Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/340

Robert Munro, for the protection of the borders, from their station, as being within the limits stipulated with the noblemen who commanded the main body. Proceeding, in the execution of his order, to Dunse, the first town that lay in his way within the Scottish border, the earl of Holland found it totally deserted of its inhabitants, except a very few, who heard him read a proclamation, declaring the whole Scottish nation, especially all who were in arms and did not immediately lay them down, traitors. Proceeding westward to Kelso, and having reached a height overlooking the town, he found the Scottish troops in the act of being drawn out to receive him. Startled at their appearance, Holland sent forward a trumpeter, to command them to retire according to the promise of their leaders. His messenger was met by a stern demand whose trumpeter he was, and on answering that he was lord Holland's, was told that it would be well for him to be gone. Displeased with this reception of his missionary, his lordship ordered a retreat, and the Scottish soldiers were with difficulty restrained from pursuing them to their camp. What share Leslie had in the proposed submission to Charles is not known; but he no sooner heard of the above affair than he broke up his encampment at Dunglass, and set forward to Dunse, where he ordered Munro to join him. Finding here an excellent position commanding both roads to Edinburgh, he formed his camp on the Law behind the town, where he could see the royal camp at Birks, on the other side of the Tweed. This movement was made without the knowledge of the English, whose camp Leslie, had he been left to himself, would most probably have surprised and secured, with all that was in it. Charles himself, walking out after an alarm from the Scottish army, was the first to descry their encampment on Dunse Law, and he rightly estimated their number to be from sixteen to eighteen thousand men; they were soon, however, increased to twenty-four thousand by the reinforcements that hastened up to them on the report of the English incursions at Dunse and Kelso; and never was an army led to the field better appointed, or composed of better materials. "It would have done your heart good," said an eye-witness, "to have cast your eyes athwart our brave and rich hills as oft as I did, with great contentment and joy. Our hill was garnished on the top toward the south and east with our mounted cannon, well near to forty, great and small. Our regiment lay on the sides; the crowners [superior officers of regiments] lay in canvass lodges, large and wide; their captains about them in lesser ones; the soldiers about all in huts of timber, covered with divot or straw. Over every captain's tent door waved the flag of his company, blue, with the arms of Scotland wrought in gold, with the inscription 'For Christ's Crown and Covenant.' Leslie himself lay in the castle of Dunse, at the bottom of the hill, whence he issued regularly every night, rode round the camp, and saw the watches regularly set." Throughout the whole army there was the most perfect harmony of opinion, both as to matters of civil and ecclesiastical polity; and there was a fervour in the cause they had undertaken, that burned with an equal flame in the bosom of the peasant and the peer. The latter took their full share in all the fatigues of the camp; slept like the common soldiers, in their boots and cloaks on the bare ground; and in their intercourse with their inferiors, used the language of affection and friendship, rather than that of command. Ministers of the gospel attended the camp in great numbers, carrying arms like the rest, and many of them attended by little parties of their friends and dependents. There were sermons morning and evening in various places of the camp, to which the soldiers were called by beat of drum ; and while the day was devoted to the practice of military exercises, its rise and its fall were celebrated in every tent with the singing of psalms, reading the Scriptures, and prayer. The general tone of the army was ardent, full of devotion to God and