Montrose knew the temper of the men who now ruled Scotland too well to share in the delusions that had brought Charles into their power. From the Scottish to the English camp would prove, he felt certain, but a short step. As clearly as we see it now, though from a different point of view, he saw that the time for compromise was past, and that on one side or the other the victory must be absolute and unconditional. But though right in his conviction that peace could only be won at the sword's point, Montrose did not recognise that the power of the sword had passed for ever from the King. He even flattered himself that the tide was on the turn at the very moment when he had been ordered to lay down his arms, and that a few weeks would have seen all the Royalists in Scotland united as one man to rescue their sovereign from the cruel and treacherous hands into which he had fallen. It was a delusion as complete as the delusion of Charles. He might, indeed, have continued a desultory campaign among the mountains so long as he remained alive and free; he might have indulged the King with another Kilsyth, or the Macdonalds with another Inverlochy; but no man living, not Oliver himself, could have succeeded where Montrose had failed. Statesman and soldier had alike been powerless to persuade or compel those unstable chiefs and their wild followers to the order, discipline, and concord necessary to ensure success in all military operations. In another generation another Graham had to face the same problem; but Dundee, more fortunate than his kinsman, was saved from the same failure by a glorious death on the field of battle.