[Footnote 15: Lord Kilpont was the son of the Earl of Airth and Menteith, for whom see p. 28.]
[Footnote 16: An explanation of this strange story has been given in the Introduction to _A Legend of Montrose_. The welcome accorded to Stewart by Argyll, and the terms in which his pardon was recorded by the Covenanters, certainly lend some colour to the original belief that Kilpont was slain for refusing to join in a plot to murder Montrose. See _Montrose and the Covenanters_, ii. 323-25.]
[Footnote 17: _Memorials of Montrose_, i. 215.]
[Footnote 18: It is not clear whether Lord Graham was still a prisoner in the castle, which does not seem to have surrendered with the city. A few days before the battle of Kilsyth he had been committed by the Estates to the Earl of Dalhousie for his education, but it is not certain that his removal had been effected before the surrender. It would not have been safe for Montrose to have led his army into a plague-stricken town. The boy was not among the released prisoners, nor did he and his father ever meet again.]
[Footnote 19: The various accounts of this battle are more than usually conflicting. Patrick Gordon makes out a very bad case indeed against Montrose, whom he declares to have been frequently warned during the evening of the 12th of an enemy's advance, and to have contented himself with transmitting these reports to his officers, relying on their assurances that all was well. He even asserts that one of Montrose's pickets was actually engaged with some of Leslie's men at the little village of Sunderland, four miles from Philiphaugh on the same side of the river, which, and not Melrose, he makes the Covenanters' headquarters for the night; and that Montrose, when informed of the affair, set it down to a mere drunken brawl. This is not credible; but it is clear that Montrose was both badly served by his officers, who allowed themselves to be deceived by the country-people, and himself guilty of gross negligence. I have followed Sir Walter Scott's account of the affair (_Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_, part i. "Battle of Philiphaugh"; ed. 1830), who was evidently writing from local tradition as well as from contemporary narrative. For events which happened in his own neighbourhood the Sheriff of Selkirkshire is, I suspect, as good a guide as can be found.]