When the forces had assembled at the place appointed, each party sent an officer to the Earl of Feversham, to receive his commands. Creichton says that it was he who attended on the part of Dundee, and that he was ordered with the rest to wait till the King came to dinner, his Majesty being expected within half-an-hour. But matters took an unexpected turn. The Earl, to his great surprise, received a letter from the King, signifying that his Majesty had gone off, and had no further service for the army. When Creichton returned with this news, neither Dundee, nor Linlithgow, nor Dunmore could forbear bursting into tears. It is further stated that Dundee, acting upon a suggestion of which Creichton claims the credit, had resolved to make his way back to Scotland, when the townspeople, anxious to rid themselves as soon as possible of the military, raised the report that the Prince of Orange was approaching. After preparation to receive him had been hastily made, Creichton was again dispatched by Dundee, to discover whether the alarm were true. The orderly was met on the way by a messenger whom William had entrusted with a letter, of which the contents, quoted from memory, are said to have been as follows:— ‘MY LORD DUNDEE,—I understand you are now at Watford, and that you keep your men together. I desire you will stay there till further orders, and upon my honour, none in my army shall touch you. ‘W. H. PRINCE OF ORANGE.’ From this point, there is some doubt as to Dundee’s movements. He may, very probably, have gone on to London; and there is evidence of his having been there shortly after the King’s flight. He was one of those who attended a meeting of the Scottish Privy Councillors, which had been hastily summoned by Balcarres to consider the situation, but which effected nothing beyond affording Hamilton an opportunity of displaying his ‘usual vehemency.’ If an account quoted by Napier from ‘Carte’s Memorandum Book’ is to be credited, Dundee must, shortly after this, when the news of James’s arrest at Faversham reached the capital, have gone to meet his luckless master at Rochester, and there advised him to summon his disbanded army together again, undertaking to raise ten thousand men himself, and to march through all England with the royal standard at their head.