Almost in these words, and using this very illustration from the practice of ancient Rome, did Lindsay in private approve a scheme of which he afterwards publicly disowned all knowledge. Montrose accordingly resolved to play these men at their own game, and to form a counter-plot in the interests of Scotland, her Covenant, and her King. This was the origin of the secret alliance known as the Cumbernauld Bond, from the place where it was signed, the house of Montrose's uncle Lord Wigton. "Montrose's damnable bond," Baillie calls it, "by which he thought to have sold us to the enemy;" but he is careful not to quote it, nor to give the names of the subscribers. Among them were Mar, the governor of Stirling Castle, Almond, Leslie's second in command on the Border, and Erskine, whose accession to the cause Baillie had welcomed but a short while since as a signal instance of God's mercy. The presence of such names sufficiently proves the genuine nature of the bond, and disposes of the assertion that it was merely designed by Montrose to further his own personal aggrandisement or in treachery to the Covenant. The purpose of its subscribers is plainly declared in the clause levelled against the "particular and indirect practising of a few," by which the Covenant that they had signed and pledged themselves anew to promote "to the hazard of their lives, fortunes, and estates," was now brought into danger, and with the Covenant the country. That Argyll and his scheme of dictatorship were the danger ahead was of course understood by all who signed; but this danger was as manifest to Mar, Almond, and Erskine as to Montrose.