Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/186

450 not to destroy, but repress royalty, and confine it within due limits, found it time to interpose when the life of Charles I. was menaced, and the throne itself overturned; and, accordingly, when the Duke of Hamilton was about to be sent into England as commander of the Scottish army, Middleton was appointed major-general of the cavalry. But while the army was in the act of being assembled for their march, tidings arrived at head-quarters of a formidable muster of not less than 2000 foot and 500 horse at Mauchline, composed of malcontents hostile to the movement in behalf of royalty, and resolved to oppose it, upon which Middleton was detached with six troops of horse to break up the meeting. If, however, we are to believe Wodrow, who had his account from some of the parties engaged in it, this gathering on Mauchline moor was nothing more formidable than a sacramental meeting of the peasantry, who were not only few in numbers, but peaceable, and entirely unarmed. Still, following the royalist accounts, which afterwards obtained the ascendency, Middleton charged and routed this army with his wonted courage and success; but, in turning again to the simple covenanting story, it appears that he had agreed to permit the people to depart peaceably, and that, while they were doing so, hard words had passed between them and the soldiers, and that the latter, in consequence, had driven them off the moor with unnecessary bloodshed. After this, Middleton accompanied the expedition into England, and was present at the battle of Preston (August 17, 1648), but, being wounded, and his horse shot under him, he was taken prisoner, and sent to Newcastle, from which, however, he contrived to make his escape. Next year he appeared in the Highlands at the head of a body of royalists; but his rising in favour of the royal cause was as unseasonable as that of Montrose at the same period, and was attended with the same untoward result; for, in 1650, his handful of troops were dispersed by Colonel Strachan. It is probable that the arrival of Charles II. from Breda, and the necessity for mustering every good sword in his cause, allowed Middleton to escape the fate of Montrose, and even caused his trespass to be overlooked. His restless spirit, however, and rash zeal for royalty, soon involved him in fresh difficulty, so that, in the conspiracy which was formed to detach the young king from the Covenanters, and invest him with unlimited rule, in defiance not only of Scotland, but England to boot, Middleton was to assume the command of the emancipating army in the Highlands, and wage the war of absolutism in the true Montrose fashion. It is well known how this blundering scheme was strangled in the outset, when Charles and his compeers were pursued and led back to head-quarters like run- away schoolboys. Although Middleton, on this occasion, escaped the civil penalties of the trespass, in consequence of a general indemnity, he did not escape the censures of the church, by whose decree he was excommunicated, the Rev. James Guthrie executing the sentence to that effect in the church of Stirling. This sentence was soon relaxed, but Middleton never afterwards forgave it. During the same year (1651) he marched with the Scottish royalist army into England, and behaved gallantly at the battle of Worcester, where the chief resistance was attributed to his bold charges and persevering efforts; but here he was severely wounded, taken prisoner, and sent to the Tower of London. As he was too dangerous an enemy to be spared, his end now seemed certain, more especially as he had held a commission in the parliamentarian army, so that Cromwell resolved to proceed against him as a traitor; but here Middleton's usual good luck prevailed, for he managed to escape from prison,