been supplied by them with money to meet immediate demands. one. The prospect which lay before Monmouth was not a bright There was no probability that he would be recalled from banishment. On the Continent his life could no longer be passed amidst the splendor and festivity of a court. His cousins at the Hague seem to have really regarded him with kindness; but they could no longer countenance him_openly without serious risk of producing a rupture between England and Holland. William offered a kind and judicious sug gestion. The war which was then raging in Hungary, between the Emperor and the Turks, was watched by all Europe with interest almost as great as that which the Crusades had excited five hundred years earlier. Many gallant gentlemen, both Protestant and Catholic, were fighting as volunteers in the common cause of Christendom. The prince advised Monmouth to repair to the imperial camp, and assured him that, if he would do so, he should not want the means of making an appearance befitting an English nobleman.t This counsel was excellent; but the duke could not make up his mind. He retired to Brussels accompanied by Henrietta Wentworth, Baroness Wentworth of Nettlestede, a damsel of high rank and ample fortune, who loved him passionately, who had sacrificed for his sake her maiden honor and the hope of a splendid alliance, who had followed him into exile, and whom he believed to be his wife in the sight of Heaven. Under the soothing influence of female friendship, his lacerated mind healed fast. He seemed to have found happiness in obscurity and repose, and to have forgotten that he had been the ornament of a splendid court and the head of a great party, that he had commanded rmies, and that he had aspired to a throne. But he was not suffered to remain quiet. Ferguson cmployed all his powers of temptation. Grey, who knew not where to turn for a pistole, and was ready for any undertaking however desperate, lent his aid. No art was spared which could draw Monmouth from retreat. To the first * Avaux Neg. Feb. 20, 22, 1685; Monmouth's letter to James froin Ringwood. The History of King William the Third, 2d edition, 1703, vol i, 160. invitations which he received from his old associates he returned unfavorable answers. He pronounced the difficulties of a descent on England insuperable, protested that he was sick of public life, and begged to be left in the enjoy ment of his newly-found happiness. But he was little in the habit of resisting skilful and urgent importunity. It is said, too, that he was induced to quit his retirement by the same powerful influence which had made that retirement delightful, Lady Wentworth wished to see him a king. Her rents, her diamonds, her credit, were put at his disposal. Monmouth's judgment was not convinced; but he had not firmness to resist such solicitations.* By the English exiles he was joyfully welcomed, and unanimously acknowledged as their head. But there was another class of emigrants who were not disposed to recognize his supremacy. Misgovernment, such as had never been known in the southern part of our island, had driven from Scotland to the Continent many fugitives, the intemperance of whose political and religious zeal was proportioned to the oppression which they had undergone. These men were not willing to follow an English leader. Even in destitution and exile they retained their punctilious national pride. and would not consent that their country should be, in their persons, degraded into a province. They had a captain of their own, Archibald, ninth Earl of Argyle, who, as head of the great tribe of Campbell, was known among the population of the Highlands by the proud name of Mac Callum More. His father, the Marquess of Argyle, had been the head of the Scotch Covenanters, had greatly contributed to the ruin of Charles the First, and was not thought by the Royalists to have atoned for this offence by consenting to bestow the empty title of king, and a state prison in Holyrood, on Charles the Second. After the return of the royal family the mar quess was put to death. His marquisate became extinct; but *Welwood's Memoirs, App. xv.; Burnet. i. 630. Grey told a somewhat different story; but he told it to save his life. The Spanish ambassador at the English court, Don Pedro de Ronquillo, in » letter to the governor of the Low Countries written about this time, sneers at Monmouth for living on the bounty of a fond woman, and hints a very unfounded suspicion that the duke's passion was altogether interested. Hallandose hoy tan falto de medios que ha 66 menester trasformarse en Amor con Miledi en vista de la necesidad le poder subsistir "- Ronquillo to Grana, 1685. March 30 his son was permitted to inherit the ancient earldom, and was still among the greatest of the nobles of Scotland. The earl's conduct during the twenty years which followed the Restora tion had been, as he afterwards thought, criminally moderate. He had, on some occasions, opposed the administration which afflicted his country; but his opposition had been languid and cautious. His compliances in ecclesiastical matters had given scandal to rigid Presbyterians; and so far had he been from showing any inclination to resistance that, when the Covenanters had been persecuted into insurrection, he had brought into the field a large body of his dependants to support the government. Such had been his political course until the Duke of York came down to Edinburgh armed with the whole regal authority. The despotic viceroy soon found that he could not expect entire support from Argyle. Since the most powerful chief in the kingdom could not be gained, it was thought necessary that he should be destroyed. On grounds so frivolous that even the spirit of party and the spirit of chicane were ashamed of them, he was brought to trial for treason, convicted, and sentenced to death. The partisans of the Stuarts afterwards asserted that it was never meant to carry this sentence into effect, and that the only object of the prosecution was to frighten him into ceding his extensive jurisdiction in the Highlands. Whether James designed, as his enemies suspected, to commit murder, or only, as his friends affirmed, to commit extortion by threatening to commit murder, cannot now be known. "I know nothing of the Scotch "but this I know, that law," said Halifax to King Charles, we should not hang a dog here on the grounds on which my Lord Argyle has been sentenced." * Argyle escaped in disguise to England, and thence passed over to Friesland. In that secluded province his father had bought a small estate, as a place of refuge for the family in civil troubles. It was said, among the Scots, that this purchase had been made in consequence of the predictions of a Celtic seer, to whom it had been revealed that Mac Callum More would one day be driven forth from the ancient mansion of * Proceeding against Argyle in the Collection of State Trials; Burnet, i. 521; A true and plain Account of the Discoveries made in Scotland, 1684; The Scotch Mist cleared; Sir George Mackenzie's Vindication: Lord Fountainhall's Chronological Notes. his race at Inverary.* But it is probable that the politic mar quess had been warned rather by the signs of the times than by the visions of any prophet. In Friesland, Earl Archibald resided during some time so quietly that it was not generally known whither he had fled. From his retreat he carried on a correspondence with his friends in Great Britain, was a party to the Whig conspiracy, and concerted with the chiefs of that conspiracy a plan for invading Scotland. This plan had been dropped upon the detection of the Rye House Plot, but became again the subject of his thoughts after the demise of the crown. He had, during his residence on the Continent, reflected much more deeply on religious questions than in the preced ing years of his life. In one respect the effect of these reflections on his mind had been pernicious. His partiality for the synodical form of church government now amounted to bigotry. When he remembered how long he had conformed to the established worship, he was. overwhelmed with shame and remorse, and showed too many signs of a disposition to atone for his defection by violence and intoler ance. He had, however, in no long time, an opportunity of proving that the fear and love of a higher power had nerved him for the most formidable conflicts by which human nature can be tried. To his companions in adversity his assistance was of the highest moment. Though proscribed and a fugitive, he was still, in some sense, the most powerful subject in the British dominions. In wealth, even before his attainder, he was probably inferior, not only to the great English nobles, but to some of the opulent esquires of Kent and Norfolk. But his patriarchal authority, an authority which no wealth could give and which no attainder could take away, made him, as a leader of an insurrection, truly formidable. No southern lord could feel any confidence that, if he ventured to resist the government, even his own gamekeepers and huntsmen would stand by him. An Earl of Bedford, an Earl of Devon. shire, could not engage to bring ten men into the field. Mac Callum More, penniless and deprived of his earldom, might, at any moment, raise a serious civil war. He had only to * Information of Robert Smith in the Appendix to Sprat's True Account. ▸ True and plain Account of the Discoveries made in Scotland show himself on the coast of Lorn, and an army would, in in a few days, gather round him. The force which, in favorable circumstances, he could bring into the field, amounted to five thousand fighting men, devoted to his service, accustomed to the use of target and broadsword, not afraid to encounter regular troops even in the open plain, and perhaps superior to regular troops in the qualifications requisite for the defence of wild mountain passes, hidden in mist, and torn by headlong torrents. What such a force, well directed, could effect, even against veteran regiments and skilful commarders, was proved, a few years later, at Killiecrankie. But, strong as was the claim of Argyle to the confidence of the exiled Scots, there was a faction among them which regarded him with no friendly feeling, and which wished to make use of his name and influence, without intrusting to him any real power. The chief of this faction was a low. land gentleman, who had been implicated in the Whig Plot, and had with difficulty eluded the vengeance of the court, Sir Patrick Hume, of Polwarth, in Berwickshire. Great doubt has been thrown on his integrity, but without sufficient reason. It must, however, be admitted that he injured his cause by perverseness as much as he could have done by treachery. He was a man incapable alike of leading and of following, conceited, captious, and wrong-headed, an endless talker, a sluggard in action against the enemy, and active only against his own allies. With Hume was closely connected another Scottish exile of great note, who had many of the same faults, though not in the same degree, Sir John Cochrane, second son of the Earl of Dundonald. A far higher character belonged to Andrew Fletcher, of Saltoun, a man distinguished by learning and eloquence, distinguished also by courage, disinterestedness, and public spirit, but of an irritable and impracticable temper. Like many of his most illustrious contemporaries, Milton, for example, Harrington, Marvel, and Sidney, Fletcher had, from the misgovernment of several successive princes, conceived a strong aversion to hereditary monarchy. Yet he was no democrat. He was the head of an ancient Norman house, and was proud of his descent. He was a fine speaker and a fine writer, and was proud of his intellectual superiority. Both in nis character of gentleman, and in his character of scholar, he looked down with disdain on the common people, and was so litr'e disposed to intrust them with political power that he |