Historical account of the Macdonnells of Antrim

SECOND EARL AND FIRST MARQUIS OF ANTRIM. 26 1
regiments ; the second is casheered for offering to be loyall. . . . We came to the west countrie
in 1642, and lay at Irwine, Aire, and Kilmarnock, more than a fortnight, waiteing for a faire wind;
which makeing a show to offer itselfe, Monro embarked at the Largs, Home (who had got
Cochrane's regiment) at Aire, and we at Irwine. When we were at sea the wind turned contrarie,
and so all of us met at Lamlash, a secure bay on the coast of the He of Arran, where we lay a
fortnight, if I remember right ; and then, the wind againe offering to be favourable, one of the
King's ships which was with us shooting a warning peece, all weighed anchor, hoysd saile in ane
Evening, and next day were in Craigfergus loch, and landed that night. The English regiments
that were there, under the Lords Conway and Chichester, marched to Belfast, leaving Craigfergus
free to us." Memoirs, pp. 18, 19.
Lord Antrim reached Dunluce on the 28th of April, and his influence was soon felt in the allevia-
tion of the great sufferings then visited on his native district. In the following June, Monro made
his appearance in the Route (see p. 74, supra), and on the pretence that some of lord Antrim's
tenants had been engaged in the rebellion, he treated their landlord as if he had been an enemy
and a rebel, although Antrim had done all that he could do under the circumstances to show his
disapproval of the movement on the part of the Irish, and afterwards to mitigate the evils arising
therefrom. This seizure of Antrim was in truth an unwarranted outrage on the part of Monro, and
doneforthe double purpose of sustaining Argyle's policy, and supplying booty from Antrim's castle and
lands. Monro plundered Dunluce castle of all its valuables, and continued afterwards to appropriate
the rents of the estate, although repeatedly ordered by the king to restore them to the rightful owner.
During the period of lord Antrim's first imprisonment in Carrickfergus, from June to December, 1642,
the king kept demanding his release and transmission to England, but the reply of Monro and his
associates was, that there were no means at hand for the purpose of so forwarding the earl to his
majesty. We now meet with Alexander Leslie as the earl of Leven, whom the king had raised to
this dignity, when his majesty visited Edinburgh in May, 1641, conferring favours on several of his
own most relentless enemies. Besides the honour thus granted to Leslie, Argyle was made a
marquis ; Loudon appointed chancellor of Scotland ; and Archibald Johnston of Warristoun, lord
register. Leslie, on receiving his titles of lord Balgony and earl of Leven, vowed that he would not
only "never serve against the king, but that when his Majesty would require his service, he should
have it, without ever asking what the cause was.'' " Leshly was so transported at this extraordinary
Bounty, and unexpected as well as unmerited Honour, that he often protested, and once particularly
at Perth, upon his knees, in the house of the Earl of Kenoul, that he would never again bear arms
against the king ; but he had not long after made the Poet a Prophet, verifying the verse — Nulla
Fides Pietasve viris qui Castra sequuntur." See Nalson's Collection, vol. i. ; p. 683.
Not long after the registration of this vow, which Leslie, or Leven, is said to have made even with
tears, he crossed the Tweed and the Tyne, at the call of the Covenant, to do battle against the royalist
forces at Marston Moor. Of this canny old Scot, sir James Turner has left the following record : —
" About Lambes (Lammas) in this yeare, 1642, came Generall Leven over to Ireland, and with him the
Earle of Eglinton, who had one of these ten regiments, my Lord Sinclaire, and Hamilton, generall
of the artillerie, better known by the name of Deare Sandie. Great matters were expected from so