Only one town of importance now refused to acknowledge the new power. Aberdeen, then the second city in Scotland, rich, populous, learned, and loyal from the first, still turned a deaf ear alike to the promises and the threats of the Covenant. The citizens of Aberdeen were no bigoted followers of Laud. They held rather of the school of their late bishop, the wise and benevolent Forbes, content with things as they were, and suspicious of any change which threatened to interfere with their comfortable and studious independence. They desired, indeed, chiefly to be let alone; but not to be for the Covenant was to be against it, and there was, moreover, a particular reason why Aberdeen could not be suffered to remain neutral. It was the capital of that large district wherein the House of Gordon reigned supreme, as the House of Campbell was supreme in the West; and the Aberdeen burghers, whatever their religious opinions might be, could not but be the political allies of the House of Gordon. The old Marquis of Huntly had been always a favourite with James, who knew that the fiery old Papist if one of the most turbulent was also one of the most loyal of his subjects. His son George, who had lately succeeded him, had been brought up at Court with the young princes in the faith of the English Church, and had married a sister of Argyll. He had for some time commanded the Scottish Guard in France, and had served with distinction in the campaign against Austria; but the lavish state he had maintained as captain of that famous corps had plunged him deep into debt, and it was believed that he would listen to any proposal likely to relieve his desperate fortunes. Overtures had already been made to him from the Covenant on these conditions, and had been rejected. "My house," he said, "has risen by the Kings of Scotland, has ever stood for them, and with them shall fall, nor will I quit the path of my predecessors; and if the event be the ruin of my sovereign, then shall the rubbish that belongs to it bury beneath it all that belongs to mine." The spirit which prompted this gallant answer was sincere, but, as Charles and Montrose were both to find to their cost, it could not always rise superior to more selfish feelings. For the present he had been appointed Lieutenant for the King in the North, instructed to arm his men, and promised succours from England. But he had also been instructed to take his orders from Hamilton, and not to act without them; for the present he had merely to get ready, to stand on the defensive, and above all things to avoid any open act of hostility. Huntly knew well enough the futility of such orders. Not to move without Hamilton was to stay where he was till he was turned out by the Covenanters. Still there was nothing for him but to obey, and hold himself in readiness to join hands with the unwelcome ally who had been thrust upon him.

There was no time to be lost. The King was slowly assembling an army for the Borders, and the Covenanters could not march south with such an enemy in their rear. If Hamilton could effect a juncture with Huntly on the east coast, at the same time as the Irishry under Antrim and Strafford were landed on the west, it would go ill with the Covenanters. They had not been idle. The castles of Edinburgh, Dumbarton, and Dalkeith had been carried by surprise within a few hours of each other, and Mar could be trusted to hold Stirling safe. In the West the power of Hamilton and Douglas had been dealt a serious blow by the seizure of their strongholds in Arran and Clydesdale. Of all the fortresses in Scotland, Lord Nithsdale's Castle of Caerlaverock in Dumfriesshire was alone held for the King. From the Border to the North Sea the Covenant was supreme, save only in that dangerous district which called Huntly lord, and against the power of Huntly the arms of the Covenant were now turned.

The command was given to Montrose. His restless and enterprising spirit marked him for the work among men whose talents appeared to lie rather in debate than in the field. His own estates, moreover, lay near, and though his following was but a handful compared with Huntly's power, he would be more likely to gain recruits than an unknown leader. But Montrose was young, hot-headed, too fond, it was feared, of his own way, possibly also too punctilious. Some older man must go with him, more experienced in war and more accustomed also to obey, who, while nominally Montrose's lieutenant, might keep a watchful eye over him. The man for this purpose was found in Alexander Leslie, a cadet, though an illegitimate one, of the House of Rothes. Though a little man and deformed, Leslie had won fame and rank in the Thirty Years' War, where so many of his countrymen had been fighting for the Protestant cause under the great Gustavus. During a short visit to Scotland in the spring of 1638 Leslie had seen how the land lay. He had returned to Germany, but not for long. By the end of the year he was back again, with good news and better than news for the Covenanters. During his absence he had been recruiting for them among their countrymen who, like himself, had taken service under the Lion of the North, and collecting stores of military supplies. Some of these were intercepted by the English cruisers, but the most part found their way into Scotland, where Leslie was welcomed with open arms. He was soon appointed general of the Covenanting forces, and they could not have found a better man. Though without the military genius of his nephew David, he was as accomplished in all the mechanism of war as any man of his time, cool, sagacious, and certain never to be hurried into mischief by a misguided enthusiasm for any cause. King and Covenant were much the same to him; but fighting was his trade; the death of Gustavus had set him free to serve another flag; he was a Scotsman and a Protestant, above all a kinsman of Rothes, whose "canniness" was not likely to let so useful an ally go. Leslie was, in short, a favourable specimen of that class of soldier of fortune which the incomparable genius of Walter Scott has fixed for ever in the character of Dugald Dalgetty.

This was not Montrose's first visit to Aberdeen as an agent for the Covenant. He had been there in the previous summer, but in more peaceful guise. Instead of Leslie and a following of armed soldiers, he had been accompanied only by a few laymen of no particular importance, and the three apostles of the Covenant, Henderson, Dickson, and Cant. It was not a very fruitful visit. The ministers of Aberdeen would not give up their pulpits to the strangers, and the apostles had to deliver their doctrine from a gallery of the Earl Marischal's house, then occupied by his sister Lady Pitsligo, a staunch Puritan after the fashion of Hamilton's mother and of Montrose's own aunt Lady Wigton. Montrose was of course present, sitting at her ladyship's side, to the regret, doubtless, of many who recalled the different circumstances in which they had last seen him, when the bells rang in honour of the gallant young bridegroom who had just been elected a burgess of their loyal town. The apostles wisely chose the hours between the church services so as to make sure of an audience; and an audience they secured, but one not entirely to their taste. The respectful part listened with more curiosity than conviction, and not all were respectful. A few insignificant proselytes were gained, and a grievous insult was cast upon the good city. Aberdeen prided itself upon its hospitality, and when the provost and bailies heard that their young townsman was on the road to visit them, they prepared a collation in his honour and came to welcome him at his lodging. But Montrose treated them with scant ceremony, and refused to receive anything at their hands till they had subscribed the Covenant, an affront which had never before, they vowed, been put upon Aberdeen within the memory of man!

They prepared a different welcome now for the young Earl. The citizens were armed and drilled, guns mounted, trenches dug, and the town generally put into such a state of defence as was possible. Meanwhile Montrose was at his own place in Forfarshire, beating up for recruits. While there he heard that the few allies the Covenant could boast in that quarter were to meet at Turriff, a market-town on the borders of Banffshire, mostly gentry of the district, Frasers and Forbeses, who were jealous of the Gordons and ready to join any party against them. Huntly heard also of the meeting and resolved to disperse it. But Montrose was too quick for him. With one of those lightning dashes which were to be the secret of his successes against the Covenant, he now won the first point in the game for it. Taking with him barely two hundred of his own men, he hurried across the Grampians by the most unfrequented routes, and when Huntly at the head of two thousand men marched into Turriff he was greeted with a compact array of musket-barrels levelled at him across the wall of the little churchyard. His orders were explicit. He was not to proclaim his commission till the time came, and that mysterious moment was to be decided not by him but by Hamilton. Moreover he was to avoid all risk of bloodshed for the present. He knew Montrose would fight, and, though he was perhaps the better man for the moment, he knew also that Leslie was at hand with a force more than double his own. Had the positions of the two leaders been reversed there can be no doubt what Montrose would have done. But Huntly was not Montrose. He withdrew to Inverury, and disbanding the most part of his men left Aberdeen to its fate.

This was not so severe as probably the citizens had expected, and as certainly some of the Covenanters wished. A few days after the affair at Turriff, Montrose joined hands with Leslie and entered Aberdeen in triumph at the head of six thousand men, each of whom wore a blue scarf, or carried a knot of blue ribbons in his cap, in opposition to the royal scarlet which Huntly had taken for his colours. To condescend to the devices of these godless cavaliers shocked some of Montrose's solemn captains, but the young general was right. He knew the value of a distinctive symbol to warm men's hearts, especially the hearts of soldiers, and that it was none the worse for pleasing their eyes as well. The blue ribbons were at once popular, and Montrose's whimsies, as they were at first contemptuously called, soon became the recognised badge of the Covenanters.

There was no attempt at opposition. Disgusted at Huntly's defection, the most resolute spirits had left the city and sailed south to join the King. The rest could do nothing but accept the Covenant and trust to Montrose's mercy. He was not hard upon them. Having marched his men through the town he quartered them on the links outside, with strict injunctions to keep good order and to pay for all they consumed. The citizens were set to work at filling up the trenches they had dug and removing all traces of their improvised fortifications, and a fine of ten thousand marks was imposed on the town. Then, leaving behind him a garrison under the command of his college friend Lord Kinghorn, whom he named governor of the town, Montrose marched north after Huntly, who had retreated from Inverury to Gordon Castle in the Bog of Gicht.

Huntly was anxious to come to terms, and Montrose when left to himself had no wish to make them hard. The two men accordingly met by appointment near Inverury, each attended by eleven friends armed only with walking-swords. The two chiefs stepped aside to talk. What passed between them can only be conjectured, but after a long conference Huntly and his companions returned with Montrose to his camp at Inverury, where they were courteously received. Here Huntly signed a paper, known in the language of the time as a bond of maintenance, probably containing (for its exact terms were never made clear) those clauses of the Covenant which professed respect to the King's authority and a love for the national religion and liberties, pledging himself also not to interfere with any of his vassals who had a mind to mount the blue ribbon. Such of them as were Papists Montrose, on his part, promised to protect so long as they were willing to assist in maintaining the laws and liberties of their common fatherland. Huntly, however, who saw many of his personal enemies in the camp, Crichton of Frendraught in particular, the sworn foe of his House,[6] was doubtful how far this arrangement would be allowed to hold good. He employed one of his followers, therefore, to warn Montrose against evil counsellors who, he said, would be certain to work him all the mischief they could. Montrose answered that he was well aware that Huntly had many enemies among the Covenanters, but that he should not fail in any part of his word; "only," he added, "there is this difficulty, that business here is all transacted by a vote and a committee, nor can I get anything done of myself." He had already done so much, it was urged, that he might well go on with the rest. He was in command, and if he stood firm the others must give way. "I shall do my utmost for Huntly's satisfaction," was the answer, and with this assurance the Marquis and his friends were suffered to depart.

Their doubts were soon verified. Montrose returned to Aberdeen, where he was joined by Murray, Seaforth, the Master of Lovat, and other zealous Covenanters with a body of cavalry. Encouraged by these reinforcements, Huntly's enemies were soon at work. A council of war was held; it was agreed that the General had been too lenient with a dangerous man, and the Marquis was requested to repair to Aberdeen under a promise of safe conduct. How far Montrose was directly responsible for what followed it is hard to decide. That he had promised more than he was at the time confident of being able to perform is clear; but it is by no means so clear that he did not do his utmost to keep his promise, and it is unreasonable to brand him with treachery because he was not strong enough to carry the day single-handed against the vote and the committee. Yet though he may have meant to deal honestly with Huntly, when he found himself overborne in the council he certainly seems to have shown little hesitation in acting as the agent of those who had no such scruples. After a series of trifling and vexatious conditions had been offered and refused, it was intimated that the Marquis would do well to return with them to Edinburgh. Conscious that he was in a trap Huntly first asked that his bond should be restored to him. When this had been done, he asked if he was to go as a prisoner or as a free man. "Make your choice," said Montrose shortly. "Then," was the answer, "I will not go as a prisoner, but as a volunteer." Whatever share Montrose may have had in this double dealing he was destined to pay dear for it on a later day. The Marquis never really forgave him; and their subsequent alliance proved costlier to Montrose and to the King than their present enmity proved to Huntly.

Montrose marched south with his prize on April 13th, leaving Aberdeen in charge of a committee composed of the Gordons' bitterest foes. Immediately on his arrival at Edinburgh, Huntly was brought before the Tables and pressed to subscribe the Covenant. "You may take my head from my shoulders," was his answer, "but not my heart from my sovereign." He was at once sent as a prisoner to the Castle, with his heir Lord Gordon who had accompanied him from Aberdeen. His second son, Lord Aboyne, should also have been there, but he had been allowed by Montrose to return home on parole to procure money and other necessaries for the journey, and when safe within his own borders had easily been persuaded to break his word with men who had shown so little care of their own. The House of Gordon, said his kinsmen, could not be left without a head at such a crisis. Lord Lewis, the third son, was too young, and it devolved therefore on him to play his father's part, and to keep the King's flag flying in the midst of traitors and rebels.

Montrose reached Edinburgh on April 20th. On May 1st Hamilton anchored in the Firth of Forth with nineteen sail, five thousand men, and some munitions of war. He came too late. Leith had been fortified. Fife and the Lothians were in arms to a man. Among the crowds who thronged the shore to stare at the English fleet came the old Dowager Countess of Hamilton, riding on horseback, with pistols at her saddle, and vowing, in a spirit worthy of her ancestor, the grim old Reforming Earl of Glencairn, to shoot her son dead with her own hand should he dare to set a hostile foot on Scottish soil. A stouter heart than Hamilton's might well have shrunk from the prospect before him. His men were raw English peasants, without drill or discipline and careless of the cause for which they had been armed with weapons of whose use they were ignorant. Opposed to them was a people as well equipped and better officered, inflamed with the belief that their religion and liberties were at stake, and resolute to accept no compromise till both had been secured. Present action was plainly impossible; but useful time might be gained by diplomacy, which, if it could effect nothing else, might serve to remind the Covenanters that Hamilton, though circumstances had placed him at the head of an English army, was still at heart a Scotsman. He therefore landed his men on the little islands of Inchcolm and Inchkeith, where they could be taught at least how to handle their muskets, opened negotiations with the enemy, and commenced a lugubrious correspondence with the King.

Meanwhile Aboyne had gone south to find Charles, and had met him at Newcastle. The spirited young fellow undertook to raise his father's vassals, if some help in men and money were forthcoming. Money there was none, but some of the men now lying idle in the Forth might be available. Aboyne was therefore sent back to Scotland with instructions to Hamilton to furnish him with what troops he could spare; but before he could reach the fleet the position of affairs had again changed. The Gordons had risen without waiting for their young chief, had scattered the Covenanting garrison in a skirmish popularly known as the Trot of Turriff (which marks the virtual beginning of the Civil War), and had re-occupied Aberdeen. Montrose had marched north again with a force of four thousand men. And Hamilton, on whom the eyes of all Royalists and Covenanters in Scotland were now anxiously turned, had sent two out of his three regiments south to swell the army Charles was now laboriously mustering at York!

This inexplicable movement had been made by the King's order, but on Hamilton's advice. That advice had been given on May 21st, seven days after the Gordons had risen. The order had been sent on the 23rd, and on the next day Charles learned the news from Aberdeen. His position was undoubtedly serious. Leslie was advancing to the Border with an army which, though less than rumour made it at Newcastle, was far larger than the force Charles had as yet been able to collect, far readier and far more eager to fight. But it is clear that such reinforcements as Hamilton could furnish, while they could have availed little against the trained and resolute troops of Leslie, had been invaluable in the North, where the war was as yet rather feudal than national, where the forces on both sides were small and disorganised, and where five thousand men, however unskilful, would have been sufficient to turn the scale on either side. The Royalists held Aberdeen from the 15th to the 20th of May. Had Hamilton joined them before the latter day it would have been necessary to place a larger force at Montrose's disposal, and Leslie's march to the Border must have been checked for the time. But for three weeks the King's lieutenant seems to have remained in complete ignorance that the King's loyal subjects were in arms for him within less than a hundred miles. We have seen that the rising was known at Newcastle on the 24th. It was known in Edinburgh, it was known even to Huntly in his prison, before the regiments had left the Forth. Yet the one man then in Scotland whom it most concerned to know these things for his master's sake, who alone in Scotland had the means and the warrant to profit by the knowledge, who was at liberty to come and go, to receive messengers and to despatch them, who knew that the young Gordon was in communication with the King, who had some experience of military affairs, and who, with all his faults, has never been called a coward, sat idly through all that precious time apparently in complete ignorance of events with which all the country round him was ringing. He was still ignorant of them when Aboyne arrived in the Forth on the 29th. Hamilton was profuse in regrets and courtesies. Men he had none to spare; but he entertained his young friend sumptuously on board his own ship, with discharge of cannon at every health, after the fashion once in vogue at the Court of Denmark, presented him with a few small field-pieces, and an officer whom he warranted to be of the highest skill, courage, and experience, and who vindicated this praise by earning among the Royalists the name of Traitor Gun. Two days later news arrived from Aberdeen, and Aboyne at once sailed north with these valuable succours. Some vague promises were indeed held out to him of possible reinforcements, if they could be spared from England; and it seems that Hamilton, on Aboyne's arrival, had written for more troops, a request which, immediately following the arrival of those he had just parted with, must have considerably puzzled his unfortunate master. That he might possibly have done better to accompany the lad with his remaining regiment than to stay in a place where he had confessed himself unable to be of any service does not appear to have entered into Hamilton's head.

Meanwhile Montrose had reached Aberdeen, and found his work already done. The loyal barons, without any organisation or military skill, and finding no help where they looked for it in the South, had retreated before the Earl Marischal, and the luckless city was once more in the hands of the Covenant. Now at least the punishment which it had twice so righteously deserved would surely not be withheld. The ministers, who had as usual accompanied the troops, pressed Montrose to give up to pillage the degenerate town which had for the second time refused to come to the help of the Lord against the mighty. But again Montrose disappointed them. Some violence there was and some plundering. The day after his arrival was Sunday, and while he and his officers were at their devotions the soldiers busied themselves in less orthodox fashion. One particular act of wanton cruelty was long remembered. After the Covenanters' last visit the good dames of Aberdeen, allowing their zeal to outrun their judgment, as is sometimes still the wont of female politicians, decked their dogs with blue ribbons in scorn of the rebel colours. Furious at this profanation of their precious symbol the soldiers slaughtered every poor brute they could lay hands on. But on the morrow the General took strict order with his men. A fine of ten thousand marks was laid upon the city. If the money was paid by eleven o'clock on the following day, no further harm should be done; if not, Aberdeen would be given up to plunder. This money was paid punctually, and Aberdeen was spared.

Two days later, on May 30th, Montrose marched north to punish the Gordons. The castle of Gicht was his first point. But Gicht was strong, its defenders were resolute and skilful, and the Covenanters had no siege-train. For two days and nights Montrose battered the walls in vain, and then fell back, or leaped back as his fashion was, on Aberdeen. He had heard that Aboyne was on the sea, and never doubted that Hamilton was with him, for Montrose had left Edinburgh before the English troops had sailed for Holy Island. If a superior force got between him and the capital it might fare hard with both, and his own was not what it had been. Many of his men had deserted, disgusted—so Baillie hints, and probably with truth, for the Highlander was not alone then in holding free quarters and indiscriminate pillage to be an essential part of warfare—at their General's misplaced humanity. Resting his army for a day in Aberdeen, he marched south on June 4th.

The day after his departure Aboyne dropped anchor in the Dee. Two vessels of sixteen guns each and a Newcastle collier composed his fleet. His fighting force consisted of a few young gentlemen as inexperienced as himself, the field-pieces he had brought from the Forth, and the vaunted Gun. For some days he lay in the harbour, in the vain hope of more aid from Hamilton; but the only result of the delay was the defection of some of his comrades whose loyalty was not proof against inaction. An ally, however, appeared from another quarter. His brother, Lord Lewis, a madcap boy of thirteen, marched into Aberdeen on June 7th at the head of a thousand of his father's retainers, with pipes sounding, drums beating, and flags flying. Fired at this gallant display the citizens mustered to arms, and on June 14th Aboyne took the field with a somewhat miscellaneous army of four thousand men.

Meanwhile Montrose and Marischal had joined forces at Stonehaven. Their numbers were vastly inferior to Aboyne's, and they were ill supplied with cannon. So little did they like the prospect that they had thoughts of intrenching themselves in Marischal's strong castle of Dunnottar. But Gun's folly, or, as some said, his treachery, came to their aid. Within a mile of Stonehaven he turned off from the high road and drew up his men on an open heath exposed to the full fire of Montrose's guns. Fortunately for Aboyne they were not many; but they were more than enough for the Highlanders. They could not face the musket's mother, as they called the cannon, and at the first discharge they broke and fled. The citizens followed them, raising a cry of Treachery! Only the cavalry stood firm, gallant gentlemen of the house of Gordon, and masking this ignominious scene enabled Aboyne to fall back on Aberdeen without pursuit.

Hitherto Montrose's victories had been bloodless. He had shown, indeed, all the qualities of a great captain that circumstances had permitted—decision, promptness, activity; but he had not yet come to blows with an enemy. The time was now at hand for him to show his metal in hard fighting.

Aboyne was in a bad plight. The Highlanders were in hot flight back to their mountains. The most part of his artillery and ammunition was on board ship, and the ships were out of reach. The sapient Gun had recommended that the little fleet should keep a course parallel to the land route, and that the heavy guns and ammunition should be sent on board not to cumber the march. But the ships had been blown out to sea, and were now no one knew where. Still the gallant young fellow did not despair. There was the chivalry of his House, six hundred strong, well mounted and armed. The citizens were ashamed of themselves and afraid of Montrose, who they knew would be soon at their gates. Under these combined feelings they rallied to the vigorous call of Colonel Johnston, their provost's son, and mustered round their young leader.

Montrose had only waited to bring up some heavier guns from Dunnottar. On the 17th an advanced party of his troopers encountered an equal number of the Gordon horse within six miles of the town, and were beaten back with the loss of two men. The Gordons were led by the gallant Johnston, who implored Aboyne to let him advance with the whole body of his cavalry. The advice seemed good to all but Gun, and Aboyne, in the face of repeated warnings, still listened to Gun.

Yet the prospect was far from hopeless. The Dee was in flood, and the only approach was by the bridge, a fine structure of seven arches, two miles distant from the city. This had been hastily fortified. The gate at the southern end had been closed and strengthened with turf and earth; the roadway was lined with stout citizens who knew how to handle a musket. Johnston was in command, and the cavalry were gathered on the farther bank, ready to act should the passage be forced. On the morning of the 18th the attack commenced. Montrose had planted his artillery on a hill a few hundred yards south of the bridge, and under a hot cannonade the Covenanters advanced to the assault. But the guns made more noise than execution, and the Aberdonians were no Highland caterans to be frightened by noise. Twice the assailants fought their way on to the bridge-head, and twice they were beaten back by Johnston and his musketeers. Some companies from Dundee, which had ever been jealous of Aberdeen, made a special request to Montrose to be allowed to try their hands. He bade them go on in the name of the Covenant. But so hot was the fire that met them, and so grim looked the ranks of horsemen on the other side, that they wavered and broke before the gate was reached, amid the jeers of the citizens who, like the three Romans on the bridge at Janiculum, bade their rivals welcome to Aberdeen. The spirit of the city rose high. All ranks swore to stand their ground to the last; and women, bringing meat and drink down to their gallant defenders, moved about unshrinking amid the storm of shot and the shouts of the combatants. All day the fight raged, and when the sun fell the Covenanters were forced to own themselves as far from Aberdeen as ever.

But his countrymen had now to learn that Montrose was one whose courage and resource only rose higher in the face of defeat. During the night he brought two of his heaviest guns up to the gate of the bridge. In the early morning the assault recommenced. A few discharges from this new battery soon cleared away the rude defences. At the same time Montrose ordered a body of horse to move up the river as though they had found a ford. Gun at once ordered a counter-demonstration. He was told that there was no ford, that the river was passable only by the bridge, and that so long as that was held the city was safe. His only answer was a threat to throw up his commission if his orders were not obeyed. Aboyne yielded to his evil genius once more, and this time with fatal results. As the Gordons moved up the river, Montrose ordered a general assault. Middleton led the way—a rough soldier of fortune, whose name appears now for the first time in the history of a country destined to know it well hereafter. Still the defenders fought bravely, and while Johnston was at their head the issue was still doubtful. But a cannon-shot dislodged a part of the parapet of the bridge that fell upon Johnston and crushed his leg. He was with difficulty extricated and carried into the town. A cry rose that he was dead. The citizens, without their brave leader, lost heart and gave way. The cavalry, returning from their bootless ride, might have charged the Covenanters home as they streamed in disorder across the bridge; but Gun, swearing that all was lost, gave the signal for flight. "The Gordons never leave the field without charging," said one of them. Another called Gun a coward and a traitor to his face. But the instinct of safety was too strong. The citizens were in flight on all sides, and the chivalry of the Gordons turned their horses' heads north, and galloped off to Strathbogie with their young chief and the wretched Gun in the midst of them. Montrose had won his first battle.

He was determined, however, to save Aberdeen, and he succeeded after a hard struggle. Scarcely were they within the walls when Marischal and the Frasers were urgent with him to give the city up to fire and pillage, in obedience, as they reminded him, to the warrant of his orders. Montrose bade them sleep a night on the matter. Aberdeen, he said, was a great city, the London of the North, and would be of more value to the Covenant and the country as it stood than when laid smoking in ruins. He was successful in persuading his colleagues not only to adopt his milder measures, but also to sign a paper admitting their share in this disregard of the Covenant's orders. Even then the passions of a victorious soldiery might have prevailed. They had already seized and imprisoned those whom they could recognise as having been most forward in the defence, and had committed other acts of violence. But in the moment of time came the news of the Pacification at Berwick, which had been actually signed on the 18th during the heat of the fight at the bridge. This set the matter at rest. A fine, for the second time within the month, was imposed on the city: the prisoners were set at liberty; and Montrose, withdrawing his army to a safe distance, disbanded it on the terms of the treaty.