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Rh eerned, who took precautions for their security the ensuing night, and, next morning, after writing an apology to the king for their conduct, fled to Kiniel House, in West Lothian, where the mother of the two Hamiltonsat that lime resided. The city of Edinburgh was thrown into a state of the utmost alarm, in consequence of all the leading covenanters judging it necessary to have guards placed upon their houses for the protection of their persons. In the afternoon, the king, going up the main street, was followed by upwards of five hundred armed men, who entered the outer hall of the Parliament house along with him, which necessarily increased the confusion. The house, alarmed by this military array, refused to proceed to business till the command of all the troops in the city and neighbourhood was intrusted to general Leslie, and every stranger, whose character and business was not particularly known, ordered to leave the city. His majesty seemed to be highly incensed against the three noblemen, and demanded that they should not be allowed to return to the house till the matter had been thoroughly investigated. A private committee was suggested, to which the investigation might more properly be submitted than to the whole house, in which suggestion his majesty acquiesced. The three noblemen returned to their post in a few days, were to all appearance received into their former state of favour, and the whole matter seemed in Scotland at once to have dropped into oblivion. Intelligence of the whole affair was, however, sent up to the English Parliament by their agents, who, under the name of commissioners, attended as spies upon the king, and it had a lasting, and a most pernicious effect upon his affairs. This, and the news of the Irish insurrection, which speedily followed, caused his majesty to hasten his departure, after he had feasted the whole body of the nobility in the great hall of the palace of Holyrood, on the seventeenth of November, 1641, having two days before created Argyle a marquis, on his departure the king declared, that he went away a contented prince from a contented people. He soon found, however, that nothing under a moral assurance of the protection of their favourite system of worship, and church government an assurance which he had it not in power, from former circumstances, to give could thoroughly secure the attachment of the Scots, who, to use a modern phrase, were more disposed to fraternize with the popular party in England, than with him. Finding on his return that the Parliament was getting more and more intractable, he sent down to the Scottish privy council a representation of the insults and injuries he had received from that parliament, and the many encroachments they had made upon his prerogative, with a requisition that the Scottish council would, by commissioners, send up to Westminster a declaration of the deep sense they entertained of the danger and in- justice of their present course. A privy council was accordingly summoned, to which the friends of the court were more particularly invited, and to this meeting all eyes were directed. A number of the friends of the court, Kinnoul, Roxburgh, and others, now known by the name of Banders, having assembled in the capital with numerous retainers, strong suspicions were entertained that a design upon the life of Argyle was in contemplation. The gentlemen of Fife, and the Lothians, with their followers, hastened to the scene of action, where the high royalists, who had expected to carry matters in the council against the English Parliament, met with so much opposition, that they abandoned their purpose, and the king signified his pleasure that they should not interfere in the business. When hostilities had actually commenced between the king and the parliament, Argyle was so far prevailed upon by the marquis of Hamilton, to trust the asseverations which accompanied his majesty's expressed wishes for peace, as to be willing to second his proposed attempt at negotiation with the Parliament, and he signed, along with London, Warriston, and Henderson, the