Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

JOINS THE MARQULS OF MONTROSE AT BOTHWELL, 1045. cxcvii
Boon after being set at libcitj the Earl of Ilartfell went to Douglas
Castle, and tlicre arranged the marriage of his eldest son, James, Lord John-
stone, to Lady Heuiiotta Dongh.s, daughter of William, first ]\j'arq\us of
Douglas.' Later, in the end of July, ho attended a meeting of ])arliameut
\vhich was held at Pertli, probably on account of the plague then raging in
Edinburgli. But this parliament did not sit beyond the first week of August,
and the earl then probably returned home."
Aleauwhile the ]\Iarquis of IMontrose had been pursuing his campaign in
the north of Scotland as the king's lieutenant, and had with wonderful
rapidity gained successive victories over all the armies sent by the Scottisli
parliament against him. He now descended upon the south a)id west of
Scotland, and paralysed the country by his crowning victory at Kilsyth on
15tli August 1G45, which placed all at his mercy for the time. Both Glas-
gow and Edinburgh submitted, and wlicn Montrose set up court at Bothwell,
he demanded and received, in his master's name, the allegiance of the noble-
men, barons, and others around. The Earl of Ilartfell came thither with
others and submitted to him.^ Xot only so, but ho accepted a commission
from him, Baillie says, to raise men in tlic king's interest; * and he is men-
tioned as actively exercising authority with other noblemen under Montrose,
such as granting a protection to the parish of Lesmahago, and another to the
burgh of Jedburgh, and demanding, by a subscribed letter to the governor of
Carliile, under threats of vengeance, the release of the Earl of Queensberry,
who was then imprisoned there as a royalist.^ He went with Montrose to
the Eojjders in September, and was present, on the 13th of that month, at
Edinlrai-gli castle the previous year at tlie May 1C45, Aiinaudale Peerage iliuutes of
same time as his father. On 3d June IGll Evidence, 1S77, pp. 570-579.
he was allowed by parliament to retire home, 2 Balfour's Anaals, vol. iii. pp. 298-307.
for such necessary affairs as concerned his , -.r • . • -.r r -m ••
. i
, , , . , ., . ,.,,, r Xapiurs Memoirs of ilouUose, vol. ii.
f.-xther or hiiii, and that Dotwithatandiug ot
--i
any act to the contrary. [Acts of the Parlia- "'
ments of Scotland, vol", vi. part i. p. 9i.]
' ^^'^'"'^ Letters, etc., vol. ii. p. 314.
' Contract, dated at Doujjlaa Castle igtb
'' The Douglas Book, vol. iii. pp. 330, 331.