Another noteworthy capture of Dumbarton Castle occurred in 1639. At that time the fortress was held for the king by Sir William Stewart. On the last Sunday in March, having gone to the Communion service in Dumbarton, he was invited to dinner by Provost Sempill, a zealous Covenanter. To his refusal Sempill replied, "I require you to go with me." Thereupon the Governor and his party were surrounded by forty armed men and hurried off to the Provost's house, where, under threats of death, Stewart was obliged to send for the keys and to hand them over to his captor. The sequel is told by Spalding. "Stewart," he says, "was compelled to cast off his clothes, which were shortly put upon another gentleman of his shape and quantity, and he put on his clothes upon him again. Thus, apparel interchanged, they commanded the Captain, under pain of death, to tell the watchword, which, for fear of his life, he truly told. Then they go in the night quietly, unseen by the Castilians, and had this counterfeit captain with them, who cried and called by the watchword, which heard, yetts are cast open, in go these Covenanters with greater power than was within to defend it, take in this strong strength, man and fortify the same to their mind."[243] The further vicissitudes of Dumbarton Castle--its alternate occupation by Royalists and Parliamentarians during the Civil War, its use at various periods as a place of confinement for such different prisoners as Ogilvie the Jesuit, Carstairs and his fellow Covenanters, the Marquis of Tullibardine and other Jacobites--would require to be recorded in detail in a more complete sketch of the history of the Rock. They may be passed over without further mention in what lays no claim to do more than to recall some of the leading incidents in its chequered story. FOOTNOTES: for THE ROCK OF DUMBARTON [234] Sir W. Fraser, _The Lennox_, vol. i, p. 43. [235] Ware, _Irish Antiquities_, p. 108. [236] Sir W. Fraser, op. cit., p. 76. [237] Sir W. Fraser, op. cit., pp. 78 and 236. [238] _Ibid._, p. 77. [239] Wyntoun's _Orygynale Cronykil_, vol. ii, p. 397. [240] _Ibid._, p. 398. [241] _State Papers, Scotland_: _Elizabeth_, vol. xviii, No. 45. [242] _Bannatyne's Memoriales_, p. 196. [243] _History of the Troubles in Scotland and England_, vol. i, pp. 157, 158. JAMES VI AS STATESMAN AND POET I.--AS STATESMAN