Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 08.djvu/334

 ness and barbarity, is evidently imaginary. Lorne was present with his regiment at Dunbar on 3 Sept. 1650, where he behaved with much bravery (, State Papers, i. 164). On 12 Sept. he was the bearer of a letter from Charles at Perth to the committee of estates, urging the necessity of immediate recruiting (ib.) On 26 Sept. it was reported that Lorne had gone to raise his father's tenants, and that, finding his men would not follow him, Argyll had left the highlands (, Mem. pp. 546, 549). After the battle of Worcester he joined Glencairn, who was in arms in the highlands, with seven hundred foot and two hundred horse, in the winter of 1653, and with him prepared to invade the lowlands at Ruthven, with the commission of lieutenant-general (, ii. 3, 27), and he was successful in surprising a ship laden with provisions for the English troops. His father, by whom he was ‘but coarsely used’ (, Letters and Journals, iii. 250), had submitted to Monck in the previous year, and we gain some information as to Lorne's action during 1653 from Argyll's letters to the English. He is not, Argyll says on 21 July, resolved to join the highlanders, but will not declare in the negative, ‘though privately he says he intends not at all to join with them.’ A little later Lorne has taken horse and gone to Glenurchie, to hold a meeting of his friends, and Argyll has sent him his last warning, but has not learned his resolution; finally, Lorne is reported to have gone with Kenmure and others to Menteith (Hist. MSS. Comm. 6th Rep. 617 a).

Between the various commanders of Glencairn's irregular force there were constant quarrels. Lorne and Glengarry ‘fell out, and drew upon each other, but were prevented from fighting, yet parted great enemies’ (, i. 478). Glencairn distrusted and slighted Lorne. When Lorne and Kenmure went in joint command of a force to suppress the Kintyre remonstrants, Kenmure thought that Lorne treated them more mildly than they deserved, and left him in order to carry his complaints to Glencairn (, iii. 250). In March 1653–4 a quarrel took place, in which he was like to have been killed by young Montrose (, p. 566). Lorne shortly afterwards had a final dispute with his chief, as to whether the men of the district through which they were marching were subject, as his vassals, to his and to no other person's authority. Refusing to give way, or to accept orders from Glencairn, Lorne now left him with his men (1 Jan. 1653–4), and for a while there was fear of an encounter, as a stream alone separated them (, ii. 4). The next night, with Colonel Meyner and six horsemen, he left his troops and fled. The reason for this, according to Baillie (iii. 250), was that a letter written by Lorne to the king full of complaints of Glencairn had been intercepted, and Glencairn had ordered Glengarry to arrest him. Thurloe's correspondent gives a version more discreditable to Lorne: that the intercepted letter was written to the general of the English forces, acquainting him with the disposition of Glencairn's men, and with the best plan for attacking them (, ii. 4). He states, too, that while he was in arms he was ‘no way considerable with the enemy;’ that ‘he had raised a regiment of foote, and that they took away, and gave him a troop of horse, and that they took. He will not readily be brought to act again.’ In May 1654 Cromwell published his ‘Ordinance of Pardon and Greace to the Peopell of Scotland;’ Lorne was among the numerous exceptions. On 10 June he was reported as being reconciled with his father, and as helping him to raise men for the English (, p. 574). This, however, is clearly erroneous. In September he managed to capture a vessel loaded with provisions for Argyll's men. There seems little doubt that he joined Middleton's expedition of this year, Glencairn having been ‘slighted’ upon his letters (, iii. 255). In November we find him sweeping his father's lands of cattle, and Argyll was compelled to ask for an English garrison to protect him from his son's insolence (, p. 590). In the beginning of December, however, he was in such distress that he had to retire to a small island with but four or five men (ib. p. 591), and on 16 Dec. Monck informed Cromwell that Lorne was to meet his father, and would probably come over to the Protector if admitted (, iii. 28). Lorne, however, informed Argyll that he could not capitulate without the full concurrence of Middleton (Hist. MSS. Comm. 6th Rep. 617 a). He was suspected of having an agent with the king and of intriguing in England as well (, iv. 49), and on 30 Dec. 1654 Charles wrote from Cologne, thanking him for his constancy to Middleton in all his distresses, acknowledging his good service upon the rebels, and promising future rewards (Hist. MSS. Comm. 6th Rep. 613 b). So obnoxious were he and his family to Cromwell that even Lady Lorne was on 18 Jan. 1654–5 driven out of Argyll by the English, since her presence there caused the rebels to collect (ib. 622 a). It has been stated, indeed (Biog. Brit.), that Lorne refused to make any engagements with the usurpers until he received the king's orders to capitulate, dated