Argyle

“ The man just plays up.—Nice manly proceeding, what!" cried Argyle.
"But why can't man accept it as the natural order of things?" said Lilly. "Science makes it the natural order."
"All my —— to science," said Argyle. "No man with one drop of real spunk in him can stand it long."
"Yes! Yes! Yes!" cried the Italian. "Most men want it so. Most men want only, that a woman shall want them, and they shall then play up to her when she has roused them. Most men want only this: that a woman shall choose one man out, to be her man, and he shall worship her and come up when she shall provoke him. ”

“ Under the little balcony wall Argyle had put square red-tiled pots, all round, and in these still bloomed a few pansies and asters, whilst in a corner a monthly rose hung flowers like round blood-drops. Argyle was as tidy and scrupulous in his tiny rooms and his balcony as if he were a first-rate sea-man on a yacht. Lilly remarked on this.
"Do you see signs of the old maid coming out in me? Oh, I don't doubt it. I don't doubt it. We all end that way. Age makes old maids of us all. And Tanny is all right, you say? ”

“ The banders flocked to the town with so great backing, the Chancellor and Argyle’s company was so small, that there was a great rumour raised of a wicked design against Argyle’s person; but incontinent the gentry and ministry of Fife running over in thousands, and the Lothians with the town of Edinburgh cleaving to Argyle above expectation, the banders courage and companies of foot and horse melted away as snow in a hot sunshine. A paper of Sir Archibald Johnston’s, as a letter to a friend, gave good satisfaction to the minds of men. ”

“ In a very little while he came from the tiny attic bedroom, through the tiniest cupboard of a sitting-room under the eaves, where his books were, and where he had hung his old red India tapestries—or silk embroideries—and he emerged there up above the world on the loggia.
“Now then—siamo nel paradiso, eh? Paradisal enough for you, is it?”
“The devil looking over Lincoln,” said Lilly laughing, glancing up into Argyle's face.
“The devil looking over Florence would feel sad,” said Argyle. “The place is fast growing respectable—Oh, piety makes the devil chuckle. ”

“ It was indeed well known that Argyle was a man rather of political enterprise than personal courage, and better calculated to manage an intrigue of state, than to controul the tribes of hostile mountaineers ”

“ But Argyle, as old Birrell expresses himself, kept a Highlandman's promise with them, fulfilling it to the ear, and breaking it to the sense. MacGregor was sent under a strong guard to the frontier of England, and being thus, in the literal sense, sent out of Scotland, Argyle was judged to have kept faith with him, though the same party which took him there brought him back to Edinburgh in custody. ”

“ His presence so alarmed the men of Argyle, that they immediately made their submission. Several of the chiefs fled for safety, and to punish them, the king distributed their lands among his officers and their followers. After this invasion Argyle was brought under the direct jurisdiction of the Scottish king, although the descendants of the race of Somerled, Lord of the Isles, still continued to be the chief magnates. ”

“ For these reasons Argyle urged, at a council of war, which was held at Stirling, a postponement of the march; but General Cadogan, [736] who had been sent down to Scotland to hasten the duke’s motions, insisting upon an immediate advance, and having openly accused Argyle of a want of zeal, his Grace made preparations for marching, and to facilitate the transport of his cannon and waggons, issued orders for assembling some thousands of the country people to clear away the snow. ”

“ That there fell out a great dispute
⁠Between Argyle and Airly.
Argyle has raised a hundred men,
⁠A hundred men and mairly,
And he has gone to the back of Dunkeld,
⁠To plunder the bonny house of Airly. ”

“ After this, two days before Argyle was broken and taken, he was near Wigtown in Galloway; a considerable number of men were gathered together in arms, to go for his assistance; they pressed him to preach, but he positively refused, laying, he would souls pray with them where he continued long, and spent some part of that time in praying for Ireland, pleading that the Lord would spare a remnant, and not make a full end in the day of his anger; and would put it in the hearts of his own to flee over to this bloody land, where they would find safety for a time. ”

“ Even so late as Sunday, the twenty-ninth of January, when Argyle's troops left Stirling and advanced to Braco Castle, Lord Mar appears to have been in ignorance of their actual movements. Perhaps, like the busy world of London politicians, he regarded the project of an attempt upon Perth [Pg 177] in such weather as impracticable. Such was the opinion at St. James's. "Argyle's friends here," writes one near the Court, "speak of the march and the attempt at present as madness." And another individual writes, that "one half of their people must die of cold, and the other be knocked o' the head. ”

“ But the ignominious and savage treatment which he received at the hands of those whose station and descent should at least have taught them to respect misfortune, has left an indelible stain upon the memory of the Covenanting chiefs, and more especially upon that of Argyle.
The perfect serenity of the man in the hour of trial and death, the courage and magnanimity which he displayed to the last, have been dwelt upon with admiration by writers of every class. ”

“ And there she spied the great Argyle,
Came to plunder the bonny house of Airley.
4
‘Come down stairs now, Madam,’ he says,
‘Now come down and kiss me fairly;’
‘I’ll neither come down nor kiss you,’ she says,
‘Tho you should na leave a standing stane in Airley.’
5
‘I ask but one favour of you, Argyle,
And I hope you’ll grant me fairly
To tak me to some dark dowey glen,
That I may na see the plundering of Airley.’
6
He has taen her by the left shoulder,
And O but she looked weary!
And he has led her down to the top of the town,
Bade her look at the plundering of Airley. ”

“ Unfortunate Argyle. This nobleman, how far soever he may be thought misled in principle, was certainly in his person a very brave and a very gallant hero. They made haste to draw him out and bring him to himself; after which, being delivered up to the officers, the erring, unfortunate great man, was conducted to Edinburgh and there beheaded.
Many gentlemen that followed the fortunes of this great man, though not in his death, they shared in all the other calamities attending his overthrow. They most of them fled into the remotest isles and the obscurest corners of all Scotland ”

“ Although Argyle’s obvious plan was at once to have dashed into the western Lowlands, where the spirit of disaffection was deeply prevalent, and where a great accession of force might have been expected, he, contrary to the advice of some of his officers, remained in Argyle a considerable time in expectation of hearing of Monmouth’s landing, and spent the precious moments in chasing out of his territories a few stragglers who infested his borders. Amid the dissensions which naturally arose from this difference of opinion, the royalists were hemming Argyle in on all sides. ”

“ The duke of Argyle, apprised of his intention, and being joined by some regiments of dragoons from Ireland, determined to give him battle in the neighbourhood of Dumblane. On the twelfth day of the month, Argyle passed the Forth at Stirling, and encamped with his left at the village of Dumblane, and his right towards Sheriffmuir. The earl of Mar advanced within two miles of his camp, and remained till day-break in order of battle; his army consisted of nine thousand effective men, cavalry as well as infantry. ”

“ Argyle left his two cousins Lochnell and Auchinbreck, the Laird of Barra, and five hundred men, dead in the valley; while Huntly lost only the Knight of Auchindoune, the Laird of Gicht, and a score or two of troopers.
Such was the Highland battle of Balrinnes or Glenlivat, which struck terror into the Scottish Protestants, and where Argyle lost his famous yellow banner, which was borne with other trophies into the Garioch, and placed on the summit of Huntly's castle of Strathbogie. ”

“ Marching from thence, Huntly’s army arrived at Auchindun on the same day that Argyle’s army reached Drummin. At Auchindun, Huntly received intelligence that Argyle was on the eve of descending from the mountains to the lowlands, which induced him, on the following day, to send Captain Thomas Carr and a party of horsemen to reconnoitre the enemy, while he himself advanced with his main army. The reconnoitring party soon fell in, accidentally, with Argyle’s scouts, whom they chased, and some of whom they killed. ”

“ The late Marquis of Argyle had obtained from the Duke of Lennox, Lord High Admiral of Scotland, a formal gift of this vessel, and had become ‘clad with possession’ by taking guns and other things out of it. In 1665, a more vigorous attempt was made to get up some of its treasures by the present Earl of Argyle, the immediate operator being, apparently, Maule of Melgum, a Forfarshire gentleman, who had invented an apparatus precisely of the nature of what was a century later revived as the Diving-bell. ”

“ As the comparatively small body of troops under Argyle was the only force in Scotland from which the insurgents had any thing to dread, their whole attention should have been directed in the first place to that body, which could not have withstood the combined attacks of the forces which the rebels had in the field, amounting to about 16,000 men. The Duke of Argyle must have been compelled, had the three divisions of the insurgent army made a simultaneous movement upon Stirling, to have hazarded a battle, and the result would very probably have been disastrous to his arms. ”

“ During the rule of Argyle and Leslie in Scotland, a rule which might aptly be denominated a reign of terror, the possessions of the chief in Mull had been ravaged by the parliamentary troops, without any resistance from the harmless inhabitants, who had been instructed by their lord to offer no retaliation that could furnish a plea for future oppression. The castle of Duart had been besieged, and surrendered to Argyle and Leslie, upon condition that the defenceless garrison, and eight Irish gentlemen, inmates of the hospitable Highlander's home, should be spared. ”

“ I have received a letter just now from Scotland that Argyle has escaped out of the Castle, of which I am very glad, if it be certain, Mr. Veitch said, he doubted not the certainty of it. They insisted both at expressing their joy at the news: Mrs. Bitleston being present, said, I cannot be so much taken up with that news as you are; I know that the house of Argyle was a good house for our reformation, and his father suffered for it; but, for himself, he hath been a member of that wicked bloody Council these eighteen years, where many a wicked thing hath been acted and done ”

“ A true account of the proceedings at Perth, by a Rebel.
[736] This officer appears to have been very suspicious of Argyle’s motives, and did not hesitate to communicate his opinion to his superiors. In a letter to the Duke of Marlborough, he says: “Argyle grows so intolerably uneasy, that it is almost impossible to live with him any longer; he is enraged at the success of the expedition, though he and his creatures attribute to themselves the honour of it. When I brought him the news of the rebels having ran from Perth, he seemed thunderstruck ”

“ For this purpose Argyle once more moved towards Inverara, having an opportunity, at every step, to deplore the severities which the hostile clans had exercised on his dependants and country. Whatever noble qualities the Highlanders possessed, and they had many, clemency in treating a hostile country was not of the number; but even the ravages of hostile troops combined to swell the number of Argyle's followers. It is still a Highland proverb, He whose house is burnt must become a soldier ”

“ Having been left an orphan, he was brought up till his 18th year under the care of the Marquis of Argyle, who, endeavouring to instil into him the unsavoury principles of the Covenanters, put him to school at Inverary under the guardianship of a gentleman of his own principles. “But young Lochiel preferred the sports of the field to the labours of the school,” and Argyle finding him totally intractable and utterly disgusted with covenanting principles, allowed him to return to Lochaber, to head his clan in the 18th year of his age. ”

“ However, Argyle got together above 1500 men, and expected a great many more would have joined him, in order to oppose the King and Council in their bloody cruelties carried on in these days, but he was disappointed, and after several unsuccessful attempts, without ever coming to any total action, and his officers differing among themselves, the most of his men deserted, and finding it impracticable to do any thing to purpose, he dismissed the whole, and put himself in disguise but was soon taken by a few militia at the water of Inchinnan. ”

“ He blamed the bishops for persuading the king to bring in the English liturgy and canons in so abrupt and violent a manner; that their pride was great, their folly greater. He gives the king his opinion of the character and degrees of the trustworthiness of the different Ministers, and bids him beware of the Earl of Argyle, whom he declares to be the most dangerous man in the State; so far from favouring episcopacy, as had been supposed, that nobleman wished it abolished with all his soul. This was immediately afterwards, as we shall see, made clear by Argyle himself. ”