|
 CAMPBELL,
ARCHIBALD, Marquis of Argyle, an eminent political character of the
seventeenth century, born in 1598, was the son of Archibald, seventh
earl of Argyle. He was carefully educated in a manner suitable to the
important place in society, which his birth destined him to occupy.
Having been well grounded in the various branches of classical
knowledge, he added to these, an attentive perusal of the holy
scriptures, in consequence of which his mind became at an early period
deeply imbued with a sense of religion, which, amidst all the
vicissitudes of an active and eventful life, became stronger and
stronger till his dying day.
There had long been an
hereditary feud subsisting between his family and the clan of the
Macdonalds, against whom he accompanied his father on an expedition in
the year 1616, being then only in the eighteenth year of his age; and
two years afterwards, his father having left the kingdom, the care of
the Highlands, and especially of the protestant interest there, devolved
almost entirely upon him. In 1626, he was sworn of his majesty’s most
honourable privy council, and in 1628, surrendered into the hands of the
king, so far as lay in his power, the office of justice general in
Scotland, which had been hereditary in his family, but reserving to
himself and his heirs the office of justiciary of Argyle, and the
Western Isles, which was confirmed to him by act of parliament. In 1633,
the earl of Argyle having declared himself a Roman Catholic, was
commanded to make over his estate to his son by the king, reserving to
himself only as much as might support him in a manner suitable to his
quality during the remainder of his life.
Lord Lorne, thus
prematurely possessed of political and territorial influence, was, in
1634, appointed one of the extraordinary lords of Session; and in the
month of April, 1638, after the national covenant had been framed and
sworn by nearly all the ministers and people of Scotland, he was
summoned up to London, along with Traquair the treasurer, and Roxburgh,
lord privy seal, to give advice with regard to what line of conduct his
majesty should adopt under the existing circumstances. They were all
equally aware that the covenant was hateful to the king; but Argyle
alone spoke freely and honestly, recommending the entire abolition of
those innovations which his majesty had recklessly made on the forms of
the Scottish church, and. which had been solely instrumental in throwing
Scotland into its present hostile attitude. Traquair advised a
temporizing policy till his majesty’s affairs should be in a better
condition; but the bishops of Galloway, Ross, and Brechin insisted upon
the necessity of strong measures, and suggested a plan for raising an
army in the north, that should be amply sufficient for asserting the
dignity if the crown, and repressing the insolence of the covenanters.
This alone was the advice that was agreeable to his majesty, and he
followed it out with a blindness alike fatal to himself and the
kingdom.
The earl of Argyle, being
at this time at court, a bigot to the Romish faith, and friendly to the
designs of the king, advised his majesty to detain the lord Lorne a
prisoner at London, assuring him that, if he was permitted to return to
Scotland, he would certainly do him a mischief. But the king, supposing
this advice to be the fruit of the old man’s irritation at the loss of
his estate, and probably afraid, as seeing no feasib1e pretext for
taking such a violent step, allowed him to depart in peace. He returned
to Edinburgh on the twentieth of May, and was one of the last of the
Scottish nobility that signed the national covenant, which he did not do
till he was commanded to do it by the king. His father dying this same
year, he succeeded to all his honours, and the remainder of his
property. During the time he was in London, Argyle was certainly
informed of the plan that had been already concerted for an invasion in
Scotland by the Irish, under the marquis of Antrim, who for the part he
performed in that tragical drama, was to be rewarded with the whole
district of Kintyre, which formed a principal part of the family
patrimony of Argyle. This partitioning of his property without having
been either asked or given, and for a purpose so nefarious, must have no
small influence in alienating from the court a man who had imbibed high
principles of honour, had a strong feeling of family dignity, and was an
ardent lover of his country. He did not, however, take any decisive step
till the assembly of the church, that met at Glasgow, November the
twenty first 1638, under the auspices of the marquis of Hamilton, as
lord high commissioner. When the marquis, by protesting against every
movement that was made by the court, and finally by attempting to
dissolve it the moment it came to enter upon the business for which it
had been so earnestly solicited, discovered that he was only playing the
game of the king; Argyle, as well as several other of the young
nobility, could no longer refrain from taking an active part in the work
of Reformation. On the withdrawal of the commissioner, all the privy
council followed him, except Argyle, whose presence gave no small
encouragement to the assembly to continue its deliberations, besides
that it impressed the spectators with an idea that the government could
not be greatly averse to the continuation of the assembly, since one of
its most able and influential members encouraged it with his presence.
At the close of the assembly, Mr. Henderson the moderator, sensible of
the advantages they had derived from his presence, complimented him in a
handsome speech, in which he regretted that his lordship had not joined
with them sooner, but hoped that God had reserved him for the best
times, and that he would yet highly honour him in making him
instrumental in promoting the best interests of his church and people.
To this his lordship made a suitable reply, declaring that it was not
from the want of affection to the cause of God and his country that he
had not sooner come forward to their assistance, but from a fond hope
that, by remaining with the court, he might have been able to bring
about a redress of their grievances, to the comfort and satisfaction of
both parties. Finding, however, that if was impossible to follow this
course any longer, without being unfaithful to his God and his country,
he had at last adopted the line of conduct they witnessed, and which he
was happy to find had obtained their approbation. This assembly, so
remarkable for the bold character of its acts, all of which were liable
to the charge of treason, sat twenty-six days, and in that time
accomplished all that had been expected from it. The six previous
assemblies, all that had been held since the accession of James to the
English crown, were unanimously declared unlawful, and of course all
their acts illegal. In that held at Linlithgow 1606, all the acts that
were passed were sent down from the court ready framed, and one
appointing bishops constant moderators, was clandestinely inserted among
them without ever having been brought to a vote, besides that eight of
the most able ministers delegated to attend it, were forcibly prevented
in an illegal manner by the constituted authorities from attending. In
that held at Glasgow in 1608, nobles and barons attended and voted by
the simple mandate of the king, besides several members from
presbyteries, and thirteen bishops who had no commission. Still worse
was that at Aberdeen 1616, where the most shameful bribery was openly
practised, and no less than sixteen of his creatures were substituted by
the primate of St Andrews for sixteen lawfully chosen commissioners.
That which followed at St Andrews was so notoriously illegal, as never
to have found a defender; and the most noxious of all, that at Perth in
1619, was informal and disorderly in almost all possible respects. The
chair was assumed by the archbishop of St Andrews without any election;
members, however regularly chosen and attested, that were suspected not
to be favourable to court measures, were struck out and their places
filled up by such as the managers could calculate upon being perfectly
pliable. The manner of putting the votes and the use that was made of
the king’s name to influence the voters in this most shamefully packed
assembly, were of themselves good and valid reasons for annulling its
decisions. These six corrupt convocations being condemned as illegal,
their acts became illegal of course, and episcopacy totally subverted.
Two archbishops and six bishops were excommunicated, four bishops were
deposed, and two who made humble submission to the assembly, were simply
suspended, and thus the whole Scottish bench was at once silenced. The
assembly rose in great triumph on the twentieth of December. "We
have now," said the moderator, Henderson, "cast down the walls
of Jericho; let him that rebuildeth them beware of the curse of Hiel the
Bethelite." While the assembly was thus doing its work, the
time-serving marquis of Hamilton was according to the instructions of
his master, practising all the shifts that he could devise for affording
the king the better grounds of quarrel, and for protracting the moment
of hostilities, so as to allow Charles time to collect his forces.
Preparations for an invasion of Scotland had for some time been in
progress, and in May, 1639, he approached the border with about sixteen
thousand men, while a large host of Irish papists was expected to land
in his behalf upon the west coast, and Hamilton entered the Frith of
Forth with a fleet containing a small army.
During this first
campaign, while general Lesly with the main body of the Scottish army
marched for the border with the view of carrying the war into England,
Montrose, at this time the most violent of all the covenanters, was sent
to the north to watch over Huntly and the Aberdonians, and Argyle
proceeded to his own country to watch the Macdonalds, and the earl of
Antrim, who threatened to lay it waste. For this purpose he raised not
less than nine hundred of his vassals, part of whom he stationed in
Kintyre, to watch the movements of the Irish, and part in Lorn to guard
against the Macdonalds, while with a third part he passed over into
Arran, which he secured by seizing upon the castle of Brodick, one of
the strengths belonging to the marquis of Hamilton; and this rendered
the attempt on the part of the Irish at the time nearly impossible. On
the pacification that took place at Birks, near Berwick, Argyle was sent
for to court; but the earl of Loudon having been sent up as commissioner
from the Scottish estates, and by his majesty’s order sent to the
Tower, where he was said to have narrowly escaped a violent death, the
earl of Argyle durst not, at this time, trust himself in the king’s
hands. On the resumption of hostilities in 1640, when Charles was found
to have signed the treaty of Birks only to gain time till he could
return to the charge with better prospects of success, the care of the
west coast, and the reduction of the northern clans, was again intrusted
to Argyle. Committing, on this occasion, the care of Kintyre and
the Islands to their own inhabitants, he traversed, with a force
of about five thousand men attended by a small train of artillery, the
districts of Badenoch, Athol, and Marr, levying the taxes imposed by the
estates, and enforcing subjection to their authority. The earl of Athol
having made a show of resistance at the Ford of Lyon, was sent prisoner
to Stirling; and his factor, Stuart, younger of Grantully, with twelve
of the leading men in his neighbourhood, he commanded to enter in ward
at Edinburgh till they found security for their good behaviour, and he
exacted ten thousand pounds Scots in the district, for the support of
his army. Passing thence into Angus, he demolished the castles of Airly
and Forthar, residences of the earl of Airly, and returned to
Argyleshire, the greater part of his troops being sent to the main body
in England.
In this campaign the king
felt himself just as little able to contend with his people, as in that
of the previous year; and by making concessions similar to those he had
formerly made, and, as the event showed, with the same insincerity he
obtained another pacification at Rippon, in the month of October, 1640.
Montrose, who had been disgusted with the covenanters, and gained over
by the king, now began to form a party of loyalists in Scotland,
preferring to be the head of an association of that nature, however
dangerous the place, to a second or third situation in the insurgent
councils. His designs were accidentally discovered, while he was along
with the army, and he was put under arrest. To ruin Argyle, who was the
object of his aversion, Montrose now reported, that at the Ford of Lyon
he had said that the covenanters had consulted both lawyers and divines
anent deposing the king, and had gotten resolution, that it might be
done in three cases—desertion, invasion, and vendition, and that they
had resolved, at the last sitting of parliament; to accomplish that
object next session. For this malicious falsehood Montrose referred to a
Mr John Stuart, commissary of Dunkeld, who upon being questioned
retracted the accusation which he owned he had uttered out of pure
malice, to be revenged upon Argyle. Stuart was, of course, prosecuted
before the justiciary for leasing-making, and, though he
professed the deepest repentance for his crime, was executed. The king,
though he had made an agreement with his Scottish subjects, was getting
every day upon worse terms with the English; and in the summer of 1641,
came to Scotland with the view of engaging the affections of that
kingdom to enable him to oppose the parliament with the more effect. On
this occasion his majesty displayed great condescension; he appointed
Henderson to be one of his chaplains, attended divine service without
either service-book or ceremonies, and, was liberal of his favour to all
the leading covenanters. Argyle was on this occasion particularly
attended to, together with the marquis of Hamilton, and his brother
Lanark, both of whom had become reconciled to the covenanters, and
admitted to their full share of power. Montrose, in the meantime, was
under confinement, but was indefatigable in his attempts to ruin those
whom he supposed to stand between him and the object of his ambition,
the supreme direction of public affairs. For the accomplishment of this
darling purpose, he proposed nothing less than the assassination of the
earls of Argyle and Lanark, with the marquis of Hamilton. Finding that
the king regarded his proposals with horror, he conceived the gentler
design of arresting these nobles during the night, after being called
upon pretence of speaking with him in his bed-chamber, when they might
be delivered to a body of soldiers prepared under the earl of Crawford,
who was to carry them on board a vessel in Leith Roads, or to assassinate
them if they made any resistance; but, at all events, detain them, till
his majesty had gained a sufficient ascendancy in the country to try,
condemn, and execute them under colour of law. Colonel Cochrane was to
have marched with his regiment from Musselburgh to overawe the city of
Edinburgh: a vigorous attempt was at the same time to have been made by
Montrose to obtain possession of the castle, which, it was supposed,
would have been the full consummation of their purpose. In aid of this
plot, an attempt was made to obtain a declaration for the king from the
English army, and the catholics of ireland were to have made a rising,
which they actually attempted on the same day, all evidently undertaken
in concert for the promotion of the royal cause—but all of which had
the contrary effect. Some one, invited to take a part in the plot
against Argyle and the Hamiltons, communicated it to colonel Hurry, who
communicated it to general Leslie, and he lost not a moment in warning
the persons more immediately concerned, who took precautions for their
security the ensuing night, and, next morning, after writing an apology
to the king for their conduct, fled to Kiniel House, in West Lothian,
where the mother of the two Hamiltons at that time resided. The city of
Edinburgh was thrown into a state of the utmost alarm, in consequence of
all the leading covenanters judging it necessary to have guards placed
upon their houses for the protection of their persons. In the afternoon,
the king, going up the main street, was followed by upwards of five
hundred armed men, who entered the outer hall of the Parliament house
along with him, which necessarily increased the confusion. The house,
alarmed by this military array, refused to proceed to business till the
command of all the troops in the city and neighbourhood was intrusted to
general Leslie, and every stranger, whose character and business was not
particularly known, ordered to leave the city. His majesty seemed to be
highly incensed against the three noblemen, and demanded that they
should not be allowed to return to the house till the matter had been
thoroughly investigated. A private committee was suggested, to which the
investigation might more properly be submitted than to the whole house,
in which suggestion his majesty acquiesced. The three noblemen returned
to their post in a few days, were to all appearance received into their
former state of favour, and the whole matter seemed in Scotland at once
to have dropped into oblivion. Intelligence of the whole affair was,
however, sent up to the English Parliament by their agents, who, under
the name of commissioners, attended as spies upon the king, and it had a
lasting, and a most pernicious effect upon his affairs. This, and the
news of the Irish insurrection, which speedily followed, caused his
majesty to hasten his departure, after he had feasted the whole body of
the nobility in the great hall of the palace of Holyrood, on the
seventeenth of November, 1641, having two days before created Argyle a
marquis. On his departure the king declared, that he went away a
contented prince from a contented people. He soon found, however, that
nothing under a moral assurance of the protection of their favourite
system of worship, and church government—an assurance which he had it
not in power, from former circumstances, to give—could thoroughly
secure the attachment of the Scots, who, to use a modern phrase, were
more disposed to fraternize with the popular party in England, than with
him. Finding on his return that the Parliament was getting
more and more intractable, he sent down to the Scottish privy council a
representation of the insults and injuries he had received from that
parliament, and the many encroachments they had made upon his
prerogative, with a requisition that the Scottish council would, by
commissioners, send up to Westminster a declaration of the deep sense
they entertained of the danger and injustice of their present course. A
privy council was accordingly summoned, to which the friends of the
court were more particularly invited, and to this meeting all eyes were
directed. A number of the friends of the court, Kinnoul, Roxburgh, and
others, now known by the name of Banders, having assembled in the
capital with numerous retainers, strong suspicions were entertained that
a design upon the life of Argyle was in contemplation. The gentlemen of
Fife, and the Lothians, with their followers, hastened to the scene of
action, where the high royalists, who had expected to carry matters in
the council against the English Parliament, met with so much opposition,
that they abandoned their purpose, and the king signified his pleasure
that they should not interfere in the business. When hostilities had
actually commenced between the king and the parliament, Argyle was so
far prevailed upon by the marquis of Hamilton, to trust the
asseverations which accompanied his majesty’s expressed wishes for
peace, as to be willing to second his proposed attempt at negotiation
with the Parliament, and he signed, along with Loudon, Warriston, and
Henderson, the invitation, framed by the court party, to the queen to
return from Holland, to assist in mediating a peace between his majesty
and the two houses of Parliament. The battle of Edgehill, however, so
inspirited the king, that he rejected the offer on the pretence that he
durst not hazard her person. In 1642, when, in compliance with the
request of the Parliament of England, troops were raised by the Scottish
estates, to aid the protestants of ireland, Argyle was nominated to a
colonelcy in one of the regiments, and in the month of January 1644, he
accompanied general Leslie, with the Scottish army, into England as
chief of the committee of Parliament, but in a short time returned with
tidings of the defeat of the marquis of Newcastle at Newburn. The ultra
royalists, highly offended at the assistance afforded by the estates of
Scotland, to the Parliament of England, had already planned and begun to
execute different movements in the north, which they intended should
either overthrow the Estates, or reduce them to the necessity of
recalling their army from England for their own defence. The marquis of
Huntley having received a commission from Charles, had already commenced
hostilities, by making prisoners of the provost and magistrates of
Aberdeen, and at the same time plundering the town of all the arms and
ammunition it contained, he also published a declaration of hostilities
against time covenanters. Earl Marischal, apprized of this, summoned the
committees of Angus and Mearns, and sent a message to Huntly to dismiss
his followers. Huntly, trusting to the assurances he had had from
Montrose, Crawford, and Nithsdale of assistance from the south, and from
ireland, sent an insulting reply to the committee, requiring them to
dismiss, and not interrupt the peace of the country. In the month of
April, Argyle was despatched against him, with what troops he could
raise for the occasion, and came unexpectedly upon him after his
followers had plundered and set on fire the town of Montrose, whence the
retreated to Aberdeen. Thither they were followed by Argyle, who,
learning that the laird of Haddow, with a number of his friends had
fortified themselves in the house of Killie, marched thither, and
invested it with his army. Unwilling, however, to lose time by a regular
siege, he sent a trumpeter offering pardon to every man in the garrison
who should surrender, the land of Haddow excepted. Seeing no means of
escape, the garrison accepted the terms. Haddow was sent to Edinburgh,
brought to trial on a charge of treason, found guilty, and executed.
Huntly, afraid of being sent to his old quarters in Edinburgh castle,
repaired to the Bog of Gight, accompanied only by two or three
individuals of his own clan, whence he brouight away some trunks filled
with silver, gold, and apparel, which he intrusted to one of his
followers, who, finding a vessel ready to sail for Caithness, shipped
the trunks, and set off with them, leaving the marquis to shift for
himself. The marquis, who had yet one thousand dollars, committed them
to the care of another of his dependants, and taking a small boat, set
out in pursuit of the trunks. On landing in Sutherland he could command
no better accommodation than a wretched ale-house. Next day he proceeded
to Caithness, where he found lodgings with his cousin-german, Francis
Sinclair, and most unexpectedly fell in with the runaway and his boxes,
with which by sea he proceeded to Strathnaver, where he remained in
close retirement for upwards of twelve months. In the meantime, about
twelve hundred of the promised Irish auxiliaries, under Alaster
Macdonald, landed on the island of Mull, where they captured some of the
small fortresses, and, sailing for the mainland, they disembarked in
Knoydart, where they attempted to raise some of the clans. Argyle, to
whom this Alaster Macdonald was a mortal enemy, having sent round some
ships of war from Leith, which seized the vessels that had transported
them over, they were unable to leave the country, and he himself,
with a formidable force, hanging upon their rear, they were driven into
the interior, and traversed the wilds of Lochaber and Badenoch,
expecting to meet a royal army under Montrose, though in what place they
had no knowledge. Macdonald, in order to strengthen them in numbers, had
sent through the fiery cross in various directions, though with only
indifferent success, till Montrose at last met them, having found his
way through the country in disguise all the way from Oxford, with only
one or two attendants. Influenced by Montrose, the men of Athol, who
were generally anti-covenanters, joined the royal standard in great
numbers, and he soon found himself at the head of a formidable army. His
situation was not, however, promising. Argyle was in his rear, being in
pursuit of the Irish, who were perfect banditti, and had committed
terrible ravages upon his estates, and there were before him six or
seven thousand men under lord Elcho, stationed at Perth. Elcho’s
troops, however, were only raw militia, officered by men who had never
seen an engagement, and the leaders among them were not unjustly
suspected of being disaffected to the cause. As the most prudent
measure, he did not wait to be attacked, but went to meet Montrose, who
was marching through Strathearn, having commenced his career by
plundering the lands, and burning the houses of the clan Menzies. Elcho
took up a position upon the plain of Tippermuir, where he was attacked
by Montrose, and totally routed in the space of a few minutes. Perth
fell at once into the hands of the victor, and was plundered of money,
and whatever was valuable, and could be carried away. The stoutest young
men he also impressed into the ranks, and seized upon all the horses fit
for service. Thus strengthened, he poured down upon Angus, where he
received numerous reinforcements. Dundee he attempted, but finding there
were troops in it sufficient to hold it out for some days, and dreading
the approach of Argyle, who was still following him, he pushed north to
Aberdeen. Here his covenanting rage had been bitterly felt, and at his
approach the committee sent off the public money and all their most
valuable effects to Dunnottar castle. They at the same time threw up
some rude fortifications, and had two thousand men prepared to give him
a warm reception. Crossing the Dee by a ford, he at once eluded their
fortifications and deranged their order of battle; and issuing orders
for an immediate attack, they were defeated, and a scene of butchery
followed which has few parallels in the annals of civilized warfare. In
the fields, the streets, or the houses, armed or unarmed, no man found
mercy: the ragged they killed and stripped; the well-dressed, for fear
of spoiling their clothes, they stripped and killed.
After four days employed
in this manner, the approach of Argyle, whom they were not sufficiently
numerous to combat, drove them to the north, where they intended to take
refuge beyond the Spey. The boats, however, were all removed to the
other side, and the whole force of Moray was assembled to dispute the
passage. In this dilemma, nothing remained for Montrose but to take
refuge among the hills, and his rapid movements enabled him to gain the
wilds of Badenoch with the loss only of his artillery and heavy baggage,
where he bade defiance to the approach of any thing like a regular army.
After resting a few days, he again descended into Athol to recruit,
having sent Macdonald into the Highlands on the same errand. From Athol
he entered Angus, where he wasted the estates of lord Couper, and
plundered the house of Dun, in which the inhabitants of Montrose had
deposited their valuables, and which also afforded a supply of arms and
artillery. Argyle, all this while, followed his footsteps with a
superior army, but could never come up with him. He, however, proclaimed
him a traitor, and offered a reward of twenty thousand pounds for his
head. Having strengthened his army by forced levies in Athol, Montrose
again crossed the Grampians, and spreading devastation along his line of
march, attempted once more to raise the Gordons. In this he was still
unsuccessful, and at the castle of Fyvie, which he had taken, was at
last surprised by Argyle and the earl of Lothian, who, with an army of
three thousand horse and foot, were within two miles of his camp, when
he believed them to be on the other side of the Grampians. Here, had
there been any thing like management on the part of the army of the
Estates, his career had certainly closed, but in military affairs Argyle
was neither skilful nor brave. After sustaining two assaults from very
superior numbers, Montrose drew off his little army with scarcely any
loss, and by the way of Strathtbogie plunged again into the wilds of
Badenoch, where he expected Macdonald and the Irish with what recruits
they had been able to raise. Argyle, whose army was now greatly weakened
by desertion, returned to Edinburgh and threw up his commission in
disgust. The Estates, however, received him in the most friendly manner,
and passed an act approving of his conduct.
By the parliament which
met this year, on the 4th of June, Argyle was named, along with the
chancellor Loudoun, lords Balmerino, Warriston, and others, as
commissioners, to act in concert with the English parliament in their
negotiations with the king; but from the manner in which he was
occupied, he must have been able to overtake a very small part of the
duties included in the commission. Montrose no sooner found that Argyle
had retired and left the field clear, than, to keep up the spirit of his
followers, and to satiate his revenge, he marched them into Glenorchy,
belonging to a near relation of Argyle, and in the depth of winter
rendered the whole country one wide field of blood: nor was this
destruction confined to Glenorchy; it was extended through Argyle and
Lorn to the very confines of Lochaber, not a house he was able to
surprise being left unburned, nor a man unslaughtered. Spalding adds,
"he left not a four-footed beast in the haill country; such as
would not drive he houghed and slew, that they should never make
stead." Having rendered the country a wilderness, he bent his way
for Inverness, when he was informed that Argyle had collected an army of
three thousand men, and had advanced as far as Inverlochy, on his march
to the very place upon which he himself was advancing. Montrose was no
sooner informed of the circumstance, than, striking across the
almost inaccessible wilds of Lochaber, he came, by a march of about six
and thirty hours, upon the camp of Argyle at Inverlochy, and was within
half a mile of it before they knew that there was an enemy within
several days’ march of them. The state of his followers did not admit
of an immediate attack by Montrose; but every thing was ready for it by
the dawn of day, and with the dissolving mists of the morning. On the
second of February, 1645, Argyle, from his pinnace on the lake, whither
he had retired on account of a hurt he had caught by a fall from his
horse, which disabled him from fighting, beheld the total annihilation
of his army, one half of it being literally cut to pieces, and the other
dissipated among the adjoining mountains, or driven into the water.
Unable to afford the smallest assistance to his discomfitted troops, he
immediately hoisted sails and made for a place of safety. On the twelfth
of the month, he appeared before the parliament, then sitting in
Edinburgh, to which he related the tale of his own and their misfortune,
in the best manner no doubt which the case could admit of. The
circumstances, however, were such as no colouring could hide, and the
Estates were certainly deeply affected. But the victory at Inverlochy,
though as complete as victory can well be supposed, and gained with the
loss too of only two or three men, was perhaps more pernicious to the
victors than the vanquished. The news of it unhappily reached Charles at
a time when he was on the point of accepting the terms of reconciliation
offered to his parliament, which reconciliation, if effected, might have
closed the war for ever, and he no sooner heard of this
remarkable victory, than he resolved to reject them, and trust to
continued hostilities for the means of obtaining a more advantageous
treaty. Montrose, also, whose forces were always reduced after a
victory, as the Highlanders were wont to go home to deposit their
spoils, could take no other advantage of "the day of Inverlochy,"
than to carry on, upon a broader scale, and with less interruption, the
barbarous system of warfare which political, religious, and feudal
hostility had induced him to adopt. Instead of marching towards the
capital, where he might have followed up his victory to the utter
extinction of the administration of the Estates, he resumed his march
along the course of the Spey into the province of Moray, and, issuing an
order for all the men above sixteen and below sixty to join his
standard, under the pain of military execution, proceeded to burn the
houses and destroy the goods upon the estates of Grangehill, Brodie,
Cowbin, Innes, Ballendalloch, Foyness, and Pitchash. He plundered also
the village of Garmouth and the lands of Burgie, Lethen, and Duffus, and
destroyed all the boats and nets upon the Spey. Argyle having thrown up
his commission as general of the army, which was given to general
Baillie, he was now attached to it only as member of a committee
appointed by the parliament to direct its movements, and in this
capacity was present at the battle of Kilsyth, August 15th, 1645, the
most disastrous of all the six victories of Montrose to the Covenanters,
upwards of six thousand men being slain on the field of battle and in
the pursuit. This, however, was the last of the exploits of the great
marquis. There being no more detachments of militia in the country to
oppose to him, general David Leslie, with some regiments of horse, were
recalled from the army in England, who surprised and defeated him at
Philiphaugh, annihilating his little army, and, according to an
ordinance of parliament, hanging up without distinction all the Irish
battalions.
In the month of February,
1646, Argyle was sent over to Ireland to bring home the Scottish troops
that had been sent to that country to assist in repressing the
turbulence of the Catholics. He returned to Edinburgh in the month of
May following. In the meantime, Alister Macdonald, the coadjutor of
Montrose, had made another tour through his country of Argyle, giving to
the sword and the devouring flame whatever had escaped in the former
inroads, so that upwards of twelve hundred of the miserable inhabitants,
to escape absolute starvation, were compelled to emigrate, under one of
their chieftains, Ardinglass, into Menteith, where they attempted to
settle themselves upon the lands of the malignant. But scarcely had they
made the attempt, when they were attacked by Inchbrackie, with a party
of Athol men, and chased beyond the Forth near Stirling, where they were
joined by the marquis, who carried them into Lennox, and quartered them
upon the lands of lord Napier, till he obtained an act to embody them
into a regiment, to be stationed in different parts of the Highlands,
and a grant from parliament for a supply of provisions for his castles.
So deplorably had his estates been wasted by the inroads of Montrose and
Macdonald, that a sum of money was voted him for the support of himself
and family, and for paying annual rents to some of the more necessitous
creditors upon his estates. A collection was at the same time ordered
through all the churches of Scotland, for the relief of his poor people
who had been plundered by the Irish. In the month of July, 1646, when
the king had surrendered himself to the Scottish army, Argyle went up to
Newcastle to wait upon and pay his respects to him. On the 3d of August
following, he was sent up to London, along with Loudon, the chancellor,
and the earl of Dunfermline, to treat with the parliament of England,
concerning a mitigation of the articles they had presented to the
king, with some of which he was not at all satisfied. He was also on
this occasion the bearer of a secret commission from the king, to
consult with the duke of Richmond and the marquis of Hertford concerning
the propriety of the Scottish army and parliament declaring for him.
Both of these noblemen totally disapproved of the scheme, as they were
satisfied it would be the entire ruin of his interests. In this matter,
Argyle certainly did not act with perfect integrity; and it was probably
a feeling of conscious duplicity which prevented him from being present
at any of the committees concerning the king’s person, or any treaty
for the withdrawal of the Scottish army, or the payment of its arrears.
The opinion of these two noblemen, however, he faithfully reported to
his majesty, who professed to be satisfied, but spoke of adopting some
other plan, giving evident proof that his pretending to accept
conditions was a mere pretence—a put off—till he might be able to
lay hold of some lucky turn in the chapter of accidents. It was probably
from a painful anticipation of the fatal result of the king’s
pertinacity, that Argyle, when he returned to Edinburgh and attended the
parliament, which assembled on the 3d of November, demanded and obtained
an explicit approval of all that he had transacted, as their accredited
commissioner; and it must not be lost sight of, that, for all the public
business he had been engaged in, except what was voted him in
consequence of his great losses, he never hitherto had received one
farthing of salary.
When the Engagement, as
it was called, was entered into by the marquis of Hamilton, and other
Scottish presbyterian loyalists, Argyle opposed it, because, from what
he had been told by the duke of Richmond and the marquis of Hertford,
when he had himself been half embarked in a scheme somewhat similar, he
believed it would be the total ruin of his majesty’s cause. The event
completely justified his fears. By exasperating the sectaries and
republicans, it was the direct and immediate cause of the death of the
king.. On the march of the Engagers into England, Argyle, Eglinton,
Cassilis, and Lothian, marched into Edinburgh at the head of a great
multitude of people whom they had raised, before whom the committee of
Estates left the city, and the irremediable defeat of the Engagers,
which instantly followed, entirely sinking the credit of the party, they
never needed to return; the reins of government falling into the hands
of Argyle, Warriston, Loudon, and others of the more zealous party of
the presbyterians. The flight of the few Engagers who reached their
native land, was followed by Cromwell, who came all the way to Berwick,
with the purpose apparently of invading Scotland. Argyle, in the month
of September or October, 1648, went to Mordington, where he had an
interview with that distinguished individual, whom, along with general
Lambert, he conducted to Edinburgh, where he was received in a way
worthy of his high fame, and every thing between the two nations was
settled in the most amicable manner, the Solemn League and Covenant
being renewed, the Engagement proscribed, and all who had been concerned
in it summoned to appear before parliament, which was appointed to meet
at Edinburgh on the 4th of January, 1649. It has been, without the least
particle of evidence, asserted that Argyle, in the various interviews he
held with Cromwell at this time, agreed that Charles should be executed.
The losses to which Argyle was afterwards subjected, and the hardships
he endured for adhering to Charles’ interests after he was laid
in his grave, should, in the absence of all evidence to the contrary, be
a sufficient attestation of his loyalty, not to speak of the parliament,
of which he was unquestionably the most influential individual, in the
ensuing month of February proclaiming Charles II. king of Scotland,
England, France, and Ireland, &C. than which nothing could be more
offensive to the then existing government of England. In sending over
the deputation that waited upon Charles in Holland in the spring of
1649, Argyle was heartily concurring, though he had been not a little
disgusted with his associates in the administration, on account of the
execution of his brother-in-law, the marquis of Huntly, whom he in vain
exerted all his influence to save. It is also said that he refused to
assist at the trial, or to concur in the sentence passed upon the
marquis of Montrose, in the month of May, 1650, declaring that he was
too much a party to be a judge in that matter. Of the leading
part he performed in the installation of Charles II., upon whose head he
placed the crown at Scone on the 1st of January, 1651, we have
not room to give any particular account. Of the high consequence in
which his services were held at the time, there needs no other proof
than the report that the king intended marrying one of his daughters.
For the defence of the king and kingdom, against both of whom Cromwell
was now ready to lead all his troops, he, as head of the Committee of
Estates, made the most vigorous exertions. Even after the defeat at
Dunbar, and the consequent ascendancy of the king’s personal
interests, he adhered to his majesty with unabated zeal and diligence,
of which Charles seems to have been sensible at the time, as the
following letter, in his own hand writing, which he delivered to Argyle
under his sign manual, abundantly testifies:—"Having taken into
consideration the faithful endeavours of the marquis of Argyle for
restoring me to my just rights, and the happy settling of my dominions,
I am desirous to let the world see how sensible I am of his real respect
to me by some particular marks of my favour to him, by which they may
see the trust and confidence which I repose in him: and particularly, I
do promise that I will make him duke of Argyle, knight of the garter,
and one of the gentlemen of my bed-chamber, and this to be performed
when he shall think it fit. And I do farther promise him to hearken to
his counsels, [passage worn out]. Whenever it shall please God to
restore me to my just rights in England, I shall see him paid the
£40,000 sterling which is due to him; all which I promise to make good
to him upon the word of a king. CHARLES REX, St Johnston, September
24th, 1650." When Charles judged it expedient to lead the Scottish
army into England, in the vain hope of raising the cavaliers and
moderate presbyterians in his favour, Argyle obtained leave to remain at
home, on account of the illness of his lady. After the whole hopes of
the Scots were laid low at Worcester, September 3d, 1651, he retired to
Inverary, where he held out against the triumphant troops of Cromwell
for a whole year, till, falling sick, he was surprised by general Dean,
and carried to Edinburgh. Having received orders from Monk to attend a
privy council, he was entrapped to be present at the ceremony of
proclaiming Cromwell lord Protector. A paper was at the same time
tendered him to sign, containing his submission to the government, as
settled without king or house of lords, which he absolutely refused,
though afterwards, when he was in no condition to struggle farther, he
signed a promise to live peaceably under that government. He was
always watched, however, by the ruling powers, and never was regarded by
any of the authorities as other than a concealed loyalist. When Scotland
was declared by Cromwell to be incorporated with England, Argyle exerted
himself, in opposition to the council of state, to have Scotsmen
alone elected to serve in parliament for North Britain, of which Monk
complained to Thurlow, in a letter from Dalkeith, dated September
30, 1658. Under Richard he was himself elected for the county of
Aberdeen, and took his seat accordingly in the house, where he wrought
most effectually for the service of the king, by making that breach
through which his majesty entered. On the Restoration, Argyle’s best
friends advised him to keep out of the way on account of his compliances
with the Usurpation; but he judged it more honourable and honest to go
and congratulate his majesty upon so happy a turn in his affairs. To
this he must have been misled from the promissory note of kindness which
he held, payable on demand, as well as by some flattering expressions
which Charles had made use of regarding him to his son, lord Lorn; but
when he arrived at Whitehall, July 8, 1660, the king no sooner heard his
name announced, than, "with an angry stamp of the foot, he ordered
Sir William Fleming to execute his orders," which were to carry him
to the Tower. To the Tower he was carried accordingly, where he lay till
the month of December, when he was sent down to Leith aboard a
man-of-war, to stand his trial before the high court of parliament.
While confined in the Tower, the marquis made application to have the
affidavits of several persons in England taken respecting some matters
of fact, when he was concerned in the public administration before the
usurpation, which, had justice been the object of the prosecution
against him, could not have been denied. Revenge, however, being the
object, facts might have happened to prove inconvenient, and the request
was flatly refused.
On his arrival at Leith,
he was conveyed to the castle of Edinburgh, and, preparatory to his
being brought to trial, the president of the committee for bills, on the
eighteenth of January, reported to the parliament that a supplication
had been presented to them by the laird of Lamont, craving warrant to
cite the marquis of Argyle, with some others, to appear before
parliament, to answer for crimes committed by him and them as specified
in the bill given in. Some little opposition was made to this; but it
was carried by a vast plurality to grant warrant according
to the prayer of the petition. This charge could not be intended to
serve any other purpose than to raise a prejudice in the public mind
against the intended victim; for it was a charge which not a few of the
managers themselves knew well to be false. Middleton could have set the
question at once to rest, as he had had a deeper hand in many of the
cruelties complained of than Argyle, for he had acted under general
Leslie, in suppressing the remains of Montrose’s army, and, much
nearer home than the islands, namely at Kincardine house, belonging to
Montrose, had shot twelve cavaliers without any ceremony, sending the
remainder to be hanged at Edinburgh, all which, be it observed, was in
defence of a party of Argyle’s people who had been driven to seek
refuge in Lennox, and was no doubt one of the items in the general
charge. But the charge generally referred to the clearing of his own
territories of Alister Macdonald and his Irish bands by Leslie, who, in
reducing the strengths belonging to the loyalists in the north, had,
conformably to the orders of parliament, shot or hanged every Irishman
he found in them without ceremony. Sir James Turner, who was upon this
expedition, and has left an account of it in his Memoirs, acquits Argyle
of all blame, in so far as concerns the seizure of the castle of
Dunavertie, one of the cases that has been most loudly complained of,
though he fastens a stain on the character of Mr John Nevoy, the divine
who accompanied the expedition, who, he says, took a pleasure in wading
through the blood of the victims. A small extract will show that Leslie
confined himself strictly to the parliamentary order, which was perhaps
no more severe than the dreadful character of the times had rendered
necessary. "From Ila we boated over to Jura, a horrid isle, and a
habitation fit for deer and wild beasts, and so from isle to isle till
we come to Mull, which is one of the best of the Hebrides. Here Maclean
saved his lands with the loss of his reputation, if he ever had any: he
gave up his strong castles to Leslie; gave his eldest son for hostage of
his fidelity, and, which was unchristian baseness in the lowest degree,
he delivered up fourteen very pretty Irishmen, who had been all along
faithful to him, to the lieutenant general, who immediately caused hang
them all. It was not well done to demand them from Maclean; but
inexcusably ill done in him to betray them. Here I cannot forget one
Donald Campbell, fleshed in blood from his very infancy, who, with all
imaginable violence, pressed that the whole clan Maclean should be put
to the sword, nor could he be commanded to forbear his bloody suit by
the lieutenant general and two major generals, and with some difficulty
was he commanded silence by his chief, the marquis of Argyle. For my
part, I said nothing, for indeed I did not care though he had prevailed
in his suit, the delivering of the Irish had so much irritated me
against that whole clan and name." Argyle was brought before
parliament on the 13th of February 1661. His indictment, consisting of
fourteen articles, comprehended the history of all the transactions that
had taken place in Scotland since 1638. The whole procedure, on one side
of the question, during all that time, had already been declared
rebellion, and each individual concerned was of course liable to the
charge of treason. Middleton, lord high commissioner to parliament,
eager to possess his estate, of which he doubted not he would obtain the
gift, conducted the trial in a manner not only inconsistent with
justice, but with the dignity and the decency that ought ever to
characterise a public character. From the secret conversations he had
held with Cromwell, Middleton drew the conclusion, that the interruption
of the treaty of Newport and the execution of Charles had been the fruit
of their joint deliberations. He was defended on this point by Sir John
Gilmour, president of the court of Session, with such force of argument
as to compel the reluctant parliament to exculpate him from all blame in
the matter of the king’s death; and, after having exhibited the utmost
contempt for truth, and a total disregard of character or credit,
provided they could obtain their point, the destruction of the pannel,
the crown lawyers were at length obliged to fix on his compliance with
the English during the usurpation, as the only species of treason that
could at all be made to affect him. Upon this point there was not one of
his judges who had not been equally, and some of them much more guilty
than himself: "How could I suppose," said the marquis, with
irresistible effect in his defence on this point, "that I was
acting criminally, when the learned gentleman who now acts as his
majesty’s advocate, took the same oaths to the commonwealth with
myself ?" He was not less successful in replying to every iota of
his indictment, in addition to which he gave in a signed supplication
and submission to his majesty, which was regarded just as little as his
defences. The moderation, the good sense, and the magnanimity, however,
which he displayed, joined to his innocence of the crimes charged
against him, wrought so strongly upon the house, that great fears were
entertained that, after all, he would be acquitted; and to counteract
the influence of his two sons, lord Lorne and lord Neil Campbell, who
were both in London, exerting themselves as far as they could in his
behalf, Glencairn, Rothes, and Sharpe were sent up to court, where, when
it was found that the proof was thought to be defective, application was
made to general Monk, who furnished them with some of the marquis of
Argyle’s private letters, which were sent down post to Middleton, who
laid them before parliament, and by this means obtained a sentence of
condemnation against the noble marquis, on Saturday the 25th, and he was
executed accordingly on Monday the 27th of May, 1661. Than the behaviour
of this nobleman during his trial, and after his receiving sentence of
death, nothing could be more dignified or becoming the character of a
christian. Conscious of his integrity, he defended his character and
conduct with firmness and magnanimity, but with great gentleness and the
highest respect for authority. After receiving his sentence, when
brought back to the common jail, his excellent lady was waiting for him,
and, embracing him, wept bitterly, exclaiming, "the Lord will
requite it;" but, calm and composed, he said, "Forbear; truly,
I pity them; they know not what they are doing; they may shut me in
where they please, but they cannot shut out God from me. For my part, I
am as content to be here as in the castle, and as content in the castle
as in the Tower of London, and as content there as when at liberty, and
I hope to be as content on the scaffold as any of them all." His
short time till Monday he spent in serenity and cheerfulness, and in the
proper exercises of a dying christian. To some of the ministers he said
that they would shortly envy him for having got before them, for he
added, "my skill fails me, if you who are ministers will not either
suffer much, or sin much; for, though you go along with those men in
part, if you do it not in all things, you are but where you were, and so
must suffer; and if you go not at all with them, you shall but
suffer." On the morning of his execution, he spent two hours in
subscribing papers, making conveyances, and forwarding other matters of
business relating to his estate; and while so employed, he suddenly
became so overpowered with a feeling of divine goodness, according to
contemporary authority, that he was unable to contain himself, and
exclaimed, "I thought to have concealed the Lord’s goodness, but
it will not do: I am now ordering my affairs, and God is sealing my
charter to a better inheritance, and saying to me, ‘Son, be of good
cheer; thy sins are forgiven thee.’" He wrote the same day a most
affecting letter to the king, recommending to his protection his wife
and children. "He came to the scaffold," says Burnet, "in
a very solemn, but undaunted manner, accompanied with many of the
nobility and some ministers. He spoke for half an hour with a great
appearance of serenity. Cunningham, his physician, told me that he
touched his pulse, and it did then beat at the usual rate, calm and
strong." It is related, as another proof of the resolution of
Argyle, in the last trying scene, that, though he had eaten a whole
partridge at dinner, no vestige of it was found in his stomach after
death; if he had been much affected by the anticipation of death, his
digestion, it may be easily calculated, could not have been so good. His
head was struck off by the instrument called the Maiden, and affixed on
the west end of the Tolbooth, where that of Montrose had been till very
lately perched; a circumstance that very sensibly marks the vicissitudes
of a time of civil dissension. His body was conveyed by his friends to
Dunoon, and buried in the family sepulchre at Kilmun.
Argyle, with few
qualities to captivate the fancy, has always been esteemed by the people
of Scotland as one of the most consistent and meritorious of their array
of patriots. For the sake of his exemplary moral and religious
character, and his distinguished exertions in the resistance to the
measures of Charles I., as well as his martyrdom in that cause, they
have overlooked a quality generally obnoxious to their contempt—his
want of courage in the field—which caused him, throughout the whole of
the transactions of the civil war, to avoid personal contact with
danger, though often at the head of large bodies of troops. The habits
of Argyle in private life were those of an eminently and sincerely pious
man. In Mr Wodrow’s diary of traditionary collections, which remains
in manuscript in the Advocates’ Library, it is related, under May 9,
1702, upon the credit of a clergyman, the last survivor of the General
Assembly of 1651, that his lordship used to rise at five, and continue
in private till eight: besides family worship, and private prayer,
morning and evening, he prayed with his lady morning and evening, in the
presence of his own gentleman and her gentlewoman; he
never went abroad, though but for one night, without taking along with
him his writing-standish, a bible, and Newman’s Concordance. Upon the
same authority, we relate the following anecdote: "After the
coronation of king Charles II. at Scone, he waited a long time for an
opportunity of dealing freely with his majesty on religious matters, and
particularly about his suspected disregard of the covenant, and his
encouragement of malignants, and other sins. One sabbath night, after
supper, he went into the king’s closet, and began to converse with him
on these topics. Charles was seemingly sensible, and they came at length
to pray and mourn together till two or three in the morning. When he
came home to his lady, she was surprised, and told him she never knew
him so untimeous. He said he never had had such a sweet night in the
world, and told her all—what liberty he had in prayer, and how much
convinced the king was. She said plainly that that night would cost him
his head—which came to pass." Mr Wodrow also mentions that,
during the Glasgow Assembly, Henderson and other ministers spent many
nights in prayer, and conference with the marquis of Argyle, and he
dated his conversion, or his knowledge of it, from those times. His
lordship was married to Margaret, second daughter of William, second
earl of Morton, and by her left two sons and three daughters. |
