It was soon made clear that nothing else was to be expected, for that nothing else was intended. After Hamilton had read his commission, and a protestation on behalf of the bishops had been refused a hearing, Henderson was chosen for Moderator and Warriston for his clerk. Then began a dreary week of disputing and protesting on all sides on every conceivable subject, to the utter weariness of everybody but the clerk, who received a piece of gold with each fresh protest. Few appear to have contributed more to this waste of time than Montrose himself, who was, moreover, responsible for a general wrangle in which the Moderator did not display the quality to be expected from his title, and which the Commissioner found some difficulty in quelling. It arose on a disputed election in which the Tables had overridden the authority of the Presbyteries. Montrose was of course on the side of the former, the dispute having indeed arisen on a rather high-handed exercise of his power as a member of the Tables, which the more wary of the party were desirous of concealing, and Montrose of course, through all his life the sworn foe of all compromise, insisted on justifying. It was doubly unfortunate for him that the candidate he opposed should have been his brother-in-law young Carnegie, and that his opposition should have led to an unseemly display of temper between him and his father-in-law Southesk. The dispute did Montrose no good with either party. The Covenanters were annoyed to find so young a man disposed to take too much upon himself against the wiser counsels of his elders; and Hamilton was, as will be seen, enabled to speak another bad word for him in the King's ear.