Lairds of Glenlyon

30 THE LAIRDS OF GLENLYON.
the known sentiments of their dead chieftain, joined the
standard of Montrose under Patrick Roy M'Gregor, the chief
of his clan, and the Lady of Glenlyon's second husband.
Montrose showed his gratitude to the Glenlyon men, by
sparing their lands and houses, when, on his march to Ar-
gyle, he mercilessly laid waste Breadalbane and other pos-
sessions of Campbell of Glenorchy. In 1655, when Robert
was 23 years of age, Cromwell had Scotland prostrated by
the victories of Dunbar and Worcester ; Ireland paralysed
by the butcheries of Tredah and Wexford — her very pulse
of life repressed by the inflexible severity of Ireton, and the
pushing energy of Ludlow ; England beginning to enjoy
the sweets of peace, and content to let her magnanimous
Protector dissolve the phantom Parliament, and sternly
inculcate lessons of toleration on jarring sects. Her naval
strength broken, Holland now sued for peace ; Blake scoured
the Mediterranean, threatened the Pope, humbled the Duke
of Tuscany, and made his name a terror to the dusky war-
riors of Tunis and Algiers. The daring usurper, secure at
home, admired abroad, could at the same time, and with
equal ease, exact the obsequiousnss of Mazarin, browbeat
the court of France, execute the brother of the Portuguese
ambassador on Towerhill, hold out the hand of friendship to
Protestant Sweden, and aim a death-blow at the haughtiness
of Spain. The hapless heir of loyalty, an outcast from his
country, his services refused by the Dutch, disowned and
banished by the court of France, lavishing on sensual and
degrading debaucheries the sums doled out to the princely
beggar by royal hands, seemed by his very vices to have
taken a bond of fate, for shutting him out for ever from
succeeding to the British throne. Still, through his exile