In the situation in which these two noblemen, Argyle and Monmouth, were placed, it is not to be wondered at if they were naturally willing to enter into any plan by which they might restore themselves to their country; nor can it be doubted but they honestly conceived their success to be intimately connected with the welfare, and especially with the liberty of the several kingdoms to which they respectively belonged.  Monmouth, whether because he had begun at this time, as he himself said, to wean his mind from ambition, or from the observations he had made upon the apparently rapid turn which had taken place in the minds of the English people, seems to have been very averse to rash counsels, and to have thought that all attempts against James ought at least to be deferred till some more favourable opportunity should present itself.  So far from esteeming his chance of success the better, on account of there being in James’s parliament many members who had voted for the Exclusion Bill, he considered that circumstance as unfavourable.  These men, of whom, however, he seems to have over-rated the number, would, in his opinion, be more eager than others to recover the ground they had lost, by an extraordinary show of zeal and attachment to the crown.  But if Monmouth was inclined to dilatory counsels, far different were the views and designs of other exiles, who had been obliged to leave their country on account of their having engaged, if not with him personally, at least in the same cause with him, and who were naturally enough his advisers.  Among these were Lord Grey of Wark, and Ferguson; though the latter afterwards denied his having had much intercourse with the duke, and the former, in his “Narrative,” insinuates that he rather dissuaded than pressed the invasion.

But if Monmouth was inclined to delay, Argyle seems, on the other hand, to have been impatient in the extreme to bring matters to a crisis, and was of course anxious that the attempt upon England should be made in cooperation with his upon Scotland.  Ralph, an historian of great acuteness as well as diligence, but who falls sometimes into the common error of judging too much from the event, seems to think this impatience wholly unaccountable; but Argyle may have had many motives which are now unknown to us.  He may not improbably have foreseen that the friendly terms upon which James and the Prince of Orange affected at least to be, one with the other, might make his stay in the United Provinces impracticable, and that, if obliged to seek another asylum, not only he might have been deprived, in some measure, of the resources which he derived from his connections at Amsterdam, but that the very circumstance of his having been publicly discountenanced by the Prince of Orange and the states-general, might discredit his enterprise.  His eagerness for action may possibly have proceeded from the most laudable motives, his sensibility to the horrors which his countrymen