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member of a committee appointed by the parliament
to direct its movements, and in this capacity was
present at the battle of Kilsyth, August 15th, 1645,
the most disastrous of all the six victories of Mon-
trose to the Covenanters, upwards of 6000 men
being slain on the field of battle and in the pursuit.
This, however, was the last of the exploits of the
great marquis. There being no more detachments
of militia in the country to oppose to him, General
David Leslie, with some regiments of horse, were
recalled from the army in England, who surprised
and defeated him at Philiphaugh, annihilating his
little army, and, according to an ordinance of par-
liament, hanging up without distinction all the Irish
prisoners.
In the month of February, 1646, Argyle was sent
over to Ireland to bring home the Scottish troops
that had been sent to that country to assist in re-
pressing the turbulence of the Catholics. He re-
turned to Edinburgh in the month of May following.
In the meantime, Alaster Macdonald, the coadjutor
of Montrose, had made another tour through his
country of Argyle, giving to fire and sword what-
ever had escaped the former inroads; so that up-
wards of ]1200 of the inhabitants, to escape absolute
starvation, were compelled to emigrate into Men-
teith. But scarcely had they made the attempt,
when they were attacked by Inchbrackie, with a
party of Athol men, and chased beyond the Forth
near Stirling, where they were joined by the marquis,
who carried them into Lennox. So deplorably had
his estates been wasted by Montrose and Mac-
donald, that a sum of money was voted for the
support of himself and family, and for paying annual
rents to some of the more necessitous creditors upon
his estates. A collection was at the same time
ordered through all the churches of Scotland, for
the relief of his poor people who had been plundered
by the Irish. In July, 1646, when the king had
surrendered himself to the Scottish army, Argyle
went to Newcastle to wait upon him. On the 3d
of August following, he was sent up to London, to
treat with the parliament of England concerning a
mitigation of the articles they had presented to the
king, with some of which he was not at all satisfied.
He was also on this occasion the bearer of a secret
commission from the king, to consult with the Duke
of Richmond and the Marquis of Hertford concern-
ing the propriety of the Scottish army and parlia-
ment declaring for him. Both of these noblemen
disapproved of the scheme, as it would be the en-
tire ruin of his interests. In this matter Argyle
certainly did not act with perfect integrity; and it
was probably a consciousness of this that kept
him absent from any of the committees concerning
the king's person, or any treaty for the withdrawal
of the Scottish army, or the payment of its arrears.
The opinion of these two noblemen, however, he
faithfully reported to his majesty, who professed to
be satisfied, but spoke of adopting some other plan,
giving evident proof that his pretending to accept
conditions was a mere pretence—a put off—till he
might be able to lay hold of some lucky turn in the
chapter of accidents. It was probably from a pain-
ful anticipation of the fatal result of the king's per-
tinacity, that Argyle, when he returned to Edinburgh
and attended the parliament which assembled on
the 3d of November, demanded and obtained an ex-
plicit approval of all that he had transacted, as their
accredited commissioner; and it must not be lost
sight of, that, for all the public business he had
been engaged in, except what was voted him in
consequence of his great losses, he never hitherto
had received one farthing of salary.
When the engagement, as it was called, was
entered into by the Marquis of Hamilton, and other
Scottish Presbyterian royalists, Argyle opposed it,
because, from what he had been told by the Duke
of Richmond and the Marquis of Hertford, when he
had himself been half embarked in a scheme some-
what similar, he believed it would be the total ruin
of his majesty's cause. The event completely justi-
fied his fears. By exasperating the sectaries and re-
publicans, it was the direct and immediate cause of
the death of the king. On the march of the En-
gagers into England, Argyle, Eglinton, Cassilis,
and Lothian marched into Edinburgh at the head
of a multitude whom they had raised, before whom
the committee of estates left the city, and the irre-
mediable defeat of the Engagers threw the reins
of government into the hands of Argyle, Warriston,
Loudon, and others of the more zealous Presbyterians.
The flight of the few Engagers who reached their
native land, was followed by Cromwell, who came
all the way to Berwick, with the purpose apparently
of invading Scotland. Argyle, in the month of
September or October, 1648, went to Mordington,
where he had an interview with that distinguished
individual, whom, along with General Lambert, he
conducted to Edinburgh, where he was received in
a way worthy of his high fame, and everything
between the two nations was amicably settled. It
has been, without the least particle of evidence,
asserted that Argyle, in the various interviews he
held with Cromwell at this time, agreed that Charles
should be executed. The losses to which Argyle
was afterwards subjected, and the hardships he
endured for adhering to Charles' interests after he
was laid in his grave, should, in the absence of all
evidence to the contrary, be a sufficient attestation
of his loyalty, not to speak of the parliament, of
which he was unquestionably the most influential
individual, in the ensuing month of February pro-
claiming Charles II. King of Scotland, England,
France, and Ireland, &c., than which nothing could
be more offensive to the then existing government
of England. In sending over the deputation to
Charles in Holland in the spring of 1649, Argyle
was heartily concurring, though he had been not a
little disgusted with his associates in the administra-
tion, on account of the execution of his brother-in-
law, the Marquis of Huntly, whom he in vain tried
to save. It is also said that he refused to assist at
the trial, or to concur in the sentence passed upon
the Marquis of Montrose, in the month of May,
1650, declaring that he was too much a party to be
a judge in that matter. Of the leading part he per-
formed in the installation of Charles II., upon whose
head he placed the crown at Scone on the 1st of
January, 1651, we have not room to give any par-
ticular account. Of the high consequence in which
his services were held at the time, there needs no
other proof than the report that the king intended
marrying one of his daughters. For the defence of
the king and kingdom, against both of whom Crom-
well was now ready to march, he, as head of the
committee of estates, made the most vigorous ex-
ertions. Even after the defeat at Dunbar, and the
consequent depression of the king's personal in-
terests, he adhered to his majesty with unabated
zeal and diligence, of which Charles seems to have
been sensible at the time. When Charles judged
it expedient to lead the Scottish army into England,
in the vain hope of raising the cavaliers and moderate
Presbyterians in his favour, Argyle obtained leave
to remain at home, on account of the illness of his
lady. After the whole hopes of the Scots were laid
low at Worcester, September 3d, 1651, he retired