Forbes, Leslie, and Irvine, the Grants, and other Presbyterian clans,
might counterbalance and bridle, not only the strength of the Ogilvies
and other cavaliers of Angus and Kincardine, but even the potent family
of the Gordons, whose extensive authority was only equalled by their
extreme dislike to the Presbyterian model.

In the West Highlands the ruling party numbered many enemies; but the
power of these disaffected clans was supposed to be broken, and the
spirit of their chieftains intimidated, by the predominating influence
of the Marquis of Argyle, upon whom the confidence of the Convention
of Estates was reposed with the utmost security; and whose power in
the Highlands, already exorbitant, had been still farther increased
by concessions extorted from the King at the last pacification. It was
indeed well known that Argyle was a man rather of political enterprise
than personal courage, and better calculated to manage an intrigue
of state, than to control the tribes of hostile mountaineers; yet the
numbers of his clan, and the spirit of the gallant gentlemen by whom it
was led, might, it was supposed, atone for the personal deficiencies of
their chief; and as the Campbells had already severely humbled several
of the neighbouring tribes, it was supposed these would not readily
again provoke an encounter with a body so powerful.

Thus having at their command the whole west and south of Scotland,
indisputably the richest part of the kingdom,--Fifeshire being in a
peculiar manner their own, and possessing many and powerful friends even
north of the Forth and Tay,--the Scottish Convention of Estates saw no
danger sufficient to induce them to alter the line of policy they had
adopted, or to recall from the assistance of their brethren of the
English Parliament that auxiliary army of twenty thousand men, by means
of which accession of strength, the King's party had been reduced to the