of Yarrow to the Tweed.  He had lost only the remnant of his Scoto-Irish; but the Gordons, when Montrose was presently menacing Glasgow, were held back by Huntly, and Colkitto pursued his private adventures.  Montrose had been deserted by the clans, and lured to ruin by the perfidious promises of the Border lords and lairds.  The aim of his strategy had been to relieve the Royalists of England by a diversion that would deprive the Parliamentarians of their paid Scottish allies, and what man might do Montrose had done.

After his first victory Montrose, an excommunicated man, fought under an offer of 1500 pounds for his murder, and the Covenanters welcomed the assassin of his friend, Lord Kilpont.

The result of Montrose’s victories was hostility between the Covenanting army in England and the English, who regarded them as expensive and inefficient.  Indeed, they seldom, save for the command of David Leslie, displayed military qualities, and later, were invariably defeated when they encountered the English under Cromwell and Lambert.

Montrose never slew a prisoner, but the Convention at St Andrews, in November 1645, sentenced to death their Cavalier prisoners (Lord Ogilvy escaped disguised in his sister’s dress), and they ordered the hanging of captives and of the women who had accompanied the Irish.  “It was certain of the clergy who pressed for the extremest measures.” {186a} They had revived the barbarous belief, retained in the law of ancient Greece, that the land had been polluted by, and must be cleansed by, blood, under penalty of divine wrath.  As even the Covenanting Baillie wrote, “to this day no man in England has been executed for bearing arms against the Parliament.”  The preachers argued that to keep the promises of quarter which had been given to the prisoners was “to violate the oath of the Covenant.” {186b}

The prime object of the English opponents of the king was now “to hustle the Scots out of England.” {187} Meanwhile Charles, not captured but hopeless, was negotiating with all the parties, and ready to yield on every point except that of forcing presbytery on England—­a matter which, said Montereuil, the French ambassador, “did not concern them but their neighbours.”  Charles finally trusted the Scots with his person, and the question is, had he or had he not assurance that he would be well received?  If he had any assurance it was merely verbal, “a shadow of a security,” wrote Montereuil.  Charles was valuable to the Scots only as a pledge for the payment of their arrears of wages.  There was much chicanery and shuffling on both sides, and probably there were misconceptions on both sides.  A letter of Montereuil (April 26, 1646) convinced Charles that he might trust the Scots; they verbally promised “safety, honour, and conscience,” but refused to sign a copy of their words.  Charles trusted them, rode out of Oxford, joined them at Southwell, and, says Sir James Turner, who was present, was commanded by Lothian to sign the Covenant, and “barbarously used.”  They took Charles to Newcastle, denying their assurance to him.  “With unblushing falsehood,” says Mr Gardiner, they in other respects lied to the English Parliament.  On May 19 Charles bade Montrose leave the country, which he succeeded in doing, despite the treacherous endeavours of his enemies to detain him till his day of safety (August 31) was passed.