Such was the state of Baillie's army; but not so that of Montrose.

Quietly, resolutely, and deliberately, he marshalled the few clans that composed his little army on the ground that faced the enemy. Between him and the hill which the latter were seeking to occupy there extended a little glen, the sides of which were clothed with underwood; a fe w thatched cottages, with rude garden walls, clustered at its foot. Beyond these could be seen the Covenanters toiling towards their new ground, their weapons and the plate-armour of their cavalry," who were all accoutred with back, breast, and pot, steel gloves and tassettes," glittering in the sun; and the general completeness of their equipment occasioned some speculation and doubtful muttering among the men of Montrose, who was not slow to perceive its origin. He rode along the line, and pointing down the glen with his rapier, exclaimed

siasm among the ardent spirits he commanded. A wild shout of defiance and assent spread from clan to clan, and everything was cast aside that might encumber motion. Many unbuckled their baldricks, and let slip their belted plaid (ie., the kilt and

"Gentlemen and comrades, you see these cowardly rascals whom you have beaten at Inverlochy, at Tippermuir, and Auldearn? I assure you that their officers have found it impossible to bring them before us again without first casing them up in complete coats of mail; but, to show our contempt, we shall fight them, if you please, in our shirts!" With these words, the marquis, who was one of the handsomest men of the time, threw off his cuirass and richly-laced buff doublet, and again rode along the line, sword in hand, waving his plumed beaver.

UPPER FIGURE,

Like wildfire spread the fierce and high enthu

The garden walls and cottage windows already mentioned were now all lined by Highland marksmen lying en perdue, and the marquis sent a cartel to Baillie, inviting him to come on-that the troops of the king were ready. A shout, like a roar of hatred and defiance, greeted his solitary trumpeter; and in a few minutes after the conflict began by the skirmishers firing on Hume's regiment as it blundered to the front.

Then, without Baillie's orders, a regiment of

cavalry, with swords brandished, rushed down the bush-encumbered glen to attack the advanced musketeers of Montrose, whom Adjutant Gordon had posted, as we have described, in security, and who, without receiving a shot in return, peppered the troopers point-blank from the cottage windows, the garden walls, and other impromptu defences which had been cast up to bar the way; and the insanity of this movement precipitated the ruin of the Covenanting forces.

Repulsed with loss, and so with many a saddle empty, their cavalry fell back through the glen, while three regiments of infantry (one of which was named from its dress the Red-coat Musketeers), flanked by two troops of horse and one of lancers, advanced to the attack, though many of them were short of matches. Then it was the Macleans of the Isles and the Macdonalds of the clan Ranald, whose fierce military ardour no orders could longer restrain, rushed through the hamlet to the front.

In the headlong fury of a Highland charge, alike to them were horse and foot, musketeer or cuirassier; with claymores and dirks, and with heads down-that is, stooped behind their targets-they swept on. With shrill hurrahs, hoarse high warcries, and the din of the pibroch in their ears, they were led, like a living tide, through the narrow glen (the whole length of which was swept by a brigade of cannon), and Sir Lachlin of Duairt and John of Moidart were at their head. Furiously they fell, with their keen claymores and long dirks, upon the Covenanters, hewing down horse and foot with equal facility, many of the former having their thighs shorn off close to the saddle-lap; and in a few moments the foe became an inextricable mob.

Conspicuous in this charge was young Donald, the son of John of Moidart, who, as Neil Macvurich, the bard of his house, has recorded, emulated Donald Maceachin Oig Maclean, in his eagerness to reach the foe, and actually broke through the ranks of the Macleans, who were in front of his clan. Foot to foot, and hand to hand, the Covenanters met them for a time, and none amid the ranks of the latter distinguished himself more than the gallant Captain Paton, of Meadowhead, who had served in the German wars, and who was afterwards a major at Bothwell Brig. The Macgregors, under Phadrig Caoch, their chief, and Sir Alaster Maccoll, with his musketeers and the claymores of the Isles, also swept forward.

A steady front presented by some Lowland pikemen, from the rear of whom some 2,000 muskets poured a withering fire, repelled their advance for a time; and, moreover, they were in danger of being

attacked by some troops of Baillie's horse, which had not yet been engaged, and which, under MajorGeneral Holbourn, were wheeling on high ground, for a flank movement. Thus it became evident to Montrose that unless the four tribes in the glen were well seconded they might ultimately fail, before the greater masses of the Covenanters. The sudden and disordered charge they had made greatly irritated him, yet he galloped to the aged Earl of Airlie, who was on horseback at the head of his mounted Ogilvies, and exclaimed

"You see into what a Hose-net these poor fellows have fallen by their own rashness ! My lord, unless relieved, they will be trod down by the enemy's horse. The eyes and hearts of all men turn to your lordship, and I know of none more worthy to bring off our comrades. Forward, then, in the name of God !"

The earl, who was then in his seventieth year, having been born in 1575, when Mary Stuart was still a prisoner in England, and thirteen years before the Great Armada had been dreamed of, prepared instantly to advance. By his side rode John Ogilvie, of Baldovie, formerly colonel of Scots in Sweden. Filing along the glen, the Ogilvies formed line, and making a furious charge upon that portion of Baillie's troops which were short of matches, enabled the four clans to keep the ground they had won; but on the cry being raised for "more horse," the young Lord Aboyne exclaimed

"Messieurs, let us go to assist our distressed friends. God willing, we shall bring them off in good order, so that they shall neither be lost, nor our army be endangered by a sudden flight" ("Britone's Distemper ").

At the head of his troop, he charged the lancers who flanked the Red Musketeers, in rear of whom he drove them. He then was daring enough to charge the infantry; "but finding them all formed in close order, with their long pikes at the charge, with nimble resolution, he reins his horse a little to the left hand, and broke right through the Red Regiment of Musketeers, after receiving three volleys of shot from their triple ranks."

The conflict had now become general, and the clangour of steel blades on steel, and on the knobs of round brass-studded bucklers, informed Baillie that the Campbells were resisting to the last; but ere long they were swept away, and their best men lay dead or dying on the turf.

Baillie now galloped to the rear, where the Fifeshire brigade of three regiments, under Arnot of Fernie, Erskine of Cambo, and Fordel Henderson, were posted; but these corps no sooner saw the

Kilsythe.]

horse and foot in their front recoiling before the resolute advance of the four clans, than, deeming the day lost, they broke from the ranks, and inspired only by the terrible memory of their defeat and slaughter at the battle of Tippermuir, in the September of the preceding year, they fled without firing a shot.

Colonel Sir Nathaniel Gordon, of Ardlogie, now spurred on with eight troops of Cavalier horse, and, united in one charging mass, the clans rushed forward; the dirk and claymore, the pike and Lochaber axe, the clubbed musket, did their work of slaughter; and though General Baillie, Major Inglis, of Ingliston, and a captain named Maitland, made several energetic attempts to rally the Fife men, the panic their cowardice raised became universal; the whole army of the Covenant melted away from its colours, and dispersed in every direction over the open and irregular country in its rear.

Among the leaders slain were Erskine of Cambo, Dunbarrow, and many gentlemen of good family. Among the prisoners taken were Sir William Murray, of Blebo, Lord Burleigh's brother, James Balfour, major of horse, and afterwards lieutenantcolonel under James VII. of Scotland; LieutenantColonels the Lairds of Fernie and Westquarter, Dick, Dyer, and Wallace of Auchans, one of the best and bravest of the Covenanters, and many others, including some preachers. All the prisoners were released by the marquis, on giving their parole of honour.

Immediately on the Covenanters' giving way, there ensued the most dreadful slaughter among them, and this event neither the voice nor presence of Montrose could arrest. Fierce, fleet, and active, and more than all, inspired by political and hereditary hate, the Highlanders continued what was not inaptly named the killing for fourteen miles Scots, or eighteen miles English. The cavalry, the nobles, and the mounted officers alone escaped.

The Bishop of Dunkeld and Bishop Wishart, in their Memoirs, say that 7,000 dead covered the field. If so, the number must include the slain of both parties. One portion of Baillie's army, the reserve of Fifeshire men, nearly all perished; few or none ever saw their homes again. On that day, says the old "Statistical Account," were 200 women made widows in the then small town of Kirkaldy alone.

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struther, "who do not talk of some relations that went to the field of Kilsythe, and were never afterwards heard of. Ever since the people here have had a strong aversion to military life; and in the course of twenty-one years there is only a single instance of a person enlisting, and he went into the train of artillery." It must be borne in mind that this person wrote about the beginning of the present century.

While the slaughter was in progress, a poor Covenanter rushed to the venerable Earl of Airlie, and clinging to his stirrup, sought protection; but while he clung there a passing trooper clove him down. Many of the peasantry perished in the confusion; thus, an unfortunate farmer, and his four sons who surrounded him, were hewn to pieces in mistake for Covenanters, and were all buried in one grave, which, says Robert Chambers, the peasants of Kilsythe still regard with pity.

"It was a braw day, Kilysthe, for at every stroke of my broadsword I cut an ell o' breeks," was the exulting remark of a veteran who fought under Montrose, to the late Sir John Sinclair, of Ulbster, who knew him in early life.

When attempting to cross Dullater Bog, which lay to the right of their position, many of the Presbyterian cavalry perished; "and there both horses and men," says Nimmo, in his "History of Stirlingshire," "have been dug up within the memory of people yet alive." Nimmo wrote in 1777. As the moss is endowed with a remarkable antiseptic quality, these remains are usually undecayed. One trooper was found in his saddle and stirrups, with all his accoutrements on, just as he and his horse had sunk together. In other places, the hilt of a sword, part of a saddle, a number of coins, and a gold ring with an escutcheon upon it, have been turned up in later years.

Generals Baillie and Holbourn, with a few dragoons, reached their garrison in Stirling Castle; Lord Aboyne pursued others with his horse as far as Falkirk; Lord Balcarris fled into Lothian, and, accompanied by twelve dragoons, never drew bridle till he reached the village of Colinton, in a deep wooded hollow near Edinburgh. The Earl of Crawford-Lindsay fled to Berwick; every officer of his regiment save himself and his major perished. All the baggage, colours, drums, ammunition, and cannon were taken; among the latter was one called by the Covenanters "Prince Rupert," from whom they had taken it near York