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with equal solemnity declared that he would never treat with the rebels, nor grant a toleration, while he was negociating all the time, and that he depended solely upon the affection of his subjects in vindicating the rights of the crown, which involved their own, and never would call in foreign force, which he conceived would be fraught with the ruin of his dominions *,-we cease to find an apology. If we only suppose that an army of native Irish had entered London, the rebellious city as it was called, and picture to ourselves all the rapines, burn

• As Clarendon drew the papers in which the Almighty is so invoked, the following passage will afford a proof of his character. After mentioning the inclinations of foreign kingdoms, and complaining that they endeavoured, instead of assisting princes against their people, to sow dissension in foreign states, "as if the religion of princes were nothing but policy, and they considered nothing more than to make all other nations but their own miserable," he continues thus," and because God hath reserved them to be tried only within his own jurisdiction, and before his own tribunal, that he means to try them too by other laws and rules than he hath published to the world, for his servants to walk by. Whereas they ought to consider that God hath placed them over his people as examples, and to give countenance to his laws, by their strict observation of them." This is good; but mark the sequel: "and that as their subjects are to be defended and protected by their princes, so they themselves are to be assisted and supported by one another, the function of kings being an order by itself." Then they are all alike, and consequently there are no limits upon this order; or at least none of which they themselves are not the exclusive judges." And as a contempt and breach of every law is, in the poli

cy

of state, an offence against the person of the king, because there is a kind of violation offered to his person in the transgression of that law, without which he cannot govern." Excellent logic. "So the rebellion of subjects against their prince ought to be looked upon by all other kings, as an assault of their own sovereignty, and, in some degree, a design against monarchy itself, and consequently to be suppressed and extirpated, in whatsoever other kingdom it is with the like concernment, as if it were in their own bowels." Vol. iii. p. 92—4. See Rush. vol. v.

p. 69.

ings, murders, endless abominations that must have ensued from such a ferocious rabble, we shall then be qualified to form some idea of the proceeding. Nor let us flatter ourselves that such brutal soldiery could have been restrained; for the outrages committed by them in Scotland, which we shall have occasion to detail, are utterly revolting to humanity.

Character of From the part performed by Montrose in this Montrose. business, it may not be improper here to give a sketch of his character. Active, cruel, daring, and unprincipled, he seemed formed by nature for civil broils. Chagrined at real or supposed neglect from the court, he joined the covenanters with a bitterness of spirit which was mistaken for enthusiastic zeal. But vexed, on the one hand, at being eclipsed in the council by the abilities and influence of Argyle, and in the army by Leslie, and allured on the other by the prospect of high courtfavour, the want of which had first stung him with mortification and revenge, he eagerly listened to tempting offers, and not only engaged to renounce the principles for which he had contended, but to betray the cause, to conspire by perjury against the lives and honour of the individuals with whom he had acted in concert, and latterly, to propose cutting them off by assassination, or by suddenly raising a faction in the hour of unsuspecting security, to perpetrate an indiscriminate slaughter upon all the leading men of the party. Detected in his wickedness, and utterly cast off by the whole body as bloated with iniquity, he allowed the tu

multuous fury of wounded pride and disappointed ambition to assume the semblance of principle, and looked towards the ruin of the political franchises and the religion of his country, which he had so sworn to maintain, as to the necessary removal of standing reproaches of his apostacy and barriers to his aggrandizement. Hence there was no scheme so desperate that he hesitated to recommend, none so wicked that he declined to execute. His eulogists have so liberally called in the aid of fiction to their narrative of his exploits, as to represent him as a prodigy of military talent; yet, when we examine his feats through the medium of truth instead of romance, we discover neither the comprehension nor the cool judgment of a great general, who takes in a wide plan of ope rations. But his abilities were better suited to the measures he projected than higher genius. Misled by his passions, he allowed his presumptuous hopes to direct his understanding, and embarked in undertakings which a calculating head would have rejected; but addressing himself to the wild barbarians of the hills, whose object was plunder, he roused them by intrepidity and deci sion, and thus seemed, on the sudden, to wield resources of which nobody anticipated his command. As, however, his troops were adapted to him, so was he to them; and, though both were terrible in desultory warfare, neither could act in a higher sphere. His firm adherence to the royal cause af ter the detection of his conspiracies against the state, has already been accounted for without re

dounding to his credit: an individual of intolerable pride and ambition, whose treachery has reduced him to the humiliating condition of an outcast from one party, has no alternative but to cling to another, which he has perfidiously attemptéd to serve; and the fortunes, the all, of Montrose, latterly depended upon the success of the royal side. It has been justly remarked, however, as a favourable trait in his character, that though he could not bear an equal, and was always ready to destroy an adversary, whether by heroism in the field or by the cowardly mode of assassination, he was still generous to those who testified their sense of his superiority.

We shall, in their place, relate the events which arose out of the detestable projects devised by him; and, in the mean time, resume our narrative.

The queen having erected her standard, (on which, and other grounds,-as having caused disturbances in Scotland, incited the Irish rebellion, pawned the crown jewels, &c. she was impeached by the parliament of high treason*,) gave great supplies to the Earl of Newcastle, with whom she acted in concert, though, as she preferred her own favourites, jealousy soon sprang up between them f. The king had solemnly denied that he retained Catholics in his army, and absurdly retorted the charge upon the adverse party; but, as great part of the Earl's troops were of the Romish persuasion, it was vain for that nobleman to persist in

May, lib. iii. p. 53.

+ Carte's Letters, vol. i. p. 20.

denying the fact, and while he owned that part of them were papists, he defended the measure by the practice of princes in general, who are indifferent to the religion of their soldiers, and followed the example of his master in charging the parliament with being equally unscrupulous. The junction of the queen and the earl was attended with great effects; but their success was rather apparent than real. Not only were the counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Durham, with the town of Newcastle, brought under subjection, but even the northern parts of Yorkshire; and, in spite of the vigorous exertions of Lord Fairfax, and his heroic son Sir Thomas, and of Hull's being in the power of the parliament, the queen and Newcastle still extended their conquests. Fairfax had been too much neglected by the two houses, and he was at one time obliged to intimate to them that, unless he received supplies, he would be obliged to renounce the contest; but he was no stranger to the internal causes of decay which operated on the other side, and the inherent vigour of his own party. Newcastle had pressed a portion of his soldiers, and levied contributions at pleasure, and even allowed his men to pillage the country. Hence, as well as on principle, the inhabitants were everywhere hostile to him, and, in April, when he desired a mutual cessation, not only the troops of Fairfax declared their aversion to it, but the country population in general, unless they were indemnified of the losses they had sustained through the

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