Montrose had returned to Scotland at a critical time. Eleven years earlier, while he was still reading Seneca with his tutor at Glasgow, the heralds had proclaimed from the city-cross at Edinburgh a royal edict destined to set not Scotland only but the whole kingdom in a blaze. By the Act of Revocation, as it was called, Charles, before he had been a year upon his throne, succeeded in doing what his father through nearly forty years of meddling had been careful to leave undone. The blast of his heralds' trumpets had woke to life again that long feud between the Crown and the aristocracy which had marked the course of Scottish history during the two previous centuries, but which had been gradually declining since Murray scattered his sister's power to the winds at Langside.

It would be hard, at this distance of time and without his excuse, to say in our haste with Knox that there was not one righteous man among the Lords of the Congregation who had assisted him to establish the reformed religion in Scotland; but it is certain that the large majority looked only to the fat revenues of the old Church, and remembered only her insolence in the day of her power. For a century and a half she had been enriched and strengthened by successive sovereigns as a bulwark against the fiercest and most independent aristocracy in Europe. Under James the Fifth her haughty and dissolute prelates had filled the highest offices of State, while the nobles were despoiled, imprisoned, and banished at their will. The hour of reckoning had now come, and it was to be exacted to the uttermost farthing. But though the reformers were allowed to indulge their pious zeal unchecked in the work of destruction, they were soon made aware that their dangerous allies had no mind to see a new ecclesiastical tyranny set up in the place of the old one. Within less than a year of the establishment of the reformed religion the greater part of the estates of the Catholic Church (estimated at rather more than one-third of the whole wealth of the kingdom) had passed by various and mostly violent ways into the hands of the aristocracy. This was their paramount idea of the Reformation, an idea by which they were determined to stand fast, though all the pulpits in the kingdom should cry shame on them. Murray and Morton, those strong sons of Zeruiah, treated the arguments and the anger of Knox with the same contemptuous indifference, while the astute and mocking Maitland laughed in his face at his scheme of Church government as at "a devout imagination." A miserable pittance doled out of the share of the plunder allotted to the Crown was all that the great Reformer could secure for the maintenance of his new Church. Well might he cry, in the bitterness of his disappointment, "I see two parts freely given to the devil, and the third must be divided betwixt God and the devil." During Mary's short reign, and under the regents who succeeded her, the wealth and influence of the nobles had risen still higher at the expense of the Crown when not at the expense of the Church. James, on attaining his majority, had indeed done something to better the position of the former, and when more firmly seated on his throne he had done something to better the position of the latter. But, in his own homely phraseology, he knew the stomach of his people too well to put a high hand to these delicate matters. His Act of Annexation only applied to so much of the old Church lands as still remained unalienated, while it practically gave the sanction of Parliament to the titles of those on which the nobles had already laid arbitrary hands. Even of the property then resumed to the Crown he made throughout his reign many and large grants to his favourites. The tithes he did not touch, and it was by the tithes that his son's offence was to come. However much, therefore, he might exasperate the Presbyterian clergy by his Episcopalian proclivities, so long as he left the nobles' property alone he was safe. They had no particular dislike either to the office or style of bishop. With modified powers and under another name bishops had indeed formed a part of Knox's original polity; and so far as they tended to keep the clergy in order and confine them to their proper business, their restoration was not unwelcome to a considerable body outside the Church, and even to some of the less pugnacious spirits within it. All the nobles took thought for was to prevent the creation of a new spiritual aristocracy, that might come in time to be as rich and powerful as the old Catholic hierarchy they had crushed and despoiled. And of that, so long as they retained the mastery of the funds which alone could make such an aristocracy possible, they had little fear. Probably at no period since the accession of James the First had there been such peace between a Scottish king and his nobles as there was while James the Sixth sat on the English throne.

By the Act of Revocation the scene was changed in a moment. The purpose of the Act was indeed both just and politic. Those writers who will allow no virtue in Charles may claim that his real design was but to increase the revenue and the prerogative of the Crown, and to provide funds for the complete restoration of Episcopacy in Scotland, without any thought for the interests of his oppressed subjects. But his own revenues were not increased; the prerogative of the Crown was strengthened only against an unruly and grasping aristocracy; the oppressed were relieved from a grinding tyranny equal to the worst exercise of the old feudal lordship. The right of tithe, where tithe was levied in kind, gave those who held it absolute power over those who had to pay it. It placed the small landowners and farmers, who were now gradually forming in Scotland a middle class analogous to the English yeomen, at the mercy of men who were, to say the least, not famous for exercising it. The Catholic clergy, it was declared, had been hard masters, but the little fingers of the Protestant nobles were thicker than the loins of the Catholic clergy. The tenant could not gather his harvest until the landlord had taken his tithe; and the landlord took his tithe when it pleased him, regardless of the interest or convenience of the tenant. It is not to be supposed that all landlords pushed their rights to extremities, but it is certain that there was much harsh dealing and much distress. The bare existence of such rights, moreover, was subversive of the very essence of the Constitution. They gave one class of the community despotic authority over another class, and both Crown and Parliament were as powerless to protect the latter as it was to protect itself. The duties of the sovereign, no less than the liberty of the subject, made a change imperative.

But as usual Charles began unwisely. All Church property held by laymen, in tithe or land, was to be resumed to the Crown on the ground of illegalities in the original concession. The opposition was of course immediate and violent. It was headed by the Chancellor himself, Sir George Hay, afterwards Earl of Kinnoull, an irritable, obstinate old man, and included the greater part of the Privy Council. A deputation was sent to remonstrate with the King; reports were industriously circulated among the people that it was their religion he was really aiming at; his commissioner for carrying out the revocation was threatened with violence. For once Charles was wise with a good grace. The obnoxious Act was withdrawn and a commission known as the Commission of Surrender of Superiorities and Tithes issued in its stead. The terms on which the commissioners were empowered to treat are now unanimously allowed to have been as conciliatory and liberal as was compatible with the redress of a grievance to which sixty years of sufferance had perhaps given some title of respect. Lord Napier was one of the commissioners, and has recorded his emphatic opinion of the wisdom and justice of the scheme. He has also recorded not less emphatically the factious and dishonest nature of an opposition which was still, though less openly, maintained by the discontented nobles.[4] Simultaneously with this commission a proclamation was issued exempting from their operation all ministers who had been ordained before the Articles of Perth became law, and granting a general amnesty to all who were suffering from their transgression.

Had Charles been content to stop here, Scotland at least could have had no quarrel with him. Even the nobles, when the first heat of their discontent had cooled, must have recognised that their property, though slightly diminished, was now secured to them by an inalienable title, and would be no longer a source of danger to themselves or to the kingdom. The tithe-payers were freed from an unjust and oppressive burden. The clergy were secured both in the receipt of their income and in what the most tolerant of them at any rate considered the reasonable exercise of their conscience. Could the King go on as he had begun, he was likely to prove the strongest and most popular ruler Scotland had known since his ancestor fell at Flodden. But when any part of the body politic is sick it needs a wise and vigorous physician to keep the infection from spreading. There was a dangerous sickness rife in England, and it was not in the interests of those who had determined on the cure to see it wrought by other means. If one-half of the kingdom were sound, it could be used as an effectual cure for the unsound half. The discontent in Scotland was therefore assiduously fomented from England; and the unfortunate King, neither wise nor vigorous himself, had in Laud an adviser whose vigour was rarely on the side of wisdom.

Meanwhile the nobles waited. Though they could harass and delay the Tithes Commission, they were powerless to resist it seriously. The constitution of the Scottish Parliament rendered all opposition to the Crown practically useless unless it was unanimous; and they knew well that the general sympathies of the nation, lay and cleric alike, were in this case on the side of the King. But they knew also that if he made one step more along the dangerous path of religious innovation their time would come. The concession in the matter of the Articles of Perth, and the relief to be obtained from the resettlement of the tithes, had not laid the suspicions of the clergy to sleep. They, too, like the nobles, were waiting, and, unlike the nobles, their religion was more to them than lands, and houses, and goods. The Protestantism of the Presbyterian was sensitive above that of all other Protestants, and there went along with it a deep-rooted national jealousy of English interference. Even those who had no aversion to a moderate form of Episcopacy, and were heartily disgusted with the intolerance and pugnacity of the extreme Presbyterians, thought that it would be best to let well alone, and that any further innovation would be impolitic and dangerous. But all parties had a very shrewd suspicion, which the English malcontents took care to keep alive, that the King would not be content to leave well alone, and that there would soon be further innovations. Then would come the time of the nobles. When dissatisfied men gather together they do not pause to ask the nature of each other's dissatisfaction. The cave of Adullam was the rallying-ground of every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented.

They had not long to wait. In the summer of 1633 Charles came to Scotland to be crowned, and Laud came with him. He entered Edinburgh on June 15th, and on the 18th the mischief began. The ceremonies of the coronation confirmed the worst suspicions. A table decked in the fashion of an altar was set up in the chapel of Holyrood; behind it was hung a curtain of tapestry enwrought with a crucifix; the bishops engaged in the service wore white rochets and copes embroidered with gold, and each time they passed before the crucifix they bowed their heads. Even the most loyal whispered to each other that it all smelled sadly of Popery. The Tithes Bill was of course passed, but not without an unseemly wrangle between Charles and his Parliament, over which the Scottish law allowed the sovereign to preside in person. Through the year following the King's return to England affairs grew steadily worse. The creation of a see of Edinburgh, the appointment of Archbishop Spottiswoode to the Chancellorship, and of many of his bishops to the Privy Council,—a step odious to all the aristocracy alike, to the tolerant and loyal Napier no less than to the mutinous Loudon,—the Book of Ecclesiastical Canons, the foolish prosecution of Lord Balmerino, all inflamed the rising temper of a nation jealous above all other nations of established customs, and that had ever shown itself quick to dispute the divine right of its kings to do wrong. Last of all, as a torch to this fatal pyre, came Laud's new prayer-book.

Everything, then, was ready for the explosion when Montrose returned to Scotland in 1636. Which side was a young man of his rank, position, and temper likely to take in the approaching conflict? That question has been variously answered, and is still, if no longer the object of controversy, at least a stumbling-block to many who regard him as the Abdiel of that faithless time. That his character should have in some degree suffered from a contrast which all can discern, and few have been at the pains to examine, was inevitable. Between the champion of the Throne who sealed his loyalty with his life and the leader of men in arms against their sovereign, there must surely be a gulf which no explanation or apology can bridge.

Both in joining and leaving the party of the Covenant Montrose has been represented as influenced solely by wounded vanity. Disappointed by the coldness of his first reception at court, he flung himself into the arms of the Covenanters; disappointed by the ascendency of Argyll in their councils, he flung himself into the arms of the Cavaliers. On the other hand, his action has in both cases been represented as the result of one uniform policy. After long and careful deliberation he formed the conclusion, which was sanctioned if not actually recommended by the most trusted of his friends, the wise and impartial Napier, that the Covenant of 1638 was, in the spirit in which he interpreted it and believed it to have been framed, the one and only plan for redressing the grievances of the Scottish nation without violating the lawful prerogative of the Crown. So long as he believed this to be the true purpose and scope of the movement, so long did he honestly endeavour to advance it. When he found that other counsels were prevailing, and that the constitutional authority of the Crown was to give place to the self-appointed authority of a handful of its subjects—when he found, in short, that the Covenant of 1638 was ripening into the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643—he at once transferred his allegiance to the King, whose best interests as the appointed and hereditary ruler of his country he had always desired to serve, and had hitherto believed himself to be serving. The truth, as usual, lies somewhere between the two extremes; and this can surely be allowed without casting any stain upon the good faith of Montrose.

Peter Heylin, the chaplain and biographer of Laud, has told a story which was certainly believed in his time and has been generally accepted down to our own. According to this story, Montrose on his return from his travels had hastened to pay his respects to the King. Charles was never slow to welcome to his court young gentlemen of good position and repute; Montrose especially, the head of one powerful family and allied by marriage with two others on which the royal favour had already been signally bestowed, young, gifted, eager for distinction, was surely justified in anticipating a gracious reception. To his surprise and chagrin the King received him with marked coldness, spoke a few formal words, gave his hand to be kissed, and then turned away to converse with his courtiers.

This rebuff is attributed by Heylin to the intrigues of Hamilton. James, Marquis of Hamilton, was then some six years older than Montrose. From boyhood he had been about the person of Charles, and was now in his most intimate confidence. Few liked him, and fewer still trusted him; but with the unfortunate King he was all-powerful, especially in matters of Scottish policy, on which at this time he alone was consulted. He had done nothing, that any one could discover, to merit this position. A few years before this date he had led a body of troops to the assistance of Gustavus Adolphus, but had reaped no laurels in that service, though on his return he discoursed so learnedly on the art of war that he persuaded some people to take him for a great soldier, just as by his grave look and reserved manner he persuaded some to take him for a great statesman. He was not without parts and knowledge of affairs, but incurably shifty; and though never convicted of downright treachery, was perhaps only saved from it by his inability to be downright in anything. None of all Charles's evil counsellors, not even the Queen herself, wrought more mischief; and of him, if of any man, it may be said that nothing in his life became him so well as his leaving it.

To this dangerous man Montrose had been advised to pay his court. Hamilton received him with every appearance of cordiality, but had no mind to introduce so likely a rival into his master's good graces. He therefore warned Montrose that the King was at that time much prejudiced against Scotsmen, adding that only his love for his country and his hopes to serve her enabled him to endure the indignities to which he was daily subjected. At the same time he warned the King that Montrose was a dangerous young man, very ambitious, very powerful and popular in Scotland, and not unlikely in the event of any national rising to be set up as king by virtue of an old strain of royal blood in his family. This last insinuation would not fall on deaf ears. Hamilton, indeed, had himself been accused of a similar design, for which his descent from a daughter of James the Second, who had married the first Lord Hamilton, gave at least as much colour as any that Montrose's pedigree could supply; and though Charles had refused to listen to the accusation, and was probably right in refusing, many people still remembered it, and some in Scotland at any rate believed it. Moreover, there was a member of the House of Graham whose claims to the Scottish crown had lately been the subject of much wild talk. This was William Graham, Earl of Airth and Menteith, a man of considerable ability who had filled places of high trust in Scotland, and had been allowed by Charles to resume the older earldom of Stratherne, which had been cancelled two centuries ago in consequence of its inconvenient relations with royalty. It is unnecessary to entangle ourselves in the intricate mazes of Scottish genealogy. It will be enough to say that the question turned on the legitimacy of Robert the Second's children by his first wife, Elizabeth Mure, from whom Charles was descended. Menteith came from the children of the second wife, Euphemia Ross, about whose birth there could be no question. All through the two centuries there had lurked a doubt, sure to be revived whenever the sovereign was in bad favour with his quarrelsome subjects, that the progeny of Euphemia were the genuine Stuarts. Menteith, egged on by some unscrupulous men, of whom in these years there was never any lack among the Scottish aristocracy, had talked foolishly about his red blood and his "cousin Charles," and cousin Charles had heard of it. His indiscreet kinsman got a sharp lesson to keep that unruly tongue of his quiet. He was stripped not only of all his offices, but of his titles as well; and though he was almost immediately afterwards re-admitted into the peerage as Earl of Airth and Menteith, the dangerous title of Stratherne became a thing of the past for ever, and nothing more was heard of "Elizabeth Mure's bastard." It can easily then be understood how Hamilton's hint would be enough to make Charles look coldly on another of these troublesome Grahams.

This story of Hamilton's mischief has been told twice by Heylin, with the addition that Montrose subsequently alleged it to the King as the cause of his early defection. Heylin was indebted, he says, to Napier for much information on Scottish affairs, and a man who had talked much with Napier was not unlikely to hear something of his well-loved brother-in-law. There is no other authority for supposing that Montrose ever made such a confession. It is not impossible that he may have done so at Oxford when trying to convince the King of Hamilton's treachery. Clarendon makes no mention of it in his account of the charges then brought against the favourite, nor does Burnet, who sets out the charges in full and the answers to them. The latter alludes more than once to the enmity known to exist between the two men, attributing it to Montrose's suspicion that it was Hamilton who had betrayed to the Covenanters his secret correspondence with Charles. But there was common talk of bad blood between them before that date. Montrose could have had no suspicion at the time of the ill turn Hamilton had played him, or he would certainly have endeavoured to set himself right with his sovereign. From a story told in the appendix to the Hamilton Papers, it would appear that he attributed his kinsman of Menteith's disgrace to the favourite's jealousy. It is clear at any rate that they bore no goodwill to each other from the first, as indeed was natural enough, considering the temper of the times and of the two men. Both were young and both ambitious. Hamilton was cold, cunning, and jealous; Montrose was eager and impetuous, and jealous too, though in a more open and generous fashion. When flint and steel come together the sparks are apt to fly.

Those who discredit this story do so on the ground that it discredits Montrose. Had he gone straight from the King into the arms of the malcontents, their argument might be good. But he did not. His interview with Charles took place some time in 1636, and it was not till the end of the following year that he first publicly ranged himself against the Court party. According to Robert Baillie, assuredly no mean authority in these matters, it was the "canniness," or cunning, of Rothes that won Montrose over, though the latter assigned that doubtful honour to Robert Murray, one of the reverend agitators deputed to beat up for recruits to the Covenant in the counties of Perth and Stirling. Rothes, with Loudon and Balmerino, had been in the forefront of the opposition from its beginning; and it is said that Charles had been unwise enough to put a public affront on him in Scotland. He was a clever man, of dissolute life but good appearance and manners; his religion he could put on and off like his gloves; "no man could appear more conscientiously transported when the part he was to act required it," says Clarendon, who also calls him "the chief architect of the whole machine." The Covenant was not publicly produced for signature till early in 1638; but ever since that memorable Sunday in the summer of the previous year, when the reading of the new prayer-book in St. Giles's Church had been interrupted by an organised tumult of serving-women, various supplications and remonstrances had been forwarded to the King, and various meetings held among the disaffected nobles, clergymen, and others, from which finally sprang the famous Covenant. At one of these meetings, held in November 1637, Montrose made his first public appearance on the side of the malcontents.

It is clear, therefore, that he had ample time for reflection, and that what he did could not at least have been done in the heat of an angry moment. Those who reject the idea that he was seduced against his better judgment by the arguments of Rothes or any other agitator, lay great stress on the probability of his having been guided by the advice of Napier. That he and Napier must have talked much over the evil time they saw coming may be taken for granted. It is certain too that Napier was as honest and loyal as he was sagacious. He was a true King's man, but in the constitutional, not in the absolute sense of the old phrase; an upholder of the monarchy, but of a monarchy ruling according to the established laws of the country. He was of no faction. He sympathised with all that was genuine, and, according to the theories of the Scottish nation, lawful in the Covenant; but, and it is important to remember this, he would not sign it. The Covenant of 1638 professed to be no more than a renewal of the old Covenant, or King's Confession as it was sometimes called, of 1580-81, which had itself been renewed in 1588, when the fear of the Spaniard was over all the land. But it contained some notable additions. The office of bishops and the promotion of churchmen to civil power were declared to have no scriptural warrant, to be contrary both to the letter and spirit of the original Covenant, which had been subscribed by King James as well as by his subjects, to tend to the re-establishment of Popery, and, in short, to be dangerous to the religion, laws, and liberties of the nation, and no less so to the King's honour. Their loyalty the subscribers to this new bond declared to be unimpeachable, whatever "foul aspersions of rebellion or combination" might be alleged against them by their adversaries. The King's authority was so closely joined with the true worship of God that they must stand or fall together; and as they repudiated all design of doing anything that might turn to the dishonour of God, so did they repudiate all design of doing anything that might turn to the diminution of the King's greatness or authority. "We shall," they swore, "to the uttermost of our power, with our means and lives, stand to the defence of our dread sovereign the King's majesty, his person and authority, in defence and preservation of the foresaid true religion, liberties, and laws of the kingdom; as also to the mutual defence and assistance every one of us of another, in the same cause of maintaining the true religion and his majesty's authority with our best counsel, our bodies, means, and whole power, against all sorts of persons whatsoever; so that whatsoever shall be done to the least of us for that cause, shall be taken as done to us all in general, and to every one of us in particular." This document was the work of Archibald Johnstone of Warriston, a clever, unscrupulous lawyer, and Alexander Henderson, a Presbyterian minister of more learning and temper than most of his party. It was subsequently revised by Rothes, Balmerino, and Loudon, and so took its place in Scottish history as the Covenant of 1638. In all that related to the appointment of churchmen to civil power Napier must have heartily agreed. He had been bred, as Montrose had been bred, in the reformed religion, and was, as Montrose was, a sincere though not intolerant Presbyterian. To a moderate form of Episcopacy, which should be confined strictly to the economy of the Church, he possibly entertained, as many good Presbyterians from the days of Knox had entertained, no aversion. "Bishops," Montrose declared with almost his last breath, "I care not for them. I never intended to advance their interests." That was probably Napier's attitude to them. It did not seem to him a very terrible thing that one clergyman should have the power of regulating the conduct and prescribing the duties of another, whether he was called Bishop or Moderator. But that a clergyman should be entrusted with civil power he thought dangerous to all parties, to King, Church, and State. There still exists in his handwriting a paper bearing emphatic witness to his sentiments on this head.[5] "That churchmen have competency," it begins, "is agreeable to the law of God and man. But to invest them into great estates and principal offices of the State, is neither convenient for the Church, for the King, nor for the State. Not for the Church, for the indiscreet zeal and excessive donations of princes were the first causes of corruption in the Roman Church, the taste whereof did so inflame the avarice and ambition of the successors that they have raised themselves above all secular and sovereign power, and to maintain the same have attended to the world certain devices of their own for matters of faith. Not to Kings nor States, for histories witness what troubles have been raised to Kings, what tragedies among subjects, in all places where churchmen were great. Our reformed Churches, having reduced religion to the ancient primitive truth and simplicity, ought to beware that corruption enter not in their Church at the same gate, which already is open, with store of attendants thereat to welcome it with pomp and ceremony." Nor was he likely to dispute the theory that resistance to innovations dangerous to the peace of the kingdom was compatible with loyalty to the King, and that to preserve the safety of the one was in effect to preserve the authority of the other. "For a King and his people," he wrote, "make up one political body, whereof the King is the head. In a politic as in a natural body what is good or ill for one is so for both, neither can the one subsist without the other, but must go to ruin with the other." Holding these views, and, according to one idea, approving if not actually recommending his brother-in-law's subscription to the Covenant, why, it may be asked, did not Napier himself subscribe it? The answer may perhaps be found in another extract from the same document: "They who are pressed with necessity at home are glad of any occasion or pretext to trouble the public quiet, and to fish in troubled waters to better their fortunes." The snare which lured his young hot-headed relative was spread in vain for the old and cautious Napier. A true Covenanter Montrose called him before the Assembly at Glasgow. He was so; he was too true to the spirit of the real Covenant to be caught by its specious copy; too true a Covenanter to trust himself or his conscience to such keepers as Rothes, Loudon, and Balmerino. A man of his experience in affairs, nor less experienced in the temper of his own countrymen and of the King, cannot but have had a shrewd suspicion whither such a movement under such guides must inevitably tend. It may then be asked why he did not use his influence to dissuade his relative from a partnership he was too prudent himself to join? We do not know that he did not. We know nothing, save that he did not sign the Covenant and that Montrose did. But it is not unreasonable in the circumstances to suppose that his advice may have been given that way, and given in vain. At no time of his life was Montrose easy to persuade against his own feelings. Confident in his own abilities, conscious of his own integrity, why may he not have thought that in him the Covenant would find a leader able to counteract the selfish view of those who were merely troubling the waters to better their own fortune, persuasive enough to guide it into the way it should go, and strong enough to keep it there? And perhaps Napier too believed him to be such a leader.

There remains then only to consider what share, if any, his alleged resentment at the King's behaviour may have had in determining his action. That he joined the Covenant to revenge himself on the King no one who has studied his character will believe, any more than they will believe that he joined the King to revenge himself on the Covenant. But is there anything unreasonable in believing that his resentment at behaviour for which he was conscious of having given no cause, and so much the reverse of what he had every right and reason to expect, may have rendered an ambitious and impulsive young man more amenable to the plausible arguments and misrepresentations of artful and interested counsellors? If the story of Hamilton's intrigue be true—and it is hard to believe there can have been no truth in it—Montrose had been instructed that the King was ill disposed to Scotland, and the Scots had received what he could not but consider a convincing proof of it. With his own eyes he had seen what the King's disposition was to the religion he had been bred in. Everything that had happened since his return to Scotland had unfortunately tended to confirm the original impression of his own reception and Hamilton's explanation of it. A young man of Montrose's disposition would in such a frame of mind be easy game for such cunning hunters as Rothes and his crew. There was nothing in the letter of the Covenant he signed incompatible with the peculiar nature of Scottish loyalty, which had never been of that patient, unquestioning, one might almost say unreasoning, nature which has sometimes marked the English loyalist. To save the country meant to save the King in spite of himself, in spite of those evil counsellors who stood ever at his ear to poison him against his Scottish subjects. It was an enchanting prospect for an ardent, aspiring young man who had fired his imagination with the romantic pages of Plutarch. "As Philip's noble son," he had written,

What greater or more heroic venture could there be than to preserve the religion, laws, and liberties of his country! Hamilton and the unconscious King between them had provided the hour; Rothes found the man.

It is true, therefore, to say that Montrose signed the Covenant deliberately and on reflection, and with the assurance that in so doing he was pledging himself only to a constitutional resistance against an illegal attempt to subvert the religion and liberties of his country, and in nowise combining to undermine and overthrow the lawful authority and prerogative of the Crown. But it is not therefore illogical to believe that various causes conspired to give him that assurance; and that among those causes the jealousy of Hamilton and the cunning of Rothes had their place together with the fanaticism of Laud and the folly of the King.