Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie, Knight Part 5

Meantime Sir Thomas Urquhart had taken up his quarters in Worcester, in the house of a Mr Spilsbury, "a very honest sort of man, who had an exceeding good woman to his wife." His luggage, which was stored in an attic, consisted, besides "scarlet cloaks, buff suits, and arms of all sorts," of seven large "portmantles," three of which were filled with unpublished works in ma.n.u.script, and other valuable doc.u.ments--the amount of which he gives us in quires and quinternions, but which need not be repeated here. "Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war," sang Milton in his sonnet to the Lord General Cromwell; and perhaps Sir Thomas Urquhart hoped, after achieving victory in war, to win a second set of laurels by means of the contents of the three "portmantles."

On the evening of the 3rd September, the anniversary of the battle of Dunbar, and afterwards to be the date of Cromwell's own death, the battle of Worcester was fought, and the Royalist cause utterly shattered. "The fighting of the Scots," says Carlyle, "was fierce and desperate. 'My Lord General did exceedingly hazard himself, riding up and down in the midst of the fire; riding, himself in person, to the Enemy's foot to offer them quarter, whereto they returned no answer but shot.' The small Scotch Army, begirdled with overpowering force, and cut off from help or reasonable hope, storms forth in fiery pulses, horse and foot; charges now on this side of the River, now on that;--can on no side prevail. Cromwell recoils a little, but only to rally and return irresistible. The small Scotch Army is, on every side, driven in again.

Its fiery pulsings are but the struggles of death: agonies as of a lion coiled in the folds of a boa. 'As stiff a contest,' says Cromwell, 'for four or five hours as ever I have seen.'"[115]

The conquered lost six thousand men, and all their baggage and artillery; and Charles only with difficulty, and after many romantic adventures, succeeded in escaping to the Continent when the fight was over. Ten thousand prisoners, including eleven of the Scottish n.o.bility, were taken. The sufferings of many of these brave men were severe in the extreme. Some perished from want of food and from gaol diseases, and large numbers of the survivors were s.h.i.+pped for the plantations, and sold as slaves.

Sir Thomas Urquhart, and, apparently, more than one of his brothers, were among the prisoners, but appeared to have fared better than many of their companions in arms. The greatest of the misfortunes that fell upon him was, in his estimation, the sad fate that overtook his precious ma.n.u.scripts. The whole story, related in his own inimitable style, may be read in Chapter VI. It is enough to say here that a party of marauders broke into his quarters in search of valuables, that they forced open the "portmantles" and turned their contents out upon the floor, and afterwards carried off the papers to use them for wrapping up articles of plunder, and for lighting their pipes. Fortunately some bundles of these papers were afterwards picked up in the streets and brought back to him, and in due time found their way to the printer's.

After the battle of Worcester, Sir Thomas Urquhart and some of the other Scottish gentlemen who had been taken prisoners there were confined in the Tower of London. He seems to have speedily gained the favour of his captors, and to have been treated with remarkable leniency. Indeed, he speaks in terms of affectionate respect of various officers of the Parliamentary army from whom he had received kindness, and acknowledges courtesies extended towards him by the Lord General himself. Thus he places on record his indebtedness to a "most generous gentleman, Captain Gladmon," for speaking in his favour to the Protector. And of another, whom he calls the Marshal-General, in whose charge he had been placed, he has set down the praise in the following elaborate sentence:--"The kindly usage of the Marshal-General, Captain Alsop, whilst I was in his custody, I am bound in duty so to acknowledge, that I may without dissimulation avouch, for courtesies conferred on such as were within the verge of his authority, and fidelity to those by whom he was intrusted with their tuition [oversight of them] in that restraint, that never any could by his faithfulness to the one and loving carriage to the other bespeak himself more a gentleman, nor in the discharge of that military place acquit himself with a more universally-deserved applause and commendation."[116]

The severity of his imprisonment was soon abated; and he was removed from the Tower to Windsor Castle,[117] and not long after, by the orders of Cromwell, was paroled _de die in diem_.[118] The comparative liberty he now enjoyed enabled him to repair the loss of his ma.n.u.scripts after the battle of Worcester, and he set himself to make the best of the fragments he had recovered, and to prepare them for publication, as well as to compose new material. A paragraph in the Epilogue of one of his works, in which he describes his warm appreciation of the measure of freedom he now enjoyed, is worth quoting. "That I, whilst a prisoner,"

he says, "was able to digest and write this Treatise, is an effect meerly proceeding from the courtesie of my Lord General Cromwel, by whose recommendation to the Councel of State my parole being taken for my true imprisonment, I was by their favour enlarged to the extent of the lines of London's communication; for had I continued as before, coopt up within walls, or yet been attended still by a guard, as for a while I was, should the house of my confinement have never been so pleasant, or my keepers a very paragon of discretion, and that the conversation of the best wits in the world, with affluence of all manner of books, should have been allowed me for the diversion of my minde, yet such all antipathie I have to any kinde of restraint wherein myself is not entrusted, that notwithstanding these advantages, which to some spirits would make a jayl seem more delicious then [than] freedom without them, it could not in that eclipse of liberty lie in my power to frame myself to the couching of one sillable, or contriving of a fancie worthy the labour of putting pen to paper, no more then [than] a nightingale can warble it in a cage, or linet in a dungeon."[119]

Another friend whom Sir Thomas Urquhart found in the time of need was the celebrated Roger Williams, the apostle of civil and religious liberty, and the founder of the settlement of Providence, Rhode Island, and missionary to the Indians. In the Epilogue to the _Logopandecteision_ he thus acknowledges his obligations to him: "[I cannot] forget my thankfulness to that reverend preacher Mr Roger Williams of Providence, in New England, for the manifold favours wherein I stood obliged to him above a whole month before either of us had so much as seen other, and that by his frequent and earnest solicitation in my behalf of the most especial members both of the Parliament and Councel of State; in doing whereof he appeared so truely generous, that when it was told him how I, having got notice of his so undeserved respect towards me, was desirous to embrace some sudden opportunity whereby to testifie the affection I did owe him, he purposely delayed the occasion of meeting with me till he had, as he said, performed some acceptable office worthy of my acquaintance; in all which, both before and after we had conversed with one another, and by those many worthy books set forth by him, to the advancement of piety and good order, with some whereof he was pleased to present me, he did prove himself a man of such discretion and inimitably-sanctified parts, that an Archangel from heaven could not have shown more goodness with less ostentation."[120]

The years 1652 and 1653 form a period of astonis.h.i.+ng literary activity on the part of our author, for no fewer than five separate works were then published by him, two of which were of very considerable bulk. The motive that had led him to bring out his two former works--the _Epigrams_ and _The Trissotetras_--had been a desire to benefit mankind and to advance the glory of his native land. But now he had to consider his own interests, and to exert himself to promote them. Accordingly, his present aim was to convince his captors of his extraordinary merits and gifts, and of the incomparable glory of that family which he had the honour of representing.

In 1652 he issued his ???????????????; _or, a Peculiar Promptuary of Time_, of which a detailed description is given in Chapter V. The object of this treatise is to show the Protector and the English Parliament that the family of the Urquharts could be traced back, link by link, to the red earth out of which Adam was made, and to suggest how lamentable it would be, if the ruling power extinguished a race which had successfully resisted the scythe of Time, and was capable of rendering great services to the State.

This small treatise was closely followed by a more important production, upon which Sir Thomas's fame as an author largely rests--his ??S??????????; _or, The Discovery of a most Exquisite Jewel_. The t.i.tle of this work is intended to be an abbreviation of a Greek phrase--"_Gold from a dunghill_"--and contains an allusion to the fact that the first half of it was, in its ma.n.u.script form, one of the bundles of paper which the soldiers treated with such disrespect after the battle of Worcester, and which, indeed, was found next day in a kennel of one of the streets of that city. This book, a fuller account of which we give later on, consists of an introduction to a work on a Universal Language, to which is added a rhapsodical panegyric on the Scottish nation, and an account of his fellow-countrymen who had been famous as scholars or soldiers during the previous fifty years.

In the course of the early part of 1652 Urquhart had in some way excited the suspicions of the Government, and in the month of May his papers were seized by the authorities. Nothing treasonable, however, was found among them, and probably the harmless character of his pursuits, which was thus brought to light, made a favourable impression upon the Council of State. For, a few weeks later, he was allowed, in answer to a pet.i.tion which he presented to the Council, and which was referred to Cromwell, to return to Scotland to arrange his private affairs, and to be absent for five months.[121] The only condition imposed upon him was that during this time he should do nothing to the prejudice of the Commonwealth.

Sir Thomas Urquhart's creditors had been told that he had been killed at the battle of Worcester, and, as he says in his own characteristic way, "for gladness of the tidings [they] had madified [moistened] their nolls to some purpose with the liquor of the grape,"[122] and had possessed themselves of all his property. When they were a.s.sured by letters from himself that he was still alive, they claimed payment for debts which had been long discharged, under the impression that the receipts had perished along with other papers after the battle. They even plotted, we are a.s.sured, to arrest our author in London, after he had been liberated upon parole. By the thoughtful discretion of a Captain Goodwin, of Colonel Pride's regiment, the receipts in question had been saved out of the spoil of Worcester, and Sir Thomas Urquhart was able to display them to the unjust creditors. "And when," he says, "they saw that those their acquittances ... were produced before them, they then, looking as if their noses had been ableeding, could not any longer for shame r.e.t.a.r.d my cancelling of the aforesaid bonds."[123]

In the midst of so many complaints of the iniquity of creditors, it is gratifying to find Sir Thomas acknowledging that there was one of that cla.s.s who treated him with forbearance and even with kindness. His thankfulness at discovering this green oasis in the arid desert in which so much of his life had been pa.s.sed, is expressed in his own characteristic way. "But may," he says, "William Robertson of Kindea.s.se, or rather _Kindnesse_ (for so they call this worthy man), for his going contrary to that stream of wickedness which carryeth head-long his fellow-creditors to the black sea of un-christian-like dealing, enjoy a long life in this world, attended with health, wealth, a hopeful posterity, and all the happiness conducible to eternal salvation; and may his children after him, as heires both of his vertues and means, derive [transmit] his lands and riches to their sons, to continue successively in that line from generation to generation, so long as there is a hill in Scotland, or that the sea doth ebbe and flow. This hearty wish of mine, as chief of my kinred [kindred], I bequeath to all that do and are to carry the name of Urquhart, and adjure them, by the respect they owe to the stock whence they are descended, for my father's love and mine to this man, to do all manner of good offices to each one that bears the name of Robertson."[124]

His old enemy, Lesley of Findra.s.sie, endeavoured in vain to persuade the officers of the English garrison, then stationed in Urquhart's house at Cromartie, to arrest him as a prisoner of war, and keep him in confinement "till he [Lesley] were contented in all his demands."[125]

An attempt was also made to apprehend him at Elgin; but he escaped all these machinations, and, after travelling in safety through many of the princ.i.p.al towns of Scotland, returned to London within the specified time, and gave himself up to the Council of State.

In the course of the year 1653 Sir Thomas Urquhart published the last of his original works--his _Logopandecteision_, and the translation of the first two books of Rabelais, in connection with which his name is best known. The object of the former of these was to suggest a wonderful scheme for a universal language, with the idea of being restored by the Government to the full possession of his liberty, and of being reinstated in the position of power and wealth, which he maintained was his by hereditary right, in order to carry out the scheme. His hopes and antic.i.p.ations of success in this appeal to the English Government were not daunted by the fact that to do what he required would need several legislative changes, a reversal of proceedings in Scottish courts of law, and a substantial grant from the Treasury. This, after all, he considered, was a very small price to pay for the benefits he would thereby confer upon the world. That the appeal was not successful needs scarcely be told. Probably in no country in the world, and at no period in history, could any be found more likely to turn a deaf ear to such requests, than such men as Cromwell, Fleetwood, and Overton. Men like these were too practical, and of too hard a nature, to be impressed by any such visionary schemes as those which their prisoner delighted in constructing.

A veil of obscurity hangs over the closing years of our author's life.

His last appearance before the public was in the issuing of the books above mentioned. The only further record of him is in the continuation of the Pedigree of the Urquharts, which is contained in the Edinburgh edition of his Tracts. In this we read that "he was confined for several years in the Tower of London; from whence he made his escape, and went beyond seas, where he died suddenly in a fit of excessive laughter, on being informed by his servant that the King was restored."[126] If this account of matters be true, it would seem that Sir Thomas had forfeited some of those privileges which he had won so soon after he had become a State prisoner. It is quite possible that this was in consequence of having joined in some Royalist plot against the Commonwealth and for the restoration of Charles II.

In the preface to the second book of Rabelais, Sir Thomas promises very speedily to translate the three remaining books of that author, so that the whole "Pentateuch of Rabelais," as he calls it, might be in the hands of English readers. But this design was never completed. The translation of the third book was found among his papers, and was published in 1693 by Pierre Antoine Motteux, but it is probable that the editor himself had some share in the work as issued to the public.

Sir Theodore Martin considers that there is a strong presumption against the truth of the above account of Sir Thomas's death, in his entire silence during the long period which elapsed between the publication of his last work and 1660, the date of the Restoration of Charles II.

"Men," he says, "so deeply smitten with the _cacoethes scribendi_ as Urquhart was, do not thus readily cast the pen aside; nor was the lack of a publisher likely to have stood in the way of his literary career.

His writings, if for no other cause but the number of his friends, must always have been a safe speculation for a printer, at a time when printing was cheap and readers numerous. But the imperfect state of his translation of Rabelais is perhaps the best evidence of the inaccuracy of the current belief.... Motteux says that Urquhart's version 'was too kindly received not to encourage him to English the three remaining books, or at least the third, the fourth and fifth being in a manner distinct, as being Pantagruel's voyage. Accordingly he translated the third book, and would have finished the whole, had not death prevented him.' This bears hard against the supposition of that event having occurred upwards of six years after the two first books had been given to the world. It is probable that he died much sooner, a victim in all likelihood to that fiery restlessness of spirit,

'Which o'er-informs its tenement of clay, And frets the pigmy body to decay.'"[127]

This conjecture is, however, improbable. A pet.i.tion from our author's brother, Sir Alexander Urquhart, is still in existence, in which he asks for a new commission of hereditary Sheriffs.h.i.+p of Cromartie to be made out for him, on the ground of his being the eldest surviving son of the Sir Thomas Urquhart who died in 1642.[128] Though this doc.u.ment is undated, it is a.s.signed by the editor of the volume of State Papers in which it is to be found, to August of 1660. If this date be trustworthy, we may be almost sure that the traditional statement as to the year of our author's death is correct.

The cause of his giving up his literary labours, and of omitting to carry through the work of translation on which he had entered, is, of course, unknown to us. His health, physical or mental, may have become seriously impaired, or his spirits may have been too much depressed by the misfortunes that crowded upon him, to allow him to engage in literary work. Indeed, the alleged cause of death from violent agitation of feeling caused by hearing of the Restoration of Charles II., argues in itself a previous condition of great physical weakness.

There seems at first, a certain grotesqueness in such a fatal exuberance of joy in connexion with such an event as Charles II. regaining the crown which his father had lost, and of which in another generation all of his blood were to be deprived. But we have to keep in mind that Sir Thomas was not alone in his folly, if folly it were; for a great wave of exultation swept over the three kingdoms at that time. Our author had, like many of his fellow-Royalists, staked and lost everything he possessed in the defence of the House of Stuart, and one can have little difficulty in understanding how the announcement of the triumph of the cause, which was so dear to him, should have agitated him profoundly.[129]

Sir Alexander Urquhart failed to recover possession of either the barony or the Sheriffs.h.i.+p of Cromartie, and a year after the supposed date of his pet.i.tion, he is said to have ratified his cousin's rights,[130] and in 1663 he formally "disponed" the estate (_i.e._ his t.i.tle to it) to Sir John.[131] The new possessors were, however, as unfortunate as their immediate predecessors, for in no very long time they were overwhelmed by distresses like those which had burdened and embittered the lives of our author and his father. In 1682 the celebrated Sir George Mackenzie, whose name, like that of Queen Mary of England, is usually a.s.sociated with an unenviable epithet, as that of a cruel persecutor,[132] "apprized" the estate from Sir John's[133] son, Jonathan.[134]

No one who knows what this means[135] will be surprised to hear that it soon afterwards pa.s.sed into his possession. On his elevation to the peerage (1685) as Viscount Tarbat, first Earl of Cromartie, he put his third-born son, Sir Kenneth, into possession of the estate, with the view of establis.h.i.+ng a branch of his family to be known as the Mackenzies of Cromartie. This plan was doomed to be defeated, for Sir Kenneth's son George had no family, and sold the estate to Captain William Urquhart of Meldrum in 1741.[136] The lands were again sold to Patrick, Lord Elibank,[137] in 1763, and by him to George Ross of Pitkerrie, nine years afterwards. Mr Ross had ama.s.sed a large fortune in England as an army agent,[138] and part of this he expended in the purchase of the estate, and in the extensive improvements which he effected in it. One wishes he had not thought it desirable to pull down the picturesque old castle, which had stood on the mote-hill of Cromartie for three hundred years, and which had sheltered so many generations of the Urquhart family. Let us now, however, return to our author.

In telling the story of Sir Thomas Urquhart's life, some of his most striking peculiarities have been displayed and ill.u.s.trated, so that no one who has read the foregoing pages is altogether dependent upon what may now be said for forming an estimate of his character. His vanity is perhaps the most striking trait in it; but only a very hard-hearted moralist would call it a vice in his case, for it is as artless as it is boundless, and is combined with so much kindness of heart and generosity of feeling, that we are more entertained by it than indignant at it. No one who looks into his works can doubt the intensity of his patriotism.

Indeed, his pa.s.sionate longing after personal fame is in all cases combined with the wish to confer additional glory upon the land of his birth. His devotion to the Royalist cause[139] is of the purest and most heroic type, and the general tone of his character, as revealed to us in his books, is elevated and n.o.ble. At the same time there is an element of the grotesque in it, so that in his disinterested and chivalrous disposition he reminds us of Don Quixote,[140] while in his frequent allusions to struggles with pecuniary difficulties, as well as in his use of magniloquent language, he distinctly recalls Wilkins Micawber. A lively fancy, a strain of genuine erudition beneath his pedantry, and some sparks of insanity, are other elements in his fantastical character. Only a mind like his own could trace the maze of its windings and turnings, and fathom the depths of its eccentricity. In his thoughts "truth is constantly becoming interfused with fiction, possibility with certainty, and the hyperbolical extravagance of his style only keeps even pace with the prolific shootings of his imagination."[141]

It is perhaps expected that one should, in a measure, apologize for the eccentricities of Urquhart's character and literary style, by explaining that he was a humourist. But, unfortunately, humour is a quality in which Urquhart was lacking, unless we understand by the word mere fantastical quaintness of thought and speech. In one pa.s.sage of his works he speaks with contempt of "shallow-brained humourists,"[142] and we should wrong his ghost by putting him among those whom he abhorred.

Not a single trace of that subtle, graceful play of fancy and of feeling which enters into our conception of humour is to be found in his works.[143] His readers may smile as they turn over his pages, but he is always in deadly earnest. The quality of wit he occasionally manifests in the form of keen sarcasm, when he gives full vent to his feelings of scorn and contempt; as when, for example, he describes those who went out to fight, "but did not hazard their precious persons, lest they should seem to trust to the arm of flesh."[144]

He can never give a simple statement of matters of fact. Thus in his account of the Admirable Crichton, instead of saying that the rector of the university addressed a few complimentary sentences to Crichton, and that the latter replied in the same vein, he says: "In complements after this manner, _ultro citroque habitis_, tossed to and again, retorted, contrerisposted, backreverted, and now and then graced with a quip or a clinch for the better relish of the ear, being unwilling in this kind of straining curtesie to yeeld to other, they spent a full half-hour and more."[145] Everything must be dressed up "with divers quaint and pertinent similes" before it is fit to be introduced to the reader's notice. To quote again from the most accomplished literary critic who has written upon him: "History, philosophy, science, literature are ransacked for ill.u.s.trations of the commonest subject. His fancy is ever on the alert, and you are constantly surprised by some incongruous image, begotten in its wanton dalliance with knowledge the most heterogeneous. He has always an eye to effect. His own learning must be brought into play, rhetorical tropes must flourish through his periods, 'suggesting to our minds two several things at once,' and, of course, as diverse as possible, that 'the spirits of such as are studious in learning may be filled with a most wonderful delight.'"[146] His style reacts upon and controls his thoughts, and often carries him, as Ariosto's Hippogriff carried Astolfo, up into the skies, whither those are unable to follow him who are mounted on humbler animals, or have no other means than those with which they were born for plodding along the dusty roads of earth.

If we can trust the two engraved portraits of Sir Thomas Urquhart which have come down to us, he was a man of handsome presence, and accustomed to deck himself in all the splendour of costume to which so many of his brother-cavaliers were addicted. George Glover, the famous engraver, drew both the portraits of him which are extant. One of these appears as a frontispiece to the _Epigrams_ and to the _Trissotetras_. It is a small whole-length, and represents Sir Thomas in rich dress,[147]

holding out his hand to receive from some allegorical personage a laurel wreath "for Armes and Artes."[148] On a table beside him are his hat and embroidered cloak. In the vacant s.p.a.ces on each side of the upper part of the figure are his name and t.i.tles: "S^r Thomas Urchard, Knight, of Bray and Udol, etc., Baron of Ficherie and Clohorby, etc., Laird Baron of Cromartie and Heritable Sheriff thereof, etc." The portrait is described as taken from the life, and engraved in 1641;[149]

and beneath it is a couplet by W. S., as follows:

"Of him whose shape this Picture hath design'd, Vertue and learning represent the Mind."

Who W. S. was we do not know. The date forbids our identifying him with the Bard of Avon. He was probably one of those mysterious personages, who were always at hand to write epistles of commendation to works by Sir Thomas, and to testify on their "book-oath" to his gifts and graces.

The second engraved portrait is of great rarity, and only one impression of it is known to be in existence. It was probably meant to be a frontispiece to the unpublished volume of Epigrams described on p. 116, the t.i.tle of which was to have been _Apollo and the Muses_, but which never found its way into print. In this engraving Sir Thomas is depicted as seated with great complacency upon Mount Parna.s.sus, in the midst of the Muses, seven of whom are pressing upon his attention wreaths of laurel of which he is worthy, "for Judgment, Learning, witt, Invention, sweetness, stile." At his feet is the sacred fountain of Castalia or Hippocrene, into the waters of which the other two Muses are sportively dipping "sprinklers" or asperges. One of them seems inclined to give Sir Thomas a sprinkling, but refrains, either because it was unnecessary or for fear of spoiling his nice clothes. In the background, the winged horse Pegasus is flying sufficiently low down to allow a woman to pluck a couple of feathers from his wings.[150] These are no doubt intended to provide pens for Sir Thomas's next literary undertaking. In the further distance are several feathered creatures, which are probably meant for poetical swans, but which bear a painful likeness to prosaic geese. At the foot of the picture in one corner we have Apollo, playing on his lyre; and on the ground in front are a half-starved dragon and a snake, writhing in impotent rage, as they witness the triumph of Sir Thomas. We can hardly be mistaken in concluding that these last are symbolical representations of envious and carping critics.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Poet surrounded by the Muses.]

FOOTNOTES:

[97] _Antiquarian Notes_, by C. Fraser-Mackintosh, p. 156.

[98] _Antiquarian Notes_, pp. 155-158; _History of the Clan Mackenzie_, by Alex. Mackenzie.

[99] The enactment in question runs as follows:--"It being thought expedient by the said Committee that the house of Cromartie be put in a posture of defence, and that for the doing thereof it is requisite some faill [turf] be cast and led, the said Committee ordains all Sir James Fraser's tenants within the parochins [parishes] of Cromartie and Cullicudden, together with those of the Laird of Findra.s.sie, within the parochin of Rosemarkie, to afford from six hours in the morning to six hours at night, one horse out of every oxengait [= about 13 Scotch acres] daily for the s.p.a.ce of four days to lead the same faill to the house of Cromartie." Of this enemy, Sir James Fraser, our author remarked at a later time with regrettable bitterness, that he knew only one good thing about him, and that was that he was dead.

[100] _Acts of the Parliament of Scotland_, vi. 392.

[101] _General a.s.sembly Commission Records_, 1648-49, p. 220.

[102] _General a.s.sembly Commission Records_, 1648-49, pp. 249, 250.

[103] _General a.s.sembly Commission Records_, 1648-49, pp. 252-262.

[104] Strangely enough, in Hope's _Anastasius_, a Tatar messenger travelling through Asia Minor to Constantinople is described as acting in the same insolent manner. "He would not," says Anastasius, "even after the daintiest meal in the world, forego the douceur he expected for what he used to call the wear and tear of his teeth" (ii. 320).

[105] An account of the battle is given in a letter addressed by the victorious generals, Ker, Halket, and Strachan, to the Moderator of the Commission of a.s.sembly, dated 9th May, 1649. In it they say: "We were in Innernes vpon Sunday at night, when we received intelligence that the enemie were come from Torespay to Balvine, presently to discusse ws (_sic_). We could not hear from the Livetennent-Generall [Lesley], and the enemy was making himselfe strong in many severall quarters in [the]

countrie. We conceived it better to suppresse nor [than] to be suppressed. We in our weak maner beged the Lords direction, that His blissing might wait His owne and our labours, and, with great freedome concluded to march with all expedition to Torispay, intelligence having come certaine that they were lyeing in Balveine at a wood, where we engaged with them; and there the Lord delivered them vnto our hands. We were not abone six score fighting hors.e.m.e.n and tuelfe muskiteires. We had some more, but they were wearied. We have at this tyme about 800 prisoners, betuixt 3 or 4 scoir killed, and tuo or thrie hundred fled.

My Lord Rae and all the officers are, according to the capitulatioun, prisoners; the rest are to be conveyed to their countrey, after we receive order from the publick; and therefore we shall expect such further directions from you as you shall thinke fit, for securing and obliging, by oath, such as shall returne to their countrey" (_General a.s.sembly Commission Records_, 1618-49, p. 263). There is a genuine Cromwellian ring about the phrases "beged the Lord's direction," and "the Lord delivered them vnto our hands," which we cannot help admiring; and there is a beauty of its own in the phrase "with great freedome" in the connection in which it stands.

[106] Wardlaw MS.

[107] The Commission of the General a.s.sembly is each year nominated by that body, and is responsible to it, and is empowered to dispose of all items of business remitted to it, and to act in the interests of the Church during the months between the meeting of the a.s.sembly which nominated them, and that to which they report their proceedings. They are authorised to meet on certain specific days, and oftener, when and where they think fit. The next General a.s.sembly may reverse their sentences, if they have exceeded their powers, or have acted in any way which is considered prejudicial to the interests of the Church.