Montrose continued for a time to brighten the royal cause, by the delusive hopes of his splendid atehieve ments. Ire had retired to Inverness from laying waste Argyleshire, when Argyle recalled his scattered clan to Inverlochy, a castle at the western extremity of those lakes which almost cross the Highlands from east to west. The cad of Seaforth, with 5000 men, pressed Montrose on the other side ; but, by a rapid movement, Montrose fell upon the covenanters at Inverlochy. Ar gyle, seized with a panic, deserted his army, and fifteen hundred of them were slaughtered on the scene of bat tte. Montrose was joined, in consequence of this victory..
by several new clans of the Highlanders ; and the army of lord Seaforth, consisting of raw levies, was dispersed by the terror of his name. Recrossing the Highlands, he abstained, indeed, from the cold blooded massacres which had disgraced his former campaign ; but refusing mercy to all who did not assist his cause, he pillaged and burnt their habitations wherever he marched.— Elgin, Cullen, Banff, and Stonehaven, experienced his Cruelties; the last of these places was consigned to the flames, by his order, amidst the cries and intreaties of its inhabitants. He had carried Dundee by assault, when Baillie and Ury, two officers of the covenanting army, who had been recalled by the council of Edin burgh to protect the country, approached him. He made an astonishing retreat of 60 miles in one day, be fore their superior forces, who divided in pursuit of him. Ury met him with 4000 men at Alderne, near In verness, where Montrose, posting one wing upon strong ground, and affecting to have a central body by dispos ing a few men among trees and bushes, led on the rest of his troops to a furious charge, and put to flight the Covenanters, amounting to twice his numbers. Baillie advancing to avenge Ury's defeat, met with a similar fate at Alford, and the victorious royalist was preparing to push his conquests to the south of Scotland, and to dissipate the parliament, which had been ordered to meet at St Johnstons.
By the influence of the Independents, that body of the English parliament and its followers, who wished for an abolition of all church government, and a levelling equality of ranks in the republic, a self-denying act was passed in the House of Commons, by which the mem bers of both Houses were excluded from all civil and military employments, except a few offices wnieh w,:re specified. The pretence of this act was to convince the people, that the members of p itliament wished to participate in none of the profits of government, or avail themselves of the power which had been intrusted to them : the real object of its contrivers, which the Presb3, terians did not sufficiently perceive or resist, was to git rid of a number of officers, whose weight was a restraint upon levelling enthusiasm of the Indepen dents. Essex, Warwick, Manchester, Denbigh, Waller,
and Brereton, resigned their commands, and received the thanks of parliament. The command of the army was bestowed on sir Thomas Fairfax—a man sincere, disinterested, and able in war, but of narrow genius in every thing- else, and unconsciously made subservient to the deep dissimulating views of Cromwell. After ob taining, in concert with sir Harry Vane and the other leaders of the Independents, this self-denying ordinance, Cromwell contrived to make Fairfax retain him in the command second to his own, or, in effect, to give him the first influence in military affairs. The armies, in consequence of the ordinance, were modelled anew, and an exact and rigid discipline was established. As the new officers were chiefly Independents, in whom the spiritual and military vocations were united, the soldiers were daily edified by exhortation and prayer ; when they marched, the fields resounded with psalms, and wherever they were quartered the pulpits were usurped by those military rhapsodies, whose martial devotion reduced the feeble notes of the clergy to contempt The soldiers were seized with the same rage for preaching and praying. Little success was expected from the raw officers of the new-modelled army, but their enemies were disappointed.
On opening the campaign at approach of the sum mer of 1645, the king marched to relieve Chester, and Fairfax to relieve Taunton. The siege of Chester was raised on the report of the king's approach ; that of Taunton was continued. While Fairfax was recalled by the committee of both kingdoms to attack the city of Oxford, the Scottish army was directed to advance, and oppose the king in the north. They advanced to Rippon, and learning that prince Maurice intended to co-operate with Montrose, they turned into Westmore land to cover the siege of Carlisle, and to prevent the danger of their native country. Leicester, for the pre sent, attracted the king's arms ; that city was stormed with great carnage, and given up to the most dreadful excesses of the soldiery. The disaster excited such clamour, that Fairfax was ordered from besieging Ox ford, to march against the king ; and either from neces sity, or the impetuosity of prince Rupert, it was resolv ed, on the part of the royalists, to give battle without waiting for some expected aids.