When Dundee reached Edinburgh, in the last days of February, the disturbances that had broken out shortly before had been quelled, owing mainly to the judicious and vigorous measures taken by the College of Justice; and to all outward appearance, at least, the capital was in a state of great tranquillity. But the excitement, though less demonstrative than it had been in the earlier weeks of the year, was still intense, and increased with the approach of the date fixed for the meeting of the Convention of the Estates, which was to determine whether England and Scotland were to be ruled by one sovereign, or whether there was to be a renewal between them of the hostilities of former centuries.

The Duke of Hamilton, the most influential of the Scottish noblemen who had offered their services to William, was making his arrangements in view of the coming crisis. He had brought in several companies of foot, which he billeted in the town. There seemed to be good reason to believe that before long he would be able to quarter them in the Castle. The command of the old fortress had been entrusted by James to the Duke of Gordon, ‘a man weak and wavering in courage, but bound by shame and religion.’ He had committed the almost inconceivable error of failing to provision the Castle, when he determined to hold it, and whilst the opportunity of procuring necessaries from the townspeople was still open to him. He had learnt that all the castles and forts in England had been given up, some of them, it was reported, by order of the exiled King himself; and no communication from any of his own party had brought him encouragement to further resistance. When, on the faith of a letter from William, he was offered indemnity and full assurance of protection, he agreed to what, under the circumstances, seemed to him to be an honourable capitulation. He was in the very act of evacuating the Castle, his furniture was actually being removed from it, when Dundee and Balcarres came to him. By representing to him the service which he might still render to the royal cause, and by appealing to his honour, they succeeded in persuading him to hold out until the Convention had given indications of its designs.

When the Estates met, on the 14th of March, Hamilton secured a first victory for his party by getting himself appointed President. At his suggestion, negotiations were again opened with Gordon, by the intermediary of the Earls of Lothian and Tweeddale. They were so far successful that the wavering Governor promised to surrender on the following day. But, when the time came, he again evaded his engagement by insisting upon terms which he knew could not be accorded him. It was Dundee who had again worked the change. He had gone to the Castle and assured Gordon that the King’s friends had resolved to desert the Edinburgh Convention, and to summon another at Stirling, in virtue of the powers given to the Archbishop of St Andrews, Balcarres, and himself by a royal warrant received from Ireland. It is asserted by Dalrymple that ‘Balcarres, but still more Dundee,’ then urged the Governor to fire upon the city, in order to dissolve the Convention. From the account given by Balcarres, however, it would appear that this advice was given by the King’s ‘friends’ immediately after Dundee had ridden off with his fifty troopers. For failing to keep his engagement with the Convention, Gordon was declared a traitor. As the heralds made their proclamation in due form, under the very walls of his fortress he spiritedly retorted that they ought in decency to have doffed the King’s livery before they proscribed the King’s governor.

It was true that, as Dundee had told Gordon, the adherents of James had determined to desert the Convention. Their resolution was the result of an incident that had taken place at a recent sitting of that Assembly. Two letters had been received, one from the new King William, the other from the late King James. The former was read and ‘answered in strains of gratitude and respect.’ The latter met with a different reception. The members of the Orange party were at first unwilling that its contents should be made known. They urged that the nation would be in a miserable condition if the despatch should prove to be an order for the dissolution of the Convention. Many of their opponents admitted this. But they were confident that James had written ‘in terms suitable to the bad situation of his affairs in England,’ and had given such full satisfaction in matters of religion and liberty as would induce even most of those who had declared against him to return to their duty; and they consequently pressed that the message should be heard. It was not, however, until a unanimous vote had declared the Convention to be a legal and free meeting, and, as such, not to be dissolved by any order the letter might contain, that permission was granted. To the consternation of the Jacobites, and the joy of their enemies, it was found that the despatch, in which the hand and style of the obnoxious Melfort were recognised, ‘was written in the terms of a conqueror and a priest, threatening the Convention with punishment in this world and damnation in the next.’ There could no longer be any doubt as to what the result of the Convention would be.

The futility of making any further attempt to influence the Estates in favour of James was not the only reason that made Dundee desire to leave Edinburgh. He had received information that a number of his old enemies, the Covenanters, had formed a plot to assassinate him and Sir George Mackenzie. There can be no doubt that George Hamilton of Barns had brought up four hundred armed citizens from Glasgow, and had lodged them about the Parliament House; but it is alleged that the object of this measure was merely to prevent Dundee himself from carrying out a design which he had formed of seizing certain members of the Convention. At the next meeting of the Estates he made known what he had learnt, offered to point out the very house in which his intending murderers were concealed, and demanded that they should be brought to justice. A majority of the House refused to take cognisance of what was slightingly described as a private matter, until affairs of greater moment had been dealt with; and Hamilton, who saw a welcome chance of getting rid of a troublesome adversary, cast sneering reflections upon the courage that could be alarmed by imaginary dangers.

This was on the eve of the day fixed upon by the Jacobite members for their departure from Edinburgh. In the meantime, however, the Marquis of Athole had pleaded for a further delay, and this had been agreed to at a meeting from which Dundee happened to be absent. When informed of the new arrangement, he refused to be bound by it. In vain Balcarres urged that his departure would give the alarm, and frustrate their designs. He replied that he had promised to meet a number of his friends outside the city, and that he did not wish to disappoint them. It was then that, going forth, he gathered his fifty troopers about him and galloped through the streets of Edinburgh. To a friend who called out to inquire where he was going, he is reported to have cried back, as he waved his hat, ‘Wherever the spirit of Montrose shall direct me.’

Dundee’s road to Stirling skirted the base of the Castle rock. As he approached he was recognised by the Duke of Gordon, who was ‘in a manner blocked up by the western rabble,’ and who signalled that he desired to speak with him. Equipped as he was, he performed the almost incredible feat of scrambling up the precipitous crag, as far as a postern gate, at which he held conference with the Governor. In the course of the conversation he urged the Duke to delegate the command of the stronghold to his subordinate Winrhame, an experienced and trustworthy soldier, and to retire into the Highlands for the purpose of raising his clansmen in support of King James. But Gordon’s timidity suggested a ready and plausible excuse. A soldier, he said, could not in honour quit the post that had been assigned to him.

Whilst the two noblemen were conferring together under such unusual circumstances, they were noticed from the city. The troopers who were waiting below for their adventurous leader were magnified into a great body of horse, and it was assumed that Dundee’s motive for braving the danger of such a climb, and defying the outlawry under which the Governor had been placed by the Convention, was to concert an attack in which he would be supported by the fire of the Castle batteries. The rumour spread and reached the ears of Hamilton. In all probability he knew it to be unfounded; but he also saw how he could avail himself of it to serve his own ends, and he did not neglect the opportunity which chance offered him. The Convention was sitting. With assumed indignation he exclaimed that it was high time they should look to themselves, since their enemies had the audacity to assemble in force, with hostile intent. Pretending to believe that there was danger within as well as without, he commanded the doors to be shut and the keys to be laid on the table before him, so that the traitors in their midst should be held in confinement until all danger from them was over. Then, by his orders, the drums were beat and the trumpets sounded through the city. At the signal, the armed men who had been brought in from the west, and hitherto kept concealed in garrets and cellars, swarmed out into the streets, where their fierce and sullen looks further increased the alarm of the townspeople, who gathered in great crowds about the Parliament House.

When the tumult and confusion had lasted for some hours, and long after the unconscious cause of it had resumed his ride, Hamilton, judging that the proper pitch had been reached, caused the doors to be thrown open again. As the members came out into the square, the Whigs ‘were received with the acclamations, and those of the opposite party, with the threats and curses of a prepared populace.’ The President had attained the object he had in view. As Dalrymple reports, ‘terrified by the prospect of future alarms, many of the adherents of James quitted the Convention and retired to the country; more of them changed sides; only a very few of the most resolute continued their attendance.’ The Whigs were left to themselves to settle the government of the country.

Whilst the Convention was still sitting with doors closed to prevent the egress of the Jacobite members, information was brought by Lord Montgomery, that Dundee had been seen going towards Queensferry after his defiant conference with the outlawed Duke of Gordon. Thereupon Major Buntin with a troop of horse was dispatched in pursuit. At the same time it was ordered that an express should be sent with a letter signed by the President, calling upon the deserter to return to the meeting by the following Friday. Whether it be true that the Major ‘never came within sight’ of the fugitive, or that he was scared by a threat of being sent back to his masters ‘in a pair of blankets,’ the result of his mission was the same.

The messenger may have found the means of delivering his letter at Linlithgow, where the Viscount made his first halt. It was possibly he who brought back the information which, on the next day, the 19th of March, caused the Convention to issue an order for the heritors and militia of Edinburgh and Linlithgow to assemble and ‘dislodge’ Lord Dundee. To give legal justification to these proceedings, an official proclamation was made by herald, charging both Dundee and Livingstone who accompanied him, to return to the Convention, within twenty-four hours, under pain of treason. Next day, a further report was received in Edinburgh, in consequence of which the Magistrates of Stirling were called upon to take suitable measures for seizing on the Viscount, who was understood to be in their neighbourhood. He had, in reality, ridden straight through to Dunblane, where he had an interview with Drummond of Balhaldy, who, as Lochiel’s son-in-law, was doubtless able to give him useful information as to the condition of the Highlands, and where he also wrote to the Duke of Hamilton, as President of the Convention, a letter which has not been preserved, and which may never have reached its destination. About the end of that eventful week, he reached his own home, at Dudhope. But, even here, he was not out of reach of heralds and their proclamations. On the 27th of March it was duly notified to him, with official blast of trumpet, that he was to lay down his arms, under penalty of being dealt with as a rebel to the State. His reply was almost suggested by the terms of the herald’s summons. Dundee had no thought of accepting the new Government, and had never made a secret of his opposition to it. That he was fully prepared to take the field, if he saw a favourable opportunity of doing so, may be looked upon as the natural and necessary sequel to his acceptance of the trust verbally committed to him at his last meeting with James. But, so far, he had done nothing that justified the charge of having taken up arms. From that point of view, he had no difficulty in giving an explanation and a defence of his conduct. He did so in the following letter:—

‘May it please your Grace,—The coming of an herald and trumpeter, to summon a man to lay down arms that is living in peace at home seems to me a very extraordinary thing, and, I suppose, will do so to all that hears of it. While I attended the Convention at Edinburgh, I complained often of many people being in arms without authority, which was notoriously known to be true; even the wild hillmen; and no summons to lay down arms under the pain of treason being given them, I thought it unsafe for me to remain longer among them. And because a few of my friends did me the favour to convey me out of the reach of these murderers, and that my Lord Livingstone and several other officers took occasion to come away at the same time, this must be called being in arms. We did not exceed the number allowed by the Meeting of Estates. My Lord Livingstone and I might have had each of us ten; and four or five officers that were in company might have had a certain number allowed them; which being, it will be found we exceeded not. I am sure it is far short of the number my Lord Lorne was seen to march with. And though I had gone away with some more than ordinary, who can blame me, when designs of murdering me was made appear? Besides, it is known to everybody that, before we came within sixteen miles of this, my Lord Livingstone went off to his brother my Lord Strathmore’s house; and most of the officers, and several of the company, went to their respective homes or relations. And, if any of them did me the favour to come along with me, must that be called being in arms. Sure, when your Grace represents this to the Meeting of the States, they will discharge such a groundless pursuit, and think my appearance before them unnecessary. Besides, though it were necessary for me to go and attend the Meeting, I cannot come with freedom and safety; because I am informed there are men of war, and foreign troops in the passage; and, till I know what they are, and what are their orders, the Meeting cannot blame me for not coming. Then, my Lord, seeing the summons has proceeded on a groundless story, I hope the Meeting of States will think it unreasonable I should leave my wife in the condition she is in. If there be anybody that notwithstanding of all that is said, think I ought to appear, I beg the favour of a delay till my wife is brought to bed; and, in the meantime, I will either give security, or parole, not to disturb the peace. Seeing this pursuit is so groundless, and so reasonable things offered, and the Meeting composed of prudent men and men of honour, and your Grace presiding in it, I have no reason to fear further trouble.—I am, may it please your Grace, your most humble servant,

‘I beg your Grace will cause read this to the Meeting because it is all the defence I have made. I sent another to your Grace from Dunblane, with the reasons of my leaving Edinburgh. I know not if it be come to your hands.’

It is hardly probable that Dundee seriously expected Hamilton and the Convention to be influenced in the course they were bent on adopting by a letter which, as regarded the past, contained little or nothing but what they had heard already, and which in respect to the future, bound the writer for a very limited period, in consideration of purely private and domestic, and not of political circumstances, except, perhaps, the circumstance that the instructions without which he was not to venture on any act of open hostility had not yet come from Ireland.

He cannot have been greatly surprised to learn that on the 30th of March he had formerly been declared a traitor.

Within less than a fortnight there occurred an incident which supplied Hamilton not only with a justification of the action he had taken, but also with a reason for adopting further measures against Dundee. The Viscount’s commissions as Lieutenant-General and Commander-in-Chief in Scotland had been dispatched from Ireland. They were accompanied with letters from Melfort to both Dundee and Balcarres. To the former he wrote, ‘You will ask, no doubt, how we shall be able to pay our armies: but can you ask such a question while our enemies, the rebels, have estates to be forfeited? We will begin with the great, and end with the small ones.’ The same sentiments were expressed in even stronger terms in his letter to the latter. ‘The estates of the rebels will recompense us. You know there were several Lords whom we marked out, when you and I were together, who deserved no better fates; these will serve as examples to others.’ According to Balcarres, he added the senseless threat, ‘when we get the power we will make these men hewers of wood and drawers of water.’ Whether by the folly or the knavery of the bearer of them, these compromising documents fell into the hands of Hamilton. He communicated them to the Convention. When they had been read, he rose and cried out in an impetuous voice, ‘You hear, you hear, my Lords and Gentlemen, our sentence pronounced. We must take our choice, to die, or to defend ourselves.’

The President had not waited for the decision of the Assembly. In virtue of the power given him at an earlier meeting, to imprison whomsoever he suspected to be acting against the common interest, he had sent a hundred men of the Earl of Leven’s regiment into Fifeshire, and a like number into Forfarshire, to apprehend the two noblemen. Balcarres had already been brought back to Edinburgh and cast into prison. The knowledge that Dundee still had a number of his old troopers with him, did not help to stimulate the zeal of those to whom the duty of effecting his capture had been committed. Moreover, there lay between him and them two rivers, which necessitated a circuitous march. There had, consequently, been ample time for him to be informed of their approach; and when they reach Dudhope, they learnt that their errand would be fruitless. Taking what was destined to be a last farewell of his wife and of his infant son, he retired towards the north.

But his retreat was not a flight. One of those who sallied forth with him, has described in scholarly Latin hexameters, how the gallant Graham mounted on his charger, brilliant in scarlet, in the face of the town, drew out in long line his band of brave youths, all mounted and in bright armour; how, on the very top of the Law of Dundee, he unfurled the royal banner for the Northern war; and how he triumphantly led the little troop of those who dared stand for the King in his misfortunes, over the lofty ridges of the Seidlaws, by Balmuir and Tealing, to his wife’s jointure-house, in Glen Ogilvy. There he remained three days; and Sir Thomas Livingstone, with his hundred men, marched after him, in the hope of being able to take him by surprise. But, ‘though very well and secretly led on,’ he was again too late. He returned to Dundee, whence he sent information of ‘his mislucked design’ to Mackay, whom William had appointed to the supreme command of the troops sent to Scotland, and where he was told to await the arrival of the General himself.

In the meantime, Dundee, who, at his interview with Lochiel’s son-in-law, had been assured that as soon as he could get a body of troops together, the clans ‘would risk their lives and fortunes under his command, and in King James’s service,’ was riding through the Highlands in the hope of enlisting recruits for the Stuart cause. From Dudhope, he had proceeded due north, through Glen Ogilvy, to the ‘bare town’ of Kirriemuir. Then crossing the Esk at the North Water Bridge, climbing the rugged heights of the Cairn-o’-Mount, and fording the Dee, he reached Kincardine O’Neil. By the 21st of April he was north of the Don, at Keith, where he made a brief halt, utilised for the purpose of attempting negotiations with Lord Murray. His next halting-place was Elgin, on the other side of the Spey, where the hospitality accorded him brought down the anger of the Convention on Provost Stewart and two of his bailies. Forres was the term of the rapid dash to the north, and there the little band again rested for a brief space.

During his progress through the Highland provinces, Dundee had not omitted the precaution of keeping up communication with the south; and he had received from his wife important information in accordance with which he at once devised a scheme of action. General Mackay was now in Scotland. On reaching Edinburgh he had received orders to march the forces which he had brought with him, and which consisted of three or four regiments of foot, and one of horse, besides Sir Thomas Livingstone’s dragoons, against Lord Dundee. Leaving Sir John Lanier to carry on the siege of the Castle, he hastened across the Tay to the town of Dundee, where he halted for a night or two.

Amongst the officers of the Scotch dragoons there were some who had not forgotten their old chief, and who were ready to avail themselves of any favourable opportunity that occurred to join themselves to him. One of them was William Livingstone, a relative of the Colonel’s. Captain Creichton, who had served with Claverhouse in the west, was another. It was arranged between them to enter into communication with Lady Dundee; and it was Creichton who undertook to act as messenger. Making his way to Dudhope privately and by night, he assured the Viscountess that the regiment in which he served would be at her husband’s command, as soon as he pleased to give the word. This acceptable news was dispatched north. Creichton, who did not belong to either of the two troops that were left in Dundee, but had been obliged to follow Mackay into the Highlands, received a reply to the effect that Dundee had written to James to send him two thousand foot and one thousand horse out of Ireland, and that, as soon as those forces had arrived, he would expect his friends to join him with the dragoons.

In the hope of securing this important and welcome reinforcement, he resolved to make his way south, towards Dundee, where a part of the regiment was stationed. An intercepted despatch from Mackay to the Master of Forbes having given him some information as to the plan by which it was intended to check his movements, he waited at the Cairn-o’-Mount till the General was within eight miles of him, near Fettercairn. Understanding that it would be unsafe to advance further, in view of the dispositions that had been taken to surround him, he turned back again to Castle Gordon, where the Earl of Dunfermline joined him with forty or fifty gentlemen.

It appears to have been from Castle Gordon that Dundee dispatched a messenger to Lochiel to inform him of the situation. After consultation amongst the neighbouring Highland chiefs, it was decided that a detachment of eight hundred men, under Macdonald of Keppoch, should be sent to escort him into Lochaber. But Keppoch, whom the poetical chronicler describes as a man whom love of plunder would impel to any crime, had his own ends to serve. He was at feud with the Macintosh, and the town of Inverness had taken sides with the Macintosh. Instead of marching to meet Dundee, he led his forces against the town, from the magistrates of which he extorted the promise of a ransom of four thousand merks. The hasty arrival of Dundee, to whom information of Keppoch’s outrageous conduct had been conveyed, put an end to this state of siege. But the weakness of his following obliged him to adopt a conciliatory policy towards the freebooter. He assured the magistrates, who appealed to him, that Keppoch had no warrant from him to be in arms, much less to plunder. Beyond that, however, he could only give his bond that, at the King’s return, the money exacted by Keppoch should be made good. Having so far humoured the plundering laird, Dundee depended on his help to engage Mackay. But Keppoch, to whom honour and glory meant little, and for whom booty was everything, found various reasons for refusing his co-operation; whilst his followers declared that they could do nothing without the consent of their master. Their object was, in reality, to add to their spoil, by harrying the country, and to retire with it to their mountain fastnesses.

Dundee was sorely disappointed at this untoward incident. So fully did he expect to be joined by Keppoch’s men that he had already written to the magistrates of Elgin to prepare quarters for nine hundred or a thousand Highlanders besides his own cavalry. And now, instead of turning round on his pursuer, he was obliged to make his way through Stratherrick to Invergarry and Kilcummin, and thence into the wilds of Badenoch. Throughout this march, Dundee did not relax his efforts to enlist recruits, and he succeeded in engaging the greater part of the men of note to be ready at call to join in his master’s service. Feeling that he might now depend on the active co-operation of the Highland chiefs, about the sixth or seventh of May, from the isolated farm of Presmukerach, in a secluded district between Cluny and Dalwhinnie, he issued a royal letter, calling upon the clans to meet him in Lochaber on the eighteenth of the month.

In the meantime, however, it was not Dundee’s intention to remain idle. On the 9th of May, he was at Blair. Thence he advanced next day to Dunkeld, where, coming unexpectedly upon an agent of the new Government, who, with the help of the military, had been gathering the revenues of the district, he relieved him of the money, and secured the arms of his escort. This was but an incident. The real object of the raid was seventeen miles further. Dundee had received information that William Blair of Blair, and his lieutenant Pollock were raising a troop in the county of Perth, for the new Government; and he had resolved to interfere with their recruiting. Leaving Dunkeld in the middle of the night, he was at Perth by two o’clock in the morning, with seventy followers. No attack was expected, and no resistance was offered. Blair and Pollock were taken prisoners in their beds; and several officers of the new levies were also captured. Secure from surprise, the invading troopers carried out their work deliberately and thoroughly; and when they retired, about eleven o’clock next morning, the spoil they took with them included arms, gunpowder, public-money, and forty horses. It is said that, on being brought before Dundee, Blair had protested with some indignation against the treatment to which he had been subjected, and that the Viscount had curtly replied, ‘You take prisoners for the Prince of Orange, and we take prisoners for King James, and there’s an end of it.’

From Perth, Dundee retired to Scone, where an unwilling host, the Viscount of Stormont, was obliged to accord him the hospitality of a dinner. Knowing what pains and penalties were incurred by holding intercourse with one who had been outlawed as a traitor and a rebel, Stormont lost no time in informing the President of the Convention of the untoward incident. But although he urged the excuses that the dinner had been forced from him, and that his ‘intercommuning’ had been wholly involuntary, the Committee was not satisfied. Stormont, together with his uncle and his father-in-law, who happened to be staying with him at the time, was subsequently put to considerable trouble for the delinquency of having been compelled to entertain the unbidden and unwelcome guest.

Dundee had not forgotten the errand on which he had originally started from the north, but which Mackay’s advance had obliged him to abandon for a time. By way of Cargill, Cupar-Augus, and Meigle, he worked his way round to Glamis, within less than twenty miles of Dundee. He utilised the circuitous march by detaching some of his troopers to collect revenues, in the name of the King, from the neighbouring villages; and not less acceptable than the money thus brought in, was the accession of half a score of volunteers amongst whom were Hallyburton, Fullerton, and a third whose is variously given as Venton, Fenton, and Renton. But even with these added to it, the little force with which he re-entered Glen Ogilvy did not amount to more than eighty.

In the afternoon of the 13th of May, the inhabitants of Dundee were startled by the alarming intelligence that an armed force was advancing over the Seidlaws to attack them. Hardly had they completed a rough and hasty preparation for defence by barring the gates and barricading the streets, when the redoubted leader appeared on the summit of the Law, of which his troopers held the base and the declivities. What the scared citizens took for a serious attack was merely a demonstration, devised for the purpose of affording the friendly dragoons an opportunity of effecting a junction with Dundee. William Livingstone appears to have understood the hint; for, according to the poetical chronicle of James Philip of Almerieclose, he endeavoured to head a feigned sortie at the head of the dragoons and of three hundred citizens whom he had enlisted for the Jacobite cause. But, by some means, of which there is no record, Captain Balfour, who was a staunch partisan of the new Government, succeeded in frustrating the attempt.

At nightfall Dundee retired to Glen Ogilvy, without the reinforcement which he had hoped to secure. All that he was able to take back with him as the result of his raid consisted in three hundred pounds of cess and excise, which he succeeded in seizing, and the baggage of a camp which lay outside the town, and which had been hastily abandoned at his approach. By the other side, this demonstration was looked upon as a daring attack. In the excitement which the news of it caused on reaching Edinburgh, the Convention gave orders that six firkins of powder should be sent from Bo’ness to Dundee, and that Hastings’s infantry, and Berkley’s horse should reinforce the garrison. Urgent despatches were also forwarded to Mackay, in Inverness, and brought less welcome than trustworthy information as to the movements of the man in pursuit of whom he was supposed to be.