CHAPTER I.
Such as do build their faith upon The holy text of pike and gun,Decide all controversies by Infallible artillery,And prove their doctrine orthodox,By apostolic blows and knocks.BUTLER.
It was during the period of that great and bloody Civil War which agitated Britain during the seventeenth century,that our tale has its commencement.Scotland had as yet remained free from the ravages of intestine war,although its inhabitants were much divided in political opinions;and many of them,tired of the control of the Estates of Parliament,and disapproving of the bold measure which they had adopted,by sending into England a large army to the assistance of the Parliament,were determined on their part to embrace the earliest opportunity of declaring for the King,and making such a diversion as should at least compel the recall of General Leslie's army out of England,if it did not recover a great part of Scotland to the King's allegiance.This plan was chiefly adopted by the northern nobility,who had resisted with great obstinacy the adoption of the Solemn League and Covenant,and by many of the chiefs of the Highland clans,who conceived their interest and authority to be connected with royalty,who had,besides,a decided aversion to the Presbyterian form of religion,and who,finally,were in that half savage state of society,in which war is always more welcome than peace.
Great commotions were generally expected to arise from these concurrent causes;and the trade of incursion and depredation,which the Scotch Highlanders at all times exercised upon the Lowlands,began to assume a more steady,avowed,and systematic form,as part of a general military system.
Those at the head of affairs were not insensible to the peril of the moment,and anxiously made preparations to meet and to repel it.They considered,however,with satisfaction,that no leader or name of consequence had as yet appeared to assemble an army of royalists,or even to direct the efforts of those desultory bands,whom love of plunder,perhaps,as much as political principle,had hurried into measures of hostility.It was generally hoped that the quartering a sufficient number of troops in the Lowlands adjacent to the Highland line,would have the effect of restraining the mountain chieftains;while the power of various barons in the north,who had espoused the Covenant,as,for example,the Earl Mareschal,the great families of Forbes,Leslie,and Irvine,the Grants,and other Presbyterian clans,might counterbalance and bridle,not only the strength of the Ogilvies and other cavaliers of Angus and Kincardine,but even the potent family of the Gordons,whose extensive authority was only equalled by their extreme dislike to the Presbyterian model.
In the West Highlands the ruling party numbered many enemies;but the power of these disaffected clans was supposed to be broken,and the spirit of their chieftains intimidated,by the predominating influence of the Marquis of Argyle,upon whom the confidence of the Convention of Estates was reposed with the utmost security;and whose power in the Highlands,already exorbitant,had been still farther increased by concessions extorted from the King at the last pacification.It was indeed well known that Argyle was a man rather of political enterprise than personal courage,and better calculated to manage an intrigue of state,than to control the tribes of hostile mountaineers;yet the numbers of his clan,and the spirit of the gallant gentlemen by whom it was led,might,it was supposed,atone for the personal deficiencies of their chief;and as the Campbells had already severely humbled several of the neighbouring tribes,it was supposed these would not readily again provoke an encounter with a body so powerful.
Thus having at their command the whole west and south of Scotland,indisputably the richest part of the kingdom,--Fifeshire being in a peculiar manner their own,and possessing many and powerful friends even north of the Forth and Tay,--the Scottish Convention of Estates saw no danger sufficient to induce them to alter the line of policy they had adopted,or to recall from the assistance of their brethren of the English Parliament that auxiliary army of twenty thousand men,by means of which accession of strength,the King's party had been reduced to the defensive,when in full career of triumph and success.
