Majesty master of the whole of Scotland, and then march to his assistance in England. Charles approved of the scheme, created him Marquis of Montrose, and appointed him his Lieutenant in Scotland. Not a moment was to be lost. With Earl Ludovic, Lord Ogilvie, and a few other friends, he marched North about the beginning of April. They were deserted at Annan by the English, who thought it madness "to brave a nation which possessed at every town a force equal to theirs." They pushed on, however, and took Dumfries, but were obliged to retreat to Carlisle. They could get no one to join them, every one considering the attempt desperate. At last Montrose disbanded his followers, desired his friends to rejoin the King as they best might, and set off in disguise for the Highlands, where he arrived in safety, joined the Irish auxiliaries, and raised the clans.*

Crawford, who had been excommunicated by the General Assembly after his hostile entry into Dumfries,† rejoined the royalists, and acted as a general under Prince Rupert at the battle of Marstonmoor, 2 July, 1644, where his friends were defeated, chiefly by the valour of the Scottish Covenanters,—the Earl of Lindsay, according to Baillie, incurring "the greatest hazard of any," charging and dislodging four brigades of the royalist foot, that were posted in a large ditch that divided the two armies, with a gallantry that carried all before him, and contributed greatly to the success of the day.§

This defeat was as a blight on the royal cause. Earl Ludovic, with Lord Reay and a few Scots officers, threw himself into Newcastle, while the Parliament passed sentence of forfeiture against him in Edinburgh, and ratified his Earldom of Crawford to Lord Lindsay, in terms of the remainder to that nobleman in the patent granted by King Charles two years before, on Earl Ludovic's resignation,—an assumption of authority on their part to which they were confessedly incompetent. Earl John imme

* Spalding, tom. ii. p. 217.

On the 26th of April, in the Great Church of Edinburgh. Guthry, p. 153. Crawford's Hist. of the Lindsays; Memoirs of James Earl of Balcarres. § Baillie's Letters, tom. ii. p. 204.

Acts Parl., July 23, 1644, tom. vi. pp. 140, 158; Balfour, tom. iii. pp. 236, 237; Sir Thomas Hope's Diary, p. 208.-" Of the participation of Lindsay in this affair," observes Mr. Riddell, "there can be little or no doubt, when, inter alia, it is in proof that he held the great offices of President of the Committee of Estates,

diately assumed the title of Crawford, and is thereafter designated in history as Earl of Crawford-Lindsay. He was at the same time appointed sole High Treasurer of Scotland,* and soon afterwards President of the Parliament, on the death of Lord Balcarres' worthy uncle, the Earl of Lauderdale.t Other offices were gradually engrossed by him, till his power was almost uncontrolled. He acquired moreover the revenues of five bishoprics, those of Caithness, Ross, Moray, Dunkeld, and Dunblane, and a "right," as it was esteemed, "to many more," of which he did not obtain actual possession. Of his sincerity throughout his career, it is difficult to judge. His contemporaries gave him credit for it, and he is described by Wishart as the Coryphæus, or ringleader, of the fierce zealots of the day, § and by Bishop Guthry as "furious" in the cause of his adoption. But sincerity of public creed is not incompatible with private selfishness— and such seems to have been the case with Earl John. It led him, four years after the mock forfeiture of Earl Ludovic, to attempt to overthrow the patent of 1642, on which his succession ultimately rested, by procuring a new one from the royal Exchequer, then under his absolute control; by which his own heirsfemale innumerable were called to the succession, on failure of the heirs-male of his body, to the entire exclusion of the heirs-male whomsoever of Ludovic, the Houses of Spynie, Edzell, and Balcarres. But this patent was of course invalid, as not having

and President of Parliament, in 1644, besides that of Lord High Treasurer, of a Law Lord, &c. &c., and actually combined in himself the chief authority both of law and government, including all public procedure." Crawford Case, p. 26.

*Acts Parl., 23 July, 1644, tom. vi. p. 126; Hope's Diary, p. 208; Guthry, p. 160.-The office was confirmed to him in 1646 by King Charles, after his surrender at Newark :-" As also Crawford-Lindsay had the Treasurer's place settled upon him, which formerly (without his Majesty's allowance) he had possessed himself of by the Parliament's grant. For now his Majesty was reduced to such a posture that he must grant whatever they pleased to ask." Guthry, p. 181.

† Acts Parl., 20 Jan. 1645, tom. vi. p. 161; Balfour, tom. iii. p. 251; Guthry, p. 182.

"The bishoprics that my father had right to were many, but those he was possessed of were only Caithness, Ross, Moray, Dunkeld, and Dunblane." Letter, William 18th Earl of Crawford to Lord Melville, 4 Dec. 1690,--Leven Papers,

Exchequer Charter, 1 March, 1648,-Crawford Priory Charter-room.-See the Crawford Case, p. 29.

proceeded upon due resignation and royal authority, while Earl John, the grantee, was not even then, legally, Earl of Crawford, Ludovic being still alive.

After the battle of Marstonmoor, the whole of the North of England lay prostrate before the Covenanters, except Newcastle, which Earl Ludovic and Lord Reay defended "beyond all expectation, with such courage and resolution," says an old writer, that "their enemies did much admire and praise their fidelity."† Leslie took it however by storm on the 9th of October, “with the loss of many men, and the effusion of much blood;"‡ and Crawford and his friends were made prisoners, and sent to Scotland. Crawford was brought into Edinburgh, on the 7th of November, by the Water-gate of the Canongate, in mournful procession and with studied indignity, being "compelled to come up the gate (road) bareheaded, as a traitor, not styling him Lord, but Ludovic Lindsay, which he suffered patiently;" nor was he imprisoned in the Castle of Edinburgh, "where nobles was wont to be incarcerate, but, out of despite and envy, was wardit within the Tolbooth" (the common gaol) "of Edinburgh.-Ye hear," cries honest Spalding, "how this ancient and noble Earl of Crawford was, by the Estates, without authority of ane King, forfaultit and degraduate!"§-He was tried and condemned to death as a traitor, mainly, according to Wishart, through the influence of Lindsay, who had usurped his honours, and now thirsted for his blood, ||—“ nor was it," he adds, "for any crime but for being a soldier, and an expert man, and one that had done good service for his Majesty the King, and it was feared he would do so again if he should be suffered to live."¶ It was urged by some of the more violent ministers, that he should be immediately beheaded; by others that the execution should be delayed for some days, in order that he might suffer along with the other prisoners; the last

* Crawford Case, p. 29.

+ Gordon of Ruthven's Short Abridgment of Britain's Distemper, 1639-1649, pp. 50, 118.

Ibid., p. 118; Guthry, p. 170; Diary of Mr. Robert Douglas, in' Hist. Fragments relative to Scottish Affairs, 1635-1664,' p. 79.

§ Spalding, tom. ii. p. 283.

"Lindesii Comitis, consanguinei sui, (qui quod honoribus tituloque Craufordiæ inhiaret, ejus etiam capiti insidiabatur,) arte et authoritate à conjuratis ultimo supplicio destinatus erat." Life of Montrose, p. 363.

alternative was carried, and accordingly they were all shut up together in the Tolbooth.*

Montrose, meanwhile, was pursuing a splendid career of victory in the North. He won the battle of Tippermuir on the first of September, 1644,-scarcely losing a single follower. At Perth he was joined by the gallant Lord Spynie, † who, on his return from the German wars, had been confirmed in the office of Mustermaster-General, previously bestowed on him by King Charles. They took Aberdeen on the 14th of September; Montrose set off for the Gordons' country two days afterwards, leaving Lord Spynie in the town; Argyle arrived on the 19th, took him prisoner, and on Saturday the 21st sent him under a guard to Edinburgh.§

It would be fatiguing to enumerate all the marches and countermarches, surprises, skirmishes, and pitched battles, planned with consummate skill, executed with the greatest rapidity and success, and telling like the blows of a sledge-hammer, by which Montrose made his presence felt in every quarter of the North of Scotland,his invasion of Argyle, the storm of Dundee, his retreat into Glenesk, where John Lindsay of Edzell found him a most unwelcome visitor,|| his descent upon Perthshire, and the attempt of Baillie to cut off his retreat to the Highlands, which he frustrated by despatching MacDonnell Colkittoch, commander of the Irish auxiliaries, to plunder Cupar of Angus, where they killed Patrick Lindsay, the minister, and routed a troup under Lord Balcarres, which attempted to check their devastation T-diverting Baillie's attention by this stratagem and seizing the opportunity to regain

*Guthry, p. 170.-" In the mean time the General Assembly sent in Mr. David Dickson, Mr. Robert Blair, Mr. Andrew Cant, Mr. James Guthry, and Mr. Patrick Gillespie, to the Parliament, to press the execution of the Earl of Crawford, Lord Ogilby, and all the rest of the prisoners in the tolbooth; which the Parliament commended as an act of great zeal and piety in the Assembly, yet deferred the performance for a time, until Montrose should be brought lower,-lest otherwise, if through misfortune any of their friends happened to fall into his hands, he might repay it." Ibid., p. 180.

+ Spalding, tom. ii. p. 262.

By letters patent for life, 26 June, 1626; confirmed 28 June, 1633. Acts Parl., tom. v. p. 50.

§ Spalding, tom. ii. p. 267.

|| Petition to Parliament, stating the fact, 16 March, 1649; Acts, tom. vi. p. 441 ¶ On or about the 20th April, 1645. Spalding, tom. ii. p. 267.

the Highlands, and, finally, his descent into the low-country of Angus to encounter Crawford-Lindsay, who had been stationed there with a new army to protect the Lowlands and the seat of government, Perth. Lindsay had "severely censured the campaigns of Argyle, and thirsted to acquire renown by leading an army for the Covenant."* But he was doomed to disappointment, and saved probably from disgrace, by the falling away of Montrose's Highland followers, and the sudden summons of their chief to Aberdeenshire, where Baillie was ravaging the country in his absence. Montrose marched thither forthwith, in pursuit of Baillie.

The young Lord Balcarres, who has been lately complimented as "brave enough to have been second in command to Montrose,” † had the honour of crossing swords with him at the battle which ensued, at Alford, on the 2nd of July, 1645. He had raised a gallant regiment of horse, which is constantly alluded to in the chronicles of the day.-"The armies confronted," says Mr. Napier, "were nearly equal in the number of foot, about two thousand each. But Baillie's cavalry outnumbered Montrose's, being six hundred to two hundred and fifty. The latter, however, were for the most part gentlemen cavaliers, while the Covenanting horsemen had neither the breeding nor the experience to render them so formidable in battle. They were commanded, however, by the gallant Lord Balcarres, who, it is alleged, hurried Baillie into this battle by the forwardness of his cavalry movements. Montrose, judging that the militia opposed to him would be unnerved by the clang of his trumpets and the shouts of his men, hesitated no longer to give them the 'laissez aller.'"-" My Lord Gordon," says a contemporary chronicler, "to whom it fell to give the first charge, did encounter with Balcarres and his horsemen, being three hundreth and the strongest regiment in the kingdom; but so headstrong and furious was the charge of the Lord Gordon, [that] his enemies were not able to gainstand him, but were all disordered and broken; yet, being so many in

* Napier's Life of Montrose, p. 340.

+ Napier's Montrose and the Covenanters, tom. ii. p. 439.

↑ Montrose and the Covenanters, tom. ii. p. 424.-Lord Balcarres had previously fought at Marstonmoor, 2 July, 1644, where his regiment was stationed on the left. Diary of Mr. Robert Douglas, p. 62.