Their first point was Newcastle's camp at Durham, where Montrose hoped to make some additions to his scanty army. He was received with all the circumstance and courtesy befitting his new honours, but with small assurance of help. Indeed Newcastle seemed in no good condition to help himself. Montrose was a spectator of the inglorious affair at Kowdenhill, which, but for the bravery of Sir Charles Lucas who led the English cavalry, might have ended in disaster. Here he saw that valiant Amazon, Mrs. Peirsons, riding, armed to the teeth, at the head of a troop of horse conspicuous for a black flag showing the ghastly device of a naked man hanging from a gibbet, with the motto _I dare_, the legendary banner of the House of Dalzell. The troop had been raised and armed at the charges of Carnwath, the head of that House; but the commission ran in the name of Captain Frances Dalzell, under which style the woman whom he called his daughter took the field. Carnwath's loyalty was of the sort too common at that time, and common especially among Scotsmen. The incompetence of an English general, though it might grieve him for his master's sake, could not, for the present at least, affect Montrose's plans. The jealousy of a Scottish peer might affect them seriously. It was this he feared more than all the swords of the Covenant or the subtleties of Argyll. For his enemies he could account. But who would undertake to account for those who should be his friends? The King had issued a commission for Carnwath as Lieutenant of Clydesdale where his lands lay, which was delivered to him by Aboyne as aide-de-camp to the Lord Lieutenant-General of the Northern Expedition. The petulant old nobleman, who had been secretly chafing at Montrose's authority and the respect paid to it in the English camp, conceived himself entitled to some better reward for the expense of equipping Captain Frances Dalzell and her men for the field than an appointment which placed him at the orders of a man young enough to be his son, and who at the best was but a renegade Covenanter. Refusing even to read his commission, he flung it from him with one of those full-mouthed Scottish oaths that were always at his command. But it was no time to stand upon punctilios. All the aid Newcastle could give was a hundred badly-mounted troopers and two small brass field-pieces. With these, and his own personal following, Montrose struck westward for Carlisle. On the road he was joined by eight hundred foot of the Northumberland and Cumberland Militia and three troops of horse. Such was the army with which this dauntless leader of a forlorn hope went forth to conquer Scotland for King Charles.