Montrose was at once conveyed to Edinburgh, where he arrived on the 18th of May; and having been carried bareheaded through the city in an open cart, and exposed to the insults and execrations of the mob, he was condemned as a traitor, and hanged on the 21st of May on a gibbet thirty feet high, his head being fixed on a spike in the capital, and his limbs sent for exposure in different towns. Such was the ignominious end of the gallant but sanguinary Montrose. But if the conduct of his enemies was ungenerous, what was that of his prince? No sooner did Charles hear of his defeat, than fearing that his rising might injure him with the Covenanters, he sent to the Parliament, protesting that he had never authorised him to draw the sword; nay, that he had done it contrary to the royal commands. Thus early did this worthless man display the meanness of his character, and practise the wretched maxims of the Stuart doctrine of kingcraft. Charles had now complied with the demands of the Scottish Parliament, agreeing to take the Covenant, never to tolerate the Catholic religion in any part of his dominions, not even in Ireland, where the Catholics were a majority; to govern entirely by the authority of Parliament, and in religious matters by that of the Kirk. Thus did this man, for the sake of regaining the throne of one of his kingdoms, bind himself to destroy the religion of which he was at heart a believer, and to maintain a creed that he abhorred and despised. He landed in June in the Frith of Cromarty, and a court was established for him at Falkland, and nine thousand pounds sterling were allowed for its expenditure monthly. But the pious Scots were speedily scandalised at the debauched habits of their royal puppet. He had delayed the expedition for some weeks, because he could not tear himself from his mistress, Mrs. Barlow, and now he came surrounded by a very dissipated crew--Buckingham, Wilmot, and others, whom nothing could induce him to part with, though many others were forbidden the Court.