bloodyminded men. Wee drew up our men under their noses until our rear-guard was got over. I doubt whether these things are in order, to war with these base and beggerly wild beasts, a thing to be avoided for many reasons, especially their poverty and unaccessiblenesse of every passe and place, where each hill is no less than an invincible garrison.'

6

Worcester had proved a heavy blow to the Royalists. For some time the exiles suffered the greatest straits. But the Dutch War revived their hopes, absorbing as it did all Cromwell's energies and resources. The difficulty, however, was to find money for an expedition. Late in 1652 we have the King, young Charles, or the lad of the Roundhead letters, writing from Paris to Middleton, 'I have scarce received 200 pistoles since you went.' By the spring of 1653 everything seemed favourable for action, all the more urgent that the fall of Dunnottar, the

last of the Covenanting strengths to succumb, was imminent. Here were stored the royal plenishing and the regalia, the preservation of which forms a well-known romantic incident of the time. Agents scoured the Baltic provinces to raise money from the Scotch merchants there. One letter from a General Douglas at Stockholm breathes the most touching loyalty. In answer to His Sacred Majesty's own letter he says that all he can do 'must be in a private way; however, your goodness will not reject the harte affections of your subjects abroad, quhairoff a few with my selfe have maide boulde to send your Majeste a somme of 5200 rixdollars' through William Davidson, merchant in Amsterdam. The King himself writes, asking a loan of £300 from the Earls of Southesk and Panmure. Hyde entreats Middleton, appointed General in Scotland, 'not to be angry at the sum' he sends, being but £100, God knowes the King had rather give you £1000.' Middleton, originally a Fifeshire trooper in Hepburn's regiment, rose to be the King's Viceroy in Scotland with an evil reputation for rough measures and manners and drunken habits. The cruel agents of the Secret Council during the Killing Times all occur in this correspondence as working for the King-Strachan, Turner, Ballantyne, and that truculent trooper, Dalzel. Great efforts were made to secure the co-operation of the Dutch, the Royalists offering them fishing stations in the isles 'to be possessed by them forever.' All this activity resulted in the Glencairn Rising of 1653, which we can now study here in most interesting detail. There were high hopes of the Highland chiefs, with Glengarry at their head. Charles took great pains to reduce the friction of jealousy by giving the chief command to Middleton, but with little success. Lorn and Glengarry one day drew their claymores on each another. Glencairn, one of the most active leaders, was a Cunningham, an Ayrshire laird, and his henchman, that energetic raider, Kenmore, was the head of the Galloway Gordons, who took to the hills with but a hundred followers. Scott's Lochinvar and that stirring Jacobite March of The Fifteen, Kenmure's on and awa! will forever preserve the memory of the lords of the grim fortalice at the head of Loch Ken. There was no Montrose now among these leaders, and, if there had been, the Roundhead

troopers would have made his tactics impracticable. The King cheered on his followers with the sham hope of joining them, but he secretly had no wish to be up a tree again. Nothing more serious than horse-stealing was done. A slight skirmish at Aberfoyle, a Roundhead raid into Athole in which the Laird of Macnab got killed, Kenmore's futile landing in Cantire and attack on Campbeltown, then known only as Lochhead-these summed up the exploits of the Royalists; and, when Cromwell assumed the Protectorate and dismissed the Long Parliament, his officers in the north could assure him of the support of Scotland.

Lilburne's reports prove him an admirable administrator. The backbone of the rising he rightly conceives to be the bankrupt position of the gentry, impoverished by civil war and a vicious land system. To Cromwell he more than once strongly represents the situation. The creditors of the lairds were using the increased strictness and despatch of the reformed Court of Session to harass their debtors, and again and again we find Lilburne pressing them to leniency, their action driving many to the hills. To this the scarcity of money contributed. All this bears out the gloomy picture of the economic situation drawn by Baillie in his Letters, 'Our nobility weel near all are wracked,' and accounts for the exaggerated strain of Glencairn's appeal to the United Provinces, how the cry of our blood hath reached to Heaven, soe we doe not at all doubt but the extremities of the Earth are acquainted with the horrid actings of those men of blood,' the Roundheads. Lilburne tells Cromwell that there are (December, 1653) 35,000 captions (arrest-warrants for debt) out against men. Huntly being one of that number, sent this day to me for protection.' About the same date Lord Cardross was writing to the Stirling bailies to allow the Earl of Mar to come south without fear of arrest, the revenue of the town's hospital depending upon monies that had been lent to him. Lilburne also strongly urged the policy which President Forbes and Argyll pressed upon the Hanoverian Government after the Fifteen. This was, 'That libertie may bee given to any Scotchman to transport regiments to Forraine princes in amity with us.' Forbes's plan contemplated service under the British flag,

and this was left to Chatham to carry out. Had it been adopted earlier, we should probably never have heard of the Forty-five. Cromwell, finding the country at his feet, lost no time in promoting an Incorporating Union. A commission of eight, on which sat such famous Roundhead officers as Vane, Lambert, Monk, and St. John, arrived in Scotland early in 1652 to confer with the local leaders with a view to union. Argyll held out in the hope of resuscitating the old Scots Estates, and even summoned them to a futile meeting at Finlarig, on Loch Tay, but after a conference with Monk at Dumbarton he gave in, and rendered valuable assistance in reducing the Highlands. Cromwell evidently looked upon Scotland as won by his sword, and was disposed towards annexation pure and simple. Convinced that the advantages of union were all on the side of the poor Scots, he and his officers were astonished that they were so little grateful for the boon. It offered a mild form of Home Rule in place of a military occupation, Parliamentary representation by thirty members, most of them drawn from the officers of the English, and three peers, among them Argyll and Johnston of Warristoun. This was the outcome of the instrument of Government, or declaration for Union, 'proclaymed with much solemnity att the Markett Crosse in Edinburgh by beate of drum and sound of trumpett, and the Crosse adorned with hangings,' all which can be read in this volume in a letter from Leith, April, 1652. There was a great concourse of people, and after the reading the soldiers shouted their approbation with the free conferring of liberty upon a conquered people, but soe sencelesse are this generation of theire owne goods, that scarce a man of them shew'd any signe of rejoycing.' The citizens evidently thought this a poor substitute for the riding of the Parliament, the glories of which made Miss Damahoy wax so eloquent to her neighbour, Peter Plumdammas.

Of greater moment than this abortive Union, on which the volume throws but little light, was the creation of a new bench of judges in place of the corrupt Court of Session. They were seven in number, four English and three Scots-James Dalrymple, better known as Viscount Stair, Johnston of Warris

and Lockhart of Lee. They were no longer paper lords,