CHAP. VIII.

Montrose marches into Argyleshire; lays waste and destroys all that country; marches northwards; is opposed by Seaforth; returns, and defeats Argyle at Inverlochy; Sir Thomas Ogilvy, son to the Earl of Airly, killed.

FROM Balveny, Montrose set out for Badenoch; upon his arrival there, he received certain intelligence that Argyle was lying at Dunkeld with his infantry only, having sent his horse to winter-quarters; and that he was employing all his artifice in soliciting the Athole-men to desert him. Though Montrose was pretty confident of the fidelity and constancy of the Athole-men, he, nevertheless, marched down to Athole with incredible expedition; for in one night he travelled with his army no less than twenty-four miles, through a wild uninhabited country, by unbeaten tracts, and almost impassable for rocks and depth of snow; intending to fall upon Argyle, while he had no horse along with him. However, Argyle did not wait his coming; for, being terrified even with the news of his approach, and while as yet he was sixteen miles distant, he desired his men to shift for themselves; and he himself fled straight to Perth, where the covenanters had a strong garrison.

By this time Macdonald was returned from the Highlands, and had brought along with him the Captain of Clanronald and five hundred of his men; to these Montrose joined Patrick Graham, and a select number of the Athole-men; and with this army marched to Loch-Tay, intending to pass through Breadalbane into the shire of Argyle; being convinced that he could not attack an enemy any where more successfully than in his own country. He had, besides, many powerful reasons to induce him to this resolution; for Argyle's power and authority among the Highlanders was such, as rendered him formidable to all the neighbouring gentlemen and their dependents; and he had thereby contributed much both to raise and foment the rebellion from the beginning; for whenever any of them ventured to oppose the covenanters, or dispute their unreasonable commands, Argyle immediately fell upon them with a tumultuous army of five or six thousand Highlanders, whom, too, he forced out for these purposes much against their inclinations, and utterly ruined their fortunes and

estates.

He judged it therefore necessary at any rate to reduce the power of such a seditious, cruel, and avaricious tyrant. Besides, these Highlanders who had a warm side to the king's cause, though they hated Argyle mortally, yet having had sufficient experience of his oppression, durst make no appearance till he should be once subdued. And lastly, as the covenanters were in possession of all

the low country, and had strong garrisons and great bodies of horse dispersed every where through it, Montrose had no where else to dispose of his troops for their winter-quarters, unless he had a mind utterly to cut up and ruin his own friends. For these reasons, he led his army into Argyleshire with surprising celerity, and by very long and difficult marches. very

Argyle had then returned home to raise some new recruits, and had appointed the day and place of their rendezvous. He was living secure in his castle of Inveraray, not imagining that the enemy was within a hundred miles of him; for, till now, he could never be induced to believe that an army could penetrate into Argyle, even in the midst of summer; and used to boast, that he had rather lose a hundred thousand crowns than that any mortal should know the passes by which an armed force could penetrate into his country. When he therefore suspected nothing less, the shepherds came down in a panic from the hills, and informed him that the enemy were not two miles distant. Uncertain what course to take, and almost dead with fear by this unexpected alarm, he went on board a fishing-boat, and consulted his own safety by flight; abandoning his friends and followers, and the whole country, to their own fortune and the mercy of the enemy. The shire of Argyle is a rough mountainous country, and produces little or no corn; but is extremely proper for breeding

cattle, in which chiefly consist the riches of the inhabitants. Montrose divided his army into three parties; he gave the command of one to the Captain of Clanronald, of another to Macdonald, and the third he commanded himself; and sent them out to range the country, and plunder and destroy wherever they came. They spared none that were fit to carry arms, and, in particular, they put to the sword all the men whom they met going in arms to the rendezvous appointed by Argyle; nor did they desist till they had driven all the men who were fit for service out of the country, or at least obliged them to retire to lurking holes known to none but themselves. They drove all their cattle, and burnt down their villages and cottages to the ground; thus retaliating upon Argyle the treatment he had given to others, he himself being the first who had practised this cruel method of waging war against the innocent country people by fire and devastation. Nor did they deal more gently with the people of Lorn, and the neighbouring parts who acknowledged Argyle's authority. Thus they were employed from about the 13th of December 1644, till near the end of January.

Montrose ever afterwards acknowledged, that he had never experienced the singular providence and goodness of God in a more remarkable manner than at this time, in bringing him and his men safe out of these parts; for, had only two hundred men possessed the narrow passes, and defended

them courageously, they might either have entirely destroyed his whole army, or at least have easily prevented their retreat; or if the cowherds had only driven away their cattle out of their reach, which might easily have been done, they must undoubtedly have perished for hunger in that barren country; or, had the winter proved as severe and stormy as is usual every year in that country, they must either have been drowned in the snow, or frozen to death with the cold. But God had, at the same time, deprived his enemies of all resolution and courage, and the season of its usual rigour; and the barrenness of the country in other respects was sufficiently compensated by the greatest abundance of cattle.

Having left the country of Argyle, and gone through Lorn, Glenco, and Lochaber, he at length came to Lochness. And now he laid his account, that the Highlanders, being either terrified by the treatment he had given Argyle, or being now delivered from the apprehensions of his tyranny, would all be ready to join him in defence of the king's righteous cause against the rebels.

But now, lest his invincible spirit should ever want sufficient employment, he received intelligence that the Earl of Seaforth, a man of the greatest power in these parts, and of whom he had all along entertained great expectations, was coming against him with an army of five thousand horse and foot; consisting of the garrison of In