he should issue a proclamation, banishing from court all excommunicated persons; or, in other words, all who under Hamilton and Montrose had ventured their lives for his family; that no English subject, who had served against the parliament, should be allowed to approach him; that he should bind himself by his royal promise to take the Covenant; that he should ratify all acts of parliament by which presbyterian discipline and worship were established; that in all civil affairs, he should conform himself entirely to the direction of the parliament, and in ecclesiastical, to that of the general assembly of the kirk. Most of the king's English counsellors dissuaded him from acceding to such dishonorable conditions. Nothing, they said, could be more disgraceful than to sacrifice, for the empty name of royalty, those principles for which his father died a martyr, and in which he himself had been strictly educated; that by such hypocrisy he would lose A. D. 1650. the royalists in both kingdoms, who alone were sincerely attached to him, but he could never gain the presbyterians, who would ascribe his compliance merely to policy and necessity. But these sound arguments were turned into ridicule by the young duke of Buckingham, afterward so remarkable for the pleasantry of his humour and the versatility of his character, and who was now in high favour with Charles. Being himself a man of no principle, he treated with contempt the idea of rejecting a kingdom for the sake of episcopacy and he made no scruple to assert, that the obstinacy of the late king, on the article of religion, ought rather to be held up as a warning, than produced as an example for imitation to his son1o. Charles, whose principles were nearly as libertine as those of Buckingham, and of whose character sincerity formed no part, agreed to every thing demanded of him by the covenanters ; but not before he had received intelligence of the utter failure of his hopes VOL. III. 10. Burnet, vol. i. Clarendon, vol. vi. 3 K from from the Scottish royalists, in consequence of the total defeat and capture of the marquis of Montrose. That gallant nobleman, having laid down his arms at the command of the late king, had retired to France, where he reside some time inactive, and afterward entered into the imperial service, But no sooner did he hear of the tragical death of his sovereign, than his ardent spirit was inflamed with the thirst of revenge; and having obtained from young Charles a renewal of his commission of captain-general in Scotland, he set sail for that country with five hundred foreign adventurers. Naturally confident, he hoped to rouse the royalists to arms, and restore his master's authority at least in one of his kingdoms. These expectations, however, appear to have been ill-founded. Scotland was wholly under the dominion of Montrose's old enemies, Argyle and the covenanters, who had severely punished many of his former adherents. They were apprized of his design; and they had a disciplined army ready to oppose him, of such force as left no reasonable prospect of success. By a detachment from this army, Montrose, aud the few royalists who had joined him, were atta cked and totally routed. They were all either killed or made prisoners; the marquis himself, who had put on the disguise of a peasant, being delivered into the hands of his enemies by Mackland of Assin, to whom he had entrusted his person". The covenanters carried their noble prisoner in triumph to Edinburgh, where he was exposed to the most attrocious insults. After being conducted through the public streets, bound down on a high bench in a cart made for the purpose with his hat off, the hangman by him, and his officers walking two and two in fetters behind him, he was brought before the parliament. Loudon, the chancellor, in a violent declamation, reproached him with the horrible murders, treasons, and impieties for which he was now to suffe. 11. a. ibid. condign condign punishment. Montrose, who bore all these indignities with the greatest firmness, and looked down with a noble disdain on the rancour of his enemies, boldly replied, that in all his warlike enterprizes he was warranted by that commission, which he had received from his and their mas ter against whose lawful authority they had erected their standard; that no blood had ever been shed by him but in the field of battle, and many persons were now in his eyemany now dared to pronounce sentence of death upon him, whose life, forfeited by the laws of war, he had formerly saved from the fury of the soldiers; that he was sorry to find no better testimony of their return to allegiance than the murder of a faithful subject, in whose death the king's commission must be, at once, so highly injured and insulted; that, as for himself, he scorned their vindictive, fanatical rage, and was only grieved at the contumely offered to that authority by which he acted12. This speech, so worthy of the heroic character of Montrose, had no effect on his unfeeling judges. Without regard to his illustrious birth or great renown, the man who had so remarkably distinguished himself by adhering to the laws of his country and the rights of his sovereign, was condemned to suffer the ignominious death allotted to the basest felon. His sentence bore, that he, James Graham, should be carried to the cross of Edinburgh, and there be hanged on a gallows thirty feet high; that his head should be cut off on a scaffold, and fixed on the Tolbooth or city prison; that his legs and arms should be stuck up on the most conspicuous place in the four chief towns in the kingdom, and his body be buried in the place appropriated for malefactors. This last part of his sentence, however, was to be remitted, in case the kirk on his repentence, should take off his excommunication. Furnished with so good a pretence, the clergy flocked about him, and exulted over his fallen fortunes, under colour of 12. Burnet, voi. i. Hume, vol vii. converting converting him. He smiled at their enthusiastic ravings, and rejected their spiritual aid; nor did he regard the solemnity with which they pronounced his eternal damnation, or their assurance that his future sufferings would surpass the present, as far in degree as in duration. He shewed himself, through the whole superior to his fate: and when led forth to execution, amid the insults of his enemies, he overawed the cruel with the dignity of his looks, and melted the humane into tears. In this last melancholy scene, when enmity itself is commonly disarmed, one effort more was made by the governing party in Scotland, to subdue the magnanimous spirit of Montrose. The executioner was ordered to tie about his neck, with a cord, that book which had been published, in elegant Latin, by Dr. Wishart, containing the history of his military exploits. He thanked his enemies for their officious zeal declaring, that he wore this testimony of his bravery and loyalty with more pride than he had ever worn the garter and finding they had no more insults to offer, he patiently submitted to the ignominious sentence13. Thus unworthily perished the heroic James Graham, marquis of Montrose, in the thirty-eighth year of his age. Great talents he certainly had for war, and also for the polite arts, which he cultivated with success; but his courage appears to have been accompanied with a certain degree of extravagance, which, while it led him to conceive the boldest enterprizes, prevented him from attending sufficiently to the means of accomplishing them. Along with Montrose were sacrificed all the persons of any eminence, who had repaired to his standard, or taken arms in order to second his designs. Though this cruel and unjust execution of a nobleman, who had acted by royal authority, made the young king more sensible of the furious spirit of the covenanters, as 13. Id. idid. Well well as how little he had to expect from their generosity, his forlorn condition induced him to ratify the agreement with their commissioners, as the only resource left for recovering any part of his dominions. He accordingly embarked with them for Scotland, in a Dutch ship of war, furnished by the prince of Orange, and arrived safe in the frith of Cromarty. Here his humiliations began. Before he was permitted to land, he was obliged to sign the covenant and to hear many sermons and lectures, on the duty of persevering in that holy confederacy. The duke of Hamilton, formerly earl of Lanerk, the earl of Lauderdale, and other noblemen, who had shared his councils abroad, and whom the covenanters called Engagers, were immediately separated from him, and obliged to retire to their own houses. None of his English courtiers, except the duke of Buckingham, were allowed to remain in the kingdom; so that he found himself entirely in the hands of Argyle and the more rigid presbyterians, by whom he was considered as a mere pageant of state, and at whose mercy lay both his life and liberty14. In order to please these austere zealots, Charles embraced a measure, which neither his inexperienced youth nor the necessity of his affairs can fully justify. At their request, he published a declaration, which must have rendered him contemptible even to the fanatics who framed it: and yet his refusal might have been attended with the most serious consequences. "He gave thanks for the merciful dispen"sations of Providence, by which he was recovered from "the snares of evil counsel, had attained a full persuasion of "the righteousness of the covenant, and was induced to "cast himself and his interests wholly upon God. He de"sired to be deeply humbled and afflicted in spirit, because "of his father's following wicked measures; opposing the "covenant and the work of reformation, and shedding "the blood of God's people throughout all his dominions. 14. Burnet, vol. i. Clarendon, vol, vi. "He |