marching on London, the Houses at Westminster had directly invited the Scots into England to keep Newcastle's northern army in check, while the King's own appeals to his "contented people" had been invariably rejected. Yet the general feeling seems to have been in favour of a temporising policy. The truth was that, though many Royalists looked coldly on Hamilton, few were as yet inclined to trust Montrose. Among the old thorough-going cavaliers the taint of the Covenant still hung about him; his repentance, they thought, savoured too much of personal pique to be altogether genuine. But with the majority it was not so much his good faith as his capacity that was distrusted. They considered him a brilliant adventurer, brave and daring, but too young and inexperienced for these high matters, too rash and headstrong. "Montrose," they said, "is a generous spirit, but Hamilton hath the better head-piece." The King showed his opinion of the two men in characteristic fashion; he wrote courteously to Montrose, and advanced Hamilton to a dukedom. So, during the first year of the war, Montrose was forced to eat his heart out in idleness, at home among his books, in strenuous efforts to keep alive the fainting loyalty of his party, or in despairing consultations with his friends on the approach of the inevitable hour that they were powerless to prevent. The Covenanters, aware of his situation, and conceiving that his proud and restless spirit, chafing under the sickness of hopes deferred and services rejected, would render him amenable to their designs, sought to win him again to their side. They offered him the command of their new army under Leven; they even offered, as they had once offered Huntly, to pay his debts. The Moderator Henderson (at Argyll's suggestion, it would seem, and certainly with his knowledge) was sent to solve some doubts he affected to entertain on the propriety of accepting these offers, and from him Montrose learned all that he expected and feared to know.