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 the Earl of Lanark as being 'very active in his own preservation.' Montrose wrote to Charles offering to prove Hamilton to be a traitor. Then came the discovery of the plot, known as the Incident, to seize Argyll and the two Hamilton brothers, and if necessary to murder them. On 12 Oct. all three fled from Edinburgh. Charles had to plead ignorance of the whole affair. After some little time Hamilton returned to Edinburgh, and accompanied the king when he left Scotland. On 5 Jan. 1642, when Charles went into the city of London, after the failure of the attempt on the five members, Hamilton was with him in his coach.

During the spring of 1642, for some time after the king left London, Hamilton was ill. In July, after subscribing to raise sixty horse for the king's service, he went to Scotland in the hope of being able to induce the Scots to abstain from an intervention on the parliamentary side in the approaching civil war. This mission produced no result except a breach between Hamilton and Argyll. In the spring of 1643 certain Scottish commissioners prepared to wait on the king with a petition urging him to allow them to appear as mediators in England, with the intention of driving the king to assent to the establishment of presbyterianism in England. On this Hamilton tried to gain a hold upon Loudoun, who was the principal of them, by getting up what was known as 'the cross petition,' in which the king was asked to abandon the annuities of tithes which had been granted him by act of parliament. Hamilton in fact knew that Charles had sold these annuities to Loudoun, so that their abandonment would strike him, and not the king. As this petty trick did not succeed, and Loudoun was not to be frightened into taking the king's part, Hamilton then asked Charles to send to Edinburgh all the Scottish lords of his party to counteract Argyll, and to keep Scotland from interfering in England, by outvoting Argyll in the Scottish parliament. This advice at once aroused the indignation of Montrose, who was with the queen at York, and who, believing that the Scots would certainly send an army across the border, wished to anticipate the blow by a military rather than by a political operation. Upon this Hamilton betook himself to York, and induced the queen to countenance his scheme rather than that of Montrose. He held that if Charles would only convince the Scots that their own presbyterian church was out of danger, they would not trouble themselves about the fortunes of the English church. This, however, was precisely what Charles was unable to do. When on 10 May a Scottish convention of estates was summoned without the king's authority, Hamilton attempted to hinder its meeting under such circumstances ; but on 5 June, finding his opposition useless, he dissuaded Charles from prohibiting it. Before the elections were held news arrived of a plot of a combined movement of English and Irish against the Scottish army in Ulster, and for a joint invasion of Cumberland if not of Scotland itself. Under these circumstances, when the convention met it was found that Hamilton's supporters were in a minority.

Though success was evidently hopeless Hamilton's influence with the king was still so great that Charles refused again to listen to Montrose's plan of attacking the Argyll party while they were still unprepared. Events soon justified Montrose's prescience. There was no longer room for parliamentary royalism in Scotland, and in November Hamilton and his brother were compelled to leave Scotland upon their refusal to sign the solemn league and covenant. On 16 Dec. they arrived in Oxford. Every royalist at court was open-mouthed against them, and Charles could no longer resist the tide. Lanark escaped, but Hamilton, in the beginning of January 1644, was sent as a prisoner to Pendennis Castle.

In July 1645 Hamilton, being still a prisoner, had an interview with Hyde, and confidently professed his assurance that if he were allowed to go to Scotland he would be able to induce the Scots either to mediate a peace in England or to declare for Montrose (, ix. 152-7). To this entreaty Hyde gave no heed, and later in the year Hamilton was removed to St. Michael's Mount (ib. ix. 158), where he was liberated by Fairfax's troops when the fortress surrendered on 23 April 1646. Soon after the king reached Newcastle Hamilton waited on him, and was urgent with him to abandon episcopacy in England so as to be secure of the support of a Scottish army in regaining his crown. Early in August he went to Scotland, where he used his influence to induce the covenanters to come to terms with Charles, and in the early part of September reappeared at Newcastle at the head of a deputation charged with a message to Charles, urging him to accept the propositions of the English parliament. As, however, these included the establishment of presbyterianism in England, the deputation proved a failure, and Hamilton returned to Scotland. On 16 Dec. the Scottish parliament under his influence voted to urge the English parliament to allow the king to go to London, but Argyll and the clergy were too strong for him, and conditions were added which it was impossible for Charles to accept.