Those who discredit this story do so on the ground that it discredits Montrose. Had he gone straight from the King into the arms of the malcontents, their argument might be good. But he did not. His interview with Charles took place some time in 1636, and it was not till the end of the following year that he first publicly ranged himself against the Court party. According to Robert Baillie, assuredly no mean authority in these matters, it was the "canniness," or cunning, of Rothes that won Montrose over, though the latter assigned that doubtful honour to Robert Murray, one of the reverend agitators deputed to beat up for recruits to the Covenant in the counties of Perth and Stirling. Rothes, with Loudon and Balmerino, had been in the forefront of the opposition from its beginning; and it is said that Charles had been unwise enough to put a public affront on him in Scotland. He was a clever man, of dissolute life but good appearance and manners; his religion he could put on and off like his gloves; "no man could appear more conscientiously transported when the part he was to act required it," says Clarendon, who also calls him "the chief architect of the whole machine." The Covenant was not publicly produced for signature till early in 1638; but ever since that memorable Sunday in the summer of the previous year, when the reading of the new prayer-book in St. Giles's Church had been interrupted by an organised tumult of serving-women, various supplications and remonstrances had been forwarded to the King, and various meetings held among the disaffected nobles, clergymen, and others, from which finally sprang the famous Covenant. At one of these meetings, held in November 1637, Montrose made his first public appearance on the side of the malcontents.