This inexplicable movement had been made by the King's order, but on Hamilton's advice. That advice had been given on May 21st, seven days after the Gordons had risen. The order had been sent on the 23rd, and on the next day Charles learned the news from Aberdeen. His position was undoubtedly serious. Leslie was advancing to the Border with an army which, though less than rumour made it at Newcastle, was far larger than the force Charles had as yet been able to collect, far readier and far more eager to fight. But it is clear that such reinforcements as Hamilton could furnish, while they could have availed little against the trained and resolute troops of Leslie, had been invaluable in the North, where the war was as yet rather feudal than national, where the forces on both sides were small and disorganised, and where five thousand men, however unskilful, would have been sufficient to turn the scale on either side. The Royalists held Aberdeen from the 15th to the 20th of May. Had Hamilton joined them before the latter day it would have been necessary to place a larger force at Montrose's disposal, and Leslie's march to the Border must have been checked for the time. But for three weeks the King's lieutenant seems to have remained in complete ignorance that the King's loyal subjects were in arms for him within less than a hundred miles. We have seen that the rising was known at Newcastle on the 24th. It was known in Edinburgh, it was known even to Huntly in his prison, before the regiments had left the Forth. Yet the one man then in Scotland whom it most concerned to know these things for his master's sake, who alone in Scotland had the means and the warrant to profit by the knowledge, who was at liberty to come and go, to receive messengers and to despatch them, who knew that the young Gordon was in communication with the King, who had some experience of military affairs, and who, with all his faults, has never been called a coward, sat idly through all that precious time apparently in complete ignorance of events with which all the country round him was ringing. He was still ignorant of them when Aboyne arrived in the Forth on the 29th. Hamilton was profuse in regrets and courtesies. Men he had none to spare; but he entertained his young friend sumptuously on board his own ship, with discharge of cannon at every health, after the fashion once in vogue at the Court of Denmark, presented him with a few small field-pieces, and an officer whom he warranted to be of the highest skill, courage, and experience, and who vindicated this praise by earning among the Royalists the name of Traitor Gun. Two days later news arrived from Aberdeen, and Aboyne at once sailed north with these valuable succours. Some vague promises were indeed held out to him of possible reinforcements, if they could be spared from England; and it seems that Hamilton, on Aboyne's arrival, had written for more troops, a request which, immediately following the arrival of those he