would have been followed by a general rising of the loyal gentlemen in
the Lowlands. But with his fall the enterprise was over.

I hope I shall not be accused of exaggerating the importance of this
battle, which, according to the writer I have already quoted, was best
proved by the consternation into which the opposite party were thrown at
the first news of Mackay's defeat. "The Duke of Hamilton, commissioner
for the parliament which then sat at Edinburgh, and the rest of the
ministry, were struck with such a panic, that some of them were for
retiring into England, others into the western shires of Scotland, where
all the people, almost to a man, befriended them; nor knew they whether
to abandon the government, or to stay a few days until they saw what use
my Lord Dundee would make of his victory. They knew the rapidity of his
motions, and were convinced that he would allow them no time to
deliberate. On this account it was debated, whether such of the nobility
and gentry as were confined for adhering to their old master, should be
immediately set at liberty or more closely shut up; and though the last
was determined on, yet the greatest revolutionists among them made
private and frequent visits to these prisoners, excusing what was past,
from a fatal necessity of the times, which obliged them to give a
seeming compliance, but protesting that they always wished well to King
James, as they should soon have occasion to show when my Lord Dundee
advanced."

"The next morning after the battle," says Drummond, "the Highland army
had more the air of the shattered remains of broken troops than of
conquerors; for here it was literally true that

'The vanquished triumphed, and the victors mourned.'