second insurrection, a great command was entrusted to him by the covenanters, and he was the first that passed the Tweed, at the head of their troops in the invasion of England. He found means, however, soon after to convey a letter to the king, and by the infidelity of some about that prince (Hamilton as was suspected) a copy of this letter was sent to Leven, the Scottish general. Montrose, accused of treachery and of correspondence with the enemy, openly avowed the letter, and asked the generals if they dared to call their sovereign an enemy. By this bold and magnanimous behaviour, he escaped the danger of an immediate prosecution. He now no longer concealed his principles, and endeavoured to draw those who entertained like sentiments, into a bond of association for his master's service.

There was in Scotland another party, who professed equal attachment to the king, though they differed about the means of attaining the same end; duke Hamilton was their leader. This nobleman, connected by blood to the royal family, had ever been honoured with great confidence and favour by his master. As much as the bold and vivid spirit of Montrose prompted him to enterprising measures, so much the cautious temper of Hamilton inclined to such as were dilatory. The subtleties of his conduct have even subjected him to the imputation of a conspiracy against his sovereign, which has never yet been fully proved or refuted. It was by his advice that the covenanters were allowed to proceed without interruption in all their hostile measures. But the representations of Montrose at length prevailed; Hamilton was sent prisoner by Charles to Pendennis castle, and the daring designs of Montrose obtained the king's approbation.

Not discouraged with the defeat at Marston Moor, though it rendered it impossible to draw any suc

cours from England, Montrose stipulated only with the earl of Antrim, a nobleman from Ireland, that he should send some supply of men from that country. In the mean time changing himself his disguises, and passing through many dangers, he arrived in Scotland, where he lay concealed, and secretly prepared the minds of his partizans for attempting some great enterprise.

No sooner were the Irish landed, though not exceeding eleven hundred foot, very ill armed, than Montrose entered upon that scene of action which has attached so much glory to his name.

About eight hundred of the men of Athole flocked to his standard; five hundred men more, who had been levied by the covenanters, were persuaded to embrace the royal cause. With this combined force he hastened to attack lord Elcho, who lay at Perth with an army of six thousand men. Montrose, inferior in number, totally unprovided with horse, ill supplied with arms and ammunition, had nothing to depend on but the courage which his own example should inspire to his raw soldiers. Having received the fire of the enemy, which was answered chiefly by a volley of stones, he rushed amidst them with his sword drawn, threw them into confusion, and obtained a complete victory with the slaughter of two thousand of the covenanters. At Aberdeen he defeated lord Burley, who commanded a force of two thousand five hundred covenanters; he ravaged the county of Argyle, and at Innerlochy he drove from the field that nobleman, and broke with great slaughter the power of the Campbells. The army of Seaforth dispersed at the very terror of his name; yet such was his situation, that very good or very ill fortune was equally destructive to him, and diminished his army. After every victory his soldiers, greedy of spoil, deserted in great numbers to secure the treasures they had acquired, and left their gene

ral almost alone with the Irish, who having no place to which they could retire, still adhered to him.

The council at Edinburgh, alarmed at Montrose's progress, sent for Baillie, an officer of reputation, from England; and joining him in command with Urrey, they sent them with a considerable army against the royalists. Montrose had just taken by assault the town of Dundee, and delivered it up to be plundered by his soldiers, when Baillie and Urrey with their whole force were unexpectedly upon him. Instantly he called off his soldiers from plunder, put them in order, and secured his retreat by the most skilful measures, after having marched sixty miles in the face of an enemy much superior.

Baillie and Urrey now divided their troops and marched on two different sides against Montrose. Urrey, at the head of four thousand men, met him at Aldernie near Inverness. Encouraged by the superiority of number (for the covenanters were double the royalists) he attacked him in the post he had chosen; but Montrose so furiously repelled the attack that he drove them off the field, and gained a complete victory. Baillie now advanced to revenge Urrey's discomfiture, but at Alford he met with the same fate.

While the fire was thus kindled in the north, it blazed out with no less fury in the south. The royal and parliamentary armies, as soon as the season would permit, prepared to take the field, in hopes of bringing their important quarrel to a quick conclusion. Fairfax, or rather Cromwell under his name, introduced at last the new model into the army, and threw the troops into a different shape. From the saine men new regiments and new companies were formed, different officers appointed, and the whole military force put into such hands, as the independents could rely on. Besides members of parliament who were excluded, many officers, un

willing to serve under the new generals, threw up their commissions, and unwarily facilitated the project of putting the army entirely into the hands of that faction. Never surely was a more singular army. The greater number of the regiments had no chaplains; the officers assumed the spiritual duty, and united it with their military functions. During the intervals of action, they occupied themselves in sermons, prayers, exhortations; rapturous extasies supplied the place of study and reflection; and while the zealous devotees poured out their thoughts in unpremeditated harangues, they mistook that eloquence, which to their own surprise as well as that of others, flowed in upon them for divine illuminations, and for illapses of the Holy Spirit. Wherever they were quartered, they excluded the minister from his pulpit, and usurping his place, conveyed

their sentiments to the audience with all the authority which followed their power, their valour, and their military exploits, united to their apparent zeal and fervour. The private soldiers, seized with the same spirit, employed their vacant hours in prayer, in perusing the Holy Scriptures, in ghostly conferences; where they compared the progress of their souls in grace, and mutually stimulated each other to farther advances in the great work of their salvation. When they were marching to battle, the whole field resounded as well with psalms and spiritual songs, as with the instruments of military music; every man endeavoured to drown the sense of present danger in the prospect of that immortal crown which was set before him. In so holy a cause wounds were esteemed meritorious; death martyrdom; and the hurry and danger of action, instead of banishing their pious visions, rather served to impress their minds more strongly with them.

The royalists treated with ridicule that fanaticism,

of which they had so much to apprehend the dangerous consequences. In the mean time the licence in which they had indulged their soldiers, had rendered them more formidable to their friends than to their enemies. In the west especially, the army, by want of pay, had laid waste the whole country by their rapine. The country people despoiled of their substance, flocked together in several places armed with clubs and staves, and destroyed all such straggling soldiers as they met with.

On opening the campaign, Charles marched to the relief of Chester, and the siege was raised at his approach. Thence he returned southward, and in his way sat down before Leicester, which the soldiers entered sword in hand, after a furious assault. A great booty was distributed among them, and one thousand five hundred prisoners fell into the king's hands. This success, which struck a great terror into the parliamentary party, determined Fairfax to march towards the king, with an intention of offering him battle. A council of war was called by the king, in order to determine the measures he should now pursue. On the one hand, prudence advised to delay the combat, as in a little time, the king's army might be re-inforced by above six thousand men, who lay either in Wales or before Taunton, and have by that junction, a great superiority over the enemy. On the other hand, prince Rupert, whose boiling ardour still pushed him on to battle, excited the impatient humour of the nobility and gentry, of which the army was full, and urged, that nothing but a victory could relieve the royalists from all the difficulties under which they laboured. The resolution was taken accordingly to give battle to Fairfax, and the royal army immediately advanced upon him.

At Naseby was fought (June 14th) with forces nearly equal, this decisive and well-disputed battle