he two opposed forces combined into one, and with 2500 men, some armed
with bows and arrows, and others having only one charge for each musket,
Montrose began his year of victories.

The temptation to describe in detail his extraordinary series of
successes and of unexampled marches over snow-clad and pathless mountains
must be resisted. The mobility and daring of Montrose's irregular and
capricious levies, with his own versatile military genius and the heroic
valour of Colkitto, enabled him to defeat a large Covenanting force at
Tippermuir, near Perth: here he had but his 2500 men (September 1); to
repeat his victory at Aberdeen {182} (September 13), to evade and
discourage Argyll, who retired to Inveraray; to winter in and ravage
Argyll's country, and to turn on his tracks from a northern retreat and
destroy the Campbells at Inverlochy, where Argyll looked on from his
galley (February 2, 1645).

General Baillie, a trained soldier, took the command of the Covenanting
levies and regular troops ("Red coats"), and nearly surprised Montrose in
Dundee. By a retreat showing even more genius than his victories, he
escaped, appeared on the north-east coast, and scattered a Covenanting
force under Hurry, at Auldearn, near Inverness (May 9, 1645).

Such victories as Montrose's were more than counterbalanced by Cromwell's
defeat of Rupert and Charles at Naseby (June 14, 1645); while presbytery
suffered a blow from Cromwell's demand, that the English Parliament
should grant "freedom of conscience," not for Anglican or Catholic, of
course, but for religions non-Presbyterian. The "bloody sectaries," as
the Presbyterians called Cromwell's Independents, were now masters of the
field: never would the blue banner of the Covenant be set up south of
Tweed.

Meanwhile General Baillie marched against Montrose, who outmanoeuvred him
all over the eastern Highlands, and finally gave him battle at Alford on
the Don. Montrose had not here Colkitto and the western clans, but his
Gordon horse, his Irish, the Farquharsons, and the Badenoch men were
triumphantly successful. Unfortunately, Lord Gordon was slain: he alone
could bring out and lead the clan of Huntly. Only by joining hands with
Charles could Montrose do anything decisive. The king, hoping for no
more than a death in the field "with honour and a good conscience,"
pushed as far north as Doncaster, where he was between Poyntz's army and
a great cavalry force, led by David Leslie,