Montrose advanced across the counties of Caithness and Sutherland; but the reinforcements which he expected did not arrive, the chiefs whose support he hoped for placed themselves, on the contrary, on the side of Parliament. An army corps sent by the government of Edinburgh, under the orders of Colonel Strachan, marched against him. {215} Ill-guarded and destitute of information regarding the movements of the enemy, Montrose was attacked unawares on the 16th of April, near Corbiesdale, in the county of Ross. The soldiers whom he had brought from Germany fought valiantly; but the recruits from the Orkney Islands disbanded. At the moment when Montrose was vainly endeavoring to rally them, his horse was killed under him. His friend Lord Frendraught gave him his own. The rout was complete. The marquis threw away his uniform and decorations; he donned the clothing of a peasant and plunged into the country, seeking everywhere a shelter. He wandered about in this manner for a fortnight among the mountains, now well received by his partisans, now repulsed with terror. At length he was delivered up to his enemies on the 3rd of May, by Neil Macleod, formerly one of his friends, for four hundred bolls of meal. On the 17th of May, after moving from halting-place to halting-place, he was transferred to Leith, near Edinburgh. The last act of the tragedy was at hand. On the same day, the Parliament, assembled in Edinburgh, voted that "James Graham, bareheaded and bound by a rope to a cart, should be brought by the executioner to the bar, there to receive his sentence, and that he should be carried to Edinburgh, and there be hanged on a gibbet; then to be taken down, his quarters to be nailed to the different gates of the city." The hatred of the enemies of Montrose took pleasure in such a sight, and persons who were indifferent were more terrified than revolted. {216} The noble partisan, the bold and brilliant captain, pale and wearied by the severities of his captivity, was accordingly conducted upon a sorry horse from Leith to Edinburgh. Being received by the magistrates and the executioner, preceded by thirty-two of his officers bound together two by two, Montrose entered the city in a cart. The vast crowd was hostile, and had come with the object of insulting the prisoner. His courage and gravity imposed silence upon their ill-will. As the procession passed before the house of the Earl of Moray, the cart stopped for a moment, and behind a half-opened window the Marquis of Argyle was seen feasting his eyes upon the humiliation of his enemy.