tracted times."

Charles wavered and sent down the Marquis of Hamilton to represent his
waverings. The Marquis was as unsettled as his predecessor, Arran, in
the minority of Queen Mary. He dared not promulgate the proclamations;
he dared not risk civil war; he knew that Charles, who said he was ready,
was unprepared in his mutinous English kingdom. He granted, at last, a
General Assembly and a free Parliament, and produced another Covenant,
"the King's Covenant," which of course failed to thwart that of the
country.

The Assembly, at Glasgow (November 21, 1638), including noblemen and
gentlemen as elders, was necessarily revolutionary, and needlessly
riotous and profane. It arraigned and condemned the bishops in their
absence. Hamilton, as Royal Commissioner, dissolved the Assembly, which
continued to sit. The meeting was in the Cathedral, where, says a
sincere Covenanter, Baillie, whose letters are a valuable source, "our
rascals, without shame, in great numbers, made din and clamour." All the
unconstitutional ecclesiastical legislation of the last forty years was
rescinded,--as all the new presbyterian legislation was to be rescinded
at the Restoration. Some bishops were excommunicated, the rest were
deposed. The press was put under the censorship of the fanatical lawyer,
Johnston of Waristoun, clerk of the Assembly.

On December 20 the Assembly, which sat on after Hamilton dissolved it,
broke up. Among the Covenanters were to be reckoned the Earl of Argyll
(later the only Marquis of his House), and the Earl, later Marquis, of
Montrose. They did not stand long together. The Scottish Revolution
produced no man at once great and successful, but, in Montrose, it had
one man of genius who gave his life for honour's sake; in Argyll, an
astute man, not physically courageous, whose "timidity in the field was
equalled by his timidity in the Council," says Mr Gardiner.

In spring (1639) war began. Charles was to move in force on the Border;
the fleet was to watch the coasts; Hamilton, with some 5000 men, was to
join hands with Huntly (both men were wavering and incompetent); Antrim,
from north Ireland, was to attack and contain Argyll; Ruthven was to hold
Edinburgh Castle. But Alexander Leslie took that castle for the
Covenanters; they took Dumbarton; they fortified Leith; Argyll ravaged
Huntly's lands; Montrose and Leslie occupied Aberdeen; and their party,
in circumstances supposed to be discreditable to Mon