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Graham bishops, and he aaw that Argyll was seizing under parliamentary forms that usurped supremacy of a subject which he had detected in Hamilton when he had managed Scotland under the forms of monarchy as the favourite of the king. His own position and character alienated him from the dominant party. As a nobleman whose influence and estates could never vie with those of the greatest landowners, he scorned to submit to the Argylls and Hamiltons, whose estates were far more extended than his own, and he found himself in unison with other nobles of the second class, not only in repudiating their authority, but in wishing to emancipate the life and mind of Scotland from the grinding pressure of the presbyterian clergy, of which the greater nobles were able to make use. Montrose, in short, was attempting to anticipate the freer life of modern Scotland. As it was not in accordance with the law of social development that his hopes should be realised in his lifetime, he was thrust into an opposition for which, during that generation, there was no chance of success.

Montrose's first difficulty was in the king. Charles played his game so badly that Montrose drew back for a time among the covenanters, and on 20 Aug. 1640, when the Scots invaded England, he was the first to cross the Tweed. In the earlier part of the month he had signed the bond of Cumbernauld, by which he and his co-signatories engaged themselves to resist the establishment of a dictatorship in the hands of subjects. In May 1641 Montrose threw himself entirely on the king's side. He wished, as Hyde wished in England, to see Charles rule as a constitutional king, that his authority might serve as a check to the establishment of a democratic despotism ('Montrose's Letter to the King,' in, Memorials of Montrose, ii. 43). He believed, probably with truth, that Argyll thought of deposing Charles. Argyll came upon traces of communications between Montrose and the king which were directed against himself (, Hist. of England, 1603-42, ix. 396). On 11 June Montrose was imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle. During the king's visit to Scotland Montrose wrote to him accusing Hamilton of treason. Clarendon in his later days told a story of Montrose offering to murder Argyll and Hamilton (, ed. Macray, iv. 20), which may safely be rejected by all who are acquainted with Clarendon's carelessness about details whenever he had a good story to tell. (The question is discussed in, Hist. of Engl. 1603-42, x. 26.) Montrose was set at liberty when Charles left Scotland in November.

In the spring of 1643, when there was a probability that Argyll's government would send a Scottish army to the English parliament, Montrose visited the queen at York, urging her to countenance a royalist insurrection in the north of Scotland, to be supported by troops to be sent over by the Marquis of Antrim from Ireland. Charles, however, preferred Hamilton as a counsellor, and Montrose's plan had to be postponed. In August, Montrose being now certain that a Scottish invasion of England was projected, as he had himself been offered a command in it, hastened to plead his cause with Charles in person at Gloucester. Once more he was rejected. Early in 1644, when the Scots were actually in England, Charles was more amenable to his arguments. In February Antrim was pleading at Kilkenny for leave to send over two thousand men (Wishart, cap. iii., is the author of the mistaken statement that Antrim proposed to bring over ten thousand men). On 1 Feb. Montrose was appointed lieutenant-general in Scotland to Prince Maurice, and on the 14th he was named lieutenant-general, Maurice's name being omitted from the commission (Hist. MSS. Comm. 2nd Rep. 172). On 14 April he crossed the borders at the head of a small force, but was in a few days driven back without effecting anything. On 6 May he was created Marquis of Montrose, but the promise to advance him in the peerage was doubtless given before he set out on his abortive expedition.

For some weeks Montrose remained in the north of England, hoping for assistance from Newcastle or Rupert. At last he made up his mind to depend on himself alone. On 18 Aug. he again entered Scotland, in the disguise of a groom, with two companions. Before twelve months were past he had won six pitched battles over the covenanters: Tippermuir, 1 Sept.; Aberdeen, 13 Sept. 1644; Inverlochy, 2 Feb.; Auldearn, 9 May; Alford, 2 July; Kilsyth, 15 Aug. 1645.

Montrose's military genius was of a very high order. His skill in manoeuvring his little force is beyond dispute, but his skill as a tactician was perhaps greater still. At a time when the arrangement of troops previous to a battle was usually conducted after a fixed plan, he varied his plan according to the special circumstances of each battle and the varying component parts of his own army. The invariable quantity in his force was a body of old soldiers from the Irish war, sent to the highlands by the Marquis of Antrim, and commanded by Alaster Macdonell or Macdonald. These men are usually described as Irish, but they were probably for the most