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Montrose's
company, therefore, was an almost farcical host with which to invade
a warlike and already warned country - for, of course, it had all
been the talk of Oxford for months, and few in Scotland had not
heard that the Earl of Montrose was coming, with a ravening horde of
Catholic savages from Ireland; so much so that Archibald Campbell
had hurriedly withdrawn himself and his regiment from Leslie's
army and sped northwards to defend his West Highland patrimony. The
Graham had
1300
altogether,
consisting of
800
Cumberland
and Westmorland militia foot, and
500
assorted
horse - very assorted, consisting of
100
ill-spared
and poorly mounted troopers from Lord Newcastle, three troops of
local yeomanry, and the rest gentry, Scots exiles, North Country
royalist squires, and a few paid professional officers from the
foreign wars. As a fighting force it was unbalanced, undisciplined,
formless, and would have been laughable had it been any laughing
matter. James Graham felt more like weeping. This was the last way
that he would have chosen to return to his country and commence his
campaign - a campaign which, even with the best of conditions and
good fortune, would be a colossal gamble, all but a forlorn hope. To
attempt it in these circumstances was little short of madness.

And
yet, even so, the King's new Lieutenant-General could not but
rejoice, in some measure, could not prevent his spirits from
soaring, as he set foot once again on his native soil, with possibly
the greatest venture of his life ahead of him, an endeavour which
only he could make, a challenge to dwarf all others. None was better
aware than he was of the difficulties and heartbreaks which must
inevitably lie ahead. Yet he rode through the spring morning,
amongst the blazing gorse and broom, the shouting of the larks, the
long-lying snow-wreaths and the clamour of tumbling waters, with a
lightness of heart - however heavy might be some of the thoughts at
the back of his head.

Crossing
the green plain of Gretna and the mouth of Annandale, field of
battles innumerable, they worked round the wide-spreading Solway
estuary and the wildfowl-haunted reaches of the Lochar Moss, to the
great castle of Caerlaverock within its marshland moats. This
presented no challenge, for its lord was in fact with Montrose -
Robert Maxwell, head of that turbulent clan and Earl of Nithsdale.
But he was a Catholic, and the Graham was loth indeed to burden his
campaign with any further alleged Popish bias such as it already was
being given. He got over the difficulty, meantime, by sending the
Earl off into Galloway, to find and try to control a
fellow-religionist, the Viscount Kenmure, who for some time had been
terrorising these remote counties, all in the King's name,
roaming the country with a brandy-barrel on a pole as his standard,
indiscriminately pillaging, burning, raping.

Unfortunately
this judicious detachment of Lord Nithsdale was promptly followed by
another, neither ordered nor anticipated. Most of the Cumberland and
Westmorland militia suddenly took fright, declaring that they had
not enlisted for adventures in Scotland. They wanted to go home.
Montrose might have taken a stem line with these, threatening them
with the penalties of mutiny; but on a desperate attempt such as
this, he saw no advantage in clinging to a reluctant crew. They were
foot, anyway, and as a born horseman he tended to see such as more
of a delaying factor to his preferred swift movement than anything
else. He sent them home.

That
he was immediately thereafter joined by a squadron of well-armed
horse under the Lord Herries, was a doubtful compensation - for
Herries was another Maxwell and Catholic.

A
rather more welcome encouragement met them when they pressed on the
few miles to Dumfries, still without opposition, in the person of
Provost John Corsan and some of his magistrates and townsfolk, come
out to greet them. Dumfries, where Nith joined Solway, was the first
sizeable town on this west side of Scotland, and this adherence was
heartening. Montrose decided that here he would take die significant
step of raising the royal standard of King Charles.

So,
on a cold and showery afternoon, the
14th
of
April
1644,
in
the Market Place of the trim red-stone burgh of Dumfries, trumpets
shrilled and the red-and-gold Lion Rampant banner of the Kings of
Scots was unfurled, to flap in the breeze, while James Graham, fifth
Earl of Montrose, read out his commission as the King's
Lieutenant-General -under Captain-General the Prince Maurice - with
all necessary powers and authority to restore the King's rule and
governance to his ancient realm. To ringing cheers he then read out
a proclamation of his own composing, calling on the people of
Scotland to join him for the defence of the true Portestant
religion, His Majesty's just and sacred authority, the fundamental
laws and privileges of Parliament, and the peace and freedom of
all oppressed and enthralled subjects. God Save the King.

It
was a stirring moment, long awaited. The Earls of Kinnoull and
Wigtown, supported by the Lords Herries, Aboyne, Ogilvy and Kilpont,
led the cheering; but the occasion was rather spoiled by another
earl of Scotland - or at least by a message which reached Montrose
only a few minutes previously, to the effect that Lieutenant-General
the Earl of Callander was making forced marches from Edinburgh
south-westwards, to intercept him with
7000
men.
This was none other than his old colleague the Lord Almond, fellow
lieutenant to old Leslie and co-signatory of the Cumbernauld
Bond, who had now succeeded his late brother as Earl of Callander,
and moved firmly into Argyll's camp. But whatever his loyalties and
politics, he was an able soldier; and the thought of him and his
7000
only
three or four days' march away, was dampening to enthusiasm.

Montrose,
however, gave a scratch banquet for the Provost and leading
citizens of Dumfries that evening, and thereafter even danced with
Mrs Corsan, the Lady Maxwell of Munches and other ladies. But
however attentive he seemed, his mind was in fact filled with
assessings and calculations other than such partners might have
considered suitable. How fast could a host of that number, mainly
foot, travel through hill country still largely snow-bound after a
particularly severe winter? By what route would they come, using
which passes through the Lowther Hills especially? Was there any
point where a few hundred horsemen might successfully ambush such
thousands? Could, in fact, such determined horsemen reach the passes
in time? And if they failed, would that be the end of the King's
cause in Scotland before it had even begun ?

Such
cogitations tended to fairly consistently depressing conclusions -
which no doubt was hard on the ladies. And unfortunately James
Graham perforce took the cogitations to bed with him that night -
which was hard on himself. Moreover, it did not fail to occur to him
that if he could think along these lines, others could do likewise.
Others whom he was hopefully summoning to the royal standard. In the
circumstances, with no sizeable increase in the King's force
meantime, would
any
in
fact, in their sane sense, rally to himself at Dumfries? It seemed
improbable.

The
next day and the next Montrose waited by the Nith, and learned that
his fears were well founded. A few lairds, mainly Maxwells and
Catholics, brought small groups and
contingents.
But their enemies, the Johnstons of Annandale, under the new Earl of
Hartfell, though nominally royalist, kept their distance; as did the
Douglasses, Murrays, Armstrongs, Elliots, Jardines and other
West March clans. And Callander drew closer apace.

On
the third day,
James
Graham
accepted the bitter reality. Dumfries and Galloway are separated
from the rest of Scotland by great ranges of hills and wide empty
uplands. There was not another town of any size for fifty miles, no
populous area where he might look for major support And thereafter,
the lowlands of Ayrshire and the uplands of Lanarkshire were both
strongly Covenant, dominated by Loudoun, Cassillis, Eglinton and
Hamilton. This was no country to invade from the south in small
numbers. He had told the King and his advisers so; but they had
known best With under 1000 men all told, he was in no position to
press on against an army seven times his size. Dumfries was not a
walled town, and impossible to defend; besides, for him to be cooped
up, besieged; only a mile or two into Scotland, would look
pathetic, and do no service to the royal
cause.
There was nothing tor it but to retire whence he had come - and
quickly.

But
one duty he had, and must attend to, first. The local volunteers
must be dispersed and sent home, however much they might protest.
Since obviously he could not adequately make use of them, they must
at least be spared the reprisals that Callander's army would be
almost certain to visit upon them.

To
a man of his temperament and pride, the entire business was an
agony. And, almost, he left the final withdrawal too late. Callander
sent most of his horse ahead of the main body, and they came dashing
down Nith only a few miles to the north of the town at the same time
as Montrose was riding out to the south. It became practically a
race for the Border, and Carlisle city walls. They even had to
abandon some of the heavier cannon, which were severely holding them
up. It was debacle, complete and shameful. Probably only because
Callander's cavalry had no instructions about crossing into England
and confronting the fortress of Carlisle, did the royalist force
make good its escape, without loss. Its leader, set-faced, drank
deep of the draught of humiliation. Only one credit was to be
salvaged from the entire sorry affair. He was being taught a
valuable lesson. Never again must he allow himself to be forced into
commanding a military adventure which he knew to be mistaken,
even by his liege lord. His duty was to serve the King - but with
his mind and will, not merely with his blind obedience. James Graham
was a man who did not spare himself. He blamed himself now - not for
this fiasco of an invasion, but for not having refused utterly to
countenance it from the beginning, when he knew it folly.

Never
did a general less relish his safety as the gate of Carlisle, an
English citadel, clanged shut behind him and in the face of his
compatriots.

Strangely
enough, this deplorable withdrawal by no means produced the storm of
contumely and derision from the royalist camp which might have been
expected. The English commanders cared little for the situation in
Scotland; and the Earl of Newcastle in especial saw Montrose's
return as admirable, heaven-sent indeed. Instead of being blamed, he
found himself being treated as a wise man who had seen the better
course, accepted as the sorely tried Newcastle's deputy in the
North-West, and given urgent commands to raise all Cumberland and
Westmorland and North Lancashire, and
to
assail Leslie's light flank. The impression given was almost that he
had forgone pressing on into Scotland in order to return to the
greater danger in England. If there was some slight balm to a young
man's wounded pride in this, there was also another salutary lesson.
The English, unlike the Scots, had the priceless gift of
single-mindedness, of seeing matters always and entirely from their
own point of view; nothing extraneous really mattered - unlike the
metaphysical Scots to whom everything mattered, and too much. Here
was understanding vital to any student of statecraft, any commander
likely to handle troops of both nations.