from Hereford, to launch
against Montrose. The hero snatched a final victory. He had but a
hundred horse, but he had Colkitto and the flower of the fighting clans,
including the invincible Macleans. Baillie, in command of new levies of
some 10,000 men, was thwarted by a committee of Argyll and other noble
amateurs. He met the enemy south of Forth, at Kilsyth, between Stirling
and Glasgow. The fiery Argyll made Baillie desert an admirable
position--Montrose was on the plain, Baillie was on the heights--and
expose his flank by a march across Montrose's front. The Macleans and
Macdonalds, on the lower slope of the hill, without orders, saw their
chance, and racing up a difficult glen, plunged into the Covenanting
flank. Meanwhile the more advanced part of the Covenanting force were
driving back some Gordons from a hill on Montrose's left, who were
rescued by a desperate charge of Aboyne's handful of horse among the red
coats; Airlie charged with the Ogilvies; the advanced force of the
Covenant was routed, and the Macleans and Macdonalds completed the work
they had begun (August 15). Few of the unmounted Covenanters escaped
from Kilsyth; and Argyll, taking boat in the Forth, hurried to Newcastle,
where David Leslie, coming north, obtained infantry regiments to back his
4000 cavalry.

In a year Montrose, with forces so irregular and so apt to go home after
every battle, had actually cleared militant Covenanters out of Scotland.
But the end had come. He would not permit the sack of Glasgow. Three
thousand clansmen left him; Colkitto went away to harry Kintyre. Aboyne
and the Gordons rode home on some private pique; and Montrose relied on
men whom he had already proved to be broken reeds, the Homes and Kers
(Roxburgh) of the Border, and the futile and timid Traquair. When he
came among them they forsook him and fled; on September 10, at Kelso, Sir
Robert Spottiswoode recognised the desertion and the danger.

Meanwhile Leslie, with an overpowering force of seasoned soldiers, horse
and foot, marched with Argyll, not to Edinburgh, but down Gala to Tweed;
while Montrose had withdrawn from Kelso, up Ettrick to Philiphaugh, on
the left of Ettrick, within a mile of Selkirk. He had but 500 Irish, who
entrenched themselves, and an uncertain number of mounted Border lairds
with their servants and tenants. Charteris of Hempsfield, who had been
scouting, reported that Leslie was but two or three miles distant, at
Sunderlan