intrusted to young Menzies of Pitfoddels, and a declaration was circulated
through the Highlands, calling upon all true Scotsmen to aid in
establishing their king upon the throne, and in saving him from the
treachery of those, who, if they had him in their power, would sell him as
they had sold his father to English rebels. Having transported[c] his whole
force from Holm Sound to the Northern extremity of Caithness, he traversed
that and the neighbouring county of Sutherland, calling on the natives to
join the standard of their sovereign. But his name had now lost that magic
influence which success had once thrown around it; and the several clans
shunned his approach through fear, or watched his progress as foes. In the
mean time his declaration had been solemnly burnt[d] by the hangman in the
capital; the pulpits had poured out denunciations against the "rebel and
apostate Montrose, the viperous brood of Satan, and the accursed of God and
the kirk;" and a force of four thousand regulars had been collected

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1644. October.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. Jan. 12.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. March.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1650. Feb. 9.]

on Brechin Moor under the command of General Leslie, who was careful to cut
off every source of information from the royalists. Montrose had reached[a]
the borders of Ross-shire, when Colonel Strachan, who had been sent forward
to watch his motions, learned[b] in Corbiesdale that the royalists,
unsuspicious of danger, lay at the short distance of only two miles.

Calling his men around him under the cover of the long broom on the moor,
he prayed, sang a psalm, and declared that he had consulted the Almighty,
and knew as assuredly as there was a God in heaven, that the enemies of
Christ were delivered into their hands. Then dividing his small force of