Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/165

Rh the advice of Montrose, lord Napier, Sir George Stirling- of Keir, and Sir Andrew Stuart of Blackball, he had sent a copy of the speech, under his hand, to the king by captain Walter Stuart. Argyle thus implicated in a charge of the most dangerous nature, was under the necessity of presenting Stuart before the justiciary, where, upon the clearest evidence, he was found guilty, condemned, and executed.

On the llth of June, Montrose, lord Napier, Sir George Stirling, and Sir Andrew Stuart of Blackball, were cited before the committee, and after examination committed close prisoners to the castle, where they remained till towards the close of the year. Parliament, according to adjournment, having met on the 15th of July, letters were read, excusing bis majesty's attendance till the 15th of August, when it was resolved to sit till the coming of his majesty, and to have every thing in readiness against the day of his arrival. Montrose was in the meantime summoned to appear before parliament on the 13th day of August. He requested that he might be allowed advocates for consultation, which was granted. So much, however, was he hated at the time, that no advocate of any note would come forward in his behalf, and from sheer necessity he was obliged to send for Mr John, afterwards Sir John Gilmour, then a man of no consideration, but in consequence of being Montrose's counsel, afterwards held in high estimation, and employed in the succeeding reign for promoting the despotic measures of the court. On the 13th of August, Montrose appeared before the parliament, and having replied to his charge, was continued to the twenty-fourth, and remanded to prison. At the same time, summonses were issued against the lord Napier and the lairds of Keir and Blackball, to appear before the parliament on the twenty-eighth. On the fourteenth his majesty arrived in Edinburgh, having visited in his way the Scottish army at Newcastle, and dined with general Leslie. On the seventeenth he came to the parliament, and sat there every day afterwards till he had accomplished as he supposed, the purposes of his journey. The king, perfectly aware, or rather perfectly determined to break with the parliament of England, had no object in view by this visit except to gain over the leaders of the Scots, that they might either join him against the parliament, or at least stand neuter till he had reduced England, when he knew he could mould Scotland as he thought fit. He, of course, granted every thing they requested. The earl of Montrose appeared again before the parliament on the twenty-fourth of August, and was continued de novo, as were also the lord Napier and the lairds of Keir and Blackball, on the twenty-eighth. In this state they all remained till, in return for the king's concessions, they were set at liberty in the beginning of the year 1642.

Though in prison, Montrose had done all that he possibly could to stir up an insurrection in favour of the king while he was in Scotland; and he had also exerted himself, though unsuccessfully, to procure the disgrace of the marquis of Hamilton and the earl of Lanark, both of whom he seems bitterly to have envied, and to have hated almost as heartily as he did Argyle. It was probably owing to this, that upon his liberation he retired to his own house in the country, living privately till the spring of 1643; when the queen returning from Holland, he hasted to wait upon her at Burlington, and accompanied her to York. He embraced this opportunity again to press on the queen, as he had formerly done on the king, what he was pleased to denominate the dangerous policy of the covenanters, and solicited a commission to raise an army and to suppress them by force of arms, as he was certain his majesty, would never be able to bring them to his measures by any other means. The marquis of Hamilton thwarted him, however, for the present, and he again returned home.