From Inverlochy they marched to Elgin, and from Elgin to Aberdeen, ravaging, as they passed, the lands, and burning the houses of the Covenanters.  But at Brechin, Baillie opposed their progress with a[a] numerous and regular force.  Montrose turned in the direction of Dunkeld; Baillie marched to Perth.  The former surprised the opulent town of Dundee; the latter arrived in time to expel the plunderers.  But[b] he pursued in vain.  They regained the Grampian hills, where in security they once more bade defiance to the whole power of the enemy.  Such was the short and eventful campaign of Montrose.  His victories, exaggerated by report, and embellished by the fancy of the hearers, cast a faint and deceitful lustre over the declining cause of royalty.  But they rendered no other service.  His passage was that of a meteor, scorching every thing in its course.  Wherever he appeared, he inflicted the severest injuries; but he made no permanent conquest; he taught the Covenanters to tremble at his name, but he did nothing to arrest that ruin which menaced the throne and its adherents.[1]

England, however, was the real arena on which the conflict was to be decided, and in England the king soon found himself unable to cope with his enemies.  He still possessed about one-third of the kingdom.  From Oxford he extended his sway almost without interruption to the extremity of Cornwall:  North and South Wales, with the exception of the castles of Pembroke and Montgomery, acknowledged his authority; and the royal standard was still unfurled in several

[Footnote 1:  See Rushworth, v. 928-932; vi. 228; Guthrie, 162-183; Baillie, ii. 64, 65, 92-95; Clarendon, ii. 606, 618; Wishart, 67, 110; Journals, vii. 566; Spalding, ii. 237.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1645.  March 25.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1645.  April 4.]

towns in the midland comities.[1] But his army, under the nominal command of the prince of Wales, and the real command of Prince Rupert, was frittered away in a multitude of petty garrisons, and languished in a state of the most alarming insubordination.  The generals, divided into factions, presumed to disobey the royal orders, and refused to serve under an adversary or a rival; the officers indulged in every kind of debauchery; the privates lived at free quarters; and the royal forces made themselves more terrible to their friends by their licentiousness than to their enemies by their valour.[2] Their excesses provoked new associations in the counties of Wilts, Dorset, Devon, Somerset, and Worcester, known by the denomination of Clubmen, whose primary object was the protection of private property, and the infliction of summary vengeance on the depredators belonging to either army.  These associations were encouraged and organized by the neighbouring gentlemen; arms of every description were collected for their use; and they were known to assemble in numbers of four, six, and even ten thousand men.  Confidence in their own strength, and the suggestions of their leaders, taught them to extend their views; they invited the adjoining counties to follow their example, and talked of putting an end by force to the unnatural war which depopulated the country.  But though they professed to observe the strictest neutrality between the contending parties, their meetings excited a well-founded jealousy