joined. Very strong for the Covenant; very strong against all shams of the Covenant. Colonel Ker is the famed Commander Gibby Carr,' who came to commune with us in the Burrow-moor, when we lay on Pentland Hills: Colonel Strahan is likewise a famed Commander, who was thought to be slain at Musselburgh once, but is alive here still; an old acquaintance of my Lord General Cromwell's, and always suspected of a leaning to Secrian courses. These Colonels and Gentry having, by sanction of the Committee of Estates, raised a Western Army of some Five-thousand, and had much consideration with themselves; and seen, especially by the flight into the Grampians, what way his Majesty's real inclinations are tending,-decide, or threaten to decide, that they will not serve under his Majesty or his General Lesley with their Army, till they see new light; that in fact they dare not; being apprehensive he is no genuine Covenanted King, but only the sham of one, whom it is terribly dangerous to follow! On this Party Cromwell has his eye; and they What becomes of them we shall, before long, learn. Meanwhile here is a Letter to the Official Authorities; which, however, produces small effect upon them.

on him.

LETTER XCIX.

For the Right Honorable the Committee of Estates of Scotland, at Stirling, or elsewhere: These.

RIGHT HONORABLE,

Linlithgow, 9th October, 1650.

The grounds and ends of the Army's entering Scotland have been heretofore, often and clearly, made known unto you ; and how much we have desired the same might be accomplished without blood. But, according to what returns we have received, it is evident your hearts had not that love to us as we can truly say we had towards you. And we are persuaded those difficulties in which you have involved yourselves,-by espousing your King's interest, and taking into your bosom that Person, in whom (notwithstanding what hath been' or may be said to the contrary) that which is really Malignancy and all Malignants do centre; against whose Family the Lord hath so eminently witnessed for bloodguiltiness, not to be done away by such hypocritical and formal shows of repentance as are expressed in his late Declara

6

tion; and your strange prejudices against us as men of heretical opinions (which, through the great goodness of God to us, have been unjustly charged upon us),—have occasioned your rejecting these Overtures which, with a Christian affection, were offered to you before any blood was spilt, or your People had suffered damage by us.

The daily sense we have of the calamity of War lying upon the poor People of this Nation, and the sad consequences of blood and famine likely to come upon them; the advantage given to the Malignant, Profane, and Popish party by this War; and that reality of affection which we have so often professed to you, and concerning the truth of which we have so solemnly appealed,-do again constrain us to send unto you, to let you know, That if the contending for that Person be not by you preferred to the peace and welfare of your Country, the blood of your Peoples, the love of men of the same faith with you, and (in this above all) the honor of that God we serve,-Then give the State of England that satisfaction and security for their peaceable and quiet living by you, which may in justice be demanded from a Nation giving so just ground to ask the same,—from those who have, as you, taken their enemy into their bosom, whilst he was in hostility against them. And it will be made good to you, that you may have a lasting and durable Peace with them, and the wish of a blessing upon you in all religious and civil things.

If this be refused by you, we are persuaded that God, who hath once borne His testimony, will do it again on the behalf of us His poor servants, who do appeal to Him whether their desires flow from sincerity of heart or not. I rest,

Your Lordships' humble servant,

OLIVER CROMWELL.*

The Committee of Estates at Stirling or elsewhere debated about an Answer to this Letter; but sent none, except of civility merely, and after considerable delays. A copy of the Letter was likewise forwarded to Colonels Ker and Strahan and their Western Army, by whom it was taken into consideration; and some Correspondence, Cromwell's part of which is now lost, followed upon it there; and indeed Cromwell, as we dimly discover in the old Books, set forth towards Glasgow directly on the back of it, in hopes of a closer communication with these Western Colonels and their Party.

6

While Ker and Strahan are busy at Dumfries,' says Baillie

'Cromwell with the whole body of his Army and cannon comes peaceably by way of Kilsyth to Glasgow.' It is Friday evening, 18th October, 1650. The Ministers and Magistrates flee all away. I got to the Isle of Cumbrae with my Lady Montgo mery; but left all my family and goods to Cromwell's courtesy, -which indeed was great; for he took such a course with his soldiers that they did less displeasure at Glasgow than if they had been in London; though Mr. Zachary Boyd,' a fantastic old gentleman still known in Glasgow and Scotland, railed on them all, to their very face, in the High Church ;** calling them Sec taries and Blasphemers, the fantastic old gentleman! Glasgow, though not so big or rich as Edinburgh, is a much sweeter place; the completest town we have yet seen here, and one of their choicest Universities.' The people were much afraid of us till they saw how we treated them. 'Captain Covel of the Lord General's regiment of horse was cashiered here, for holding some blasphemous opinions.†-This is Cromwell's first visit to Glasgow he made two others, of which on occasion notice shall be taken. In Pinkerton's Correspondence are certain 'anecdotes of Cromwell at Glasgow ;' which, like many others on Cromwell, need not be repeated anywhere except in the nursery.

:

Cromwell entered Glasgow on Friday evening; over Sunday, was patient with Zachary Boyd: but got no result out of Ker and Strahan. Ker and Strahan, at Dumfries on the Thursday, have perfected and signed their Remonstrance of the Western Army; a Document of much fame in the old Scotch Books. 'Expressing many sad truths,' says the Kirk Committee. Expressing, in fact, the apprehension of Ker and Strahan that the Covenanted King may probably be a Solecism Incarnate, under whom it will not be good to fight longer for the Cause of Christ and Scotland;-expressing meanwhile considerable reluctancy as to the English Sectaries; and deciding on the whole to fight them still, though on a footing of our own. Not a very hopeful enterprise! Of which we shall see the issue by and by. Meanwhile news come that this Western Army is aiming towards Ed

* Baillie, iii., 119; Whitlocke, p 459.

† Whitlocke, p. 459; Cromwelliana, pp. 92–3. Dated 17 October; given in Balfour, iv., 141.

inburgh, to get hold of the Castle there. Whereupon Cromwell, in all haste, on Monday, sets off thitherward; lodges the first night in a poor cottage fourteen miles from Glasgow ;' arrives safe, to prevent all alarms. His first visit to Glasgow was but of two days.

Here is another trait of the old time; not without illumination for us. 'One Watt, a tenant of the Earl of Tweeddale's, being sore oppressed by the English, took to himself some of his own degree; and, by daily incursions and infalls on the English Garrisons and Parties in Lothian, killed and took of them above Four-hundred,' or say the half or quarter of so many, and enriched himself by their spoils.' The like did 'one Augustin, a High-German, not a Dutchman, being purged out of the Army before Dunbar Drove,'-of whom we shall hear farther. In fact, the class called Mosstroopers begins to abound; the only class that can flourish in such a state of affairs. Whereupon comes out this

PROCLAMATION.

1 FINDING that divers of the Army under my command are not only spoiled and robbed, but also sometimes barbarously and inhumanly butchered and slain, by a sort of Outlaws and Robbers, not under the discipline of any Army; and finding that all our tenderness to the Country produceth no other effect than their compliance with, and protection of, such persons; and considering that it is in the power of the Country to detect and discover them (many of them being inhabitants of those places where commonly the outrage is committed); and perceiving that their motion is ordinarily by the invitation, and according to intelligence given them by Countrymen :

I do therefore declare that wheresoever any under my command shall be hereafter robbed or spoiled by such parties, I will require life for life, and a plenary satisfaction for their goods, of those Parishes and Places where the fact shall be committed; unless they shall discover and produce the offender. And this I wish all persons to take notice of, that none may plead ignorance.

Given under my hand at Edinburgh, the 5th of November, 1650. OLIVER CROMWELL.*

* Newspapers (in Cromwelliana, p. 94).

Colonels Ker and Strahan with their Remonstrance have filled all Scotland with a fresh figure of dissension. The Kirk finds 6 many sad truths' in it; knows not what to do with it. In the Estates themselves there is division of opinion. Men of worship, the Minister in Kirkcaldy among others, are heard to say strange things: "That a Hypocrite," or Solecism Incarnate, "ought not to reign over us; that we should treat with Cromwell, and give him assurance not to trouble England with a King; that whosoever mars such a Treaty, the blood of the slain shall be on his head!" 'Which are strange words,' says Baillie, if true.' Scotland is in a hopeful way. The extreme party of Malignants in the North is not yet quite extinct; and here is another extreme party of Remonstrants in the West,-to whom all the conscientious rash men of Scotland, in Kirkcaldy and elsewhere, seem as if they would join themselves! Nothing but remonstrating, protesting, treatying and mistreatying from sea to sea.

To have taken up such a Remonstrance at first, and stood by it, before the War began, had been very wise; but to take it up now, and attempt not to make a Peace by it, but to continue the War with it, looks mad enough! Such nevertheless is Colonel Gibby Ker's project,-not Strahan's, it would seem: men's projects strangely cross one another in this time of bewilderment; and only perhaps in doing nothing could a man in such a scene act wisely. Lambert, however, is gone into the West with Threethousand horse to deal with Ker and his projects; the Lord General has himself been in the West: the end of Ker's projects is succinctly shadowed forth in the following Letter. From Baillie* we learn that Ker, with his Western Army, was lying at a place called Carmunnock, when he made this infall upon Lambert ; that the time of it was four in the morning of Sunday, 1st December, 1650;' and the scene of it Hamilton Town, and the streets and ditches thereabouts; a dark sad business, of an ancient Winter morning ;-sufficiently luminous for our purpose with i here.

* iii., 125.