An armed guard was stationed night and day in the
Canongate, and another in the Abbey. Finally, a post was sent to London
on Linlithgow's advice to urge the instant despatch of more troops, and
two shillings and sixpence a day of extra pay was promised to every foot
soldier.
They were not disturbed in their preparations. The Covenanters were too
busy with their own affairs to take much heed what their enemies might
be doing. They did, indeed, march into Glasgow, but beyond shooting a
poor wretch whom they vowed they recognised as having fought against
them on the 2nd, and possibly indulging in a little looting, they did
nothing. They did not stay long in the town. Plans they seem to have had
none, nor any settled organisation or discipline. Moving restlessly
about the neighbourhood from village to village and from moor to moor,
their preachers exhorted and harangued as much against each other as
against Pope or Prelate, and their leaders quarrelled as though there
were not a King's soldier in all Scotland, nor Claverhouse within a
dozen miles of them eager for the moment to strike. There was no lack of
arms among them, and their numbers seem at this time to have been not
far short of eight thousand. But no men of any position or influence in
the country had joined them with the exception of Hamilton; and his
authority, whether the story of his cowardice at Glasgow be true or not,
was not what it had been at Rutherglen and Drumclog.
Pages:
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103