Unknown (30 page)

'Ha!
Excellent and wise orders, my lord! Would all were so wise, used
such discretion! So it is peace — until my lord Hamilton
arrives?'

Stiffly
the other inclined his handsome head.

'So
be it. I bid you good-day, my lord Marquis. And hope that when we
next meet it will be in happier circumstances.' Montrose made a
gesture of sheathing his sword, and doffed his feathered hat with a
flourish.

For
moments the Gordon stood, biting the ends of his luxuriant
moustache. Then abruptly he reined his splendid stallion around, and
rode off down the brae. In some confusion his close supporters
hurried after him. He drove on right through the ranks of his host,
without pause, unspeaking, men drawing hastily aside for the Cock o'
the North. On he went, in the direction from which he had so
recently come, nor once did he look behind him.

'There
goes a Ilamb in lion's skin!' Montrose observed, almost sadly. 'That
the Gordon should have come to this! And that it fell to me to act
skinner - before all his people.'

'George
Gordon will never recover from this,' the Lord Pitsligo said.
'Kinder, I think, to have shot him with one of these hagbuts!'

The
Graham turned away, wordless, to descend the tower stairway.

Left
leaderless, uncertain, it took some time for the great host to
disperse. And all the while the Graham troopers sat their mounts,
still as statues - though most were half-asleep in their saddles -
and the hagbutters remained leaning against the kirkyard wall,
weapons levelled. The minister of Turriff came to announce that his
wife had supper prepared for their lordships.

So
ended the first confrontation of die Bishops' War.

12

J
ames
G
raham
was not long back at
O
ld
M
ontrose
having
crossed all Aberdeenshire openly and unchallenged when Field-Marshal
Alexander Leslie arrived. Rothes came, briefly, to introduce him,
with 1000 men, mainly foot, recruited from Fife; which, added to the
nearly 3000 Montrose already had mustered in Angus, made a
sizeable force, much too large to maintain in or around Old
Montrose. He decided to move to Stonehaven, twenty-three miles
north, in the Earl Marischal's country, where the Keiths were
solidly pro-Covenant, and the impregnable castle of Dunnottar
offered a secure base. Moreover, Stonehaven was only fifteen miles
south of Aberdeen, and it was important to keep an eye on that city,
and its harbour - where Hamilton's expeditionary force was
expected to make a landing. So Old Montrose was once again shut up,
Magdalen electing to take the children back to Kinnaird.

Sandy
Leslie was a little, wizened, wiry man, sour and with few graces,
but shrewd, decisive, with a jaw like a rat-trap. He was not a man
Montrose could take to; but there was no question but that he was an
enormous asset to the Covenant cause, and to be accepted
accordingly. The position meantime was difficult, however; for
though Leslie was to be Commander-in-Chief, for some reason his
appointment did not commence until May. In the interim he was to
serve under Montrose in an advisory capacity. If the little veteran
felt resentment at being thus presently under the command of an
inexperienced amateur of less than half his own age, however highly
born, he had to swallow it for the time being though such was his
jerky and ungracious manner, that it was hard to tell if he did.

At
Dunnottar, with no sign of Hamilton or his fleet, a strange verbal
message reached Montrose, stressed as most secret by its bearer, a
Forbes laird from the Garioch. It was from Huntly himself,
requesting a private meeting, as soon as possible. No reasons were
given, no other suggestions made; merely the request

The
Graham pondered it awhile, while, under Leslie's keen eyes, training
of the raw troops went on. Did Huntly seek an accommodation ? Did he
reckon the King's cause to be hopeless? Was he preparing to resile,
with Hamilton's non-appearance? Or was he just seeking to lull
Montrose into a false sense of security, seeking to gain time?

Other
word of Huntly came from Aberdeen spies. Rumours were rife therein
that the Gordons were preparing to descend upon it, with the
co-operation of the magistrates and the University authorities.
Certainly earthworks and other fortifications for the defence of the
city were being constructed. Montrose's advisers - and now he had
a-plenty - were strong that he take the town and hold it against
Hamilton's arrival; but he did not wish to add to his
responsibilities thus, and restrict his essential mobility. The
Tables, in Edinburgh, now apparently more and more dominated by
Argyll, had issued a fiat appointing Military Committees for
all counties and all commands, on which the Kirk was strongly
represented; and these committees had to be taken into consultation
on all matters of policy. The Graham discovered that a great crowd
of divines, chaplains and other long-faced gentry had descended upon
his camp at Stonehaven, all claiming the authority of the Tables as
advisers. Vociferously they demanded the taking of Aberdeen
immediately. Whether from conviction or policy, Leslie backed them
up.

Reluctantly,
at the end of March, Montrose marched on the city.

There
was no resistance - and no signs of the Gordons. Some of the city
fathers fled by sea, as did the University professors and doctors.
The citizens did not welcome the Covenanting army, nor did they
provoke it. Black-robed divines descended on the erring town from
near and far - like black crows on carrion, as Montrose asserted
privately to Pate Graham - and did not confine themselves to
monopolising the city pulpits. It was becoming most evident
that many of the Kirk's ministers and supporters considered that a
theocracy was now the rule in Scotland, the voice of God's ordained
servants to be supreme in law and governance, and all soldiers, like
other citizens, however lofty, to be subject to their guidance.
Montrose, of course, saw it otherwise, and there were clashes. It
was strange that Sandy Leslie should so consistently take their side
- a Field-Marshall might have been expected to be the first to
resent any ministerial interference in matters military. But,
of course, they were in effect his paymasters.

Deciding
that he did not like the atmosphere developing in Aberdeen, the
Graham drew up orders for its good administration, strict but fair,
appointed the Earl of Kinghome as Lieutenant-Governor, ordered all
Covenanting troops to wear a blue ribbon, as identification, imposed
a fine of 10,000 merks - as advised by his Military Committee - as
suitable contribution from a community which hitherto had failed to
support the cause, and announced his own departure. He declared that
he was going to keep an eye on Huntly and the Gordons. On the
pretext that Hamilton's fleet might arrive off the harbour at any
time, and coping with his reception require a skilled and
experienced hand, he managed to leave the Field-Marshal behind, with
his 1000 from Fife. And most of the ministers. Breathing more freely
than he had done for a while, James Graham rode sixteen miles
north-west, to Inverurie, a small and ancient royal burgh at the
confluence of Urie and Don, and camped there.

All
along, there had been stories of the Gordons mobilising their
admittedly enormous war potential, in earnest. The air was thick
with their reported numbers - 5000, 8000, 10,000. Oddly enough,
Huntly's personal credit having suffered grievously at Turriff, the
semi-legendary renown of his house had become transferred meantime
to his sons. The eldest, Lord Gordon, was not much mentioned; but
his next brother, the Viscount Aboyne, was said to have been so
disgusted with his father's inactivity that he had run off, and
sailed in a fishing-craft, south to join the King in the North of
England; while the Lord Lewis, though only thirteen, was ranging
round the Gordon country with a banner and a drawn sword, whipping
up forces.

Inverurie,
a grey-stone town amongst low green hills, with a great, green
isolated mound which had supported a former royal castle - where the
mighty Bruce had lain ill, before rising from his sick-bed to win a
battle against the Comyns - was an ideal spot to keep watch and ward
on the vast sprawling area of rural Aberdeenshire, strategically
sited not only at the junction of rivers but where the Bourtie,
Benachie, Corrennie and Correen hill-masses forced road
communications into a fairly tight bottleneck. If a wary eye was to
be kept on the mighty Clan Gordon, this was the place to do it.

Montrose
had scarcely expected, however, that his first sure word of the
Gordons should be from such an authoritative level. On only his
second day at Inverurie, a nondescript traveller from the north came
seeking his presence - and turned out to be none other than Gordon
of Straloch, Huntly's Chamberlain, though very much incognito. His
master had sent him, he said, to arrange the private and secret
meeting with Montrose, with a view to a possibly mutually beneficial
arrangement.

Seeking
to hide his astonishment, the Graham enquired further, as though
this was perfectly normal procedure between rival commanders.

Huntly
proposed, it seemed, that they should meet secretly, each to have
only ten companions and armed only with swords, at an inconspicuous
place mid-way between Strathbogie and Inverurie, each side to send
forward three of their number to inspect the other, before meeting,
to ensure that these conditions were scrupulously complied with.

'Does
my lord of Huntly not trust my word?' Montrose interrupted warmly,
at this stage. 'If I agree to the meeting, there is no need for such
inspection, sir.'

"Your
pardon, my lord. I said as much. But my master insisted upon it. He
believes that your ministers might seek to deceive him. Not
yourself, to be sure...'

'He
wrongs them. But I will bring no ministers, I assure you
...'

So,
despite warnings of a possible trap, from Kilpont and others, two
days later Montrose and Huntly did meet, at a hidden waterside
hamlet under the steep slopes of Benachie. It was a strange
encounter, with the Gordon strained, nervous, almost furtive,
apparently wary even of his own companions - amongst whom James
Graham was surprised to find the young Lord Gordon, as unimportant-
and undistinguished-seeming as ever, but calmly alert and
detached, in contrast to the others who presented a picture of
corporate discomfort. Huntly insisted on drawing Montrose well
aside, and out of ear-shot, for a start, and conducting the
subsequent conversation in whispers - unlikely behaviour for
the man at whose least word all the North-East was supposed to
quake. The other, as a consequence, was the cooler, more off-hand.

Huntly's
troubled discourse went thus. He had been deceived, shamefully
deceived. Word had reached him from his son, Aboyne, now at
Newcastle, that Hamilton was not in fact coming to Aberdeen at all.
His force was to sail for the Forth, not the Dee. Probably he never
had intended to come to the North-East. It was but a ruse to
encourage the Gordons to rise. Yet now the King was criticising him
for not acting more strongly. When he had His Grace's own commands
to mobilise only, to await reinforcement. It was most unfair.

Montrose
sympathised, distantly, agreeing that the King could be difficult,
and was in most matters ill-advised. Probably it was Hamilton's
fault. The man was a puffed-up bull-frog. But how did this concern
himself?

An
armistice, Huntly suggested, so far below his breath as to be almost
inaudible. An end to this folly, in the North-East at least. An
agreement - secret, of course. That there be no foolish fighting, no
wasting of good lands, that Aberdeen should be left in peace, that
grown men might get on with more important matters than playing
soldiers.