THE BATTLE OF GLENLIVAT—THE KING HAVING A POWERFUL ARMY DEFEATS THE BARONS—HE DEVASTATES HIS OWN COUNTRY AND DESTROYS THE FINE PALACE OF THE EARL OF HUNTLY, TOGETHHR WITH THE MANSIONS OF SEVERAL OTHER NOBLEMEN—HE EXECUTES SOME OF HUNTLEY S MEN— WHAT IT COST THE KING—DISAPPOINTED BY QUEEN ELIZABETH—REVIVAL OF CATHOLIC INFLUENCE—DEPLORABLE STATE OF THE COUNTRY—FAMINE— DISORDERLY BARONS BROUGHT TO JUSTICE—HUNTLY KEEPS HIS GROUND— REV. JOHN MORTON DETECTED—MINISTERS OF THE KIRK PROPOSE TORTURE, WHICH THE KING DOES NOT ALLOW—LAST MASS IN ELGIN CATHEDRAL.

Argyle had full commission to act against the Catholics; and he lost no time in his endeavour to execute it. In marching towards Aberdeen, he was joined by numerous bands; and, in a short time, he was at the head of ten thousand men. Of this number six thousand only were efficient soldiers. The rest, however, were provided with such arms as they were accustomed to, and they were undoubtedly warlike. There was also with him a noted sorceress whose incantations were expected by the reformed people to bring to light the treasures which might be hid under ground by the terrified inhabitants. The hope of abundant plunder was a strong incentive to their bravery. He attempted the siege of some places on his way; but relinquishing this hopeless task, he proceeded through the hills of Strathbogie, with the fell purpose of ravaging that country which belonged to Huntly, with fire and sword. Reaching Drimnin in Strathdown, he encamped there; and soon after had information that Huntly was near at hand, and, notwithstanding his great inferiority of force, intended to attack him. The Catholic Lords had only two thousand men, or, as some say, some thing over fifteen hundred. They were, however true soldiers and commanded by experienced officers. They had also six pieces of ordnance under the skilful command of Captain Gray. Huntly, having reached Auchendown, learned, by his scouts, on the 3rd October, that Argyle was at no great distance. He sent forward a few horsemen to reconnoitre. They were conducted by a spy of Argyle to the vicinity of his encampment which was near Glenlivat, in the mountainous district of Strathavon. The officer who had gone to observe the enemy, on returning, concealed their numbers and said they might be easily beaten by a few resolute men. Huntly followed his advice and marched forward. Erroll led the advance, supported by Sir Patrick Gordon, the Lairds of Gight, Bonniton, Wood, Captain Kerr and three hundred gentlemen. Huntly commanded the rear guard, having, on his right, the Laird of Clunie Gordon, and on his left, Gordon of Abergel. The six pieces of artillery were so placed as to be completely masked by the cavalry, and, so they were dragged forward unperceived, within range of the enemy’s position. They opened fire, and at the first discharge, which was directed against the yellow standard of Argyle, struck down and slew MacNeill, the Laird of Barra’s third son, one of their bravest officers, and Campbell of Lochnell, who held the standard. This great success spread confusion among the Highlanders. A large body of them, yelling and brandishing their broad swords and axes, made some attempts to reach the horsemen; but receiving another fire from the artillery, they fled, and so fast that they were speedily out of sight and pursuit. A large body remained, nevertheless, and they had the advantage both of the sun which shone upon and dazzled their opponents, and the nature of the ground. Huntly’s vanguard, notwithstanding, commanded by Erroll and Auchendown, advanced boldly to attack. Erroll, dreading a marsh that lay between him and the enemy, moved forward along some firmer ground that lay on one side, hoping thus to take the enemy in the flank. Sir Patrick Gordon, impelled by his extraordinary ardour, made directly for the hill; but, he and his horsemen, impeded by the swampy ground, remained exposed to a murderous fire from the enemy, who, in this part of the field, were led by McLean of Duart, a chieftain of great stature and prodigious strength. He was superiorly armed, wearing a shirt of mail and wielding a Danish battle-axe. He skilfully placed his force in a small copse wood near at hand, from which, protected against cavalry, they delivered their fire with great effect. Auchendown’s ranks were fearfully thinned by the murderous fire; but, far from being discouraged, he succeeded in disengaging his cavalry and galloped up the hill. To the great sorrow of his followers, he was struck with a bullet and fell from his horse. They were not, however, dismayed, but made strenuous efforts to rescue their chief. The furious enemy, to whom he was well known, rushed upon him, despatched him with their dirks, cut off his head and displayed it in savage triumph. This enraged the Gordons, who, fighting with fury and regardless of discipline, gave advantage to McLean. This chief, availing himself of the confusion, hemmed in the enemy’s vanguard and forced it into narrow space between his own force and Argyle’s, hoping thus to cut them to pieces. But Huntly, observing their danger, hastened to their support. He made a furious attack on both Argyle and McLean, and called loudly on his friends to avenge Auchendown. There rode beside Argyle a person who, it may be said, had no business in battle, the Royal Herald. He was arrayed in his official costume with his tabard; and on it the red lion and double tressure. Such dress could be no protection on the battlefield. It only served to point him out to hostile vengeance, which was, at the moment,excited to the highest pitch. “At the Lion,” roared the horsemen, as they ran him through with their spears, and laid him in the dust. The battle now raged for two hours with unusual fury. Erroll was wounded by a bullet in the arm, and a sharp barbed arrow pierced deep into his thigh, whilst his pennon, or guidon, was torn from him by McLean. Gordon of Gight received three bullet wounds and two plates of his steel coat were forced into his body. Of these wounds he died next day. Huntly himself was in the greatest danger. His horse was shot under him, and the enemy rushed forward to attack him on the ground with their knives and axes. But there was aid at hand. A devoted follower, Innermarkie, rescued him from his perilous position and supplied him with a horse. He now charged the forces of Argyle with renewed vigour. They wavered and finally fled, in such numbers that there remained only twenty men around their chief. The young warrior, grieved and vexed, beyond measure, at this disgraceful desertion, shed tears of rage. He insisted on continuing the hopeless struggle; but, his friend, Murray of Tullibardine, seizing his bridle, forced him off the field. Seven hundred of his followers were slain in the pursuit which followed. The loss on Huntly’s aside was comparatively small. There fell some twenty gentlemen, of whom Sir Patrick Gordon of Auchendown, was the most lamented; and there were fifty wounded. It was a great achievement, without parallel, it may be said, in all history. On Huntly’s side, there were only from fifteen hundred to two thousand men, whilst Argyle had an army of ten thousand. Under such circumstances was fought and won the celebrated battle of Glenlivat. It was a brilliant, but useless victory—useless except in as far as it afforded a new proof that the cause in which it was achieved cannot be forwarded by the sword.

The King, unaware of all that had taken place, was now on his march, at the head of a powerful army, to the North. He was attended by a troop of war like ministers of the Kirk, who looked on his expedition as a holy war—a crusade against “anti-Christ.” On reaching Dundee, he was met by the Earl of Argyle, who informed him of his own ignominious defeat. The news must have been anything but encouraging to the Monarch, who was far from warlike, and could not but remind him that the battle is not always to the strong. He was bent on revenge, however, and this purpose was the more easily accomplished, as Huntly was unable to master a force that could effectually oppose the army of the King. James, accordingly, meeting with no opposition, and encouraged by his ghostly advisers, the ministers, proceeded on his work of havoc and vengeance. The palace of Strathbogie, Huntly’s princely residence, was the first object of the royal fury. It was given to the flames, and the massive walls, which took fourteen years in building, were partly destroyed by gunpowder and partly quarried down by pioneers, a fanatical minister, Andrew Melville, bearing a pike and taking part in the, “godly” work. There remained only the great old tower, whose strong masonry defied the pioneers and the powder. Slaines, the seat of Erroll came next; then the manor house of Culsamond in Garioch, Bagays, and Craig in Angus, together with the castles of Sir Walter Lindsay and Sir John Ogilvy, were ruthlessly destroyed. This was noble employment, it must be owned, for the future King of Great Britain, and a royal author who wrote philosophy that commanded the admiration of Europe. There would have been more havoc still, but for famine overtaking the devastating host and compelling it to, retire on Aberdeen. All the victorious Monarch, who had fought no battle, could do there, was to execute some of Huntly’s men. He punished only with fines such of the common people as had been at the battle of Glenlivat. Having made arrangements for the government of the North, he disbanded his army and returned to Stirling.

King James had now done enough, one would suppose, to meet the utmost expectations of Queen Elizabeth, and gratify the exacting Kirk. The Castles and Houses, which the ministers claimed had been “polluted” by the mass, were now only smoking ruins. The noblemen and gentlemen who desired only to retain their estates whilst they went into exile, rather than abdure the religion of their fathers, were fugitives and wanderers, hiding in the caves and forests, and dreading at every hour to be betrayed into the hands of their enemies. This was the victory the King had won, and not without great danger, for there were always plots against his life or liberty; and, in his expedition to the North, he had undergone much fatigue and privation. Worst of all, he had impoverished his revenue, incurred heavy debts and laid burdens on his subjects in order that he might by one great effort extinguish the Catholic Faith and relieve Queen Elizabeth of all her fears.

He surely had a right to expect and he did confidently expect that all which his “good sister” had undertaken in his behalf, would now be generously fulfilled. He was miserably disappointed. The Queen, instead of the handsome allowance which had been promised to him, and to which he was entitled as heir apparent to the English crown, had an account trumped up by her financiers, which made it appear that, as regarded money, he was her debtor. He owed her £6,500. This was quite as much as her sister, Mary, and herself, had received from their father, Henry VIII. “The wages of sin is death,” and so the unfortunate James had, for the sole reward of all his crimes against his Catholic people, the extinction of his hope to reign in peace over the wilderness which he had made of their domains. Thus did Queen Elizabeth not only prove shamefully faithless to her “good brother” and heir, the King of Scotland; she was also untrue to herself, frustrating, most happily for mankind, her own cherished purposes. Mentita est iniquitas sibi. All the evils which she had done to the Catholics of Scotland by her false promises to King James, and which gave her so much joy, were now to be alleviated through the inability of the King to perpetuate them. James was indignant at the base conduct of his “good sister.” If she had kept her word and not broken the solemn promise she made to him through her ambassadors, the land would have been completely purged of “the enemies of God, and of religion in both countries.” If these enemies had now revived and were looking confidently for Spanish aid, if recruits were raised in the Isles to assist the Catholics and Elizabeth’s rebel, O‘Neill, in Ireland; and if his own life were in danger from desperate men who were plotting against him in order to set up the infant Prince and hurl him from his throne; it was entirely due to the desertion of Queen Elizabeth. He had done his part, redeemed all his pledges, whilst the Queen failed to fulfil her promises, and now basely disowned them. She might take the consequences. For his part, he would look for other friendships and, contrary to his wishes, would accept other offers of assistance. Already the members of his council who were inclined to the Catholic side, had more influence than ever. What was to be done? He could only strengthen himself by seeking such alliances as were within his reach. His cruelty to the Catholic Earls and the friendship he had shewn to the Kirk, had alienated his foreign allies and the influential body of the English Catholics. Add to all this the miseries which the contention of parties; the feuds of the Barons and the disastrous results of the King’s campaign against the Catholics had produced. Nowhere was there peace and security. “Large bodies of soldiers,” writes Mr. Fraser Tytler, “disbanded for want of pay, roamed over the country and committed every sort of robbery and excess. Ministers of religion were murdered; fathers slain by their own sons; brothers by their brethren; married women ravished under their own roof; houses with their miserable inmates burned amid savage mirth; and the land so utterly wasted by fire, plunder and the total cessation of agricultural labour, that famine at last stalked in to complete the horrid picture, and destroy by the most horrible of deaths those who had escaped the sword.”

In these trying circumstances there was no hope of remedy except through the energy of the King. His council, distracted by faction, was a nullity, and some of its chief dignitaries the worst offenders. Deserted by the English Queen and without means to maintain an army, the duped Monarch could no longer direct military operations against the Catholics of the land. Necessity compelled him to employ his abilities in more statesman-work. He convened the nobles, expressed his sympathy for the sufferings of the people, and declared his determination to make every effort in border to relieve them. The extensive regions of the North could not be brought to order so long as certain powerful Barons continued their excesses. The leading chiefs among them were vigorously pursued. Athole, Lovat and McKenzie were committed to ward at Linlithgow; Argyle, Glenurchy and others were imprisoned at Edinburgh Castle; Tullibardine, Grandtully and some of their fiercest adherents were sent to prison at Dunbarton and Blackness. These Barons were only to be released when they made amends for the fearful excesses committed by their clansmen and retainers and gave security for restoring order to the country. The Catholic Earls, Huntly and Erroll, meanwhile, held their ground in Scotland, relying for assistance in men and money from the Court of Spain. Their hopes from that quarter were, however, doomed to disappointment. A messenger to them from the King of Spain and the Pope, intrusted with a secret mission, was so unfortunate as to fall into the hands of the enemy. This person, the Rev. John Morton, was a Jesuit, and a brother of the Laird of Cambo. He had come to Scotland in a Dutch ship and was landed at Leith. Not being adequately disguised, a son of Mr. Erskine of Dun, who was his fellow-passenger, thought he detected something else than a gentleman on his travels. He imparted his suspicion to one Lindsay, a Minister of the Kirk. This busy-body instantly pounced upon Father Morton, as he was called, who, being seized by the officers of justice, tore to pieces his secret instructions with his teeth. The fragments were gathered up and as far as possible deciphered. The King, who piqued himself upon his skill in cross-examining, undertook to interrogate the envoy, and not without success. He brought him to acknowledge that he was a Jesuit, while pretending to be a private gentleman returning to his native country for the benefit of his health; that he was confessor to the Catholic Seminary at Rome and was sent to Scotland by the Pope with messages from Cardinal Cajetano and Fathers Creighton and Tyrie to Mr. James Gordon, near relative of the Earl of Huntly. He was directed to express disapproval of the manner in which the funds lately sent had been disposed of and to say that no hope of further remittances could be held out until the Catholic Lords had justified their action before the councillors of the King of Spain in the Netherlands. The ministers of the Kirk (merciful ministers!) insisted on putting him to the torture. The King, less cruel than his ghostly advisers, would not consent to this, but was satisfied with his plain and candid narrative. There was found on his person a small jewel on which was admirably represented the passion of our Lord minutely carved in ivory. This, he said, was a present from Cardinal Cajetano to the Queen of Scotland. James, taking it up, asked him to what use he applied it. “To remind me,” said the envoy “when I gaze on it and kiss it, of my Lord’s Passion. Look, my Liege, how lifelike our Saviour is here seen hanging between the two thieves, whilst below the Roman soldier is piercing His sacred side with the lance. Oh! that I could prevail on my Sovereign but once to kiss it before he lays it down!” “No,” said James, “the Word of God is enough to remind me of the Crucifixion, and, besides, this carving is so exceedingly small that I could not kiss Christ without kissing both the thieves and the executioners.”

The discovery of this messenger was a severe blow to the party. To retire into temporary exile was the only resource, they believed, that remained. The Rev. Father Gordon, Huntly’s uncle, implored them to stay. On a very solemn occasion when Mass was celebrated for the last time in the cathedral of Elgin, this devoted priest, descending from the high altar, and passing into the pulpit, exhorted them not to depart, but remain in their native country and hazard all for the Faith. They could not be persuaded, and the venerable priest, well aware that he could not exist or exercise the duties of his office without the protection which they were still able to afford, resolved to accompany them. On the 17th of March, 1595, Erroll embarked at Peterhead, and on the 19th, Huntly, with his rev. uncle and a suite of sixteen persons, took ship at Aberdeen for Denmark; and purposed passing through Poland into Italy.