I have not told the commonalty lest it cast them down, but I know that adversity will be but the whetstone to give your ardour a finer edge.

Argyle's rising has failed, and he and his companions are prisoners in the hands of the man who never knew what pity was.' We all started in our chairs at this, and looked at one another aghast, save only Sir Gervas Jerome, whose natural serenity was, I am well convinced, proof against any disturbance.

For you may remember, my children, that I stated when I first took it in hand to narrate to you these passages of my life, that the hopes of Monmouth's party rested very much upon the raid which Argyle and the Scottish exiles had made upon Ayrshire, where it was hoped that they would create such a disturbance as would divert a good share of King James's forces, and so make our march to London less difficult.

This was the more confidently expected since Argyle's own estates lay upon that side of Scotland, where he could raise five thousand swordsmen among his own clansmen.
The western counties abounded, too, in fierce zealots who were ready to assert the cause of the Covenant, and who had proved themselves in many a skirmish to be valiant warriors.

With the help of the Highlanders and of the Covenanters it seemed certain that Argyle would be able to hold his own, the more so since he took with him to Scotland the English Puritan Rumbold, and many others skilled in warfare.