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Heavy
at heart, and filled with foreboding, the new marquis - who had no
particular desire to exchange his proud and ancient style as an earl
of Scotland - wound up his affairs in Morpeth, and set out with his
very reluctant force, first westwards into the Northumbrian hills
and then southwards, by devious ways, to avoid Leslie's army. It
beat in his mind that he, the King's Lieutenant for Scotland, was
proceeding deeper and deeper into England, to involve himself
ever more inextricably in the affairs of another country when his
own was crying aloud for his return. Although, he had to admit, that
cry was so far of his own will and imagining.

On
the
3rd
of
July, at the Durham-York border near Middleton in Teesdale, a group
of fleeing North Lancashire troopers gave Montrose the dire tidings.
There had been a great battle, the day before, on the Marston Moor
west of York. Prince Rupert and the royal army had been completely
defeated, with great slaughter. All was lost It was every man for
himself. No, they did not know how fared the Prince, or where he was
- nor greatly cared, it seemed. But some of the royalist officers,
it was said, were seeking to rally at Richmond. Much good it
might do them...

Montrose,
distressed, was again placed in a dilemma. Every impulse tugged at
him to turn back. His thousand far-from-eager warriors could not
effectively alter the situation, and were most likely merely to
run their heads into a noose. And behind him, Scotland pulled. Yet,
his orders had been to join Rupert. And to seem to desert the Prince
now, in his hour of need, was unthinkable. Yet he might be dead, a
prisoner, or fleeing far.

Contrary
to the advice of most of his colleagues, he decided to go on,
warily, at least as far as Richmond, another twenty miles.

They
found Richmond an armed camp, in a touchy state of alarm but Rupert
himself in command. Weary, slightly wounded and harassed, he was by
no means despondent, and greeted Montrose warmly. Indeed their
arrival seemed to give him an accession of vigour and hope. The
Graham found that, once again, his own reputation had outgrown his
deeds. His taking of Morpeth and cannon-ball raid on Newcastle was
being looked on as a great victory, and the belief here was that all
the North of England was in his sure hands.

Rupert
had nearly
6000
of
the royal troops collected at Richmond - which meant, of course,
that
10,000
at
least were lost,
4000
said
to be dead. More might come in, and he had sent far and wide for new
levies. But he dare not wait here much longer. That devil-damned
Cromwell was coming - indeed had allegedly sworn to take him,
Rupert, and hang him!

Montrose
had heard of Oliver Cromwell, a Huntingdonshire squire who had
been making a name for himself in the English parliament as a stern
opponent of the King. But now, it appeared, he had changed to a
military role, and the defeat at Marston Moor seemed to be largely
of his making. He had raised and trained and disciplined a body of
heavy cavalry, almost as fanatical religious zealots as the Scots
divines, and used them with diabolical, almost unbelievable skill.
Rupert had been caught between Leslie's veterans and Cromwell's
horse. Newcastle's army had collapsed on his flank, and the day had
been lost. But it had been this Cromwell's tactics that had
turned the scale late in the day. And he was now heading west, by
Skipton and the Ribble, to Wensleydalc no doubt, to approach this
Richmond from the rear, while Leslie circled the Cleveland Hills to
make a frontal attack.

That
evening, in the inn in which the Prince had taken up his quarters,
his surviving commanders urged on him differing courses - to
head west and then south, in front of Cromwell, for Oxford and the
King; to retire north-east, to Marley and Newcastle; to do what
would be least expected, disperse the foot and make a dash back to
York with the cavalry and surprise the Fairfaxes denuded of Cromwell
and Leslie. Montrose urged his own old and favoured theme. Use
Scotland. Move up over the Border with this
7000.
Callander
would not hold them. That land was basically loyal to its King, in a
way England was not - a Scots-bom king. Rouse it by a show of
strength. Lacking Leslie's army, Argyll would be lost. He was no
soldier. Then, strong, turn back to England.

When
even Rupert shook almost pitying head at this totally unacceptable
suggestion, the Graham changed his plea. Give him just
1000
crack
cavalry, to replace his hotchpotch of a force. Give him these,
and he would cut his way through south Scotland like a sickle
through com, to his own territories, and there raise Scotland for
the King. He asked no other help than that - he, the King's
Lieutenant for Scotland.

But
again Rupert shook his dark head. He needed every man he could raise
- and crack cavalry were more precious than fine gold. He needed
five times his present numbers. He could afford to detach not one.
They would ride north, yes - but not to Scotland. To Carlisle, where
they would be protected by hills and sea. The North-West had
scarcely been touched by war. There they would re-form and renew
their strength. To turn again in a month or so - and teach the
King's rebels who was master in England.

James
Graham sighed.

But
next morning he was more cheerful. At least they were moving
northwards, not south.

21

I
t
was
six
weeks later before James Graham had
finally
had enough of England, the English, even of Rupert of the Rhine, six
weary weeks on the very verge of Scotland, yet all the time with
their backs to it, considering only the South. Earlier he had sent
Ogilvy and his connection by marriage, lame Sir William Rollo,
secretly into Scotland disguised as pedlars, and after three weeks
they had returned, their news not such as to ease Montrose's mind in
any way. The proposed Irish landing had at last taken place, months
late, but in a half-cocked fashion and anyway up on the Ardnamurchan
coast of Argyll; and not
10,000
men,
not Antrim himself - only
1600
commanded
by a Scots MacDonald chieftain, Alastair, son of MacDonald of
Colonsay, commonly known as Colkitto and a kinsman of Antrim's. This
character was said to be busy ravaging the Argyll seaboard with
fire and sword, from Mingary Castle on Loch Sunart; but so far none
of the clans had risen to aid him in what looked like merely a
typical incident in the unending MacDonald-Campbell feud. And
elsewhere in Scotland the royalists were completely inactive, having
lost all hope under Argyll's savagely repressive regime. Even the
most moderate nobles were kneeling to the Campbell. The two
emissaries' report amounted to this - that if the King's
Lieutenant-General for Scotland was ever going to achieve anything
in that unhappy land, it had better be soon.

But
any such move had now no sort of priority with the King or the
royalist command in England. Rupert was sympathetic, but wholly
concerned with his all too serious problems in the South. Not only
were not troops available to lend for a Scots adventure, but the new
Marquis's own services were required for more immediate
campaigning. All were to move towards Oxford, with the new levies.

So
Montrose came to a decision, a dramatic one. He duly set out for the
South, with the rest. But a short distance from Carlisle, leaving
his own party and personal baggage under Ogilvy and Aboyne, he
dropped to the rear, ostensibly for a word with William Rollo who
had been deliberately delayed. With Rollo, and a Colonel Sibbald, a
tough mercenary from the Swedish wars who had fought under him
in the Bishops' War in Aberdeen and whom he had had his eye on for
some time as a useful man, he trotted along at the very end of the
long column for a little, dropping ever farther behind, a led horse
with them. Then, in close timbered country in the Eden valley, all
three quietly slipped away into the empty woodland, and turned their
horses' heads northwards again.

In
an hour's hard riding they were back on the Scots border, but now in
lonely country. Here they halted, and from their saddle-rolls drew
out very different attire from their normal fine cavalier costume.
Rollo and Sibbald produced and donned uniforms taken from
captured Scots officers of Leslie's force, while Montrose himself
dressed in the garb of a groom, tucking up his splendid curling hair
under a rusty morion helmet. Thus, riding with the led horse
decently behind his betters, Lieutenant-General the Marquis of
Montrose forded Esk and rode back into his native land.

It
was a curious and hazardous interlude - for inevitably they had to
ride through parts of Callander's army which was holding all the
passes of the South-West. They chose unfrequented and awkward
routes, by Sark and Kirtle Waters, Wauchope and Ewes; but even so
could not avoid Callander's pickets. Rollo and Sibbald claimed to be
wounded Scots officers returning from Yorkshire, and got away
with it - although some rather odd glances were cast in the
direction of their groom, who made only a poor job of looking
like a menial, whatever his clothing. Disaster, indeed, came close
on one occasion, when one of a party of Scots troopers, ignoring the
officers, sidled his mount close to Montrose after some staring. He
spoke low-voiced.

'The
Earl o' Montrose, by a' that's holy! Here's a ploy!'

"You
mistake, friend,' James Graham said stiffly. Then remembered his
Angus Doric, 'Och, wheesht - dinna be daft, man!'

‘
Nae
mistake,' the other asserted.
D
'you
think I wouldna ken the Earl? Marquis noo, they say. I've seen you
wi' my Lord Newcasde one time, at Durham. But . . . gang your way.
And God go wi' you!' And, grinning, the man reined round, and away.

Montrose,
catching his companions' glances, let out a sigh of relief.
Presumably the fellow had been a deserter from Newcastle's army; or
had been captured and changed his coat, but still retained some
loyalties.

They
rode on, for Eweswater and the North.

A
devious journey they made of it, seeking to avoid all centres of
population, especially where there were churches - for Montrose
conceived the ministers to be his greatest hazard, keen-eyed divines
who might have seen him at General Assemblies and the like.
Obviously his disguise was less than effective. James Graham could
hardly be expected to recognise that his whole bearing, carriage and
the essential cleanness that always characterised his person,
shouted aloud that he was no groom.

Putting
up at lonely alehouses and remote hill farms, they were accepted as
Leslie's and therefore Argyll's men, and feared accordingly. Clearly
all Scotland now feared Argyll, who appeared to be exercising more
arbitrary power and harsh authority than ever had any of her true
monarchs. Although he used no style or title as yet, other than
Marquis, Privy Councillor, Justiciar of the West and chief of his
clan, professing to be merely the lowly servant of Christ's Kirk,
the squint-eyed King Campbell nevertheless now held the fullest
authority, and ordered matters as he would, and with a heavy hand.
He was hated, yes - but cared not a snap of the fingers for it. His
rule was not concerned with love, affection, even admiration.
Effective power he wanted - and effective power he had.