Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/177

Rh to have found a defender; and the most noxious of all, that at Perth in 1619, was informal and disorderly in almost all possible respects. The chair was assumed by the archbishop of St Andrews without any election; members, however regularly chosen and attested, that were suspected not to be favourable to court measures, were struck out and their places filled up by such as the managers could calculate upon being perfectly pliable. The manner of putting the votes and the use that was made of the king's name to influence the voters in this most shamefully packed assembly, were of themselves good and valid reasons for annulling its decisions. These six corrupt convocations being condemned as illegal, their acts became illegal of course, and episcopacy totally subverted. Two archbishops and six bishops were excommunicated, four bishops were deposed, and two who made humble submission to the assembly, were simply suspended, and thus the whole Scottish bench was at once silenced. The assembly rose in great triumph on the twentieth of December. "We have now," said the moderator, Henderson, " cast down the wails of Jericho; let him that rebuildeth them beware of the curse of Hiel the Bethelite." While the assembly was thus doing its work, the time-serving marquis of Hamilton was according to the instructions of his master, practising all the shifts that he could devise for affording the king' the better grounds of quarrel, and for protracting the moment of hostilities, so as to allow Charles time to collect his forces. Preparations for an invasion of Scotland had for some time been in progress, and in May, 1639, he approached the border with about sixteen thousand men, while a large host of Irish papists was expected to land in his behalf upon the west coast, and Hamilton entered the Frith of Forth with a fleet containing a small army.

During this first campaign, while general Lesly with the main body of the Scottish army marched for the border with the view of carrying the war into England, Montrose, at this time the most violent of all the covenanters, was sent to the north to watch over Huntly and the Aberdonians, and Argyle proceeded to his own country to watch the Macdonalds, and the earl of Antrim, who threatened to lay it waste. For this purpose he raised not less than nine hundred of his vassals, part of whom he stationed in Kintyre, to watch the movements of the Irish, and part in Lorn to guard against the Macdonalds, while with a third part he passed over into Arran, which he secured by seizing upon the castle of Brodick, one of the strengths belonging to the marquis of Hamilton; and this rendered the attempt on the part of the Irish at the time nearly impossible. On the pacification that took place at Birks, near Berwick, Argyle was sent for to court; but the earl of Loudon having been sent up as commissioner from the Scottish estates, and by his majesty's order sent to the Tower, where he was said to have narrowly escaped a violent death, the earl of Argyle durst not, at this time, trust himself in the king's hands. On the resumption of hostilities in 1640, when Charles was found to have signed the treaty of Birks only to gain time till he could return to the charge with better prospects of success, the care of the west coast, and the reduction of the northern clans, was again intrusted to Argyle. Committing, on this occasion, the care of Kintyre and the Islands to their own inhabitants, he traversed, with a force of about five thousand men attended by a small train of artillery, the districts of Badenoch, Athol, and Marr, levying the taxes imposed by the estates, and enforcing subjection to their authority. The earl of Athol having made a show of resistance at the Ford of Lyon, Avas sent prisoner to Stirling ; and his factor, Stuart, younger of Grantully, with twelve of the leading men in his neighbourhood, he commanded to enter in ward at Edinburgh till they found security for their good behaviour, and he exacted ten thousand pounds Scots in the district, for the support of his army. Passing thence into Angus, he demolished the castles of Airly and For-