December 1643,
Hamilton and Lanark, who had opposed Montrose's views and confirmed the
king in his waverings, came to him at Oxford. Montrose refused to serve
with them, rather he would go abroad; and Hamilton was imprisoned on
charges of treason: in fact, he had been double-minded, inconstant, and
incompetent. Montrose's scheme implied clan warfare, the use of exiled
Macdonalds, who were Catholics, against the Campbells. The obvious
objections were very strong; but "needs must when the devil drives": the
Hanoverian kings employed foreign soldiers against their subjects in 1715
and 1745; but the Macdonalds were subjects of King Charles.

Hamilton's brother, Lanark, escaped, and now frankly joined the
Covenanters. Montrose was promoted to a Marquisate, and received the
Royal Commission as Lieutenant-General (February 1644), which alienated
old Huntly, chief of the Gordons, who now and again divided and paralysed
that gallant clan. Montrose rode north, where, in February 1644, old
Leslie, with twenty regiments of foot, three thousand horse, and many
guns, was besieging Newcastle. With him was the prototype of Scott's
Dugald Dalgetty, Sir James Turner, who records examples of Leslie's
senile incompetency. Leslie, at least, forced the Marquis of Newcastle
to a retreat, and a movement of Montrose on Dumfries was paralysed by the
cowardice or imbecility of the Scottish magnates on the western Border.
He returned, took Morpeth, was summoned by Prince Rupert, and reached him
the day after the disaster of Marston Moor (July 2, 1644), from which
Buccleuch's Covenanting regiment ran without stroke of sword, while
Alexander Leslie also fled, carrying news of his own defeat. It appears
that the Scottish horse, under David Leslie, were at Marston Moor, as
always, the pick of their army.

Rupert took over Montrose's men, and the great Marquis, disguised as a
groom, rode hard to the house of a kinsman, near Tay, between Perth and
Dunkeld. Alone and comfortless, in a little wood, Montrose met a man who
was carrying the Fiery Cross, and summoning the country to resist the
Irish Scots of Alastair Macdonald (Colkitto), who had landed with a force
of 1500 musketeers in Argyll, and was believed to be descending on
Atholl, pursued by Seaforth and Argyll, and faced by the men of Badenoch.
The two armies {181} were confronting each other when Montrose, in plaid
and kilt, approached Colkitto and showed him his commission. Instantly
t