Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/184

478 also on this occasion the bearer of a secret commission from the king, to consult with the duke of Richmond and the marquis of Hertford concerning the propriety of the Scottish army and parliament declaring for him. Both of these noblemen totally disapproved of the scheme, as they were satisfied it would be the entire ruin of his interests. In this matter, Argyle certainly did not act with perfect integrity; and it was probably a feeling of conscious duplicity which prevented him from being present at any of the committees concerning the king's person, or any treaty for the withdrawal of the Scottish army, or the payment of its arrears. The opinion of these two noblemen, however, he faithfully reported to his majesty, who professed to be satisfied, but spoke of adopting some other plan, giving evident proof that his pretending to accept conditions was a mere pretence—a put off—till he might be able to lay hold of some lucky turn in the chapter of accidents. It was probably from a painful anticipation of the fatal result of the king's pertinacity, that Argyle, when he returned to Edinburgh and attended the parliament, which assembled on the 3d of November, demanded and obtained an explicit approval of all that he had transacted, as their accredited commissioner; and it must not be lost sight of, that, for all the public business he had been engaged in, except what was voted him in consequence of his great losses, he never hitherto had received one farthing of salary.

When the Engagement, as it was called, was entered into by the marquis of Hamilton, and other Scottish presbyterian loyalists, Argyle opposed it, because, from what he had been told by the duke of Richmond and the marquis of Hertford, when he had himself been half embarked in a scheme somewhat similar, he believed it would be the total ruin of his majesty's cause. The event completely justified his fears. By exasperating the sectaries and republicans, it was the direct and immediate cause of the death of the king. On the march of the Engagers into England, Argyle, Eglinton, Cassilis, and Lothian, marched into Edinburgh at the head of a great multitude of people whom they had raised, before whom the committee of Estates left the city, and the irremediable defeat of the Engagers, which instantly followed, entirely sinking the credit of the party, they never needed to return, the reins of government falling into the hands of Argyle, Warriston, Loudon, and others of the more zealous party of the presbyterians. The flight of the few Engagers who reached their native land, was followed by Cromwell, who came all the way to Berwick, with the purpose apparently of invading Scotland. Argyle, in the month of September or October, 1648, went to Mordington, where he had an interview with that distinguished individual, whom, along with general Lambert, he conducted to Edinburgh, where he was received in a way worthy of his high fame, and every thing between the two nations was settled in the most amicable manner, the Solemn League and Covenant being renewed, the Engagement proscribed, and all who had been concerned in it summoned to appear before parliament, which was appointed to meet at Edinburgh on the 4th of January, 1649. It has been, without the least particle of evidence, asserted that Argyle, in the various interviews he held with Cromwell at this time, agreed that Charles should be executed. The losses to which Argyle was afterwards subjected, and the hardships he endured for adhering to Charles' interests after he was laid in his grave, should, in the absence of all evidence to the contrary, be a sufficient attestation of his loyalty, not to speak of the parliament, of which he was unquestionably the most influential individual, in the ensuing month of February proclaiming Charles II. king of Scotland, England, France, and Ireland, &c. than which nothing could be more offensive to the then existing government of England. In sending over the deputation that waited upon Charles in Holland