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1639

The hollowness of the settlement between king and Covenant was soon to be revealed. On 1st July proclamation of the coming Assembly was made in Edinburgh, and to the consternation of the people the prelates were summoned to attend. Legally, Charles was in the right; if the hierarchy was formally to be abolished, it had the right to be present and to defend itself; but to the Covenanters it seemed to prove that the king had not accepted the policy of the Glasgow Assembly, and was determined to find some way of perpetuating the episcopate. In this the popular instinct was partly correct. Charles, with England in view, was not prepared to assent to the wholesale condemnation of episcopal principles which the majority in Scotland desired.[137] But if the king was unwilling to abide by the understanding of the treaty which he must have known was in the mind of the Covenant leaders, these leaders had already broken its letter. They did not dissolve the Tables, or disband the army, or dispense with Leslie, or return the stores and ordnance to Edinburgh castle, which was now in Ruthven's hands. Riots broke out in the Edinburgh streets on 3rd July, and Traquair, Kinnoull, and Aboyne were roughly handled by the mob. Loudoun was sent to Berwick to apologize, but the king, not unnaturally, demanded more—the presence of fourteen of the Covenant leaders to discuss the situation. Some of them, like Argyll, refused; others were forbidden by their colleagues to attend;[138] five stalwarts only were permitted to go—Montrose, Loudoun, Lothian, Rothes, and Dunfermline—accompanied by Mr. Alexander Henderson, who had not been bidden. The discussion was a fiasco. Rothes quarrelled with the king, and warned him that, if bishops were not abolished in Scotland, the Scots would join with the Puritans in attacking them in England. Charles, deeply offended, gave up his intention of attending the forthcoming Assembly in person, and on 3rd August returned to London.

But this farcical conference had a profound effect on one man. He who embarks on the tide of a popular revolution is carried insensibly in a direction and at a speed which he has not foreseen, and it demands a scrupulous moral and intellectual integrity to keep true to his first purpose. Montrose had found himself in full agreement with the National Covenant, but the boisterous flood which now bore him along was very different from the even and disciplined stream for which he had hoped. He had opposed churchmen in politics, but the governance of Scotland was now slipping into the hands of the Kirk; he had condemned the king's breaches of law and constitution, but in this respect the Covenant looked as if it would soon be as flagrant a sinner; on behalf of the commons of Scotland he had fought the power of nobles like Hamilton and Huntly, but there were others in his own faction with the same ambitions. Above all, he had made a central and inviolable sovereignty the foundation of his creed, and he saw this sovereignty dissolving in confusion. To this period, when his doubts first became insistent, we may perhaps assign these verses:

"Can little beasts with lions roar, And little birds with eagles soar? Can shallow streams command the seas, And little ants the humming bees? No, no—no, no—it is not meet The head should stoop unto the feet."

Already his path had begun to diverge ever so little from the broad road of the Covenant. The divergence was slight, and to the world he still seemed to be marching in its company, but the angle must widen, for he was aiming at a different goal.

In those July days at Berwick Montrose had his first true meeting with the king. Charles was no longer the formal and distant monarch who, under Hamilton's influence, had received coldly his boyish offer of service. He was a man in deep distress, who had just been successfully defied by his subjects—a king without an army or a war-chest, who had insults for his daily bread, and no counsellor who was not a broken reed. That singular character is one of the paradoxes, but not one of the enigmas, of history, for its weakness and strength are abundantly plain. His mild but immovable fanaticism, his lack of any quick sense of realities, his love of wooden intrigues, his defect in candour, his inability to read human nature, his incapacity to decide swiftly and act boldly—they are as patent as his piety, his fortitude, and his fidelity to what he held to be right. But he had in the highest degree the charm of his race, and could cast a glamour over the most diverse minds. It was those who knew him best who were most under his spell, so that Clarendon could describe him as "the worthiest gentleman, the best master, the best friend, the best husband, the best father, and the best Christian," and Sir Philip Warwick could write: "When I think of dying, it is one of my comforts that, when I part from the dunghill of this world, I shall meet King Charles."[139]

In Montrose, the sight of his king in straits which were not kingly may have awakened a chivalrous loyalty to the person of his sovereign. Moreover, since he was not cognizant of Charles's secret dealings with Hamilton and Traquair, he must have considered that the king had thus far kept his part of the bargain better than the Covenanters, and had granted all that the National Covenant demanded. Burnet will have it that he "was much wrought upon, and gave His Majesty full assurance of his duty in time coming, and upon that entered in a correspondence with the king,"[140] but this story of a sudden conversion was probably Covenanting gossip of a later date, when the breach had widened and it was necessary to find some easy explanation.[141] Montrose was still a Covenanter, and resolute to complete the work which had been begun on that spring morning in Greyfriars the year before; but he had come to think somewhat less well of his colleagues, and, after the meeting at Berwick, somewhat better of his sovereign.

The General Assembly met in Edinburgh in the east kirk of St. Giles on 12th August, with Traquair as the royal commissioner and Mr. David Dickson of Irvine as Moderator. The previous Assembly at Glasgow was not officially mentioned, but all its work was re-enacted "at a gallop."[142] Episcopacy was abolished in Scotland, and the terms used, in spite of Traquair's advice, were made as offensive as possible to the king; episcopal government and the power of churchmen were held not only "unlawful to this Kirk," but "contrary to the Word of God."[143] The Large Declaration, the statement of the king's case, written by Dr. Balcanquhal, the Dean of Durham, was condemned in violent language, and the Privy Council was prayed to order that the National Covenant should be signed by every dweller in Scotland, "of what rank or quality soever in time coming." This piece of intolerant coercion was presented by a committee, which had Montrose and Alexander Henderson among its members,[144] and duly embodied in an Act of Council. Traquair, as royal commissioner, assented to the various proceedings, and the session closed in an atmosphere of unwonted peace. To old and staunch Presbyterians, who had fought for the Kirk as Andrew Melville conceived it, it seemed that the day of miracles had come, and a certain Mr. John Wemyss, an aged minister, speaking with difficulty, "for tears trickling down along his grey hairs, like drops of rain or dew upon the top of the tender grass," spoke a moving nunc dimittis. "I do remember when the Kirk of Scotland had a beautiful face. I remember since there was a great power and life accompanying the ordinances of God, and a wonderful work of operation upon the hearts of the people. This my eyes did see—a fearful defection after procured by our sins. And no more did I wish before my eyes were closed but to have seen such a beautiful day, and that under the conduct and favour of our King's Majesty."[145]

The Parliament, which met on 31st August, was a very different gathering. A more momentous Parliament had never sat in Scotland, for until it ratified the acts of the Assembly these had no legal validity, and the Kirk had no security. The first difficulty that arose was constitutional. One of the estates, the clergy, had dissolved itself, since the bishops had fled the country. In choosing the Lords of the Articles, it had been the custom for the nobles to elect the representatives of the church, and the bishops to elect the representatives of the nobles, while both together chose the representatives of the lairds and burgesses, while the king added eight nominees of his own. By means of the bishops the Crown could in this way ensure a majority. Charles desired to fill the vacancy left by the bishops by fourteen ministers chosen by the Crown, or, in the alternative, by fourteen laymen;[146] but the ministers suspected a trap, and the nobility were jealous of the ministers, so this scheme fell to the ground. Under protest from Argyll a temporary arrangement was come to. Traquair himself chose the nobles,[147] who in turn chose the lesser barons and burgesses. This provisional Committee of the Articles set to work, and its reach was long. It ratified the acts of the recent Assembly, and proceeded to remodel the constitution of Scotland. It whittled away the royal prerogative, by transferring the control of the Mint and the appointment of great officers of state to Parliament, and, by one vote, passed Argyll's motion that each estate, nobles, barons, and burgesses, should elect its own lords.[148]

To this sudden essay in parliamentary government Montrose was opposed, and there were many other doubters in the Covenant ranks. It must be clearly understood that Argyll's proposal, for all its modern sound, was not an early stirring of democratic ideals. The common people of Scotland had no say in the government of the country, and were to have none for many a year, except through the General Assembly. It was a provision aimed directly against the royal prerogative, and, considering the recent use made of that prerogative, it had its justification. But such a change was not a reassertion of ancient liberties, but a wholly new departure, and so violent an innovation roused suspicion. The new régime would throw the government of Scotland into the hands of him who was the most adroit electioneer, and in this connection all men's thoughts turned to Argyll. It altered, but it did not seriously liberalize, the basis of representation. Moreover, it was a demand which struck at the whole conception of monarchy as then existing. At one stroke it reduced the king to a cypher in matters in which hitherto he had been all-powerful. To Montrose it seemed to weaken sovereignty, the central sanction of law, without putting a reasonable equivalent in its place, for, if the king had his faults, a legislature of factious lairds and nobles was not without them. Further, it had no finality. If the king assented, he would be pressed to greater concessions, and the foundations of order would crumble. This was also the doubt of Mr. Robert Baillie. "Whatever the Prince grants, I fear we press more than he can grant; and when we are fully satisfied, it is likely England will begin where we have left off."

It was the turning-point of Montrose's political career. His enthusiasm for the National Covenant had made him an active member of the late Assembly, as an elder from Auchterarder, and he had supported the compulsory signature of that Covenant—an extreme step for one of his beliefs. At the moment he had no quarrel with the Kirk. He was prepared to accept every act of the Assembly, even its wholesale condemnation of episcopacy as hostile to God's Word. Two months later, when the king summoned him to London, he asked to be excused, after consulting with the Covenant leaders, on the ground that at such a time his going to court would be misconstrued—conduct which Wariston lauded as "noble."[149] To the clerical side of the movement he was still profoundly sympathetic. But the proposed constitutional revolution made him pause, and presently sent him into opposition, for of the two sections in his party he distrusted the nobles more than the ministers. Six years later he put his position before his countrymen. "Members of the said Parliament, some of them having far designs unknown to us, others of them having found the sweetness of government, were pleased to refuse the ratification of the acts of Assembly with the abjuration of episcopacy and the Court of High Commission introduced by the prelates, unless they had the whole alleged liberty due to the subject; which was in fact intrenching upon authority, and the total abrogation of his Majesty's royal prerogative; whereby the king's commissioner was constrained to rise and discharge the Parliament."[150] Men began to whisper that the young Covenant general had been seduced by the royal blandishments at Berwick, and a paper with the words "Invictus armis verbis vincitur" was presently found pinned to his chamber door.[151]

Traquair, who had been severely censured by Charles for his conduct as commissioner to the Assembly, refused, on the king's instructions, to accept the decisions of Parliament. The ostensible ground, in which Montrose ingenuously believed, was the attack on the prerogative; the true reason was the ratification of the Assembly's abolition of episcopacy. With England in view, Charles could scarcely be expected to assent to the condemnation of episcopacy as "unlawful," though he might admit it to be contrary to the constitution of the Kirk; he clung to his intention to restore the bishops at some later date, and therefore would not assent to the act rescinding the old acts which had established them.[152] On 14th November Parliament, after it had protested against the illegality of the proceeding, was prorogued till the following June.[153] On the part of Charles it was a grave blunder, for the people of Scotland were not slow to grasp the true explanation. He could have found some support for the defence of the prerogative; he could even have mustered to his side tender consciences like that of Mr. Robert Baillie, who was not prepared to condemn episcopacy as in itself unlawful;[154] with these points, if honestly stated, he might have driven a wedge into the Covenant party. As it was, a conviction that the king was playing fast and loose with them on the main question of the episcopate, and dislike of the egregious Traquair, rallied the doubters for the moment. Napier, the typical moderate, sat on the committee which represented the prorogued Parliament. As for Montrose, we have seen his refusal to go to court in December, and we find him a signatory, along with Loudoun and Leslie, of a letter addressed to the King of France, representing to Louis the "candour and ingenuity" of the Covenanters towards their king.[155]