Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/339

Rh rendered without offering any resistance. The castles of Dalkeith, Douglas, and Strathaven in Clydesdale, and, in short, all the castles of the kingdom, with the exception of that of Carlaverock, were seized in the same manner. Huntly, who was making dispositions in the north to side with Charles, had also in the interim been kidnapped by Montrose, so that he had actually not the shadow of a party in the whole kingdom. Towards the end of May, the king beginning to move from York, where he had fixed his head-quarters, towards the north, the army under Leslie was ordered southward to meet him. The final muster of the army, previous to the march, took place on the Links of Leith, on the 20th of May, 1639, when from twelve to sixteen thousand men made their appearance, well armed in the German fashion, and commanded by native officers whom they respected as their natural superiors, or by their own countrymen celebrated for their hardihood, and that experience in military affairs which they had acquired abroad. With the exception of one German trumpeter, there was not a foreigner among them: all were Scotsmen, brought immediately from the hearths and the altars which it was the object of the war to defend. The private men were, for the most part, ploughmen from the western counties; stout rustics whose bodies were rendered muscular by healthy exercise, and whose minds were exalted by the purest feelings of patriotism and religion. It was on this day that they were properly constituted an army, by having the articles of war read to them. These had been drawn out by Leslie with the advice of the Tables, after the model of those of Gustavus Adolphus, and a printed copy of them was delivered to every individual soldier. The general himself, at the same time, took an oath to the Estates, acknowledging himself in all things liable both to civil and ecclesiastical censure. Leslie had by this time acquired not only the respect and confidence, but the love of the whole community, by the judgment with which all his measures were taken, and the zeal he displayed in the cause; a zeal, the sincerity of which was sufficiently attested by the fame of his exploits in Germany, and by the scars which he bore on his person in consequence of these exploits. He was deformed, old, and mean in his appearance; but the consummate skill which he displayed, and the piety of his deportment, rendered him, according to Baillie, who was along with him, a more popular and respected general than Scotland had ever enjoyed in the most warlike and beloved of her kings. With the van of this army, which was but a small part of the military array of Scotland at this time, Leslie marched for the borders on the 21st of May, the main body following him in order. He was abundantly supplied on his march, and at every successive stage found that his numbers were increased, and his stock of provisions becoming more ample. The first night he reached Haddington, the second Dunbar, and the third Dunglass, a strong castle at the east end of Lammermoor, where he halted and threw up some intrenchments. Charles, in the mean time, advanced to the borders, indulging in the most perfect assurance of driving the Scottish insurgents before him. Learning from his spies, however, that they were within a day's march of him, and so well marshalled that the result of a contest would be at best doubtful, he ordered a trumpet to be sent with letters from himself to the Scottish army, conveying overtures of a friendly nature, but forbidding them to approach within ten miles of his camp, and on this demonstration of their temporal obedience, promising that all their just supplications should be granted. Finding them disposed to an amicable agreement, Charles advanced his camp to the Birks, on the banks of the Tweed, and directed the earl of Holland, his general of horse, to proceed with thirteen troops of cavalry, three thousand foot, and a number of field-pieces, to drive some regiments of the covenanters which had been stationed at Kelso and Jedburgh under colonel