England, ix. 54), to make the parliament and not the king ‘the central force in Scotland.’
Meantime information had reached the English court of the draft of a letter written before the Berwick pacification by some of the Scottish leaders to Louis XIII, soliciting his interest in the affairs of the Scots (Letter in Rushworth, part ii. vol. ii. 1120). The letter does not appear to have been sent, but Charles made it a pretext for committing the Earl of Loudon to the Tower. He was soon afterwards liberated, but the incident was the occasion, if not the cause, of a renewal of hostilities. When the king ordered the prorogation of parliament, in May 1640, Argyll moved that it be held without his sanction, and in order to take measures against the hostile preparations of the king, a committee of estates was formed to which was entrusted the practical government of the kingdom. Of this committee Argyll was not a member, but he was ‘major potestas,’ and ‘all knew that it was his influence that gave being, life, and motion to the new-modelled governors.’ On 12 June a commission of ‘fire and sword’ was issued by the committee of estates to Argyll against the Earl of Atholl and the Ogilvies, who had taken up arms in behalf of the king. With a force of four thousand men he swept over the districts of Badenoch, Atholl, and Mar, according to the hostile chroniclers stripping the fields of the sheep and cattle. At the Fords of Lyon he found Atholl posted with a strong force, and, it is said, on promise of a safe return, inveigled him to an interview, when, failing in an attempt to win him over, he sent him a prisoner to Edinburgh, where, after making his submission, he was liberated. Argyll then descended into Angus, attacking the Ogilvies and burning their house to the ground. The incidents of its destruction, as recorded in the ballad ‘The Bonnie Hoose o' Airlie,’ must not be accepted as literally true, for Lady Ogilvie did not treat the summons of Argyll with scorn, but had left the house for some time before its destruction, and the actual execution of the act was entrusted by Argyll to a subordinate, Dugald Campbell of Inverawe, whom he enjoined only to fire it if the operation of destroying it was ‘langsome,’ adding, with characteristic caution, ‘You need not let know that you have directions from me to fire it’ (Letter quoted in full in Notes and Queries, third series, vi. 383, from original in possession of the correspondent). The cruelties exercised by Argyll during the raid formed one of the charges in the indictment on which he was executed, but do not appear to have been for those times exceptionally severe.
Learning that Charles was again raising an army against them, the Scots, under Leslie, in August of this year passed into England in strong array ‘to present their grievances to the king's majesty,’ and taking possession of Newcastle remained quartered in Northumberland and Durham till negotiations were entered into with the king at Ripon on 1 Oct. Montrose had accompanied the army, but already ominous differences had arisen between him and Argyll. He had strongly opposed the motion of Argyll for holding a parliament in opposition to the king; he had already entered into correspondence with Charles on his own account, and before crossing the Tweed he and other noblemen signed, in August, at Cumbernauld, a bond ‘against the particular and indirect practicking of the few’ (see copy in Baillie's Letters and Journals, ii. 468, and Napier's Memorials of Montrose, i. 254). Shortly afterwards the bond was discovered by Argyll, but it was deemed sufficient to burn it by order of the committee of estates. The clemency only irritated more acutely Montrose's jealousy of Argyll, and drove him to more desperate courses. The predominant influence wielded by Argyll over the committee of estates Montrose interpreted into an assumption of dictatorship over the kingdom, which for the time being it undoubtedly was; and information he had received from various enemies of Argyll corroborated his own conviction that a plan was in preparation for the formal recognition of the dictatorship and the deposition of the king. He thereupon communicated what he had learned to Charles, who agreed to pay a visit to Scotland in the summer, when Montrose, according to arrangement, would in his place in parliament accuse Argyll before the king of meditating treason against the throne. Montrose was, however, ill fitted to manage a matter requiring such exceptional caution. Already he had bruited his charges against Argyll throughout the country, and Argyll called him to answer for his speeches. Montrose, acknowledging at once his responsibility for the charges, named his authorities, but his principal witness, Stewart of Ladywell, wrote a letter to Argyll admitting that he had, ‘through prejudicate of his lordship,’ wrested words which he had heard him speak at the Fords of Lyon from their proper meaning. The correspondence of Montrose with the king and the secret purpose of his majesty's visit were revealed in the course of the inquiry. While by his confession Stewart did not save his life, Montrose and other noblemen were on 11 June committed to the castle of Edinburgh on a charge of plotting.
