A paper-war, which attracted considerable notice, sprang up between the commissioners and six of the Aberdeen clergy--popularly designated in contemporary literature as "the Aberdeen Doctors."[48] In this warfare the representatives of the Covenanting party came off rather badly. "The position taken by the Doctors," says John Hill Burton, "is the unassailable one of the dry sarcastic negative. Whatever the Covenant might be--good or bad--and whatever right its approvers had to bind themselves to it, how were they entitled to force it on those who desired it not? And when their adversaries became eloquent on its conformity to Scripture and the privileges of the Christian Church, the Doctors ever went back to the same negative position--even if it were so, which we do not admit, yet why force it upon us?"[49] Early in the following year, 1639, The Tables resolved to suppress the northern Malignants, as they were called, before preparing to enter on a campaign against their enemy in the south, and thus save themselves from the dangers involved in having an enemy in their rear. The Earl of Montrose went north at the head of a considerable body of troops, and took possession of Aberdeen. The opponents of the Covenant fled from the city, and Huntly, the leader of the Royalists, felt unable to offer effective resistance. In spite of a safe-conduct granted him by Montrose on his coming in to a conference, he was taken prisoner to Edinburgh and lodged in the Castle. This kidnapping of the Royalist chief caused great irritation; and upon a rumour of the fleet's coming to the Firth of Forth, and of the Royal army's approach to the Scottish border, the northern Royalists, of whom our Sir Thomas Urquhart was one, resolved to take arms on the King's side. The first mention of our author in history is in connexion with this rising; and the annalist Spalding relates two exciting incidents that occurred in one week, in both of which he took part.