trouble between father and son, and Charles, with whom the latter had been always a favourite, had ordered the Earl, who in his old age had turned Catholic at the bidding of a young wife, to leave the kingdom. The father obeyed without remonstrance, but before he went he warned the King to beware of his son. "Sir," he said, "I must know this young man better than you can do. You may raise him, which I doubt you will live to repent, for he is a man of craft, subtlety, and falsehood, and can love no man, and if ever he finds it in his power to do you a mischief, he will be sure to do it." So powerful an ally was received of course with open arms by the Covenanters. Hitherto they had been doubtful whether they should regard him as friend or foe. His conduct, said Baillie, had been ambiguous. This was now explained by Argyll's assurance that he had always secretly been on their side and had only delayed declaring himself for them while he conceived that this ambiguity might best serve their interests; matters had now come, he said, to such a height that no honest man could hold back. His speech was long, pious, and profuse in good advice. The Moderator and the rest of the ministers professed themselves enraptured, and all parted on the best terms with each other. Two days before Hamilton dissolved the Assembly, but when it had already clearly shown him what he was to expect from it, he despatched a long letter to the King, warning him what the issue was almost certain to be, pointing out the precautions to be taken, and taken at once if his warnings were proved true, and commenting on the character of the movement and of its leaders with a frankness unusual in him. In this letter Montrose is mentioned in a way which tends still further to confirm the truth of Heylin's story. "Now for the Covenanters," the passage runs, "I shall only say this, in general they may all be placed in one roll, as they now stand. But certainly, sir, those that have both broached the business, and still hold it aloft, are Rothes, Balmerino, Lindsay, Lothian, Loudon, Yester, Cranston. There are many others as forward in show, amongst whom none more vainly foolish than Montrose." This is precisely the language of a man anxious to remind his correspondent what he had predicted of a third party, and to point out how exactly his prediction had been proved true. CHAPTER IV THE FIRST BISHOPS' WAR