to hold a secret interview with Montrose, and was on the point of leaving the Hague for that purpose, when a fresh and terrible turn was given to affairs by the news of the King's execution. Wishart tells us that on the receipt of the intelligence Montrose fell down in a swoon. On recovering he broke into passionate exclamations of grief, declaring that there was nothing now left for him in life. His chaplain, in the spirit rather of the Cavalier than the clergyman, reminded him that vengeance was still left, and that the murdered King's son still lived. "It is so," answered Montrose; "and therefore I swear before God, angels, and men, that I will dedicate the remainder of my life to avenging the death of the royal martyr, and re-establishing his son upon his father's throne." He then retired to his room, and would see no one for two days. On the third morning, Wishart, being admitted, found that the Marquis had embodied his vow in the following lines, which may be admired for their passion if not for their elegance: Great, Good, and Just, could I but rate My grief with thy too rigid fate, I'd weep the world in such a strain As it should deluge once again; But since thy loud-tongued blood demands supplies More from Briareus' hands than Argus' eyes, I'll sing thine obsequies with trumpet-sounds, And write thine epitaph in blood and wounds. A new element was now added to the factions which seethed round the little Court at the Hague. Charles the Second had been proclaimed in Edinburgh immediately on the news of his father's death, and commissioners now arrived from the Estates to dictate to him, whom they had just acknowledged as their King, the sole conditions under which he could be allowed to enter his kingdom. The Estates meant Argyll; the chief commissioners were his sworn friends, Cassillis and Robert Baillie; the terms they offered were those the late King had lost his life by refusing. The moderate Presbyterians, the survivors of the Engagement, were represented by Lanark and Lauderdale. As they were now outcasts equally with Montrose, it might have been thought that they would make common cause with him against the common enemy. The King used all his courtliest arts to effect a reconciliation which might give him the power of dictating instead of accepting terms; but his arguments and entreaties were alike vain. Sworn foes on all other points, Engagers and Covenanters were at one in their denunciation of the bloody murderer James Graham. Among the former the bitterest was Lauderdale, whose name was destined to become a byword throughout Scotland for brutality. Hyde attempted to reason with him. He was told that it was in the nature of such a war as had lately raged in Scotland to give no quarter on either side; he was reminded that Montrose had never been guilty of such deliberate cruelties as his adversaries had freely perpetrated, that he had taken no man's life in