English Worthies

Edited by Andrew Lang

CLAVERHOUSE

by

MOWBRAY MORRIS

New YorkD. Appleton and Company1887

A LIST OF AUTHORITIES FOR THE LIFE OF CLAVERHOUSE. 

"An Account of the Proceedings of the Estates in Scotland:" London, 1689. 

Balcarres' "Memoirs touching the Revolution in Scotland:" printed forthe Bannatyne Club, 1841. 

Browne's "History of the Highlands and the Highland Clans:" 2nd ed. , 1845. 

Burnet's "History of My Own Time, " ed. 1809. 

Burt's "Letters from the North of Scotland, " ed. 1818. 

Burton's "History of Scotland, " 2nd ed. 

Cannon's "Historical Records of the British Army. "

"Memoirs of Captain John Creichton:" Scott's edition of Swift's Works, vol. Xii. Ed. 1883. 

"Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel:" printed for the AbbotsfordClub, 1842. 

Chambers's "History of the Rebellions in Scotland:" Constable'sMiscellany, vol. Xlii. 

"The Cloud of Witnesses, " 1714. 

Dalrymple's "Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, " 2nd ed. , 1771. 

Defoe's "Memoirs of the Church of Scotland, " 1714. 

"Memoirs of the Lord Viscount Dundee, " &c. , 1714. 

"Letters of the Viscount of Dundee, with Illustrative Documents:"printed for the Bannatyne Club, 1826. 

Lt. -Colonel Fergusson's "Laird of Lag, " 1886. 

Fountainhall's "Historical Notices of Scottish Affairs:" printed for theBannatyne Club, 1848. 

Howie's "Heroes for the Faith, or Lives of the Scots Worthies, " editedby William McGavin, ed. 1883. 

Kirkton's "True History of the Church of Scotland from the Restorationto the year 1678, " edited by C. K. Sharpe, 1817. This edition includesRussell's account of the murder of Archbishop Sharp and of the affairsat Drumclog and Glasgow. 

"The Lauderdale Papers:" printed for the Camden Society, 1884-5. 

"The Leven and Melville Papers:" printed for the Bannatyne Club, 1843. 

"The Lives of the Lindsays, " 2nd ed. , 1858. 

Macpherson's "Original Papers, " 1775. 

Macaulay's "History of England, " ed. 1882. 

"Memoirs of the War carried on in Scotland and Ireland, 1689-91, " byMajor-General Hugh Mackay: printed for the Abbotsford Club, 1833. 

"Life of Lieut. -General Hugh Mackay of Scowrie, " by John Mackay ofRockfields, 1836. 

Napier's "Memorials and Letters Illustrative of the Life and Times ofJohn Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, " 1859-62. 

"New Statistical Account of Scotland, " 1845. 

Pennant's "Tour in Scotland, " 1774. 

Scott's "Tales of a Grandfather. "

Simpson's "Times of Claverhouse, " 1844. 

Simpson's "Gleanings in the Mountains, " 1846. 

Shield's "Short Memorial of the Sufferings and Grievances of thePresbyterians in Scotland, " 1690. 

Stewart's "Sketches of the Highlanders of Scotland, " 1822. 

"Remarks on Col. Stewart's Sketches of the Highlanders, " 1823. 

Walker's "Biographia Presbyteriana, " 1732, reprinted at Edinburgh 1837. 

Wodrow's "History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, " Burn'sed. 1838. 

CLAVERHOUSE. 

CHAPTER I. 

John Graham, Viscount of Dundee, best known, perhaps, in history by histerritorial title of Claverhouse, was born in the year 1643. No record, indeed, exists either of the time or place of his birth, but a decisionof the Court of Session seems to fix the former in that year--the year, as lovers of historical coincidences will not fail to remark, of theSolemn League and Covenant. [1]

He came of an ancient and noble stock. The family of Graham can betraced back in unbroken succession to the beginning of the twelfthcentury; and indeed there have been attempts to encumber its scutcheonwith the quarterings of a fabulous antiquity. Gram, we are told, was insome primeval time the generic name for all independent leaders of men, and was borne by one of the earliest kings of Denmark. Another hassurmised that if Graham be the proper spelling of the name, it may becompounded of Gray and Ham, the dwelling, or home, of Gray; but ifGrame, or Græme, be the correct form, then we must regard it as agenuine Saxon word, signifying fierce, or grim. Such exercises areingenious, and to some minds, possibly, interesting; but they are surelyin this case superfluous. A pedigree, says Scott laughingly as he sitsdown to trace his own, is the national prerogative of every Scottishman, as unalienable as his pride and poverty; but he must be very poor orvery proud who cannot find his account in the legitimate pedigree of theHouse of Montrose. 

The first of the branch of Claverhouse, which took its name from a smalltown in Forfarshire a few miles to the north of Dundee, was John, son ofJohn Graham of Balargus in the same shire. Graham of Balargus was theson of another John, who was the second son of Sir Robert Graham ofFintrey, the eldest son of Robert Graham of Strathcanon, son and heir ofSir William Graham of Kincardine, by his wife the Lady Mary Stuart, widow of George first Earl of Angus and daughter of King Robert theThird--the unhappy king of "The Fair Maid of Perth. " The grandson ofJohn Graham was Sir William Graham of Claverhouse, the chosen friend ofhis cousin, the gallant and unfortunate Marquis of Montrose. By his wifeMarion, daughter of Thomas Fotheringham of Powrie, Sir William had twosons, George and Walter, of whom the latter was the ancestor of thoseGrahams of Duntroon who at a later period assumed the title of Dundee. George left one son, another Sir William, who married Lady JeanCarnegie, daughter of the first Earl of Northesk, and by her had fourchildren--two daughters, Margaret and Anne, and two sons, John andDavid. David is, as will be seen, not unrecorded in the annals of hiscountry; but his name has been completely eclipsed by that of his elderbrother, the "bloody Claver'se" of the Whigs, the "bonnie Dundee" of theJacobites, one of the most execrated or one of the most idolisedcharacters in the history of this kingdom, according to the temper andthe taste of the writers and readers of history. 

The register of that year shows that the two brothers matriculated atSaint Leonard's College in the University of Saint Andrews, on February13th, 1665. Before this date all is a blank. Of John's boyish yearshistory and tradition are equally silent. Long after his death, indeed, some idle stories became current, as their fashion is, of prophecies andprodigies in that early time. His nurse is said to have foretold that ariver taking its name from a goose would prove fatal to him, and to havelamented that her child's career of glory had been frustrated because hehad been checked in the act of devouring a live toad. This last storysounds much like a popular version of the Grecian fable of Demophoön, astold in the Homeric hymn to Demeter. But, as a matter of fact, it was alegend current of the infancy both of the Regent Morton and of Montrosehimself before it was given to Claverhouse; and possibly of many otheryouthful members of the Scottish aristocracy, who happened to makethemselves obnoxious to a class of their countrymen whose piety seemsto have added no holy point to their powers of invective. There is aningenious fancy, and, at least, as much reason as is generally displayedin mythological researches, in the surmise that this particular legendmay have owed its origin to the French connection with Scotland, aconnection which would naturally have found little favour in the eyes ofthe followers of John Knox. 

Claverhouse seems to have neglected neither the studies nor thediscipline of the University. He has, indeed, in our own time beendenied enough even of the common intellectual culture of his day to savehim from ridicule as a blockhead. But there is no reason for thiscontemptuous statement. His own contemporaries, and others, who if notexactly contemporaries have at least as good right to be heard as awriter of our own time, have left very different testimony. Burnet, who, though connected by marriage with Claverhouse and at one time much inhis confidence, was the last of men to praise him unduly, has vouchedboth for his abilities and virtues. Dalrymple, who was certainly noJacobite, though censured by the Whigs for his indulgence to James, hasdescribed him as from his earliest youth an earnest reader of the greatactions recorded by the poets and historians of antiquity. Moreparticular testimony still is offered by a writer whose work was not, indeed, undertaken till nearly fifty years after the battle ofKilliecrankie, but whose pictures of those men and times have all thefreshness and colour of a contemporary. The author of those memoirs ofLochiel of which Macaulay has made such brilliant use, has creditedClaverhouse with a considerable knowledge of mathematics and generalliterature, especially such branches of those studies as were likely tobe of most use to a soldier. Lastly, Doctor Munro, Principal of theCollege of Edinburgh, when charged before a Parliamentary Commissionwith rejoicing at the news of Killiecrankie, denied at least that he hadrejoiced at the death of the conqueror, for whom he owned "anextraordinary value, " such as, in his own words, "no gentleman, soldier, scholar, or civilised citizen will find fault with me for. "[2]

It would be as foolish to take these witnesses too literally, as it isfoolish to call Claverhouse a blockhead because he could not spellcorrectly. For many years after his death men of position and abilitiesfar more distinguished and acknowledged than his, were not ashamed tospell with a recklessness that would inevitably now entail on anyfourth-form boy the last penalty of academic law. Scott says thatClaverhouse spelled like a chambermaid; and Macaulay has compared thehandwriting of the period to the handwriting of washerwomen. Therelative force of these comparisons others may determine, but it iscertain that in this respect at least Claverhouse sinned in goodcompany. The letters of even such men as the Lord Advocate, Sir GeorgeMackenzie, and the Dalrymples, --letters written in circumstances morefavourable to composition than the despatches of a soldier are everlikely to be--are every whit as capricious and startling in theirvariations from the received standard of orthography. If it isimpossible quite to agree with his staunch eulogist, Drummond ofBahaldy, that Claverhouse was "much master in the epistolary way ofwriting, " at least his letters are plain and to the purpose; and theletters of a soldier have need to be no more. 

It is, of course, unlikely that he could have been, even for those days, a cultivated man. The studies of youth are but the preparation for theculture of manhood; and after his three quiet years at Saint Andrewswere done, his leisure for study must have been scant indeed. But all weknow of his character, temperament, and habits of life forbid thesupposition that he wasted that precious time either in idleness orindulgence. His bitterest enemies have borne witness to his singularfreedom from those vices which his age regarded more as thecharacteristics than the failings of a gentleman. The most scurrilous ofthe many scurrilous chroniclers of the Covenanters' wrongs has owned ina characteristic passage that his life was uniformly clean. [3] Gifted bynature with quick parts, of dauntless ambition and untiring energy bothof mind and body, he was not the man to have let slip in idleness anychance of fortifying himself for the great struggle of life, or to haveneglected studies which might be useful to him in the future becausethey happened to be irksome in the present. It is only, therefore, inreason to suppose that he managed his time at the University prudentlyand well, and this may easily be done without assuming for him anyspecial intellectual gifts or graces. 

But, as a matter of strict fact, from the date of his matriculation tothe year 1672 nothing is really known of Claverhouse or his affairs. Ithas, however, been generally assumed that, after the usual residence ofthree years at the University, he crossed over into France to study theart of war under the famous Turenne. As the practice was common thenamong young men of good birth and slender fortune, it is not unlikelythat Claverhouse followed it. A large body of English troops was a fewyears later serving under the French standard. In 1672 the Duke ofMonmouth, then in the prime of his fortune, joined Turenne with a forceof six thousand English and Scottish troops, amongst whom marched JohnChurchill, a captain of the Grenadier company of Monmouth's ownregiment. But the military glory Claverhouse is said to have won in theFrench service cannot have been great: his studies in the art of warmust have been mainly theoretical. In the year 1668, the year in whichClaverhouse is said to have left Scotland for France, Lewis had beencompelled to pause in his career of conquest. The Triple Alliance had inthat year forced upon him the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. He had beencompelled to restore Franche Comté, though he still kept hold of thetowns he had won in the Low Countries. But the joy with which allparties in England welcomed this alliance had scarcely found expressionwhen Charles, impatient of the economy of his Parliament and indifferentto its approval, opened those negotiations which, with the help of hissister the Duchess of Orleans, and that other Duchess, Louisa ofPortsmouth, resulted in the secret treaty of Dover. We are not nowconcerned to examine the particulars of a transaction which even Charleshimself did not dare to confide entirely to his ministers, familiar asthe Cabal was with shameless deeds. It is enough for our present purposeto remember that, in return for a large annual subsidy and the promiseof help should England again take up arms against her king, Charlesbound himself to aid Lewis in crushing the rising power of Holland andto support the claims of the House of Bourbon to the throne of Spain. Supplies were obtained for immediate purposes by closing the Exchequer, an act which ruined half the goldsmiths in London. As a set-off againstthis, a royal proclamation, arrogating to itself powers only Parliamentcould rightly exercise, suspended the laws against Nonconformists andCatholics. The latter were, indeed, allowed to say Mass only withintheir private houses, but to dissenters of every other class was grantedthe freest liberty of public worship. 

The declaration of war followed close on the declaration of indulgence. The immediate result of the latter was the release of John Bunyan froman imprisonment of twelve years, and the publication of the "Pilgrim'sProgress. " A more important and lasting result was the Revolution of1688. Both declarations were unpopular, but the Declaration ofIndulgence was the most unpopular of the two. It was unpopular with thezealous Churchman for the concessions it made both to Papist andPuritan. It was unpopular with the Puritan because he was compelled toshare it with the Papist. It was unpopular with the Papist because itwas less liberal to him than to the Puritan. It was unpopular with allclasses of patriotic Englishmen alike, because it directly violated thatprerogative of the Legislature for which so much English blood had beenalready shed. It was soon, indeed, repealed, and its repeal was soonfollowed by the dissolution of the Cabal, the passing of the Test Act, and peace with Holland. But though the fears of the nation were thuslaid to rest for a time, it now first became clear to those who couldlook beyond the passing day, and whose vision was sharpened by thememory of what had been, how surely England was moving under the sonback again to a state of things which had cost the father his crown andhis life. 

But to return to the declaration of war. Lewis received, and probablyexpected to receive, but little support from his English allies, and ina furious action fought off the coast of Suffolk De Ruyter more thanheld his own against the combined fleets of France and England. But onland the French King carried all before him. Led by Condé and Turenne, the ablest captains of the age, a vast host poured across the Rhine. TheDutch were waked from the vain dreams of a French alliance, into whichthey had been lulled by the chiefs of the great merchant class which hadrisen to power on the fall of the House of Orange, only to findthemselves helpless. Town after town opened its gates to the invader:three out of the seven provinces of the Federation were already in hishands: his watch-fires were seen from the walls of Amsterdam. In thefirst mad paroxysm of their despair the people rose against theirleaders. De Ruyter, who had borne their flag to victory on many a hardfought day, was insulted in the public streets: the Grand Pensionary, John De Witt, and his brother Cornelius were brutally murdered beforethe palace of the States-General at the Hague. The office of Stadtholderwas re-established; and the common voice called back to it a prince ofthat House which twenty years ago had been excluded for ever from theaffairs of a State which had never existed without it. 

William Henry, great-grandson of the founder of the Dutch Republic, hereafter to be known as William the Third of England, was then in histwenty-second year. The heroic spirit of William the Silent lived againin the frail body of his descendant. Without a moment's hesitation heaccepted the hard and thankless task imposed upon him. With wise counseland brave words he calmed and revived the drooping hearts of hiscountrymen. He rejected with scorn the offers both of Charles and Lewisto seduce him from his allegiance. He replied to Buckingham'sremonstrances on the folly of a struggle which could only mean ruin tothe Commonwealth, that he would fight while there was a ditch left forhim to die in. His courage spread. The Dutch flew to arms: without aregretful voice they summoned to their aid their last irresistible ally:the dykes were cut, and soon the waters, destroying to save, spread overall that trim and fertile land. The tide of invasion was checked, andwith the next spring it began to roll slowly backward. The great princesof the Continent became alarmed at this new prospect of French ambition. The sluggish Emperor began to bestir himself. Spain, fast dwindling tothe shadow of that mighty figure which had once bestrode two worlds, sent some troops to aid a cause which was, indeed, half her own. By seathe Dutch could do no more than keep their flag flying, but it says muchfor their sailors that they could do that against a foe their equal inskill and courage, and almost always their superior in numbers. On landthey were more successful. The Bishop of Munster was driven back fromthe walls of Groningen: Naerden and Bonne were retaken: before thesummer was over the whole electorate of Cologne was in the hands ofWilliam and his allies. The campaign of 1674 was less fortunate to theyoung general. Charles had, it is true, been compelled by his Parliamentto make a peace more favourable than the Dutch could have hoped for; butin almost every direction Lewis made good again the ground he had lostin the previous year. William, indeed, took Grave, but he was compelledto raise the siege of Oudenarde. A large force of Germans under theElector of Brandenburg was driven out of Alsace across the Rhine byTurenne, who had a short while before completely routed the Imperialtroops under the Duke of Lorraine at Sintzheim. Franche Comté wasreconquered in a few weeks. But the most notable action of the year wasthe battle of Seneff, fought near Mons on August 11th between Williamand Condé. It was long, bloody, and indecisive; but it raised William'sreputation for courage and ability to the highest pitch, and drew fromhis veteran opponent one of those compliments a brave soldier is alwaysglad to pay a foeman worthy of his steel. "The Prince of Orange, " saidCondé, "has acted in everything like an old captain, except in venturinghis life too like a young soldier. "

The battle of Seneff has for us, too, a particular importance. It givesus, according to some of his biographers, the first glimpse ofClaverhouse as a soldier. The story goes that, at an early period of thefight, William with a handful of his men was closely beset by a largebody of French troops. In making his way back to his own lines thePrince's horse foundered in some marshy ground, and he would inevitablyhave been either killed or made prisoner had not Claverhouse, who was ofthe party, mounted him on his own charger and brought him safe out ofthe press. For this service William gave the young soldier (who was, however, the Prince's senior by seven years) a captain's commission inhis own regiment of Horse Guards, commanded by the Count de Solmes wholed the English van on the day of the Boyne. This story has beencontemptuously rejected by Macaulay as a Jacobite fable composed manyyears after both actors in the scene were dead. The story may not betrue, but Macaulay's reasons for rejecting it are not quite exact. Reports of Claverhouse's gallantry at Seneff were certainly currentduring his lifetime. It is mentioned, for example, in a copy of doggerelverses addressed to Claverhouse by some nameless admirer on New Year'sDay 1683. [4] And there is yet more particular testimony, though, likethe former, it is of that nature which a historian will always feelhimself at liberty to reject if it does not match with the rest of hiscase, and which counsel on the opposite side are accordingly at equalliberty to make use of. In the memoirs of Lochiel mention is made of aLatin poem written by a certain Mr. James Philip of Amryclos, inForfarshire, who bore Dundee's standard at Killiecrankie. Lochiel'sbiographer does not quote the Latin text, but gives translations ofcertain passages. The original manuscript, bearing the date 1691, is nowin the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh. Napier had seen this "Grameis, "as the work is called, and compared it with the translations, which hedeclares to be very imperfect, as, from the specimens he gives, theyundoubtedly are. Macaulay, who never saw the Latin text, owns to havetaken a few touches from the passages quoted in the memoirs for hisinimitable picture of affairs in the Highlands during the daysimmediately preceding Killiecrankie; but the passage recording the earlygallantry of the conqueror at Killiecrankie he did not take. [5]

It is unfortunate that the tale of these early years should assume socontroversial a tone. But where all, or almost all, is sheer conjecture, it is inevitable that the narrative must rest rather on argument thanfact. The precise moment when Claverhouse transferred his services fromthe French to the Dutch flag is, in truth, no more certain than thedate of his birth is certain, or his conduct at Saint Andrews, or, indeed, than it is certain that he ever at any time served under Lewis. The tale of those English services under the French King is in the lastdegree confused and doubtful. If it is so in the case of such a man asMarlborough, small wonder that it is so in the case of such a man asClaverhouse, whose name was practically unknown till ten years beforehis death. That he did, however, at one time bear arms in the Dutchranks seems as indisputable as any part of the scanty story of the firsttwo-and-thirty years of his life can be said to be. But beyond this itis impossible to go. 

In 1677 he left William's service and returned to Scotland. An idlestory was circulated some years afterwards of a brawl with one ofWilliam's officers who had received the regiment promised toClaverhouse, of a reprimand from William, and an indignant vow never toserve again under a prince who had broken his word. The judicial weightthat has been brought to demolish this slender fabric is unnecessary. The story itself is not consistent with the characters of either men. Itis very possible that the young soldier, like another young man of thosedays, may have grown "tired with knocking at preferment's door;" but, intruth, a reason to account for their parting is very easily found. Withthe campaign of 1677 all fighting on the Continent was stayed for atime. Claverhouse's profession was fighting. After the peace of Nimeguenin 1678 Scotland was the only European country then offering a chance ofemployment to a soldier of fortune. In 1677, accordingly, he resignedhis commission in the Dutch service and crossed over into England, taking with him a reputation for courage and ability that at oncerecommended him to the King and Duke of York for a man likely to beuseful in such affairs as they had then on hand. Indeed, the characterthat it is clear he brought back with him from Holland is alonesufficient to disprove the story of the quarrel in the courtyard atLoo. [6]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Fountainhall's "Historical Notices:" Napier's "Memorials of Dundee, "i. 183. The decision in question is dated July 24th, 1687, and certainlyappears to prove that Claverhouse did not attain his majority till 1664, which would fix his birth in the year above given. 

[2] The "Memoirs of the Life of Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel" wereprinted for the Abbotsford Club in 1842. They are believed to have beenwritten between 1730 and 1740 by John Drummond of Bahaldy, a grandson, or great-grandson, of Lochiel. Several copies of the manuscript are inexistence, of which the best is said by the editor to be the one then inthe possession of Mr. Crawfurd of Cartsburn. It is written in a clearhand upon small quarto paper, and bound in two volumes. On the fly-leafof the first volume is written "Aug. 7. 1732, Jo. Drummond. " See alsoBurnet's "History of My Own Time, " ii. 553; Dalrymple's "Memoirs ofGreat Britain and Ireland, " i. 344; Burton's "History of Scotland, " vii. 360; Napier's "Memorials of Viscount Dundee, " i. 16-32, and 178-9. Burnet married Lady Margaret Kennedy, daughter of the Earl of Cassilisand aunt of Lady Dundee. In point of style and arrangement, of taste andtemper--in everything, in short, which helps to make literature, Napier's book is perhaps as bad as it is possible for a book to be. Buthis industry is unimpeachable; and, through the kindness of the lateDuke of Buccleuch, he was able to publish no less than thirty-sevenletters written in Claverhouse's own hand to the first Duke ofQueensberry, not one of which had been included in the collectionprinted for the Bannatyne Club in 1826, nor was, in fact, known to be inexistence by anyone outside the family of Buccleuch. His book includesalso the fragment of a memoir of Dundee and his times, left inmanuscript by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, of Hoddam, Walter Scott'sfriend. The memoir was thrown up, it is said, in despair on theappearance of "Old Mortality. " Some idea of the extent to which Napiersuffered from the _Lues Boswelliana_ may be gathered from the fact thathe regards even the Claverhouse of that incomparable romance as a libel. 

[3] "The Hell wicked-witted, bloodthirsty Graham of Claverhouse hated tospend his time with wine and women. "--"Life of Walter Smith, " inWalker's "Biographia Presbyteriana. "

[4]

 "I saw the man who at St. Neff did see His conduct, prowess, martial gallantry: He wore a white plumach that day; not one Of Belgians wore a white, but him alone And though that day was fatal, yet he fought, And for his part fair triumphs with him brought. "

Laing's "Fugitive Scottish Poetry of the Seventeenth Century. "

[5] The passage occurs in the fifth book. Dundee, retreating before theforces of the Convention, is represented as musing over his camp-fire onthe ingratitude of the Prince whose life he had once saved. 

 "Tu vero, Arctoæ gentis prædo improbe, tanti Fons et origo mali, Nassovi, ingrate virorum, Immeritum quid me, nunc Cæsaris arma secutum, Prosequeris toties, et iniquo Marte fatiges? Nonne ego, cum lasso per Belgia stagna caballo Agmina liligeri fugeres victricia Galli, Ipse mei impositum dorso salientis equi te Hostibus eripui, salvumque in castra reduxi? Hæcne mihi meriti persolvis præmia tanti? Proh scelus! O Soceri rapti nequissime sceptri!"

The translation, which is certainly, as Napier calls it, both imperfectand free, is to this effect:

 "When the fierce Gaul through Belgian stanks you fled, Fainting, alone, and destitute of aid, While the proud victor urged your doubtful fate, And your tired courser sunk beneath your weight; Did I not mount you on my vigorous steed, And save your person by his fatal speed? For life and freedom then by me restored I'm thus rewarded by my Belgick Lord. Ungrateful Prince!"

[6] The stories of Claverhouse's conduct at Seneff, and of the quarrelat Loo, are told in the "Life of Lieut. -General Hugh Mackay, " by JohnMackay of Rockfields, and in the "Memoirs of the Lord Viscount Dundee, "published in 1714, and professing to be written by an officer of thearmy. This little book is remarkable chiefly as being the first recordedattempt at a biography of Dundee. The writer was possibly not anofficer, nor personally acquainted with Dundee. But he had certainlycontrived to learn a good deal about him and his affairs; and as laterresearch has either corroborated or, at least, made probable, much ofhis information, it seems to me quite as fair to use it for Dundee, asto use the unsupported testimony of the Covenanters against him. According to his biographer, Mackay himself was Claverhouse's successfulrival. According to the earlier writer, the man was David Colyear, afterwards Lord Portmore, and husband of Catherine Sedley, LadyDorchester, James's favourite and ugliest mistress. 

CHAPTER II. 

It will be necessary now to review the condition of Scotland at the timewhen Claverhouse began first to be concerned in her affairs, and of thecauses political and religious--if, indeed, in Scottish history it beever possible to separate the two--which produced that condition. Without clearly understanding the state of parties which then distractedthat unhappy country, it will not be possible clearly to understand theposition of Claverhouse; and without a clear understanding of hisposition, it will certainly not be possible to form a just estimate ofhis character. It is by too readily yielding to the charm of a writer, who had not then for his purpose the impartial estimate of a humancharacter so much as the embellishment of a political principle, thatpublic opinion has been for many years content to accept a savagecaricature in place of a portrait. It would be impertinent to say thatMacaulay did not understand the circumstances into which Claverhouse wasforced, and the train of events which had caused them; but it would nothave suited his purpose so clearly and strictly to have explained themthat others might have traversed the verdict he intended to beestablished. He heard, indeed, and he determined to hear, only one sideof the case: indeed, at the time he wrote, there was not much to beheard on the other; and on the evidence he accepted the verdict was aforegone conclusion. It is impossible altogether to acquit Claverhouseof the charges laid to his account, nor will any attempt here be made todo so; but even the worst that can be proved against him, whenconsidered impartially with the circumstances of his position and thespirit of the time, will, I think, be found to take a very differentcomplexion from that which has been somewhat too confidently given tothem. [7]

When Charles the Second was restored to the throne of his fathers he washailed in Scotland with the same tumultuous joy that greeted him inEngland. The Scottish nation was indeed weary of the past. It was wearyalike of the yoke of Cromwell and of the yoke of the Covenant. The firstCovenant--the Covenant of 1557--had been a protest against the tyrannyof the Pope: the Covenant of 1643 was a protest against the tyranny ofthe Crown. It was the Scottish supplement, framed in the religiousspirit and temperament of the Scottish nation, to the English protestagainst ship-money. The voice, first sounded among the rich valleys andpleasant woods of Buckinghamshire, was echoed in the churchyard of theGrey Friars at Edinburgh. Six months later the triumph ofPresbyterianism was completed, when in the church of Saint Margaret's atWestminster the Commons of England ratified the Solemn League andCovenant of Scotland. Over the wild time which followed it will beunnecessary for our purpose to linger. The work was done: then followedthe reaction. In both countries the oppressed became in turn theoppressors. The champions of religious liberty became as bigoted andintolerant as those whose intolerance and bigotry had first goaded theminto rebellion. The old Presbyterian saw the rise of new modes ofworship with the same horror that he had shown at the ritual of Laud. Milton protested that the "new Presbyter is but old Priest writ large. "Within only four years of the outbreak of the civil war no less thansixteen religious sects were found existing in open defiance of theprinciples of faith which that war was pledged to uphold. One commonbond, indeed, united these sects in sympathy: one and all repudiatedwith equal energy the authority of the Church to prescribe a fixed formof worship: a national Church was, in their eyes, as odious andimpossible a tyranny as the divine right of kings. But this commonhatred of the interference of a Mother Church could not teach themtolerance for each other. Cardinal Newman has described the enthusiasmof Saint Anthony as calm, manly, and magnanimous, full of affectionateloyalty to the Church and the Truth. "It was not, " he says, "vulgar, bustling, imbecile, unstable, undutiful. " The religious enthusiasm ofthe two nations at this time, though at heart sincere and just, wasunfortunately in its public aspect the exact opposite of SaintAnthony's. There was the essential great meaning of the matter, toborrow Carlyle's words, but there were also the mean, peddling details. It was the misfortune of many, of three kings of England among thenumber, that the latter should seem the most vital of the two. Presbyterian and Independent, Leveller and Baptist, Brownist and FifthMonarchy Man, one and all stood up and made proclamation, crying, "Lookunto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, andthere is none else. " Well might Cromwell adjure them in that war ofwords which followed the sterner conflict on the heights of Dunbar, "Ibeseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may bemistaken. "

Though the number and variety of the dissentients in England were fargreater than in Scotland, where the bulk both of the people and theclergy stood firmly within the old Presbyterian lines, yet in the lattercountry the separation was far more bitter and productive of far moreviolent results. In the former the strong hand of Cromwell, himself anIndependent, but keen to detect a useful man under every masquerade ofworship, and prompt to use him, kept the sects from open disruption. Quarrel as they might among themselves, there was one stronger than themall, and they knew it. The old Committee of Estates, originallyappointed by the Parliament as a permanent body in 1640, was not strongenough to control the spirit it had helped to raise: it was not evenstrong enough to keep order within its own house. The new Committee wasbut a tool in the hands of Argyle. The old Presbyterian viewed withequal dislike the sectaries of Cromwell, the men of the Engagement whichhad cost Hamilton his head, and the Malignants who had gathered to thestandard of Montrose. The Resolutioner, who wished to repeal the Act ofClasses, was too lukewarm: the Remonstrant was too violent. It was bythis last body that the troubles we have now to examine came uponScotland. 

After the collapse of Hamilton's army at Uttoxeter in August 1648, abody of Covenanters assembled at Mauchline, in Ayrshire, to protestagainst the leniency with which the Engagement had been treated in theEstates, where, indeed, a considerable minority had been inclined openlyto countenance it. Their leader was at first the Earl of Eglinton, astaunch Covenanting lord; but as they gathered strength Argyle joinedthem with his Highlanders, and the command soon passed into his hands. The Protesters marched upon Edinburgh. In an attempt to take StirlingCastle they were defeated by Sir George Monro with a division ofHamilton's army which had not crossed the border; but Argyle had bettertools to work with than the claymores of his Highlanders. He openednegotiations with Cromwell, who led an army in person into Scotland, renewed the Covenant, laid before the Estates (the new Estates of Argyleand his party) certain considerations, as he diplomatically called them, demanding, among other things, that no person accessory to theEngagement should be hereafter employed in any public place or trust. The Committee were only too willing to have the support of Cromwell towhat they themselves so vehemently desired. Two Acts were quicklypassed: one reversing many of the acts of its predecessors andconfirming the considerations: the other, known in history as the Act ofClasses, defining the various misdemeanours which were to exclude menfrom sitting in Parliament or holding any public office, for a periodmeasured by their offences, and practically to be determined by thejudicatories of the Kirk. 

This Mauchline Convention was popularly known at the time as theWhiggamores' Raid, a name memorable as the first introduction intohistory of a word soon to become only too familiar, and still a part ofour political vocabulary. [8] Its immediate result was to throw thedirection of affairs still more exclusively into the hands of theclergy: indirectly, but no less surely, it was the cause of the PentlandRising and the savage persecution which followed, of the murder ofArchbishop Sharp, of the battles of Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge, and ofthose terrible years still spoken of in Scotland as the "killing-time. "It was, in short, like the wrath of Achilles, the spring of unnumberedwoes. 

Then followed the execution of Charles. Against this the whole body ofPresbyterians joined in protesting. The hereditary right of kings was, indeed, as much a principle of the Covenant as their divine right wasopposed to it; and the execution at Whitehall on January 30th, 1649, wasregarded with as much horror by the Presbyterians of England as by thePresbyterians of Scotland. 

The first act of the Estates was to proclaim the Prince of Wales king ofGreat Britain, their next to send a deputation to Holland to invite himto take possession of his kingdom. It had been better both for Charlesand for Scotland that the invitation had never been accepted. The termson which alone the Scots would see the son of Charles Stuart back amongthem as crowned king were such as only the direst necessity could haveinduced him to accept: they were such as it seems now amazing that eventhe most bigoted and inexperienced could really have believed that theson of his father, or, indeed, any man in his position, would keep onemoment longer than circumstances compelled him. But his advisers, led onby Wilmot and Buckingham, bid him sign--sign everything, or all would belost. He signed everything. First he put his hand to the Solemn Leagueand Covenant: then to a second declaration promising to do his utmost toextirpate both Popery and Prelacy from all parts of his kingdom:finally, he consented to figure as the hero of a day of public fastingand humiliation for the tyranny of his father and the idolatry of hismother. And while he was acquiescing to each fresh demand with a shrugof his shoulders and a whispered jest to Buckingham, and in his heart asmuch hatred for his humiliators as he was capable of feeling foranybody, he was all the while urging on Montrose to strike that wildblow for his crown which was to lead the brave marquis to the scaffold. The deaths of Hamilton and Huntly had preceded the death of Montrose bya few weeks: a few more weeks and Charles was in Scotland, a crownedking in name, virtually a prisoner. Within little more than a year thefight at Dunbar, and the "crowning mercy" of Worcester, had bitterlytaught him how futile was all the humiliation he had undergone. 

It will be enough to briefly recall the main incidents of the yearswhich intervened between the battle of Worcester and the Restoration. After the establishment of the Protectorate an Act of Indemnity waspassed for the Scottish people. From this certain classes were excepted. All of the House of Hamilton, for instance, and some other persons ofnote, including Lauderdale: all who had joined the Engagement, or whohad not joined in the protestation against it: all who had sat inParliament or on the Committee of Estates after the coronation ofCharles at Scone: all who had borne arms at the battle of Worcester. From this proscribed list, however, Argyle managed to extricatehimself. He had fortified himself at Inverary, and summoned a meeting ofthe Estates to which the chiefs of the Royalist party had been bidden. To conquer him in his own stronghold would have been difficult, perhapsimpossible, to English soldiers unused to such warfare. Cromwell wiselypreferred to negotiate, and Argyle was not hard to bring to terms. Hebound himself to live at peace with the Government, and to use his bestendeavours to persuade others to do so. In return he was to be leftunmolested in the free enjoyment of his estates, and in the exercise ofreligion according to his conscience. 

The politicians were now silenced; but a noisier and more troublesomebody had still to be reckoned with. In July, 1653, the General Assemblywas closed, and Resolutioners and Remonstrants were sent to the rightabout together. Some measures, however, had to be taken to prevent them, not from cutting each other's throats, which would have suited theGovernment well enough, but from stirring up a religious war, which theywould inevitably have done if left to the free enjoyment of their ownhumours. It was necessary so to strengthen the hands of one of the twoparties that the other should be compelled to refrain at least from openhostilities. The Resolutioners, as the most tolerant and themildest-mannered, would have been those Cromwell would have preferred tosee in the ascendency. But the Resolutioners had acknowledged Charles, and were, after their own fashion, in favour of the royal title. TheRemonstrants were accordingly preferred. They, indeed, denied theauthority of the Commonwealth over spiritual matters, but they alsodenied the authority of Charles; and it was felt that at such a crisisthe civil allegiance was of more value than the religious. A law wasaccordingly established dividing Scotland into five districts, in eachof which certain members of the Remonstrant clergy were empowered toordain ministers, as it were, to the exercise of their functions. At thesame time it was not the object of Cromwell to exalt one party at theexpense of the other so much as to strike a balance between the two; andin doing this he was much served by the tact and good sense of JamesSharp, whose name now first begins to be heard in Scottish history. Hewas on the side of the Resolutioners, but he so managed matters as to befavourably regarded by the Government as a person likely to be ofservice to them in the event of any open disruption between the twobodies, without losing the confidence of his own party. The Court ofSession was the next to go, and in its place rose the Commission ofJustice, of which James Dalrymple, afterwards Lord Stair, the firstScottish lawyer of his day, was the most conspicuous member. In 1654 theAct for incorporating the Union between England and Scotland was passedby the Commonwealth. With that Commonwealth disappeared the Union, butthe few years of its existence were fruitful of at least one great boonto Scotland. In those years was established free-trade between the twocountries: a boon for Scotland which she never properly appreciated tillshe lost it by the Navigation Act of the Restoration: an allegedgrievance to England which had its share in bringing that Restoration topass; for it was then, and for long after, a fixed principle in thephilosophy of English commerce that free-trade between the twocountries meant pillaging Englishmen to enrich Scotchmen. A regularpostal service was also established. The abortive rising known asGlencairn's Expedition was the only act of open hostility that brokethose few years of comparative tranquillity; and the lenient termsgranted by Monk to the Highland leader tended more than anything to showhow weary of the long rule of disorder and bloodshed all the best of thetwo nations were growing. On September 3rd, 1658, Oliver Cromwell died, and in November of the following year Monk began his famous march toLondon. On May 25th, 1660, Charles the Second landed at Dover. 

Though the Remonstrants had won the upper hand for a time, the bulk ofthe Scottish nation had been all along on the side of the Resolutioners. Much as the character and religious views of Charles were to theirdistaste, the principle of the Covenant was for a king, and it was bythe principle of the Covenant that the Scottish nation stood. The sternand narrow bigotry of the Remonstrants, whom their short taste of powerhad made of course more fanatical and more quarrelsome than ever, hadalmost succeeded in forcing the more moderate Presbyterians into thearms of the Royalists. A little tolerance, a little tact on the Englishside would probably have cemented the alliance. But it was not to be. 

It is important to remember this. The extreme party with whichClaverhouse had to deal no more represented the Scottish nation than theIrishmen who follow Mr. Parnell's call in the House of Commons representtheir nation now, or than men like Napper Tandy and Wolfe Tonerepresented it a century ago. It seems still a common belief thatClaverhouse and his troopers were sent to force upon a sober, patient, God-fearing nation a religion and a king that they abhorred. Nothingcould be farther from the truth. The large majority of the Scottishnation was as eager to welcome Charles as the old squires who had losttheir fortunes for his father, or the young bloods who hoped to findfortunes under the son. The narrow and blatant form of religionprofessed by the extreme party was as repulsive to the bulk of theircountrymen as to the King himself. 

These men were a remnant of the old Remonstrants of the MauchlineConvention. They had originally, as we have seen, looked to Argyle astheir leader; but when Argyle ranged himself on the side of the youngKing there were some among them who would not follow him. Thesemaintained, and so far they were unquestionably right, that the "youngman Charles Stuart" was, for all his protestations and oaths, as much atheart a Malignant as his father; and that those who pretended to believehim were playing the Kirk and the Covenant false. When Cromwell marchedinto Scotland to win the battle of Dunbar these men had formedthemselves into a separate party under Colonel Archibald Strachan, anable soldier who commanded that division of Leslie's army which haddefeated Montrose in Rossshire. Strachan's design seems to have been tostand aloof for the present from either side; but from some not veryintelligible cause he fell into disgrace with his party, and this issaid to have so preyed upon his mind as to have caused his death. Fromthat time the Wild Westland Whigs, as they began now to be called, hadno ostensible leader. They withdrew sullenly to their own homes, contenting themselves during the remaining years of the Commonwealthwith protesting against everybody and everything outside their ownnarrow circle. They must not be confounded with the general body of theRemonstrants, between whom and the Resolutioners Cromwell had to keepthe balance. They were a people apart. Throughout the wildhill-districts of the Western Lowlands they preached their fiercecrusade against all who were not prepared to stand by the spirit of theCovenant as they chose to interpret it. The toleration they demandedthey would not give. No man should be free to worship God as he pleased:every man must worship Him in the way which seemed good to them, and inthat way only. The moderate Presbyterians were as hateful to them asCharles himself and all his bishops; and they in their turn were asobnoxious to the majority of the Scottish nation as to the EnglishGovernment. Cleric and layman alike was weary of the unending squabblesthat had distracted the Church of Scotland since the days of Knox. Theywished for peace; and no peace was possible so long as an ignorant andnoisy minority would suffer it only at their own price. 

One other point should also be remembered. It has been the custom toexcuse the cruelties of the Covenanters, when they could not be denied, as the acts of men goaded into madness by years of persecution. Thisexcuse will hardly serve. It might, indeed, serve to explain the murderof Sharp and the savage deeds of such men as Hamilton and Burley; butlong before that time the Scottish fanatic had proved himself a matchin ferocity for the bloodiest Malignant of them all. After Philiphaughone hundred Irish prisoners were shot in cold blood, while a minister ofthe Covenanting Church stood by, reiterating in savage glee, "The warkgoes bonnily on. " About the same time eighty women and children were inone day flung over the bridge at Linlithgow for the crime of having beenfollowers of the camp of Montrose. In 1647 three hundred of theMacdonalds who held a fortified post on a hill in Kintire surrendered atdiscretion to David Leslie. It is said that Leslie would have let themgo but for his chaplain, John Nave. Borrowing the words of Samuel, "Whatmeaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing ofthe oxen which I hear?" in a long and fiery harangue this man of Godexhorted the conquerors to finish their work, and threatened theircaptain with the curse of Saul who spared the Amalekites. The prisonerswere butchered to a man. [9]

If, then, it be but a delusion of later times that Scotland could at theRestoration have been conciliated into accepting a moderate form ofEpiscopacy, it is at least clear that there was at that time a strongparty in the country anxious for a compromise between the two Churches, and willing to make all reasonable advances towards one. Unfortunatelythe first move on both sides was of a nature to make all chances of acompromise impossible. 

Charles had conceived a violent dislike to Presbyterianism, and withhis experiences of it the dislike was not unnatural. It was not, he toldBurnet, a religion for gentlemen, and he found few among his court tocontradict him. Scarcely had he settled himself in his capital when thePresbyterians were upon him. Sharp had already been some months inLondon as ambassador of the moderate party, the party of the oldResolutioners. But an easy way of reconciling Sharp's conscience wassoon found. It is not precisely clear when the bargain was struck whichwas to convert the chosen champion of the Presbyterian Church into anarchbishop, but struck it was, and in no long time. He had by Monk'sadvice visited Charles at Breda, and some suppose that the firstinterview completed the transformation. If so, he managed to delude hisparty very skilfully. His letters to the Assembly, though the light ofsubsequent events enables us to translate them more clearly than waspossible at the time, were full of wise counsel, of apparently honestconfessions of the many difficulties he foresaw in the way, and ofprotestations of fidelity and firmness which were no less implicitlybelieved. "I told him, " said his colleague Robert Douglas, a man of verydifferent stamp, when Sharp went up to London later for his ordination, "I told him the curse of God would be on him for his treacherousdealing; and that I may speak my heart of this man, I profess I did nomore suspect him in reference to Prelacy than I did myself. "[10]

Meanwhile the extreme party had not been idle. It will be perhaps mostconvenient henceforth to distinguish them as Covenanters: to call themWhigs, as Burnet and other historians of the time call them, would notconvey to modern ears the significance it had for their contemporaries. Even those stern and unbending Tories of whom Mr. Gladstone was once thespokesman have long ceased to regard the men who are still sometimescalled Whigs as the most fanatical members of the body politic. It wouldbe no mere fanciful application of modern terms to distinguish the twoparties of the Scottish Church as Liberals and Radicals; but it will formany reasons be best henceforth to write of them as Presbyterians andCovenanters. 

The Covenanters, then, had not been idle. Shortly after the Restorationthey had, through a deputation of their elders and ministers, calledupon their brethren of the Church to unite with them in an address tothe King, praying him, as a member of the Covenant with themselves, toremember his obligations to that sacred institution and zealously toprosecute its blessed work in all his three kingdoms. Toleration inthings religious was especially denounced as a vast mischief disguisedunder the specious pretence of liberty for tender consciences. Schismatics were to be stamped out as sternly as Papists and Prelatists;and by Schismatics were meant all men, members of their own Church noless than of others, who ventured to differ from them on any point ofdoctrine whatsoever. 

The Committee of Estates, which had resumed its sittings, did not likethe job. They called the deputation a private meeting of some protestingministers, and clapped the leaders into prison. 

A government had now been formed for Scotland. Middleton was Lord HighCommissioner, a soldier of fortune who had been raised to the peeragefor the occasion. He was also named commander-in-chief of the forces andgovernor of Edinburgh Castle. With him were associated Glencairn as LordChancellor, Lauderdale as Secretary of State, Rothes as President of theCouncil, and Crawford as Lord Treasurer. The first proceeding of thisParliament, known in the gossip of the time as the Drunken Parliamentfrom the too frequent condition of its chiefs, was to pass a RescissoryAct, repealing all measures that had become law since the year 1633, including even those passed by the Parliament professing the authorityof Charles himself. This was followed by an Act "concerning religion andChurch government, " in which, after some pious but vague protestationsof the royal design to "encourage the exercise of religion both publicand private, and to suppress all profaneness and disorderly walking, " itwas promised that the administration by sessions, presbyteries, andsynods would not for the present be interfered with. That present, however, soon passed. On May 27th, two days before the anniversary ofthe Restoration of the Monarchy, the Act for the Restoration ofEpiscopacy was made law. A previous Act had ordained May 29th to be keptholy; and the opposition taken to this by those who objected to allholidays as idolatrous had in turn produced a measure which practicallymarks the beginning of that system of vague bullying, as Dr. Burton hashappily called it, which was in no long time to pass into a persecutionanything but vague. On December 15th, in Westminster Abbey, Sharp wasconsecrated Primate of Scotland, and at the same time Fairfoul wasraised to the see of Glasgow, Hamilton to the see of Galloway, and thegood and gentle Leighton to the see of Dunblane. 

Meanwhile the English Parliament had by its Navigation Act crushed forthe time the short-lived hopes of Scottish commerce, and was now busywith an Act of Indemnity. This had been practically one of theconditions of the Restoration, but Scotland had not been included in thebargain. Argyle was the first to suffer from the omission. He had goneup to London to pay his court to the new King, but had been refused anaudience. He was arrested, and, after a short sojourn in the Tower, sentback to Edinburgh to stand his trial for high treason before theEstates. He was found guilty and beheaded in the High Street on May27th, 1661, two days after the anniversary of the more shameful deathwhich he had helped to bring upon Montrose. As he had been expresslypardoned during the King's short reign in Scotland for all actscommitted by him against the Crown up to the year 1657, and as hisaccusers could find no evidence of communications with the Parliamentafter that time, he must have been acquitted had it not been for Monk, who at the last moment produced certain letters written by Argyle to himwhen acting for Cromwell. Johnstone of Warriston was another victim, whom, like Argyle, it was no hard matter for judges who had a mind thatway to bring within the compass of the law of treason. He, however, managed to get across to the Continent before he could be arrested. Hewas tried and condemned in his absence. After two years of painfulshifts and wanderings he was tracked down in France by a man known asCrooked-back Murray, and sent back to his fate. A third victim was JamesGuthrie, the most vehement and active of the Covenanters, the framer ofthe original Remonstrance and author of a seditious pamphlet called "TheCauses of the Lord's Wrath. " With him would probably have sufferedSamuel Rutherford, a minister as zealous as Guthrie, but of moreeducation and manners. Fortunately for him, he died before the reign ofpunishment began; and the Government was forced to content itself withordering his book "Lex, Rex, " to be burned by the hangman at the Crossof Edinburgh and at the gate of the University of Saint Andrews, wherehe had been Professor of Divinity. In 1662, an Act of Indemnity was madelaw, by which future punishment for the past was adjusted by a scale offines. 

Close on the heels of the Act of Indemnity followed one demanding fromall persons holding any office of public trust a public abjuration ofthe Covenant, and another requiring all clergymen who had been appointedsince 1649 to receive collation from the bishop of their diocese. Thosewho did not obey were, after a short respite, expelled from theirparishes. Those who obeyed were regarded by their congregations asbacksliders and self-seekers. Three hundred and fifty ministers weredriven with their families from their homes in the depth of winter; andto supply their places new ministers were appointed, popularly known asthe King's Curates. Another Act required attendance at the parish churchon penalty of a fine graduated according to the rank of the absentee. Finally, to crown all, the Solemn League and Covenant was publiclyburned at the market-cross of Edinburgh; and an aggravated copy of theEnglish Five-mile Act against Non-jurors, known as the Mile Act, waspassed, prohibiting all recusant clergymen from residing within twentymiles of their old parishes, within six miles of Edinburgh or anycathedral town, and within three miles of any royal burgh. Thepunishment for transgressing this law was to be the same as that forsedition. 

Enough has now been said to show the nature of the bullying adopted bythe Government. Over the years which still lie between us and the entryof Claverhouse on the stage I must pass more rapidly. 

In 1663 Rothes succeeded Middleton as commissioner. The latter had beenrash enough to measure his strength with Lauderdale, and had beensignally worsted. To complete the legislative machinery a ConventicleAct was passed this year, declaring all assemblies of more than fivepersons, besides members of the family, unlawful and seditious. As mostof their congregations had followed the expelled ministers into thewilderness, this new law so mightily increased the labours of theauthorities that it was found necessary to institute a new tribunal ofjustice for the especial treatment of ecclesiastical offences. This wasno less than a renewal of that old Court of High Commission which hadbeen abolished by the Long Parliament twenty years before to the joy ofthe whole nation. To strengthen its hands a body of troops was sent downinto the western shires, now the stronghold of the Covenant, to imposeand exact the fines ordained by the Commission. Their leader was SirJames Turner, a man of some education, but rough and brutal. He hadserved on the Continent under Gustavus Adolphus, had fought under Lesliein the Presbyterian ranks, and had accompanied Hamilton with theEngagers into England. Turner, in his own memoirs, declares that he notonly did not exceed his orders, but was even lenient beyond hiscommission. When, a few years later, in a momentary fit of indulgence, his acts were called in question by the Privy Council, the evidencehardly served to establish his assertion. 

At length the West rose. On November 13th, 1666, four countrymen cameinto the little village of Dalry, in Galloway, in search of refreshment. There they found a few soldiers, driving before them a body of peasantsto thresh out the corn of an old man who would not pay his fines. Therewas an argument and a scuffle: a pistol was fired and a soldier fell:the rest yielded. It was now too late to go back. Turner was posted atDumfries with a considerable sum of money in his charge. It wasdetermined to seize him. The four champions had now been joined by somefifty horsemen and a large body of unmounted peasants. Turner was madeprisoner; and the money restored to the service of those from whosepockets it had been originally drawn. 

The number of the insurgents had now risen to three thousand. Theydetermined to march on Edinburgh, thinking to gather recruits on theway; but when they came within five miles of the city their heartsfailed them. The weather was bitterly cold: provisions and arms werescarce: the peasantry of the more cultivated districts had proved eitherlukewarm to the cause or openly hostile: no recruits had come in, andtheir own ranks were growing daily thinner. At length they turned ontheir tracks and made once more for their western fastnesses. But theyhad now to reckon with a more dangerous foe than Turner. 

The garrison in Edinburgh was commanded by Thomas Dalziel, a ferociousold soldier who had learned his trade in the Russian wars. His dress wasas uncouth as his manners, and he wore a long white bushy beard that nosteel had been suffered to touch since the death of the firstCharles. [11] With all the regulars he could muster Dalziel was quicklyafter the fugitives. He came up with them on Rullion Green, a ridge ofthe Pentland Hills. Though now numbering scarce a thousand men, theCovenanters were strongly posted, and defended themselves bravely. Theroyal troops were twice driven back before they could carry the ridge, and night had fallen before the insurgents were fairly broken. Theslaughter was not great; and it is significant of the unpopularity oftheir cause that the fugitives suffered more from the Lothian peasantrythan from the victorious soldiers. 

The Government could now assume the virtue of those who are summoned toquell an open rebellion. Dalziel was put in command of the insurgentdistricts, and his little finger was indeed found thicker than Turner'sloins. Twenty men were hanged on one gibbet in Edinburgh and many othersin various parts of the country: crowds were shipped off to theplantations: torture was freely applied, and the ingenious devices ofthe boot and the thumbkin were in daily requisition. [12] Dalziel was inhis element. A prisoner reviled him at the council board for "a Muscovybeast who roasted men. " The old savage struck the man with the hilt ofhis sword so fiercely in the mouth that the blood gushed out. 

At length there came a lull. Weary of the useless butchery, which, hitherto, they had not perhaps fully realised, the English Governmentdetermined to see if indulgence could persuade where persecution waspowerless to force. Orders to that effect were sent up to Edinburgh. Thesoldiers were withdrawn from the western shires. Sharp was bidden toretire to his see. Lauderdale took the place of Rothes as commissioner. 

The character of Lauderdale is one of the most curious problems of thetime. In his youth he had been as zealous for the Covenant as he nowappeared to be zealous for Episcopacy. Hence some have supposed that hisreal design was by favouring the intolerance of the bishops to bringthem to discomfiture, and to re-establish on their ruin the oldPresbyterian Church, for which, despite the profligacy of his life andconversation, he was still believed to entertain as much veneration ashe was capable of feeling for any form of religion. But whatever mayhave been his regard for the old Covenant of his youth, he was set as arock against the men who were now as much opposed to any moderateobservance of Presbyterian worship as the most inveterate Malignant atWhitehall. 

The first Indulgence was passed in 1669, in favour of the ministers whomthe Act of 1662 had driven from their parishes. Such as had since thattime kept from open violation of the law were now to be reinstated intheir livings where vacant. The manse and the glebe were to be theirs asformerly, but the stipend was not to be renewed. These terms wereaccepted by some forty or fifty clergymen. By the advice of the gentleLeighton, who almost alone among his brethren seems at this time to havedared, or to have been even willing, to counsel tolerance, a deputation, nicknamed "the Bishop's Evangelists, " was sent into the West to preachthe doctrine of this Indulgence. The pious crusade was in vain. Thefailure of the Pentland rising and its terrible sequel had turned thosestubborn hearts to madness. Their weaker brethren were now classed withthe apostate Sharp and the butcher Dalziel; and the Indulgence wasdeclared a snare for the soul far more deadly than any torture theGovernment could devise for the body. Nor, if time could havestrengthened Leighton's hands, was time allowed him. Following closeupon the Indulgence came a fresh Act, now making not only allfield-preaching a capital offence, but even laying heavy penalties onany exercise of the Presbyterian worship except under an Indulgedminister. This again was soon followed by a fresh law againstIntercommuning--that is to say, against all who should offer even thesimplest act of common charity to a Covenanter--and promising largerewards to all who should give information against them or theirprotectors. By this law it is said that thousands of both sexes, including many persons of rank, suffered severely; and from it sprang acurious incident in the miserable history of this time. 

An order was issued to the landed gentry of Renfrew and Ayr, the shireswhere the disaffection was strongest, requiring them to give bail thattheir servants and tenants should not only abstain from personalattendance at conventicles, but also from all intercourse withintercommuned persons. The gentry answered that such assurance wasimpossible. It was not, they said, within the compass of their power todo this thing. The reply from Edinburgh was short and conclusive: if thelandlords could not keep order in their districts, order must be keptfor them. A body of English troops had already been moved up to theborder and an Irish force collected at Belfast; but a more ingeniousmode of punishment was now devised. Since the barbarous excesses of theHighland clans under Montrose, it had become an acknowledged breach ofthe rules of civilised warfare to employ men who, like the Red Indiansused in our own American wars, were amenable to no discipline andrecognised no principles of humanity. Eight thousand of these savageswere now let loose on the disobedient Lowlanders. The result was, indeed, not all that had been anticipated at Edinburgh. The Council hadnaturally enough expected that the descent of these plaided barbarianswould be the signal for a general insurrection, which would relieve themof their troubles as certainly and much more conveniently than Dalziel'sdragoons and Perth's thumbkins. While Highlander and Lowlander werecutting each other's throats, Lauderdale and his colleagues would haveample leisure to decide on the apportionment of the booty. [13] In this, however, they were disappointed. No armed resistance was offered. Duringthe two months these marauders lived at free quarters, without anydistinction between friend and foe, on a land which, compared with theirown barren moors and mountains, was a paradise flowing with milk andhoney, only one life was lost, and that the life of a Highlander. Atlength the scandal became too great even for Lauderdale. Hamilton, who, like his brother before him, had always stood by the Crown, went up toLondon with several gentlemen of rank to protest against a tyranny whichthey vowed was that of Turks rather than Christians. According to oneaccount, the King would not see them: according to another, he admittedHamilton to an interview, and, after hearing his protest, owned thatmany bad things had been done in Scotland, but none, so far as he couldsee, contrary to his interests. It was clear, however, that in thismatter Lauderdale had gone too far. The Highlanders were ordered toreturn to their homes. They returned accordingly, laden with spoil suchas they had never dreamed of, and of the use of a large part of whichthey were as ignorant as a Red Indian or a negro. [14]

The departure of the Highland host leaves the stage free forClaverhouse. It was at this crisis he returned to Scotland, and herethis summary of one of the most miserable chapters in British historymay fitly end. 

FOOTNOTES:

[7] This is, perhaps, the best place to disclaim all intention ofscoffing at this great writer and historian. It is a common impertinenceof the day in which I have no wish to join. It is not, I hope, animpertinence to say that only those who have, for their own purposes, been forced to follow closely in his tracks can have any just idea ofthe unwearying patience and acuteness with which he has examined theconfused and so often conflicting records of that time, or of theincomparable skill with which he has brought them into a clearcontinuous narrative. To glean after Macaulay is indeed a barren task. So far, then, from affecting to cavil at his work, I must acknowledgethat without his help this little book would have been still less. Yet Ido think he has been hard upon Claverhouse. Perhaps the scheme of hishistory did not require, or even allow him, to examine the man'scharacter and circumstances so closely as a biographer must examinethem. It is still more important to remember that the letters discoveredby Napier in the Queensberry Archives were not known to him. Had he seenthem, I am persuaded that he would have found reason to think lessharshly of their writer. 

[8] "The south-west counties of Scotland have seldom corn enough toserve them round the year; and the northern parts producing more thanthey need, those in the west come in the summer to buy at Leith thestores that come from the north; and from a word 'whiggam, ' used indriving their horses, all that drove were called the 'whiggamores, ' andshorter, the 'whiggs. ' Now in that year, after the news came down ofDuke Hamilton's defeat, the ministers animated the people to rise andmarch to Edinburgh; and they came up, marching on the head of theirparishes, with an unheard-of fury, praying and preaching all the way asthey came. The Marquis of Argyle and his party came and headed them, they being about 6, 000. This was called the Whiggamores' Inroad: andeven after that all that opposed the Court came in contempt to be calledWhiggs: and from Scotland the word was brought into England, where it isnow one of our unhappy terms of distinction. "--Burnet, i. 58. See alsoScott's "Tales of a Grandfather, " ch. Xii. Mr. Green, however, thoughtthe word _whig_ might be the same as our _whey_, implying a tauntagainst the "sour-milk faces" of the fanatical Ayrshiremen. --"History ofthe English People, " iii. 258. 

[9] Sharpe's notes to Kirkton's "History of the Church of Scotland, " pp. 48-9. See also Wishart's "Memoirs of Montrose. "

[10] "The Lauderdale Papers. " The most important passages in Sharp'sletters will be found in Burton's history, vii. Pp. 129-146. 

[11] "Memoirs of Captain John Creichton, " pp. 57-9. 

[12] The torture of the thumbkin is said to have been introduced intoScotland by Lord Perth, who had seen it practised in Russia. But, according to Fountainhall, something very like it had been previouslyknown under the homely name of "Pilliwincks, " or "Pilniewinks. "

[13] "Duke Lauderdale's party depended so much on this that they beganto divide, in their hopes, the confiscated estates among them, so thaton Valentine's Day, instead of drawing mistresses they drewestates. "--Burnet, ii. 26. 

[14] "When the Highlanders went back one would have thought they hadbeen at the sacking of some besieged town, by their baggage and luggage. They were loaded with spoil. They carried away a great many horses andno small quantity of goods out of merchants' shops, whole webs of linenand woollen cloth, some silver plate bearing the names and arms ofgentlemen. You would have seen them with loads of bedclothes, carpets, men and women's wearing clothes, pots, pans, gridirons, shoes and otherfurniture whereof they had pillaged the country. "--Wodrow, ii. 413. 

CHAPTER III. 

Claverhouse was not left long in idleness. In 1664, the year of thefirst Indulgence, it had been determined to withdraw the regular troopsaltogether from Scotland, leaving their place to be supplied by thelocal militia, which was now practically raised to the condition of astanding army and, contrary to immemorial law, placed under theimmediate authority of the Crown. But the bishops and their clergy haddemurred. They had little fancy for being left with no other protectionthan a half-disciplined rabble, who, ready as they might be to actagainst their troublesome countrymen, had no more respect for a lawnsleeve than for a homespun jerkin. A few troops of regular cavalry weretherefore retained, and one regiment of Foot Guards. The former werecommanded by Athole, the latter by Linlithgow. Towards the end of 1677 afresh troop of cavalry was raised, and the command given to the youngMarquis of Montrose, grandson to him who had died on the scaffold andkinsman to Claverhouse. 

Claverhouse applied to him for employment, and it appears fromMontrose's answer that the application had been warmly backed by theDuke of York. "You cannot imagine, " runs the letter, "how overjoyed Ishould be to have any employment at my disposal that were worthy of youracceptance; nor how much I am ashamed to offer you anything so far belowyour merit as that of being my lieutenant; though I be fully persuadedthat it will be a step to a much more considerable employment, and willgive you occasion to confirm the Duke in the just and good opinion whichI do assure you he has of you. " The writer goes on to say that hehimself was expecting instant promotion, and to promise his kinsman ashare in whatever fortune might befall him: none but gentlemen, he adds, are to ride in his troop. The offer was accepted, and the promotion wasnot long delayed. 

The Indulgence had failed, as by some at least of those who hadcountenanced it it had been expected to fail. The Opposition, led atEdinburgh by Hamilton and Argyle, and backed in London by Monmouth andShaftesbury, which had for some time past been working openly againstLauderdale, had also for the moment failed. The Commissioner's handswere strong. With the King and the Duke of York at his back, and, inEdinburgh, Sharp, Burnet, and the majority of the Episcopalian clergy, together with all the needy nobles who loved best to fish in troubledwaters, Lauderdale could afford, as he thought then, to laugh at allopposition. To assume that his design had been from the first to goadthe West into open rebellion affords, indeed, a simple explanation of apolicy that in its persistent unwisdom and brutality seems strangelyirrational and monstrous, even for such times and men. But it is rash totake any policy as certain in those dark and crooked councils, unless itbe--as probably in Lauderdale's case it was, and as it assuredly was inthe case of most of his creatures--the policy of personalaggrandisement. At any rate, after the failure of the Indulgence hadbeen made clear even to those hopeful spirits who still, with Leighton, had believed it possible to efface years of wrong by a few grudgingconcessions, the cruel game was renewed with fresh vigour. TheHighlanders, indeed, had gone, but their place was now to be filled by amore dangerous because a more disciplined foe. Orders were given toraise three new troops of cavalry for special service in Scotland. TheEarls of Home and Airlie were chosen by Lauderdale to command two ofthese troops: the third was, at the King's express desire, given toClaverhouse. At the same time, Athole, who was now in opposition withHamilton and Argyle, was superseded by Montrose, and Linlithgow namedcommander-in-chief of all the royal forces in Scotland. 

Claverhouse now for the first time steps in his own person on the stageof Scottish history. Eleven years later, in 1689, he passes off it forever. It is with the tale of that brief time, so crowded with action, sovariously recorded, that we shall be from this point concerned. 

He was now in his thirty-fifth year. Confused and conflicting as thewitnesses of his life and character may be, of the man himself as helooked to the eyes of his contemporaries there is the clearesttestimony. Over the mantelpiece of Scott's study in Castle Street hungthe only picture in the room--a portrait of Claverhouse. An originalportrait Lockhart calls it, but which of the five portraits engraved inNapier's volumes it may have been, if any of them, I cannot tell. Allthese engravings, with a unanimity not common in the portraiture of thetime, show the same face: a face of delicate, almost feminine beauty, framed in the long full love-locks of the period. [15] The eyes are largeand dark, the figure small but well made, and the general expression ofthe countenance one of almost boyish smoothness and simplicity. Hismanners were gentle and courteous, though reserved: his habit of lifewas, as has been already said, singularly decorous: he was scrupulous inthe observance of all religious ordinances. After his death an oldPresbyterian lady, who had lodged below him in Edinburgh, told Lochiel'sbiographer how astonished she had been to find one of his profession soregular in his devotions. In truth, one of the most curious, and at thesame time one of the most indisputable, points in the life of thissingular man is the contrast between those public actions which have hadso large a share in moulding the popular impression, and his privatecharacter and conduct. And not less curious is the contrast between thereality of his personal appearance and the counterfeit presentmentlikely to be fostered by a too liberal adherence to that impression. Itwould be difficult to imagine a more complete surprise than awaits thosewho turn for the first time from the stern, brutal, and profane soldierof the historian's page to the high-bred and graceful gentleman of thepainter's canvas. 

Claverhouse seems to have received his commission in the autumn of 1678. The earliest of his letters extant is dated from Moffat, a small townin the north of Dumfriesshire, on December 28th. It is addressed to LordLinlithgow, and contains this significant passage: "On Tuesday was eightdays, and Sunday there were great field-conventicles just by here, withgreat contempt of the regular clergy, who complain extremely when I tellthem I have no order to apprehend anybody for past misdemeanours. "[16]And this scrupulous observance of his orders, at a time when a littleexcess of zeal was unlikely to be regarded as a very serious blunder, isyet more strikingly illustrated in his next letter, written a week laterfrom Dumfries. In that town, at the southern end of the bridge over theNith, the charity of some devout Covenanting ladies had lately set up alarge meeting-house. The clergy, as wild against the Covenanters asLauderdale himself, were very importunate with Claverhouse to demolishthis hotbed of disaffection; but he, though he confessed privately tohis chief his annoyance at seeing a conventicle held with impunity "atour nose, " answered all importunities with a calm reference to hisorders. The southern end of the bridge was in Galloway, and in Gallowayhis commission did not run. The authority of the Deputy-Sheriff of theshire was therefore called into play, and with his countenance theoffending building was quickly razed to the ground. In his report ofthis business Claverhouse writes:--"My Lord, since I have seen the Actof Council, the scruple I had about undertaking anything without thebounds of these two shires is indeed frivolous, but was not so before. For if there had been no such act, it had not been safe for me to havedone anything but what my order warranted; and since I knew it not, itwas to me the same thing as if it had not been. And for my ignorance ofit, I must acknowledge that till now, in any service I have been, Inever inquired further in the laws than the orders of my superiorofficers. " This will not be the only occasion on which Claverhouse willbe found keeping strictly within the lines of his commission, insteadof, as he has been so frequently charged with doing, wantonly andsavagely exceeding it. 

This Deputy-Sheriff (or Steward, as the phrase then ran) needs a word tohimself, both on his own account, as representing a certain phase ofcharacter unfortunately too common to the time, and as the real authorof many of the cruel deeds of which Claverhouse so long has borne theblame. Sir Robert Grierson of Lag was regarded in his own district withan energy of hatred to which even the terror inspired by Claverhousegave place, and which has survived to a time within the memory of menstill living. In the early years of this century the most monstroustraditions of his cruelty were still current, and are not yet whollyextinct. In a vaulted chamber of the house in which he lived, on theEnglish road some three miles south of Dumfries, is still shown an ironhook from which he is said to have hung his Covenanting prisoners; anda hill in the neighbourhood is still pointed out as that down which heused, for his amusement, to send the poor wretches rolling in a barrelfilled with knife-blades and iron spikes, --an ingenious form of torture, commonly supposed to have been invented by the Carthaginians twothousand years ago for the particular benefit of a Roman Consul. Thedark and mysterious legend of Sir Robert Redgauntlet, with whichWandering Willie beguiled the way to Brokenburn-foot, was a populartradition of Sir Robert Grierson, or Lag (as, in the familiar style ofthe day he was more commonly called) in Scott's own lifetime: the fatalhorseshoe, the birth-mark of all the Redgauntlet line, was believed tobe conspicuous on the foreheads of every true Grierson in moments ofanger; and it was a grandson of old Lag himself who sat to Scott for theportrait of the elder Redgauntlet, the rugged and dangerous Herries ofBirrenswark. Within the last fifty years it was a custom of Halloween inmany of the houses in Dumfriesshire and Galloway to celebrate by a rudetheatrical performance the evil memory of the Laird of Lag. [17]

Born of a family which had held lands in Dumfriesshire since thefifteenth century, and had figured at various times on the troubledstage of Scottish history, Lag was undoubtedly a man of some parts andcapacity for public affairs, but coarse, cruel and brutal beyond eventhe license of those times. The Covenanting historians charge him withvices such as even they shrank from attributing to Claverhouse; and, careful as it is always necessary to be in taking the evidence of suchwitnesses, it is abundantly clear that even these ingenious romancistswould have been hard put to it to stain the memory of Lag. Laterhistorians have been sometimes less careful in distinguishing betweenthe two men. At least in one striking instance, the misdeeds of thisruffian have been circumstantially charged to the account of his morefamous and important colleague. 

It will be remembered that in the picture Macaulay has drawn ofClaverhouse the soldiers under his command, and by implicationClaverhouse himself, figure as relieving their sterner duties by acurious form of relaxation. They would call each other, he says, by thenames of devils and damned souls, mocking in their revels the tormentsof hell. The authority for this surprising statement is Robert Wodrow, who was not born when Claverhouse returned to Scotland, and whosehistory of the Scottish Church was not published till more than thirtyyears after the battle of Killiecrankie. [18] Wodrow's work is very farfrom being the contemptible thing some apologists for Claverhouse wouldhave us believe; but he is not a witness whose unsupported testimony itis always safe to take for gospel-truth. He wrote at a time when thenaturally romantic imagination of the Scottish peasantry, stimulated bythe memories of old men who had known the evil times, had largelyembellished the facts he set himself to chronicle; and following thefashion of his day (indeed, as one may say, the fashion of manyhistorians who cannot plead Wodrow's excuse), he was not always carefulto separate the romance from the reality, even where the latter mighthave better served his turn. But considering all the circumstances--thecircumstances of the time, of his subject, and of his ownprepossessions, he is a writer whom it is impossible to disregard; and, indeed, compared with the other Covenanting chroniclers he stands apartas the most sober and impartial of historians. Where he got the storythat has been so ingeniously fashioned into an indictment againstClaverhouse is not clear. The passage runs as follows:--"Dreadful werethe acts of wickedness done by the soldiers at this time, and Lag was asdeep as any. They used to take to themselves, in their cabals, the namesof devils and persons they supposed to be in hell, and with whips tolash one another, as a jest upon hell. But I shall draw a veil over manyof their dreadful impieties I meet with in papers written at this time. "This is not exactly the sort of evidence any judge but a hanging judgewould allow, though it would serve well enough the turn of a prosecutor. It is at any rate evidence which no one, with any experience of the sortof gossip the annalists of the Covenant were content to call history, would care to take seriously. But whatever its value may really be, sofar as it goes it is evidence not against Claverhouse but against Lag. It is clear from Wodrow that the story refers not to the royal soldiersbut to the local militia; and a writer a little later than Wodrow makesit still more clear that the men supposed thus to have disportedthemselves in their cups were those commanded by Lag. John Howie, anAyrshire peasant and a Cameronian of the strictest sect, who was notborn till fourteen years after Wodrow had published his history, hasgiven Lag a particular place in the Index Expurgatorius of his "Heroesfor the Faith. " There we may read how this "prime hero for the promotingof Satan's kingdom" would, "with the rest of his boon companions andpersecutors, feign themselves devils, and those whom they supposed inhell, and then whip one another, as a jest upon that place of torment. "Claverhouse, as has been already shown, was himself singularly averse toall rioting and drunkenness, as well as to profane amusements of everykind; and, as he was indisputably one of the sternest disciplinarianswho ever took or gave orders, it is unlikely that he would havecountenanced any such unseemly revels in the men under his command, withwhom, moreover, he was in these years thrown into unusually closepersonal contact. But, in truth, the story, so far as he is concerned, is too foolish to need any solemn refutation. It has been only examinedat this length as furnishing a signal instance of the recklessness withwhich the misdeeds of others have been fathered on him. [19]

The work Claverhouse now found to do must have been singularlydistasteful to one who had seen war on a great scale under such captainsas William and Condé. It was at once undignified and dangerous; andthough danger was all to his taste, it was one thing to risk one's lifein open battle with enemies worthy of a soldier's steel, and another andvery different thing to run the chance of a stray bullet from behind ahaystack or through a cottage window. The line of country he had topatrol (for his work was really little more than that) was all too largefor the forces at his disposal. The enemies with whom he had mostly todeal were either old men or women, for the Covenanters were wellsupplied with intelligence, and generally had ample warning of hismovements, quick and indefatigable as they were. "If your lordship giveme any new orders, I will beg they may be kept as secret as possible, and sent for me so suddenly as the information some of the favourers ofthe fanatics are to send may be prevented. "[20] And again:

 "I obeyed the orders about seizing persons in Galloway that very night I received it, as far as it was possible; that is to say, all that was within forty miles, which is the most can be ridden in one night; and of six made search for, I found only two, which are John Livingston, bailie of Kirkcudbright, and John Black, treasurer there. The other two bailies were fled, and their wives lying above the clothes in the bed, and great candles lighted, waiting for the coming of the party, and told them, they knew of their coming, and had as good intelligence as they themselves; and that if the other two were seized on, it was their own faults, that would not contribute for intelligence. And the truth is, they had time enough to be advertised, for the order was dated the 15th, and came not to my hands till the 20th. I laid the fellow in the guard that brought it, so soon as I considered the date, where he has lain ever since, and had it not been for respect to Mr. Maitland [Lauderdale's nephew] who recommended him to me I would have put him out of the troop with infamy. "[21]

The letters written during the first months of his commission are fullof warnings of this sort. And he had other complaints to make, whichmust have been still more against the grain. He was so inadequatelysupplied with money by the Council that he found it a hard matter to payhis men, and harder still to pay the country people for the necessaryprovisions and forage; for, so far from quartering his men at large uponthe peasantry, he seems, at any rate in those first months, to have beenscrupulous to pay at the current rates for all he required to a degreethat matches rather with the niceties of modern warfare than the customsof those rough times. 

In March Claverhouse was appointed Deputy-Sheriff of Dumfriesshire by aparticular warrant from Whitehall, and Andrew Bruce of Earlshall, one ofhis lieutenants, was nominated with him. This step gave great offence toQueensberry, who, as Sheriff of the shires of Dumfries and Annandale, bylaw held all such patronage in his own hand, and marks the beginning ofthe petty jealousy which from this time forward he seems to have shownto Claverhouse whenever he dared, and which rose afterwards, as we shallsee, to a serious height. But Queensberry was no match for Lauderdale;and Claverhouse was duly settled in his new office, which, whilestrengthening his hands and enabling him to dispense with many tediousformalities, at the same time considerably increased his labours. 

And so winter passed into spring, and still Claverhouse found no workmore worthy of him than patrolling the country, arranging for his men'squarters, examining suspected persons, and endeavouring to persuade theGovernment to leave him not entirely penniless. More than once he sentword to Edinburgh that he believed something serious was afoot. "Ifind, " he writes to Linlithgow on April 21st, "Mr. Welsh is accustomingboth ends of the country to face the king's forces, and certainlyintends to break out into open rebellion. " This Welsh is a famous figurein Covenanting history. Grandson to a man whose name was long held inaffectionate memory by his party as that of the "incomparable John Welshof Ayr, " and great-grandson to no less a hero than John Knox himself, hewas on his own account a memorable man. He had inaugurated the firstconventicle, and had ever since been zealous in promoting them andofficiating at them among the wild hills and moorlands of the westernshires, till his name had become a byword among the soldiers for hiscourage in braving and his skill in evading them. But though one of themost resolute and indefatigable of the ministers of the Covenant, he wasalso one of the most moderate and sensible. Had no one among them beenmore eager than he to carry the war into the enemy's country there hadbeen no Bothwell Bridge. And, indeed, we shall find him seriously takento task by the more extreme of the party as a backslider from the goodcause for his endeavour to avert that disastrous affair. 

Yet Claverhouse was right. Something very serious was soon to be afoot. During the last few weeks the Covenanters had been notoriously growingbolder. They did not always now, as hitherto, content themselves withevading the soldiers: they became in their turn the aggressors. Morethan once an outlying post of Claverhouse's men had been fired upon;and on one occasion a couple of the dragoons had been savagely murderedin cold blood. Even Wodrow found himself forced to own that about thistime "matters were running to sad heights among the armed followers ofsome of the field meetings. " But the trouble did not arise through JohnWelsh. It came through a servant of the Crown who had been a sorerplague to his countrymen than a myriad of disaffected ministers. 

On May 5th, Lord Ross[22] from Lanark, and on the 6th Claverhouse fromDumfries, sent in their despatches to the commander-in-chief atEdinburgh as usual. It is clear that neither of them had at that timeheard any rumour of an event which had happened a few days previously atno very great distance from their quarters. On May 2nd the Primate ofScotland had been dragged from his carriage as he was driving across anopen heath three miles out of Saint Andrews, and murdered in open daybefore the eyes of his daughter. 

James Sharp, Archbishop of Saint Andrews, was at that time probably thebest-hated man in Scotland. Like all renegades he was in no favour evenwith his own party, though Lauderdale found after trial that he couldnot dispense with his support. Even the moderate Presbyterians, whoregarded the uncompromising Covenanters as the real cause of theircountry's troubles, looked askance upon Sharp, as the man whom they hadchosen out of their number to save them and who had preferred to savehimself. By the Covenanters themselves he was assailed with every formof obloquy as the Judas who had sold his God and his country for thirtypieces of silver, and who had hounded on the servants of the King tospill the blood of the saints. Yet his murder was but an accident. Eleven years before an attempt had, indeed, been made upon his life byone Mitchell, a fanatical and apparently half-witted preacher, who wasafter a long delay put to the torture and finally executed on aconfession which he had been induced to make after a promise from thePrivy Council that his life should be spared. It is said that Lauderdalewould have spared him, but Sharp was so vehement for his death that theDuke dared not refuse. 

The chief promoters of the Archbishop's murder were Hackston ofRathillet, Russell of Kettle, and John Balfour of Burley, or, morecorrectly, of Kinloch. These three men were typical of the class who atthis time began to come to the front among the Covenanters, and by theirincapacity, folly, and brutality discredited and did their best to ruina cause whose original justice had been already too much obscured bysuch parasites. It is impossible to believe that they, or such as they, were inspired by any strong religious feelings. Hackston and Balfourwere men of some fortune, who had been free-livers in their youth, andwere now professing to expiate those errors by a gloomy and ferociousasceticism. Both had a grudge against Sharp. Balfour had been accused ofmalversation in the management of some property for which he was theArchbishop's factor, and Hackston, his brother-in-law, had beenarrested as his bail and forced to make the money good. Russell, who hasleft a curiously minute and cold-blooded narrative of this murder, [23]was a man of headstrong and fiery temper. They had all those dangerousgifts of eloquence which, coarse and uncouth as it sounds to our ears, was, when liberally garnished with texts of Scripture, precisely such asto inflame the heated tempers of an illiterate peasantry to madness. Itis important to distinguish men of this stamp from the genuine sufferersfor conscience' sake. The latter men were, indeed, often wrought up bytheir crafty leaders to a pitch of blind and brutal fury which has donemuch to lessen the sympathy that is justly theirs. But they were at thebottom simple, sincere, and pious; and they can at least plead theexcuse of a long and relentless persecution for acts which the othersinspired and directed for motives which it would be difficult, perhaps, to correctly analyse, but assuredly were not founded on an unmixed loveeither for their country or their faith. Stripped of the veil ofreligious enthusiasm which they knew so well how to assume, men of thestamp of Sharp's murderers were in truth no other than those brawlingand selfish demagogues whom times of stir and revolution always havebrought and always will bring to the front. There need, in these days, be no difficulty in understanding the characters of men who dress Murderin the cloak of Religion and call her Liberty. 

Every child knows the story of the tragedy on Magus Moor. It will beenough here to remind my readers, once more, that it was no preconcertedplan, but a pure accident--or, as the murderers themselves called it, agift from God. The men I have named, with a few others, were reallyafter one Carmichael, who had made himself particularly odious by hisactivity in collecting the fines levied on the disaffected. ButCarmichael, who was out hunting on the hills, had got wind of theirdesign and made his way home by another route. As the party were aboutto separate in sullen disappointment, a messenger came to tell them thatthe Archbishop's coach was in sight on the road to Saint Andrews. Theopportunity was too good to be lost. Hackston was asked to take thecommand, but declined, alleging his cause of quarrel with Sharp, whichwould, he declared, "mar the glory of the action, for it would beimputed to his particular revenge. " But, he added, he would not leavethem, nor "hinder them from what God had called them to. " Upon this, Balfour said, "Gentlemen, follow me;" and the whole party, some nine orten in number, rode off after the carriage, which could be seen in thedistance labouring heavily over the rugged track that traversed thelonely expanse of heath. How the butcher's work was done: how Sharpcrawled on his knees to Hackston, saying, "You are a gentleman--you willprotect me, " and how Hackston answered, "Sir, I shall never lay a handon you": how Balfour and the rest then drew their swords and finishedwhat their pistols had begun; and how the daughter was herself woundedin her efforts to cover the body of her father--these things arefamiliar to all. 

From May 6th to 29th no letters from Claverhouse have survived; but onthe latter date he sent a short despatch from Falkirk, announcing hisintention of joining his forces with Lord Ross to scatter a conventicleof eighteen parishes which, he had just received news, were about (onthe following Sunday) to meet at Kilbryde Moor, four miles from Glasgow. The following Sunday was June 1st, on which day Claverhouse was indeedengaged with a conventicle; but in a fashion very different from any hehad anticipated. 

FOOTNOTES:

[15] It is said that he used to tend these curls with very particularcare, attaching small leaden weights to them at night to keep them inplace, --a custom which, I am informed, has in these days been revived bysome dandies of the other sex. 

[16] This very much bears out Burnet's complaint against the Episcopalclergy in Scotland, which has been so strenuously denied by Creichton. "The clergy used to speak of that time as the poets do of the goldenage. They never interceded for any compassion to their people; nor didthey take care to live more regularly, or to labour more carefully. Theylooked on the soldiery as their patrons; they were ever in theircompany, complying with them in their excesses; and, if they were notmuch wronged, they rather led them into them than checked them forthem. "--"History of My Own Time, " i. 334. 

[17] "The Laird of Lag, " by Lieut. -Col. Fergusson, pp. 7-11. 

[18] His "History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland" was firstpublished in 1721. 

[19] This confusion was first pointed out by Aytoun in an appendix tothe second edition of his "Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers. "

[20] Claverhouse to Linlithgow, December 28th, 1678. These letters areall quoted from Napier's book. I have thought it better to give the dateof the letter than the reference to the page. 

[21] Claverhouse to Linlithgow, February 24th, 1679. 

[22] George, eleventh Lord Ross, was joined with Claverhouse in thecommand of the western shires. He had married Lady Grizel Cochrane, daughter of the first Earl of Dundonald, and aunt of the future LadyDundee. 

[23] Printed in Sharpe's edition of Kirkton's "History of the Church ofScotland. " It differs in some, but not very important, points from theaccount printed in the same volume from Wodrow's manuscripts. 

CHAPTER IV. 

The die was now fairly cast. In a general rising lay the only hope ofsafety for Sharp's murderers. Desperate themselves, they determined tocarry others with them along the same path, and by some signal show ofdefiance commit the party to immediate and irretrievable action. Theoccasion for this was easily found. May 29th, the King's birthday, hadbeen, as already mentioned, appointed as a general day of rejoicing forhis restoration. This had from the first given offence as well to thosemembers of the Presbyterian Church who saw in his Majesty's return noparticular cause for joy, as to those more ascetic spirits who objectedon principle to all holidays. May 29th was therefore hailed as the daydivinely marked, as it were, for the purpose on hand, a crowningchallenge to the King's authority. 

The business was put in charge of Robert Hamilton, a man of good birthand education, but violent and rash, without any capacity for commandand, if some of his own side may be trusted, of no very certain courage. With him went Thomas Douglas, one of the fire-breathing ministers, Balfour and Russell and some seventy or eighty armed men. Glasgow hadbeen originally chosen for the scene of operations; but a day or twopreviously a detachment of Claverhouse's troopers had marched into thatcity from Falkirk, and the little town of Rutherglen, about two miles tothe west of Glasgow, was chosen instead. 

On the afternoon of the 29th Hamilton and his party made theirappearance in Rutherglen. They first extinguished the bonfire that wasblazing in the King's honour; and, having then lit one on their ownaccount, proceeded solemnly to burn all the Acts of Parliament and RoyalProclamations that had been issued in Scotland since Charles's return. Apaper was next read, containing a vigorous protest against allinterferences of the English Government with the Presbyterian religion, and especially those subsequent to the Restoration. This paper, whichwas styled the Declaration and Testimony of some of the truePresbyterian party in Scotland, was then nailed to the market-cross ofthe little town, and the party withdrew. All this, be it remembered, wasdone within only two miles of the royal forces, some of whom, it issaid, were actually spectators of the whole affair at scarcemusket-shot's distance. It was fortunate for the party that Claverhousewas not in Glasgow at the time. 

He was then in Falkirk, from which place he had, as we have seen, written to Linlithgow on the very day of the Rutherglen business of arumour he had heard of some particular gathering appointed for thefollowing Sunday, June 1st. Though he did not believe it, he thought itwell to join forces with Ross in case there might be need for action. This was done at Glasgow on Saturday; and at once Claverhouse set offfor Rutherglen to inquire into the affair of the 29th. As soon as hehad got the names of the ringleaders he sent patrols out to scour theneighbourhood for them. A few prisoners were picked up, and among themone King, a noted orator of the conventicles, formerly chaplain to LordCardross, whose service he had left, it is said, on account of a littlemisadventure with one of the maid-servants. The troops halted for thenight at Strathavon, and early next morning set off with their prisonersfor Glasgow. On the way Claverhouse determined on "a little tour, to seeif we could fall upon a conventicle, " which, he ingenuously adds, "wedid, little to our advantage. "

During his search for the Rutherglen men he had heard more of the plansfor Sunday. It was clear something was in the air, and report namedLoudon Hill as the place of business, a steep and rocky eminence markingthe spot where the shires of Ayr, Lanark, and Renfrew meet. To LoudonHill accordingly Claverhouse turned his march, and soon found thatrumour had for once not exaggerated. 

Two miles to the east of the hill lies the little hamlet and farm ofDrumclog, even now but sparsely covered with coarse meadow-grass, andthen no more than a barren stretch of swampy moorland. South and norththe ground sloped gently down towards a marshy bottom through which rana stream, or dyke, fringed with stunted alder-bushes. On the foot of thesouthern slope, across the dyke, the Covenanters were drawn up; and thepractised eye of Claverhouse saw at a glance that they had gatheredthere not to pray but to fight. "When we came in sight of them, " hewrote to Linlithgow, "we found them drawn up in battle upon a mostadvantageous ground, to which there was no coming but through mosses andlakes. They were not preaching, and had got away all their women andchildren. "[24] They were ranged in three lines: those who had firearmsbeing placed nearest to the dyke, behind them a body of pikemen, and inthe rear the rest, armed with scythes set on poles, pitchforks, goadsand other such rustic weapons. On either flank was a small body ofmounted men. Hamilton was in command: Burley had charge of the horse;and among others present that day was William Cleland, then but sixteenyears old, and destined ten years later to win a nobler title to fame bya glorious death at the head of his Cameronians in the memorable defenceof Dunkeld. 

As usual, it is impossible to estimate with any exactness the strengthof either side. According to one of their own party, who was present, the Covenanters did not exceed two hundred and fifty fighting men, ofwhom fifty were mounted and the same proportion armed with guns. Thesenumbers have been accepted, of course, by Wodrow, and also by Dr. Burton. But within a week this handful had, on Hamilton's own testimony, grown to six thousand horse and foot; and though, no doubt, the successat Drumclog would have materially swelled the Covenanting ranks, if theywere only two hundred and fifty on that day, the most liberalcalculation can hardly accept the numbers said to have been gathered onGlasgow Moor six days later. Probably, if we increase the former totaland diminish the latter, we shall get nearer the mark; but it isimpossible to do more than conjecture. Sharpe, in the fragment printedby Napier, rates Hamilton's force at six hundred. Claverhouse's ownestimate was "four battalions of foot, and all well armed with fusilsand pitchforks, and three squadrons of horse. " His experience was morelikely to serve him in such matters than the untrained calculations ofmen who were, moreover, naturally concerned to magnify the defeat of theKing's troops as much as possible; while it is clear from the tone ofhis own despatch, which is singularly literal and straightforward, thathe had no wish, and did not even conceive it necessary, to excuse hisdisaster. But here again the estimate helps us little, owing to thevague use of the terms battalion and squadron. For the same reason wecan but guess at the strength of the royal force. In the writings of thetime Claverhouse's command is indiscriminately styled a regiment and atroop. It is certain that he was the responsible officer, so that, whatever its numerical strength, he stood to the body of men hecommanded in the relation that a colonel stands to his regiment. But itis probable that his regiment, with those commanded by Home and Airlie, were practically considered as the three troops of the Royal ScottishLife Guards of whom the young Marquis of Montrose was colonel. From aroyal warrant of 1672, it appears that a troop of dragoons was rated ateighty men, exclusive of officers, and that a regiment was to consist oftwelve troops. But it is hardly possible that this strength was everreached. From a passage in the third chapter of Macaulay's history itdoes not seem as if the full complement of a regiment of cavalry canhave much exceeded four hundred men; but, I repeat, the indiscriminateuse of the terms troop and regiment, battalion and squadron, makes allcalculations theoretical and vague. [25] Scott puts the King's forces atDrumclog at two hundred and fifty men; and, as a detachment had beenleft behind in garrison with Ross's men at Glasgow, this is probably notover the mark, if Macaulay's estimate of a regiment be correct. He also, in the report Lord Evandale makes to his chief, rates the Covenanters atnear a thousand fighting men, which would probably tally withClaverhouse's estimate. But, whatever the strength of either side mayhave been, it is tolerably certain that the advantage that way was onthe side of the Covenanters. 

The description of the fight in "Old Mortality" is an admirable specimenof the style in which Scott's genius could work the scantiest materialsto his will. All contemporary accounts of the fray are singularly meagreand confused; and, indeed, the art of describing a battle was then verymuch in its infancy. It is difficult, from Claverhouse's own despatch, to get more than a general idea of the affair, which was probably afterthe first few minutes but an indiscriminate _mêlée_. No doubt it was hisconsciousness of some lack of clearness that inspired his apologeticpostscript: "My Lord, I am so wearied and so sleepy that I have writtenthis very confusedly. " The flag of truce, which in the novel Claverhousesends down under charge of his nephew Cornet Graham to parley with theCovenanters, was of Scott's own making, though it seems that a coupleof troopers were despatched in advance to survey the ground. Nor doesClaverhouse mention any kinsman of his, or any one of his name, ashaving fallen that day: the only two officers he specifies are CaptainBlyth and Cornet Crafford, or Crawford, both of whom were killed byHamilton's first fire. But though Claverhouse mentions no one of his ownname, others do. By more than one contemporary writer one Robert Grahamis included among the slain. It is said that while at breakfast thatmorning in Strathavon he had refused his dog meat, promising it a fullmeal off the Whigs' bodies before night; "but instead of that, " runs thetale, "his dog was seen eating his own thrapple (for he was killed) byseveral. " Another version is, that the Covenanters, finding the name ofGraham wrought in the neck of the shirt, savagely mangled the dead body, supposing it to be that of Claverhouse himself. [26]

But to come from tradition to fact. The affair began with a sharpskirmish of musketry on both sides. To every regiment of cavalry therewere then joined a certain proportion of dragoons who seem to have heldmuch the position of our mounted infantry, men skilled in the use offirearms and accustomed to fight as well on foot as in the saddle. Aparty of these advanced in open order down the hill to the brink of thedyke and opened a smart fire on the Covenanters, who answered withspirit, but both in their weapons and skill were naturally far inferiorto the royal soldiers. Meanwhile, some troopers had been sent out toskirmish on either flank, and to try for a crossing. This they could notfind; but, unable to manoeuvre in the swampy ground, found insteadthat their saddles were emptying fast. Then Hamilton, seeing that hismen were no match at long bowls for the dragoons, and marking theconfusion among the cavalry, gave the word to advance. By crossingsknown only to themselves Burley led the horse over the dyke on oneflank, while young Cleland followed with the bulk of the foot on theother. Claverhouse thereupon called in his skirmishers, and, advancinghis main body down the hill, the engagement became general. But in thatheavy ground the footmen had all the best of it. The scythes andpitchforks made sad work among the poor floundering horses. His owncharger was so badly wounded that, in the rider's forcible language, "its guts hung out half an ell;" yet the brave beast carried him safelyout of the press. [27] The troopers began to fall back, and Burley, coming up on sound ground with his horse, flung himself on them so hotlythat the retreat became something very like a rout. Claverhouse, towhose courage and energy that day his enemies bear grudging witness, didall that a brave captain could, but his men had now got completely outof hand. "I saved the standards" (one of which had been for a momenttaken) "and made the best retreat the confusion of our people wouldsuffer. " So he wrote to Linlithgow, but he made no attempt to disguisehis defeat. He owns to having lost eight or ten men among the cavalry, besides wounded; and the dragoons lost many more. Only five or six ofthe Covenanters seem to have fallen, among whom was one of Sharp'smurderers. This does not speak very well for their opponents' fire; butthen we have only the testimony of their own historians to go by. Claverhouse himself could say no more than that "they are not comeeasily off on the other side, for I saw several of them fall before wecame to the shock. "

Pell-mell went the rout over the hill and across the moorland toStrathavon, through which the Life Guards had marched but a few hoursbefore in all their bravery. As their captain passed by the place wherehis prisoner of the morning, John King, was now lustily chanting a psalmof triumph, the reverend gentleman called out to him, with audacityworthy of Gabriel Kettledrummle, "to stay the afternoon sermon. " AtStrathavon the townspeople drew out to bar their passage, but the fearof their pursuers lent the flying troopers fresh heart: "we tookcourage, " writes Claverhouse, "and fell to them, made them run, leavinga dozen on the place. " Through Strathavon they clattered, and never drewrein till they found themselves safe in Glasgow among their owncomrades. 

Fortunately the pursuit had slackened, or it might have gone ill withthe garrison in Glasgow. Claverhouse's men had no doubt fine tales totell of the fury of the Whig devils behind them; and had Hamilton beenstrong enough in cavalry to enter the town at the heels of the flyingtroopers it is not likely that he would have met with much opposition. The pursuit, however, did not follow far. Thanksgivings had to be madefor the victory, and the prisoners to be looked to. All these, accordingto Wodrow, were let go after being disarmed; but Hamilton himself tellsa very different tale. His orders had been strict that there should beno quarter that day; but on his return from the pursuit he found thathis orders had been disobeyed. Five prisoners had been dismissed, andwere already out of his reach: two others were waiting while theircaptors debated on their fate. Then Hamilton, furious that any of"Babel's brats" should be let go, slew one of these with his own hand, to stay any such unreasonable spirit of mercy, "lest the Lord would nothonour us to do much more for him. "[28]

That night the Covenanting captains stayed at Lord Loudon's house, where, though the master had deemed it prudent to keep out of the way, they were hospitably entertained by her ladyship. The next morning theycontinued their march to Glasgow. 

Claverhouse was ready for them. The town was too open a place to beproperly barricaded, but he had caused some sort of breastwork to beraised near the market-cross as cover for his men, and patrols had beenout since daybreak to watch Hamilton's movements. That worthy wasreported to be dividing his men into two bodies, one of which presentlymarched on the town by the Gallowgate bridge, while the other took amuch longer route by the High Church and College. It was thus possibleto deal with the first before the latter could come to its assistance. This was very effectually done. About ten in the morning the attack wasmade by way of the bridge, led by Hamilton in person. [29] But thewelcome which met them from the barricades was too warm for theCovenanters. They broke and fled at the first fire, Claverhouse and Rossat the head of their men chasing them out of the town. Meanwhile, theircomrades, descending the hill on the other side, saw what was going on, and, having no mind for a similar welcome, turned about and made off bythe way they had come. The two parties joined and halted for a while atthe place they had occupied on the previous night; but when they heardClaverhouse's trumpets sounding again to horse they fell back toHamilton Park, where it was not thought prudent to follow them. 

FOOTNOTES:

[24] Claverhouse to Linlithgow, June 1st, 1679. This is the famousdespatch which Scott says was spelled like a chambermaid's. The originalis now among the Stow Manuscripts in the British Museum. 

[25] Cannon's "Historical Records of the British Army" (SecondDragoons): Macaulay's History, i. 305-8. 

[26] Russell's account of Sharp's murder, Kirkton, p. 442. See alsoCreichton's Memoirs, though the captain was not present at the fight, having remained in garrison at Glasgow. In a Latin poem, "BellumBothuellianum, " by Andrew Guild, now in the Advocates' Library atEdinburgh, are the following lines:

 "Tum rabiosa cohors, misereri nescia, stratos Invadit, laceratque viros: hic signifer, eheu! Trajectus globulo, Græmus, quo fortior alter Inter Scotigenas fuerat, nec justior ullus: Hunc manibus rapuere feris, faciemque virilem Foedarunt, lingua, auriculis, manibusque resectis Aspera diffuso spargentes saxa cerebro. "

The passage is quoted at length in the notes to "Old Mortality. " Sharpe, in his notes to Kirkton, says, on the authority of Wodrow, that CornetGraham was shot by one John Alstoun, a miller's son, and tenant of Weirof Blackwood. This is not correct. There was a Cornet Graham so killed, but not till three years after Drumclog. 

[27] "With a pitchfork they made such an openeing in my rone horse'sbelly. " Sir Walter, following tradition, has mounted Claverhouse on acoal-black charger without a single white hair in its body, a present, according to the legends of the time, from the Devil to his favouriteservant. See also Aytoun's fine ballad "The Burial March of Dundee":

 "Then our leader rode among us On his war-horse black as night; Well the Cameronian rebels Knew that charger in the fight. "

[28] Kirkton, 444, note. 

[29] It was reported by some of his own party that as his men enteredthe town Hamilton withdrew into a house at the Gallowgate to wait theissue. But it would be no more fair to take this report for truth thanit would be to assume that Claverhouse really forbad burial to the deadWhigs, that the dogs might eat them where they lay in the streets. Therewas too much quarrelling in the Covenanting camp to allow us to take forgranted all their judgments on each other when unfavourable; and atDrumclog Hamilton seems by all accounts to have borne himself bravelyenough, whatever he may have done subsequently. 

CHAPTER V. 

There is no letter from Claverhouse in this year, 1679, later than thatreporting the defeat at Drumclog. There was, indeed, no occasion for himto write. As soon as the news of his defeat and the attack on Glasgowhad reached the Council, orders were at once sent for the forces towithdraw from the latter place and join Linlithgow at Stirling. AfterBothwell Bridge had been won he was sent again into the West on theweary work that we have already seen him employed on. But during theintervening time his independent command had ceased. At the same timethere is no reason to suppose that he was in any disgrace for the defeatat Drumclog. He had committed the fault, not uncommon, as militaryhistory teaches, with more experienced leaders than Claverhouse, ofholding his foe too cheaply: he had committed this fault, and he hadpaid the penalty. There is some vague story of a sealed commission notto be opened till in the presence of the enemy, and when opened on theslope of Drumclog containing strict orders to give battle wherever andwhenever the chance might serve. But the story rests on too slightauthority to count for much. His own temperament would have made himfight without any sealed orders; and, indeed, he had not long beforewritten to Linlithgow that he was determined to do so on the firstoccasion, and had warned his men to that effect. The wisdom of hisresolve is clear. Disgusted with their work, discontented with thehardness of their fare and the infrequency of their pay, in perpetualdanger of their lives from unseen enemies, his soldiers were getting outof hand. Claverhouse was the sternest of disciplinarians; but thediscipline of those days was a very different thing from ourinterpretation of the word. It was more a recognition by the soldier ofthe superior strength and possibilities of his officer, than trainedobedience to an inevitable law. When they once had satisfied themselvesthat their captain was unable to bring the enemy to book, was unableeven to provide them with proper rations and pay, no love for the flagwould have kept them together for another hour. It was essential forClaverhouse to show them that he and they were more than a match fortheir foes whenever and in whatever form the opportunity came. Unfortunately for him it came in the form of Drumclog, and the proof hadstill to be given. 

But it is abundantly clear that no stain was considered to rest eitheron his honour or his skill. The only ungenerous reference to hisdiscomfiture came a few years later in the shape of a growl from oldDalziel against the folly of splitting the army up into smalldetachments at the discretion of rash and incompetent leaders. Claverhouse was removed from his independent command only because thecircumstances of the moment made it necessary. When it was foundnecessary to despatch a regular army against the insurgents (as, for alltheir provocation, they must after Drumclog be styled), he took hisproper place in that army as captain of a troop in the Royal ScottishLife Guards. When the brief campaign had closed at Bothwell Bridge, and, worst fortune for him, affairs had resumed their original complexion, hewent back to his old position. 

It will be necessary, then, to supply this gap in Claverhouse'scorrespondence by a brief review of the state of things from the battleof Drumclog to the date of his new commission. 

The garrison of Glasgow had, as we have seen, joined Linlithgow atStirling. There they lay for a day or two till orders were received fromthe Council for the whole army, which only numbered about eighteenhundred men in all, to fall back on Edinburgh. In the capital thegreatest consternation reigned. The first proceeding of the Council wasto proclaim the rising "an open, manifest, and horrid rebellion, " andall the insurgents were summoned to surrender at discretion as"desperate and incorrigible traitors. " Having thus satisfied theirdiplomatic consciences they wisely proceeded to more practical measures. The militia was called out, horse and foot, in all the Lowlands, save inthe disaffected shires. For those north of the Forth the rendezvous wasat Stirling, for those south on the links of Leith. Each man was tobring provisions with him for ten days. The magistrates were ordered toremove all the powder and other munitions of war they could find in thecity to the Castle. An armed guard was stationed night and day in theCanongate, and another in the Abbey. Finally, a post was sent to Londonon Linlithgow's advice to urge the instant despatch of more troops, andtwo shillings and sixpence a day of extra pay was promised to every footsoldier. 

They were not disturbed in their preparations. The Covenanters were toobusy with their own affairs to take much heed what their enemies mightbe doing. They did, indeed, march into Glasgow, but beyond shooting apoor wretch whom they vowed they recognised as having fought againstthem on the 2nd, and possibly indulging in a little looting, they didnothing. They did not stay long in the town. Plans they seem to have hadnone, nor any settled organisation or discipline. Moving restlesslyabout the neighbourhood from village to village and from moor to moor, their preachers exhorted and harangued as much against each other asagainst Pope or Prelate, and their leaders quarrelled as though therewere not a King's soldier in all Scotland, nor Claverhouse within adozen miles of them eager for the moment to strike. There was no lack ofarms among them, and their numbers seem at this time to have been notfar short of eight thousand. But no men of any position or influence inthe country had joined them with the exception of Hamilton; and hisauthority, whether the story of his cowardice at Glasgow be true or not, was not what it had been at Rutherglen and Drumclog. The preachersseemed to have exercised the only control over the rabble; and suchcontrol, as was natural, seems rarely to have lasted beyond the lengthof their sermons, which, indeed, were not commonly short. As theCovenanters (to keep to the distinguishing name I have chosen) were anextreme section of the Presbyterians, so now the Covenanters themselveswere divided into a moderate and an extreme party. The chiefs of theformer, or Erastians as their opponents scornfully termed them, wereJohn Welsh and David Hume. Of Hume there is no particular account, butWelsh we have met before. Though he had been under denunciation as arebel ever since the Pentland rising (in which he had, indeed, borne nopart), he had never given his voice for war; and, though assuredlyneither a coward nor a trimmer, had always kept from any active share inthe proceedings of his more tumultuous brethren. His plan, and the planof the few who at that time and place were on his side, was temperateand reasonable. They asked for no more than they were willing to give. Against the King, his government, and his bishops they had no quarrel, if only they were suffered to worship God after their own fashion. Though they themselves had not accepted the Indulgence, they were notdisposed to be unduly severe with those who had. In a word, they werewilling to extend to all men the liberty they demanded for themselves. Had there been more of this wise mind among the Covenanters--among thePresbyterians, one may indeed say--though it is hardly possible tobelieve that Lauderdale and his crew would not still have found occasionfor oppression, it would be much easier to find sympathy for theoppressed. 

On the other side, Hamilton himself, Donald Cargill, and Thomas Douglaswere the most conspicuous in words, while Hackston, Burley, and the restof Sharp's murderers were, of course, with them. Hamilton and Douglas weknow. Cargill, like Douglas, was a minister: he had received a goodeducation at Aberdeen and Saint Andrews, but had soon fallen intodisgrace for the disloyalty and virulence of his language. In a sermonon the anniversary of the Restoration he had declared from his pulpitthat the King's name should "stink while the world stands for treachery, tyranny, and lechery. "[30] In this party all was confused, extravagant, fierce, unreasoning. What they wanted, what they were fighting to get, from whom they expected to get it, even their own historians are unableto explain, and probably they themselves had no very clear notions. Theytalked of liberty, by which they seem to have meant no more than libertyto kill all who on any point thought otherwise than they did: offreedom, which meant freedom from all laws save their own passions: ofthe God of their fathers, and every day they violated alike His preceptsand their practice. To slay and spare not was their watchword; but whomthey were to slay, or what was to be gained or done when the slaying wasaccomplished, no two men among them were agreed. For the moment thecurrent of their fury seems to have set most strongly against theIndulgence and those who had accepted its terms. A single instance willshow pretty clearly the state of insubordination into which thoseunhappy men had fallen. It was announced that one Rae, a favouriteexpounder on the moderate side, was about to preach on a certain day incamp. Hamilton, who still retained the nominal command, sent him aletter bidding him not spare the Indulgence. To this Rae, who does notseem himself to have been in any position of authority, made answer thatHamilton had better mind what belonged to him, and not go beyond hissphere and station. [31] It would not be difficult to draw a parallelbetween the condition of the Covenanting camp at that time and theso-called Irish Party of our own time. Indeed, if any body will be atthe trouble to examine the contemporary accounts of Hamilton and hisfollowers, and particularly their language, much of which has beenfaithfully chronicled by their admirers, they will be surprised to findhow closely the parallel may be pushed. 

Meanwhile, on the other side preparations went briskly forward. A strongdetachment of regular troops was at once despatched from London, withthe young Duke of Monmouth himself in command. Great pains have beentaken both by contemporary and later writers to explain the reason ofthis appointment. It was designed, they have said, to render himunpopular in Scotland. It is certainly possible that he might have beensent to Scotland to get him out of the way of his admirers in England, who just at that time were somewhat inconveniently noisy in theiradmiration. But the appointment does not seem to need any very subtleexplanation. Monmouth was the King's favourite son. He had served hisapprenticeship to the trade of war in the Low Countries, and under suchcaptains as Turenne and William of Orange. He was popular with thepeople for his personal courage, his good looks, his pleasant manners, and above all for his Protestantism--a matter with him possibly more ofpolicy than principle, but which served among the common people to gainhim the affectionate nickname of The Protestant Duke, and todistinguish him in their eyes as the natural antagonist to the unpopularand Popish James. With all his faults Monmouth was no tyrant, andCharles himself was rather careless than cruel. This appointment, therefore, was taken in Scotland to signify a disposition on the King'spart to employ gentle means if possible with the insurgents, and as suchwas not altogether approved of. Gentle means were not much to the tasteof the presiding spirits of the Council-Board at Edinburgh, whose nativeferocity had certainly not been softened by the fright and confusion ofthe last few days. It was particularly requested, therefore, thatDalziel might be named second in command, who might well be trusted tocounteract any unseasonable leniency on Monmouth's part. Fortunately forthe insurgents the old savage did not receive his commission till theday after the battle. 

Monmouth left London on June 15th and reached Edinburgh on the 18th. Heat once took the field. Montrose commanded the cavalry, Linlithgow thefoot: Claverhouse rode at the head of his troop under his kinsman, andthe Earls of Home and Airlie were there in charge of their respectivetroops: Mar held a command of foot. Many other Scotch noblemen andgentlemen of position followed the army as volunteers. Some Highlandersand a considerable body of militia made up a force which has been put ashigh as fifteen thousand men, but probably did not exceed half thatnumber. 

The near approach of the royal troops only increased the quarrelling andconfusion in the insurgent camp, which was pitched now at Hamilton. Somefriends at Edinburgh had sent word to them that Monmouth might be foundnot indisposed to treat; and that it would be best for them to stand offfor a while, and not on any account be drawn into fighting. But the ideaof treating only inflamed the more violent. On the 21st a council wascalled which began in mutual recrimination and abuse, and ended in afurious quarrel. Hamilton drew his sword, vociferating that it was drawnas much against the King's curates and the minions of the Indulgence asagainst the English dragoons, and left the meeting followed by Cargill, Douglas and the more violent of his party. Disgusted with the scene, andconvinced of the hopelessness of a cause supported by such men, manyleft the camp and returned to their own homes. Welsh and the moderateleaders resolved to take matters into their own hands. On the morning ofthe 22nd Monmouth had reached Bothwell. His advance guard held thelittle town about a quarter of a mile distant from the river: his mainbody was encamped on the moor. Shortly after daybreak he was surprisedby a visit from Welsh, Hume and another of their party, Fergusson ofCaitloch. Monmouth received them courteously, and heard them withpatience while they read to him a paper (known in Covenanting annals asthe Hamilton Declaration) they had drawn up detailing their grievancesand their demands. The first were indisputable: the second were, as hasbeen said, moderate. Monmouth was, however, forced to answer that hecould not treat with armed rebels. If they would lay down their arms andsurrender at discretion, he promised to do all he could to gain them notonly present pardon but tolerance in the future. Meanwhile, he said, they had best return to their camp, report his message, and bring himback an answer within half an hour's time. They returned, only to findconfusion worse confounded, and their own lives even in some danger fromthe furious Hamilton. 

The half-hour passed, and no further sign of submission was made. Monmouth bid the advance be sounded, and the Foot Guards, commanded byyoung Livingstone, Linlithgow's eldest son, moved down to the bridge. Just at that spot the Clyde is deep and narrow, running swiftly betweensteep banks fringed on the western side with bushes of alder and hazel. The bridge itself was only twelve feet wide, and guarded in the centrewith a gate-house. The post was a strong one for defence, and had therebeen any military skill, or even unity of purpose, among the defendants, Monmouth would have had to buy his passage dear. Hackston of Rathillethad thrown himself with a small body of determined men into thegate-house, while Burley, with a few who could hold their musketsstraight, took up his post among the alder-bushes. The rest stood idlyby while their comrades fought. For about an hour Hackston held the gatetill his powder was spent. He sent to Hamilton for more, or for freshtroops, but the only answer he received was an order to retire. He hadno choice but to fall back on the main body, which he found at thatsupreme moment busily engaged in cashiering their officers, andquarrelling over the choice of new ones. The English foot then crossedthe bridge: Monmouth followed leisurely at the head of the horse, whilehis cannon played from the eastern bank on the disordered masses of theCovenanters. A few Galloway men, better mounted and officered than therest of their fellows, spurred out against the Life Guards as they werefiling off the narrow bridge, but were at once ordered back by Hamilton. The rest of the horse in taking up fresh ground to avoid the Englishcannon completed the disorder of the foot--if, indeed, anything werewanted to complete the disorder of a rabble which had never known themeaning of the word order; and a general forward movement of the royaltroops, who had now all passed the bridge, gave the signal for flight. Hamilton was the first to obey it, thus, in the words of an eye-witness, "leaving the world to debate whether he acted most like a traitor, acoward, or a fool. "[32] Twelve hundred of the poor wretches surrenderedat discretion: the rest fled in all directions. Monmouth ordered quarterto be given to all who asked it, and there is no doubt that he was ableconsiderably to diminish the slaughter. Comparatively few fell at thebridge, but four or five hundred are said to have fallen, "murdered upand down the fields, " says Wodrow, "wherever the soldiers met them, without mercy. " Mercy was not a conspicuous quality of the soldiery ofthose days; and the discovery of a huge gallows in the insurgents' camp, with a cartload of new ropes at the foot, was not likely to stay thehands of men who knew well enough that had the fortune of war beendifferent those ropes would have been round their necks without anymercy. But it is clear that Monmouth was able to save many. When Dalzielarrived next day in camp and learned how things had gone, he rebukedthe Duke to his face for betraying his command. "Had I come a daysooner, " he said, "these rogues should never have troubled his majestyor the kingdom any more. "[33]

There is no authority for attributing to Claverhouse himself anyparticular ferocity. We may be pretty sure that the Covenantingchroniclers would not have refrained from another fling at theirfavourite scapegoat could they have found a stone to their hand; but asa matter of fact, in no account of the battle is he mentioned, save byname only, as having been present with his troop in Monmouth's army. Thefiery and vindictive part assigned to him by Scott rests on theauthority of the most amazing tissue of absurdities ever woven out ofthe inventive fancy of a ballad-monger. [34] He had no kinsman's death toavenge, and he was too good a soldier to directly disobey his chief'sorders, however little they may have been to his taste. 

There is, moreover, positive evidence to the contrary. Six years afterthe battle one Robert Smith, of Dunscore, who had been among the rebelhorsemen at Bothwell, deposed that as they, some sixteen hundred innumber, were in retreat towards Carrick, he saw the royal cavalry haltedwithin less than a mile from the field, and this was considered by thefugitives to have been done to favour their escape. "For, " he went on, "if they had followed us they had certainly killed or taken us all. " Itis clear, therefore, that whatever Claverhouse might have done had hebeen left to himself, or whatever he may have wished to do--what he diddo was, in common with the rest of the army, to obey his superior'sorders. 

FOOTNOTES:

[30] "Lives of the Scots Worthies, " p. 383. 

[31] Wodrow, iii. 93. 

[32] Wodrow, iii. 107. 

[33] Creichton, pp. 37-8. 

[34] See some doggrel verses on the battle in "The Minstrelsy of theScottish Border, " in which Claverhouse is represented as posting off toLondon from the field of battle and, by means of false witnesses, bringing Monmouth to the scaffold as a traitor who had given quarter tothe King's enemies. Sir Walter, of course, knew very well what he wasabout; but it did not seem to him necessary to write fiction with thenice exactness of the historian; nor was he, happily for us, of thatscrupulous order of minds which conceives that a cruel wrong has beendone to the reputation of a man who has been in his grave for nearly acentury and a half by employing the colours of tradition to heighten thepictures of fancy. 

CHAPTER VI. 

Could Monmouth's influence have lasted, their defeat at Bothwell Bridgemight have turned out well for the Covenanters. As soon as he had ledhis army back into quarters, he hastened to London, where he so stronglyrepresented the brutal folly and mismanagement of Lauderdale'sgovernment, that he prevailed upon the King to try once more the effectof gentler measures. An indemnity was granted for the past, and evensome limited form of indulgence for the future. But the unexpectedreturn of the Duke of York from Holland put an end to all these humanecounsels. Monmouth was himself soon again in disgrace; and Lauderdale, though his power was now past its height, was still strong enough tomould to his own will concessions for which the time had now perhapsirrevocably gone. 

The twelve hundred prisoners from Bothwell were marched in chains toEdinburgh, and penned like sheep in the churchyard of the Grey Friars, the building which barely forty years before had witnessed thetriumphant birth of that Covenant which was, if ever covenant of manwas, assuredly to be baptized in blood. Two of them, and both ministers, were immediately executed: five others, as though to appease the cruelghost of Sharp, were hanged on Magus Moor: of the rest, the most partwere set at liberty on giving bonds for their future good behaviour, while the more obstinate were shipped off to the plantations. 

Claverhouse was now sent back to his old employment. Though none of hisown letters of this time have survived, it is clear from an Order of thePrivy Council that shortly after the affair at Bothwell he was againentrusted with the control of the rebellious shires. There isunfortunately no record of his own by which it is possible to check thevague charges of Wodrow, who wisely declines to commit himself toparticulars on the ground that "multitudes of instances, once flagrant, are now at this distance lost, " while not a few, he candidly admits, "were never distinctly known. " In the rare cases in which he becomesmore specific in his complaints, he does not make it clear that theoffences were committed in Claverhouse's presence, nor even that theywere always committed by soldiers of his troop--"the soldiers underClaverhouse" seem to stand with him for all the royal forces thenemployed in the western shires. That what he calls "spulies, depredations, and violences" were committed on Claverhouse's authoritymay be freely granted: they were precisely such as a strict obedience tothe letter (and no less to the spirit) of his commission would haveenjoined--the levying of fines, the seizure of arms, horses, and othermovable property from all suspected of any share in the rebellion whowould not absolve themselves by taking the oath of abjuration, and fromall resetters, or harbourers, of known rebels. It would be idle torefuse to believe that many unjust and cruel acts were not committed atthis time, as we know they were committed subsequently, merely becausethey cannot be succinctly proved. It is unlikely that Claverhousehimself wasted over-much time on sifting every case that was brought into him by his spies; and where he was not himself present--and it mustbe remembered that he was not the only officer engaged in this service, and also that his own soldiers were often employed under his lieutenantson duties he was personally unable to attend to--it is hard to doubtthat much wild and brutal work went on. The whole case, in short, exceptin a very few instances (which will be examined elsewhere), is onesolely of hearsay and tradition; and it is no more than common justicein any attempt to define Claverhouse's share in it, to give him thebenefit of the doubt where it is not directly contrary to the provedfacts and the evidence of his despatches. For Claverhouse, it should bealso and always remembered, may be implicitly trusted to speak the truthin these matters, for the simple reason that he was not in the leastashamed of his work. We may well believe that it was not the work hewould have chosen; but it was the work he had been set to do; and hisconcern was only to execute it as completely as possible. He was asoldier, obeying the orders of his superiors, for which they and theyonly were responsible. That their orders matched with his feelings, religious as well as political, for Claverhouse was as thorough in hisdevotion to the Church as he was in his devotion to the Crown, matterednothing. The whole question was to him one of military obedience. Sorelyas he may have chafed at the order, he halted his troopers on the banksof the Clyde when Monmouth's trumpets sounded the recall, with the samereadiness and composure that he showed in leading them to the chargedown the slopes of Drumclog; and he would have led them against hisbrothers-in-arms Ross or James Douglas, had they turned rebels, asstraightly and keenly as he led them against Hamilton and Burley. At thesame time both his letters and his actions show that he did his best todiscriminate between the ringleaders and the crowd: between the brawlingdemagogues or the meddlesome priests and the honest ignorant peasants, whose only crime was that they wished to worship God after a fashion theGovernment chose to discountenance. It is not necessary to assume thathe was moved thereto by any softness of heart: common-sense, and asense, too, of justice, would suffice to show him where to strike. Andit will hereafter be seen that, where his commission was large enough, he more than once exercised a discretion not entirely to the taste ofthe more thorough-going zealots of the Edinburgh Council-board. 

The only distinct evidence we have of him at this time is contained inthe aforesaid Orders of Council. From these it appears that he had beencharged by the Scottish Treasury with appropriating the public moneys tohis use. He had been appointed for his services trustee to the Crown ofthe estate of one Macdowall of Freugh, an outlawed Galloway laird; andof this estate it was alleged that he would render no accounts, nor ofthe fines he had been commissioned to levy on the non-abjuring rebels. With characteristic fearlessness Claverhouse went straight to London, and in a personal interview satisfied Charles of his innocence, whoforthwith ordered him to be reinstated in his commission and all theprivileges belonging to it. [35] It is clear, however, that during thegreater part of the year 1680 Claverhouse was suspended from both hiscivil and military employments, and this will account for the duty ofpunishing the authors of the Sanquhar Declaration devolving not uponhim, but upon his lieutenant, Bruce of Earlshall. 

The prime mover of the Sanquhar Declaration was Richard Cameron, who hadnow become the head of the extreme party, henceforth to be known by hisname--a name which still survives as that of a distinguished regiment ofthe British army. It was framed in much the same language and to muchthe same purpose as its predecessor of Rutherglen, though it would notbe right to degrade Cameron to the level of Hamilton and his ruffianlyassociates. It took its title from having been fixed to the market-crossof Sanquhar, a small town in Dumfriesshire, on June 22nd, 1680. Exactlya month later Claverhouse's troopers (though, as I have said, notcommanded by Claverhouse himself) came upon the Cameronians in adesolate spot among the wilds of Ayrshire, known as Aird's Moss. RichardCameron was killed at the first charge: Donald Cargill and Hackston ofRathillet were made prisoners. Both were taken to Edinburgh andexecuted, the latter with circumstances of needless barbarity. 

Though Claverhouse was reinstated in his commission, he does not appearto have been actively employed during the year 1681, the second year ofthe Duke of York's administration in Scotland, and the year also of theTest and Succession Acts, which were destined to cost another Argyle hishead. Early in 1682 the Duke of York returned to England, to which factWodrow attributes "a sort of respite of severities, " notwithstandingthat Claverhouse was once more commissioned for his old work in theWest, and with even ampler authority than before. In addition to hismilitary powers, he was appointed Sheriff of Wigtownshire andDeputy-Sheriff of Dumfriesshire and the Stewartries of Kirkcudbright andAnnandale; and he was also specially invested with a commission to holdcriminal courts in the first-named shire and to try delinquents by jury. His letters to Queensberry[36] begin in February 1682, and from thistime onward his actions become easier to follow. These letters give avery full and fair idea of his method of procedure, and in one of themis a passage worth quoting as evidence how far that method as yetdeserved the hard epithets which have been so freely lavished on it. Thedespatch is dated from Newton in Galloway, March 1st, 1682. 

 "The proposal I wrote to your Lordship of, for securing the peace, I am sure will please in all things but one, --that it will be somewhat out of the King's pocket. The way that I see taken in other places is to put laws severely, against great and small, in execution; which is very just; but what effects does that produce, but more to exasperate and alienate the hearts of the whole body of the people; for it renders three desperate where it gains one; and your Lordship knows that in the greatest crimes it is thought wisest to pardon the multitude and punish the ringleaders, where the number of the guilty is great, as in this case of whole countries. Wherefore, I have taken another course here. I have called two or three parishes together at one Church, and, after intimating to them the power I have, I read them a libel narrating all the Acts of Parliament against the fanatics; whereby I made them sensible how much they were in the King's reverence, and assured them he was relenting nothing of his former severity against dissenters, nor care of maintaining the established government; as they might see by his doubling the fines in the late Act of Parliament; and in the end told them, that the King had no design to ruin any of his subjects he could reclaim, nor I to enrich myself by their crimes; and therefore any who would resolve to conform, and live regularly, might expect favour; excepting only resetters and ringleaders. Upon this, on Sunday last, there was about three hundred people at Kirkcudbright Church; some that for seven years before had never been there. So that I do expect that within a short time I could bring two parts of three to the Church. But when I have done, --that is all to no purpose. For we will be no sooner gone, but in comes their Ministers, and all repent and fall back to their old ways. So that it is vain to think of any settlement here, without a constant force placed in garrison. And this is the opinion of all the honest men here, and their desire. For there are some of them, do what they like, they cannot keep the preacher from their houses in their absence, so mad are some of their wives. "

His remedy was to raise a hundred dragoons for a permanent garrison: theCrown was to pay the soldiers, and the country would find maintenancefor the horses, he bearing his own part as "a Galloway laird, " which hewas as trustee of Macdowall's estate. The command of this new force hewas willing to undertake without any additional pay. 

It does not seem that this remedy was ever sanctioned; but at any rateClaverhouse so managed matters that a month later he was able to reportto the Council that all was "in perfect peace. "

 "All who were in the rebellion are either seized, gone out of the country, or treating their peace; and they have already so conformed, as to going to the Church, that it is beyond my expectation. In Dumfries not only almost all the men are come, but the women have given obedience; and Irongray, Welsh's own parish, have for the most part conformed; and so it is all over the country. So that, if I be suffered to stay any time here, I do expect to see this the best settled part of the Kingdom on this side the Tay. And if these dragoons were fixed which I wrote your Lordship about, I might promise for the continuance of it. . . . All this is done without having received a farthing money, either in Nithsdale, Annandale, or Kirkcudbright; or imprisoned anybody. But, in end, there will be need to make examples of the stubborn that will not comply. Nor will there be any danger in this after we have gained the great body of the people; to whom I am become acceptable enough; having passed all bygones, upon bonds of regular carriage hereafter. "[37]

For these services Claverhouse was summoned to Edinburgh to receive thethanks of the Council, to whom he presented an official report of hisproceedings which is no more than a summary of his letters toQueensberry. [38]

It was not likely that a man so uniformly successful and of such highspirit would be able to steer clear of all offence to men, who probablyfelt towards him much as Elizabeth's old courtiers felt towards thetriumphant and masterful Raleigh. Nor, conscious of his own powers andconfident in the royal favour, is it probable that he was always at muchpains to avoid offence, for, though neither a quarrelsome nor a wilfulman, he had his own opinions, and was not shy of expressing them when hesaw fit to do so. With all his constitutional regard for authority andhis soldier's respect for discipline, Claverhouse would suffer himselfto be browbeaten by no one. In those jealous intriguing days a man whocould not fight for his own hand was bound to go down in the struggle. Claverhouse was now to give a signal proof that he both could and wouldfight for his when the need came. 

The Dalrymples of Stair had been settled in Galloway for manygenerations. Sir James, the head of the house, was one of the firstlawyers of the day, and had held the Chair of Philosophy in theUniversity of Glasgow: the son, Sir John (afterwards to earn an undyingname in history as prime mover in the Massacre of Glencoe), washeritable Baillie in the regality of Glenluce. There had been bad bloodbetween them and Claverhouse for some time past. The father had notprofited sufficiently by his studies either in law or philosophy torecognise the folly of a man in disgrace venturing to measure swordswith one of fortune's favourites. And Sir James at the time of hisquarrel with Claverhouse was in disgrace. At the close of 1681 he hadbeen dismissed from the office of President of the Court of Session forrefusing the Test Act; and for some while previously he had been coldlyregarded for his advocacy of gentler measures than suited Lauderdale andhis creatures. The Dalrymples were strict Presbyterians; and though themen were too cautious to meddle openly with treasonable matters, theirwomenfolk were notoriously in active sympathy with the rebels. Allthrough Claverhouse's letters of this time run allusions to some greatpersonage whom it might be wise to make an example of, and he himselfhad taken an early opportunity of impressing on Sir James the necessityof caution. [39] But the latter would not be warned. He set himselfagainst Claverhouse at every opportunity, both openly and in secret. Hewrote long querulous letters to Edinburgh, complaining of the latter'sdisrespect. Finally, when he found it prudent to leave the country for awhile, his son carried the business to a height by bringing a formalcharge against Claverhouse of extortion and malversation. The latter sawhis opportunity, and at once carried the war into the enemy's country. He preferred a specific bill of complaint against Sir John, in thecourse of which it came out that he had been offered a bribe both byfather and son not to interfere with their hereditary jurisdictions;and, notwithstanding the exertions of Sir George Lockhart andFountainhall, the most eminent counsel of the Scottish bar, utterlydefeated him on every point. The Court found that Sir John Dalrymple hadbeen guilty of employing rebels and of winking at treasonable practices:of not exacting the proper fines by law ordained for such misdemeanours:of stirring up the country-folk against the King's troops; and, finally, of grossly misrepresenting Claverhouse to the Council. For theseoffences he was sentenced to pay a fine of five hundred pounds and thewhole costs of the proceedings, and to be imprisoned in the Castle ofEdinburgh till the money should be paid. Claverhouse, on his side, received not only a full and most complimentary acquittal from all hisadversary's charges, but also a signal proof of the royal favour in thepresentation to a regiment of cavalry raised especially for thispurpose. His commission was dated December 25th, 1682, and in thefollowing March he was sent into England with despatches from theCouncil to the King and the Duke of York, who was still nominallyCommissioner for Scottish Affairs. [40]

Hitherto Claverhouse may be said to have stood conspicuous among the menof his time for his persistent refusal to enrich himself at the publiccost. He had certainly had many opportunities, as had a still morefamous captain after him, of wondering at his own moderation, yet hisenemies had been unable to bring home to him a single instance ofmalpractice. But we have now come to an episode in his life for whichan extremely virtuous or an extremely censorious moralist might, were heso minded, find occasion to re-echo the popular epithet of rapacious. Claverhouse was in no sense of the word an avaricious man; but, like allsensible men, he had a strong belief in the truth of the maxim, thelabourer is worthy of his hire. He had laboured long and successfully;and the time, he thought, had now come for his hire. 

Lauderdale was dying, and from every side the vultures were flockingfast to their prey. In those days politicians looked for promotionmainly to the death or disgrace of their comrades, and the death of anypowerful statesman generally meant the disgrace of his family. Allparties were now busy in anticipation over the rich booty that was sosoon to come into the market. His brother and heir, Charles Maitland ofHatton, was attacked before the breath was out of the old man's body. Among the many lucrative posts he enjoyed, the most lucrative was thatof Governor (or General, as the style went) of the Scottish Mint. At theinstigation of Sir George Gordon of Haddo, who had become in quicksuccession President of the Court of Session, Lord Chancellor, and Earlof Aberdeen, a Commission was appointed to inquire into the state of thecoinage, with the result that Maitland (by this time Earl of Lauderdale, for the dukedom began and ended with his brother) was declared to haveappropriated to his own use no less than seventy thousand pounds of therevenue. In the general division of spoil which this verdict gave signalfor, Claverhouse saw no reason why he should go empty away. Eleven yearspreviously, when the old statesman was at the height of his evil power, his brother had been appointed Constable of Dundee and presented withthe estate of Dudhope, lying conveniently near to Claverhouse's fewpaternal acres. A bargain, which would have seemed in those days nodisgraceful thing to any human being, was accordingly struck betweenClaverhouse and the various claimants for the dead man's shoes. Queensberry, though but lately advanced to a marquisate, had set hisheart upon a dukedom: the Chancellor was in want of money to support hisnew honours. And there were other petitioners for the good offices ofthe ambassador to Whitehall: Huntly and the Earl Marischal and SirGeorge Mackenzie had each marked his share of the general prize. To oneand all Claverhouse promised his services; and they on their part wereto advance by all means in their power his designs on the fat acres ofDudhope. All this, no doubt, sounds very contemptible to us now, whomanage these matters so much more circumspectly; but it must beremembered that Lauderdale, though his offence was probably greatlyexaggerated, and though a large part of the fine in which he had beenoriginally cast was in fact remitted, had certainly been guilty of grosscarelessness, if not of actual malversation; while Claverhouse on hispact offered to pay, and did pay, whatever sum might be legally fixed asdue for his share of the booty. [41]

All these bargains were in time brought to a successful issue. Claverhouse was in England from the beginning of March to the middle ofMay. He was with the Court at Newmarket, Windsor, and London, always inhigh favour, but at the former place finding the King more eager for hiscompany at the cockpit and race-course than in the council-chamber. [42]Early in May he returned to Scotland, and shortly after his return hetook his seat at Edinburgh as a Privy Councillor. This was his presentreward: Dudhope and the Constabulary were to follow later, withQueensberry's and Huntly's dukedoms and the other honours. But Dudhopewas not destined to drop into his lap. The Chancellor, whom he countedas his particular friend, had played him false. Lauderdale's fine hadbeen reduced by Charles from seventy thousand pounds to twenty thousand, sixteen thousand of which were granted to the Chancellor and fourthousand to Claverhouse. But should Lauderdale and his son agree toassign to the Chancellor under an unburdened title the lands andlordship of Dundee and Dudhope, then the whole sum was to be remitted, Lauderdale binding himself to discharge the fines inflicted on hissubordinates. Power was also given to Claverhouse to redeem thisproperty from the Chancellor at twenty years' purchase; and it seemsalso to have been privately agreed between them that the purchase-moneywas not to be exacted, on condition of the former buying certain otherlands in the neighbourhood that the latter wished to dispose of. But thecrafty Chancellor saw an easier and quieter way to get hold of hismoney. For the sum of eight thousand pounds he privately relinquishedall his rights to Lauderdale, thus leaving the latter free to deal withClaverhouse on his own terms. This bit of sharp practice was effected inAugust 1683; and it was not till the following March that the businesswas finally settled, after a long and tedious wrangle before the Court, in the course of which Claverhouse seemed to have found occasion tospeak his mind pretty sharply to the Chancellor. On the question of theformer's right to demand Dudhope on the terms of twenty years' purchaseLauderdale had to give way; but on the other question of clearing thetitle he was so difficult to deal with that the King himself had tointerfere; and not till a peremptory order had gone down from Whitehall, cancelling the royal pardon till all the terms of the original agreementhad been satisfactorily settled, was the affair finally closed, thetitle cleared, and Claverhouse established as master of the long-covetedestate. 

It was not till the autumn of 1684 that Claverhouse found himself masterof Dudhope and Constable of Dundee. Meanwhile one of the few domesticevents of his life that have come down to us had taken place. On June10th he had been married to the Lady Jean Cochrane, granddaughter to theold Earl of Dundonald. 

This young lady was the daughter of William, Lord Cochrane, byCatherine, daughter of the Presbyterian Earl of Cassilis and sister tothat Lady Margaret Kennedy whom Gilbert Burnet had married. Her fatherhad died before Claverhouse came on the scene, leaving seven children, of whom Jean was the youngest. Her mother, whose notoriously Whiggishsympathies had brought both her husband and father-in-law intosuspicion, was furiously opposed to the match; though worldly prudencemay have touched her heart as well as religious scruple, forClaverhouse, though he had risen fast and was marked by all men asdestined to rise still higher, was hardly as yet perhaps a very eligiblehusband for the pretty Lady Jean. But in truth it was a strange familyfor him to seek a wife in, and many were the whispered gibes the news ofhis courtship provoked at Edinburgh. Was this strong Samson, men asked, to fall a prey at last to a Whiggish Delilah? Hamilton, whose ownloyalty was by no means unimpeachable, and who was no friend toClaverhouse, affected to be much distressed by the Lady Susannah'spartiality for the young Lord Cochrane, and made great parade of hisdisinclination to give his daughter to the son of such a mother withoutthe express consent of the King; and this Claverhouse chose to take as ahit at him, who had not thought it necessary to ask any one's permissionto choose his own wife. Affairs were still further complicated by thebackslidings of Sir John Cochrane, Lady Jean's uncle, a notorious rebelwho was then in hiding for his complicity with Russell and Sidney, andwas even suspected of knowing something of that darker affair of the RyeHouse. Claverhouse was furious at the gossip. "My Lord Duke Hamilton, "he wrote to Queensberry, "has refused to treat of giving his daughter to my Lord Cochrane, till he should have the King and the Duke's leave. This, I understand, has been advised him, to load me. Wherefore I have written to the Duke, and told him that I would have done it sooner, had I not judged it presumption in me to trouble his Highness with my little concerns; and that I looked upon myself as a cleanser, that may cure others by coming amongst them, but cannot be infected by any plague of Presbytery; besides, that I saw nothing singular in my Lord Dundonald's case, save that he has but one rebel on his land for ten that the lords and lairds of the south and west have on theirs; and that he is willing to depone that he knew not of there being such. The Duke is juster than to charge my Lord Dundonald with Sir John's crimes. He is a madman, and let him perish; they deserve to be damned that own him. The Duke knows what it is to have sons and nephews that follow not advice. I have taken pains to know the state of the country's guilt as to reset; and if I make it not appear that my Lord Dundonald is one of the clearest of all that country, and can hardly be reached in law, I am content to pay his fine. I never pleaded for any, nor shall I hereafter. But I must say I think it hard that no regard is had to a man in so favourable circumstances--I mean considering others--upon my account, and that nobody offered to meddle with him till they heard I was likely to be concerned in him. . . . Whatever come of this, let not my enemies misrepresent me. They may abuse the Duke for a time, and hardly. But, or long, I will, in despite of them, let the world see that it is not in the power of love, nor any other folly, to alter my loyalty. "

And again on the same day:

 "For my own part, I look upon myself as a cleanser. I may cure people guilty of that plague of Presbytery by conversing with them, but cannot be infected. And I see very little of that amongst those persons but may be easily rubbed off. And for the young lady herself, I shall answer for her. Had she not been right principled, she would never, in despite of her mother and relations, made choice of a persecutor, as they call me. "[43]

The young lady seems to have been well-favoured, though it is not easyto learn much from the female portraits of those days, which are allvery much of a piece. What else she may have been it is impossible tosay. She is a name in her husband's history and nothing more, and in thefew stormy years that were yet to run for him she could not well havebeen much more. However, she seems to have been well pleased with herhandsome lover; and, in spite of her mother's opposition, the marriagewas pushed briskly forward. The contract was signed at Paisley on June10th, and on the following day the marriage was celebrated at the sameplace. Lady Catherine's is not among the signatures; but there is to beseen the almost illegible scrawl of the old grandfather and of Euphramehis wife, a daughter of Sir William Scott of Ardross. The bride's eldestbrother, whose own marriage with the Lady Susannah Hamilton was soon tofollow, and her cousin John, son of the outlaw of Ochiltree, were alsoamong the witnesses; and for the bridegroom, his brother-in-arms LordRoss[44] and Colin Mackenzie, brother of the Lord Advocate, Sir Georgeof Rosehaugh. The lady's jointure was fixed at five thousand merks Scots(something over two hundred and seventy pounds of English money), secured on certain property in Forfarshire and Perthshire; while she onher side brought her husband what in those days was reckoned a verycomfortable fortune for a younger child. [45]

The marriage was made under an evil star. Hardly had the blessing beenspoken when word came down in haste from Glasgow that the Whigs were up. Since the Sanquhar Declaration and the deaths of Cameron and Cargill, the Covenanters had been comparatively quiet. The work of pacificationhad indeed not slackened, but rather taken a fresh departure in theappointment of a Court of High Commission, or Justiciary Circuit, whichin the summer of 1683 was held in the towns of Stirling, Glasgow, Ayr, Dumfries, Jedburgh, and Edinburgh. Claverhouse was expressly ordered toattend the justices in their progress as captain of the forces, exceptat places where the Commander-in-Chief would naturally be present. Butthough the discovery of the Rye House Plot had just then stirred thekingdom to its centre, and given fresh energies both to the Governmentand its enemies, only three men suffered during this circuit, of whomtwo were convicted murderers. In each town members of the gentry as wellas of the common people flocked to take the Test; some to clearthemselves of suspicion, others only to air their loyalty, but all, inthe words of the report, cheerfully. Where time, moreover, was asked forconsideration, it was granted on good security. But from the end ofJuly, 1683, to the day of his marriage, Claverhouse seems to have beenoccupied almost entirely with his duties as Councillor at Edinburgh, andonly to have left the capital for brief tours of inspection through thewestern garrisons. 

But with the day of his marriage came a change. On the previous Sundaynews had been brought to Glasgow of an unusually large and well-armedconventicle to be held at Blacklock, a moor on the borders ofLanarkshire and Stirlingshire. Dalziel (who was in church when themessage came, but who did not suffer his duty towards God to interferewith his duty towards man) put the soldiers on the track at once; butfor the next eight-and-forty hours the country from Hamilton northwardsto the ford of Clyde was scoured in vain. The Covenanters marched fast, and the country folk, many of them probably still fresh from the Test, kept their secret well. Claverhouse was sent for in haste from Paisley. He was in the saddle and away before the bridal party could recover fromtheir first shock of surprise. But even Claverhouse was foiled. Hislieutenant, however, had better luck. Colonel Buchan, as he wasreturning to Paisley by way of Lismahago, came upon an ambuscade of twohundred Covenanters, whose advanced post fired on and wounded one of thesoldiers. [46] "They followed the rogues, " wrote Claverhouse toQueensberry, "and advertised Colonel Buchan; but before he could comeup, our party had lost sight of them. Colonel Buchan is yet in pursuitand I am just taking horse. I shall be revenged some time or other ofthis unseasonable trouble these dogs give me. They might have letTuesday pass. " This despatch was written from Paisley on the morning ofthe 13th, while fresh horses were being saddled. By noon he was offagain, and for the next three days rode fast and far, leaving "no den, no knowl, no moss, no hill unsearched. " He could track his game fromAird's Moss to within two miles of Cumnock town, and thence on towardsCairntable. But there all traces of them had vanished. 

 "We could never hear more of them. I sent on Friday night for my troop from Dumfries, and ordered them to march by the Sanquhar to the Muirkirk, to the Ploughlands, and so to Streven. I sent for Captain Strachan's troop from the Glenkens, and ordered him to march to the old castle of Cumloch, down to the Sorne, and through the country to Kilbryde, leaving Mauchline and Newmills on his left, and Loudon-hill on his right. By this means they scoured this country, and secured the passages that way. Colonel Buchan marched with the foot and the dragoons some miles on the right of my troop, and I, with the Guards and my Lord Ross and his troop, up by the [Shaire?]. We were at the head of Douglas. We were round and over Cairntable. We were at Greenock-head, Cummer-head, and through all the moors, mosses, hills, glens, woods; and spread in small parties, and ranged as if we had been at hunting, and down to Blackwood, but could learn nothing of those rogues. So the troops being extremely harassed with marching so much on grounds never trod on before, I have sent them with Colonel Buchan to rest at Dalmellington, till we see where these rogues will start up. We examined all on oath, and offered money, and threatened terribly, for intelligence, but we could learn no more. "[47]

The "rogues" were to start up soon and with a vengeance. On a day inJuly (the date is not specified) a party of troopers were escortingsixteen prisoners to Dumfries. They were Claverhouse's men, but theircaptain was not with them. At Enterkin Hill, a narrow pass with a deepprecipice on either side, a rescue was attempted by a considerable bodyof men, --English Borderers, it was whispered. Some of the prisonersescaped: others were killed in the scuffle or broke their necks over theprecipice: only two were brought into Edinburgh: a few of the soldierswere also killed. This audacious affair spurred the Government on to newenergies. The garrisons were increased through all the western shires. Claverhouse, with Buchan for his second in command, was put in charge ofall the forces in Ayrshire and Clydesdale, and a special civilcommission was added to their military powers. 

At length, towards the end of August, there was a lull, and the masterof Dudhope was able at last to enjoy the society of his bride and thepleasures of a country life. But of the latter he soon grew weary. "Though I stay a few days here, " he wrote to Queensberry on August 25th, "I hope none will reproach me of eating the bread of idleness. " That, atleast, is a reproach his worst enemies have never tried to fasten onhim. To be doing something was, indeed, a necessity of his existence;and his duties as Constable soon furnished him with something to do. Inthe Tolbooth of Dundee lay a number of poor wretches whom the hard lawsof the time had sentenced to death for various offences, the gravest ofwhich did not rise above theft. It was within the Constable's power toorder them at any moment for execution; and doubtless some of those whohave meddled with his life, had they been aware of this circumstance init, would have risked the conclusion that he did so. Yet, strange as itmay seem, he exerted himself to save the prisoners. And he exertedhimself so successfully that not only was the capital sentence reprievedto such milder punishment as he might order, but the same license wasgranted to him for dealing with all future criminals of the sameclass. [48]

FOOTNOTES:

[35] "We have spoken to him about it, " runs the royal Order, "and hedoth positively assert that while he was in Scotland he received not onefarthing upon that account" (Napier, ii. 238). The two Orders are datedrespectively February 3rd and 26th, 1681. 

[36] The Marquis of Queensberry was then Lord Treasurer, andpractically, since Lauderdale's disgrace, first Minister of Scotland. 

[37] Claverhouse to Queensberry, April 1st, 1682. 

[38] A copy of this report was printed in the Aberdeen Papers (1851)from the original in Claverhouse's own hand: Napier, ii. 276. 

[39] "Here in the shire I find the lairds all following the example of alate great man, and still a considerable heritor here among them; whichis, to live regularly themselves, but have their houses constant hauntsof rebels and intercommuned persons, and have their children baptized bythe same; and then lay all the blame on their wives; condemning them, and swearing they cannot help what is done in their absence. "Claverhouse to Queensberry, March 5th, 1682. 

[40] Napier, ii. 285-309. 

[41] "I must beg your Lordship's assistance in that business of thelands of Dudhope. My Lord Chancellor designs nothing but to sell it, andbuy lands in the north, seeing he is to get Stirling Castle to dwell in. Wherefore I desire leave to ask the house of Dudhope, and theConstabulary, and other jurisdictions of Dundee belonging to my LordLauderdale; and I offer to buy forty chalders of victual from my LordChancellor lying about it [meaning the land bearing so much, at avaluation], though I should sell other lands to do it. I have no house, and it lies within half-a-mile of my land; and all that business wouldbe extremely convenient for me, and signify not much to my LordChancellor, especially seeing I am willing to buy the land. I would takethis for the greatest favour in the world, for I cannot have thepatience to build and plant. " Claverhouse to Queensberry, March 20th, 1683. 

[42] "It is hard to get any business done here. I walked but nine milesthis morning with the King, besides cock-fighting and courses. "Claverhouse to Queensberry, Newmarket, March 9th, 1683. 

[43] Both these letters were written from Edinburgh, May 19th, 1684. 

[44] William, twelfth Lord Ross, son of the one previously mentioned. 

[45] Napier, ii. 385-393. The contract was first printed in the volumeof Claverhouse's letters edited by George Smythe for the Bannatyne Clubin 1826. That volume contains also portraits of the bride andbridegroom, a drawing of which was made by Sharpe for Napier. Theportrait of the latter is the one known as the Leven portrait, now inpossession of Lady Elizabeth Cartwright. The portrait of Lady Jean isfrom a picture then belonging to the editor. There is also an engravingof a mourning ring belonging to the editor's grandmother, CatherineCochrane, wife of David Smythe of Methven, said to have been given toher by her father, Lady Dundee's brother. The ring contains a lock ofDundee's hair, on which the letters V. D. Are worked in gold, with aViscount's coronet above. The motto is "Great Dundee for God and me. J. Rex. " One child was born of the marriage in April 1689, and he diedthree months after his father fell at Killiecrankie. Lady Dundee marriedsecondly William Livingstone, afterwards Lord Kilsyth, of whom mentionwill be made elsewhere. A son was born also of this marriage, but in theautumn of 1695 both mother and child were killed by the fall of a housein Holland. Lord Kilsyth was "out in the Fifteen, " and died an outlaw atRome in 1733, after which the title became extinct. Napier (iii. , Appendix 2) gives a curious account of the opening of Lady Dundee'scoffin more than a hundred years after her burial in the family vault atKilsyth Church. 

[46] "So when we came to Streven (Strathavon), I left the command toColonel Buchan, and desired him to return the troops to their quarters;but, in his march, to search the skirts of the hills and moors on theClydesdale side; which he did, and gave me an account that, going in bythe Greenock-head, he met a man that lives down on Clydeside, that wasup buying wool, who told him that on Lidburn, which is in the heart ofthe hills on the Clydesdale side, he had seen a great number of rebelsin arms, and told how he had considered the commanders of them. One ofthem, he said, was a lusty black man with one eye, and the other was agood-like man, and wore a grey hat. The first had on a velvet cap. Butbefore he (Colonel Buchan) could come near the place, a party of foot, that he had sent to march on his right, fell accidentally on them. Fourof our soldiers going before to discover, were fired on by seven thatstarted up out of a glen, and one of ours was wounded. They fired at therebels, who, seeing our party of foot making up, and the horse in sight, took the alarm, and gained the hills, which was all moss. " Claverhouseto the Archbishop of Saint Andrews (Alexander Burnet), Paisley, June16th, 1684. 

[47] Claverhouse to the Archbishop, Paisley, June 16th, 1684. 

[48] "Privy Council Register, " Edinburgh, September 10th, 1684: Napier, ii. 410. 

CHAPTER VII. [49]

I propose now to examine, with more care than there has yet beenoccasion for, those charges of wanton and illegal cruelty which have forclose upon two centuries formed the basis of the popular--I had almostwritten the historical--conception of the character of Claverhouse. Ihave used the words "illegal cruelty" because Claverhouse is not onlycommonly believed to have far surpassed all his contemporaries in histreatment of the Scottish Covenanters, but to have even gone beyond thesanction of a law little disposed to be illiberal in such matters. Somereason has, I trust, been already shown for at least reconsidering thepopular verdict. But as we are now approaching that period of his lifewhen, for a time all too short for his own reputation, Claverhouse atlast found free play for those eminent abilities which none have deniedhim, it will be well, before passing into this larger field, to befinally rid of a most tiresome and distasteful duty. The controversialelement is, I fear, inseparable from this part of the subject, but Ishall endeavour to do with as little of it as possible. 

Although the significant title of "the Killing Time" seems to have beenoccasionally used in Scotland during the subsequent century to cover thewhole period from Lauderdale's administration to the Revolution, yet thephrase was originally and more properly applied to the years of James'sreign alone. The most notorious of the acts attributed to Claverhousewere, as a fact, committed within that time; but it will be moreconvenient not to adhere too rigidly to chronological sequence, and totake the charges rather in order of their notoriety and of theimportance of those who have assumed them to be true. Following thisorder, the two first on the list will naturally be the death, byClaverhouse's own hand, of John Brown, and the deaths, by drowning onthe sands of Solway Firth, of the two women, Margaret Maclachlan andMargaret Wilson--popularly known as the Wigtown Martyrs. 

An attempt has been made to prove that this last affair is a pureromance of Covenanting tradition. It has never been disputed that thewomen were tried for high treason (that is to say, for refusing toabjure the Covenant and to attend Episcopal worship) and condemned todeath; but it has been denied that the sentence was ever carried intoeffect, on the strength of a reprieve granted by the Council atEdinburgh before the day of execution. That a reprieve, or rather aremand, was granted is certain, as the pages of the Council registerremain to this day to testify. But it is not so certain that thedecision of the Council at Edinburgh ever reached the magistrates atWigtown; and that, if it did reach them, they at least paid no attentionto it, remained for upwards of a century and a half the fixed opinionof all writers and readers of history. The women were sentenced on April18th, 1685: the remand is dated April 30th, but the period for which itwas to run has been left blank, pending the result of a recommendationfor full pardon with which it was accompanied: the sentence was executedon May 11th--in Wodrow's words, "a black and very remarkable day forblood in several places. "

It will be sufficient to indicate where the arguments employed todiscredit this affair may be found. [50] They do not practically amountto more than this--that as a reprieve was certainly granted in theCouncil Chamber at Edinburgh, the execution could not possibly havetaken place on the sands of the Solway. The case is indeed one whichthose who will accept nothing that cannot be proved with mathematicalcertainty will always find reasons for doubting; but at least they musthave read the history of those times to little purpose if they canaccept such an argument as conclusive. For the rest, it will be enoughto say that the story first found its way into print in 1687, and thatit was more circumstantially repeated in 1711, when the records of theKirk Session of the parish of Penninghame were published by direction ofthe General Assembly. At that time Thomas Wilson, a brother of theyounger sufferer, was still alive, with many others to whom theKilling-Time was something very much more than a tradition. In 1714(possibly to a later date, but certainly in that year) a stone inPenninghame churchyard still marked the grave of Margaret Wilson, andtold the story of her death. [51] The ruins of the church may still beseen, but the stone has long ago gone to join the dust that was once thebones of Margaret; and an obelisk, raised within our own times on thehigh ground outside the busy little seaport, now serves in statelier, ifless vital, fashion to recall to the traveller the memory of the Martyrsof Wigtown. It is difficult to believe that a story so well and widelyrecorded, and so firmly implanted in the hearts of so many generationsof men, can have absolutely no foundation in fact. [52] It is indeedpossible that time has embellished the bald brutality of the deed, though the graphic narrative of Macaulay is practically that whichWodrow took from the records of Penninghame. But that the two womenwere drowned in the waters of the Blednock on May 11th, 1685, is surelya fact as well authenticated as any in the martyrology of the ScottishCovenant. 

There is, as I have said, an excellent reason for not dragging myreaders through the obscure and barren mazes of this controversy; andlike all good reasons it is a very simple one. Claverhouse was presentneither at the trial nor the execution. He had, indeed, no more to dowith the deaths of these two women than Cameron, who had been five yearsin his grave, or Wodrow, who was but five years old. It is true that oneof his family was present, but this was his brother, David Graham, Deputy Sheriff of Galloway, and but lately made one of the LordsJustices of Wigtownshire. Macaulay does not directly name Claverhouse asconcerned in this affair; but it is one out of five selected by thehistorian as samples of the crimes by which "he, and men like him, goaded the Western peasantry into madness"--a consummation which, it maybe observed in passing, had been effected twelve years beforeClaverhouse had drawn sword in Scotland. It is not certain that Macaulaybelieved the Graham who sat in judgment on these women to have been JohnGraham of Claverhouse. But it is certain that the effect of hisnarrative has been, in the minds of most English-speaking men, to addthis also to the long list of mythical crimes which have blackened thememory of the hero of Killiecrankie. [53]

But over the other affair there rests no shadow of doubt. ThatClaverhouse, and he alone, is responsible for the death of John Brownstands on the very best authority, for it stands on his own. It is not, indeed, certain that he shot the man with his own hand. This is Wodrow'sstory, and as usual he gives no authority for it. "With somedifficulty, " he writes, "he was allowed to pray, which he did with the greatest liberty and melting, and withal in such suitable and scriptural expressions, and in a peculiar judicious style, he having great measures of the gift as well as the grace of prayer, that the soldiers were affected and astonished; yea, which is yet more singular, such convictions were left in their bosoms that, as my informations bear, not one of them would shoot him or obey Claverhouse's commands, so that he was forced to turn executioner himself, and in a fret shot him with his own hand, before his own door, his wife with a young infant standing by, and she very near the time of her delivery of another child. When tears and entreaties could not prevail, and Claverhouse had shot him dead, I am credibly informed the widow said to him, 'Well, sir, you must give an account of what you have done. ' Claverhouse answered, 'To men I can be answerable, and as for God, I'll take him into my own hand. ' I am well informed that Claverhouse himself frequently acknowledged afterwards that John Brown's prayer left such impressions upon his spirit that he could never get altogether worn off, when he gave himself liberty to think of it. "[54]

Patrick Walker, the pedlar, writing a very few years after Wodrow (whomhe notices only to abuse for his inaccuracy and backsliding), andprofessing to have got his version from the wife, tells a differenttale. "Claverhouse, " he says, "ordered six soldiers to shoot him. Themost part of the bullets came upon his head, which scattered his brainsupon the ground. " Of any refusal, or even disinclination, on the part ofthe soldiers to obey their orders there is not a word. Then we haveClaverhouse's own report to Queensberry, written two days later fromGalston, a village between Kilmarnock and Ayr. 

 "On Friday last, amongst the hills betwixt Douglas and the Ploughlands, we pursued two fellows a great way through the mosses, and in end seized them. They had no arms about them, and denied they had any. But being asked if they would take the abjuration, the eldest of the two, called John Brown, refused it; nor would he swear not to rise in arms against the King, but said he knew no king. Upon which, and there being found bullets and match in his house, and treasonable papers, I caused shoot him dead; which he suffered very unconcernedly. The other, a young fellow and his nephew, called John Brownen, offered to take the oath, but would not swear that he had not been at Newmills in arms, at rescuing of the prisoners. So I did not know what to do with him. I was convinced that he was guilty, but saw not how to proceed against him. Wherefore, after he had said his prayers, and carabines presented to shoot him, I offered to him that, if he would make an ingenuous confession, and make a discovery that might be of any importance for the King's service, I should delay putting him to death, and plead for him. Upon which he confessed that he was at that attack of Newmills, and that he had come straight to this house of his uncle's on Sunday morning. In the time he was making this confession the soldiers found out a house in the hill, under ground, that could hold a dozen of men, and there were swords and pistols in it; and this fellow declared that they belonged to his uncle, and that he had lurked in that place ever since Bothwell, where he was in arms. . . . He also gives account of those who gave any assistance to his uncle; and we have seized thereupon the goodman of the uppermost Ploughlands, and another tenant about a mile below that is fled upon it. . . . I have acquitted myself when I have told your Grace the case. He has been but a month or two with his halbert; and if your Grace thinks he deserves no mercy, justice will pass on him; for I, having no commission of justiciary myself, have delivered him up to the Lieutenant-General, to be disposed of as he pleases. "[55]

It is singular that neither Wodrow nor Walker makes any mention of thisnephew, whose presence on that day, taken in connection with his sharein the affair at Newmills, [56] puts the uncle in rather a differentlight. There happen also to be one or two affairs known about this JohnBrown which are worth noting. For instance, his name is found on a listof proscribed rebels and resetters of rebels, appended to a royalproclamation of May 5th, 1684, which will naturally account for his"having been a long time upon his hiding in the hills, " as Wodrowingenuously confesses. In other words, this Brown was an outlaw and amarked man. He was by profession a carrier--"the Christian carrier, " hisfriends called him, for the fervour and eloquence of his preaching, which was remarkable even in a neighbourhood where the gift of tongueswas not uncommon. A carrier is an extremely useful channel ofcommunication; and, in fact, there can be really no doubt that Brown hadbeen for some time engaged in practices which the most iniquitousGovernment in the world could hardly be blamed for thinkinginconvenient. It has been suggested that Claverhouse was at that timeespecially on the watch to intercept all communication between Argyleand Monmouth, and that Brown was employed in carrying intelligencebetween the rebel camps. Macaulay refuses this suggestion. He points outwith perfect truth that both Argyle and Monmouth were at that time inHolland. But when he goes on to say that there was no insurrection inany part of our island, he goes rather too far. The western shires ofScotland had been in a state of insurrection ever since the Pentlandrising, if there be any meaning in the word at all. And, though it istrue that on May 1st (the day of Brown's death) Argyle was in Holland, it is no less true that on the second he had left Holland for Scotland;that since April 21st the Privy Council had been well informed of hisdesigns; that measures had been taken for putting the whole kingdom in astate of defence against him; and that arrests had been already made onaccount of treasonable correspondence with him. [57] But the question isnot one of probabilities, and moreover against these probabilities itmay be very fairly urged that Claverhouse's own despatch proves that thenephew's confession and the discovery of the underground armoury werenot made till after the uncle's death. Nor is there any word in thisdespatch to show that Claverhouse had any previous knowledge of Brown orwas acting on particular information. The real question, and the onlyquestion, is, was Claverhouse legally--not morally, that belongs toanother part of the case--was he legally justified in ordering the manto be shot? To this there can be but one answer, so long as the phrase"legal justification" bears the meaning it has hitherto borne for thosewho use the English tongue: both by the spirit and the letter of hiscommission he was justified in what he did. By the law of the Governmentwhose servant Claverhouse then was, the death of John Brown on thatAyrshire moor was as lawful an act as the death on the scaffold of anyprisoner to-day found guilty by a jury of his countrymen. In October, 1684, the Covenanters had published a declaration, drawn up by Renwick, of their intention to do unto all their enemies whom they could layhands on, civil no less than military, as their enemies had done andshould do unto them; and the deliberate murder of two troopers of theLife Guards in the following month had shown (what, to be sure, can haveneeded very little proof) that this was no idle threat. [58] An Act, therefore, was hastily passed to the effect that, "Any person who ownsor will not disown the late treasonable declaration on oath, whetherthey have arms or not, be immediately put to death, this being alwaysdone in the presence of two witnesses, and the person or persons havingcommission to that effect. " With the severity, the folly, or theinjustice of such a law we are not for the moment concerned. The factremains that such was the law; and Claverhouse transgressed no jot ofit in ordering John Brown to death. It was no question of form ofreligion: it was no question of previous misconduct. The man would nottake the oath; and he was accordingly shot in the presence of therequisite number of witnesses by the order of a competent authority. 

On the truth of the details given both by Wodrow and Walker it isimpossible to form any conclusion. Wodrow gives no authority for hisversion. "I am well informed, " he says, "I am credibly informed, " and soon; but the sources of his information he nowhere gives. Walker is morecommunicative; he, as we have seen, professed to have learned his storyfrom Brown's wife; but no statement of Walker's can be accepted forabsolute truth, and his uncertainty about even the names of hiswitnesses does not add the stamp of conviction to their testimony. [59]Beyond the bare fact that the man was shot in the presence ofClaverhouse nothing is certain. On the rest of the story each must makeup his mind as seems best to him. 

With the death of Peter Gillies and John Bryce Claverhouse is notdirectly charged by Wodrow. Walker, however, quotes an epitaph said tohave been inscribed on the grave of these men, who, with three others, were hanged, without trial, at Mauchline by

 "Bloody Dumbarton, Douglas, and Dundee, Moved by the devil and the Laird of Lee. "

These lines must have been composed some years after the event, inasmuchas the men were hanged on May 6th, 1685, and the patent of Claverhouse'speerage bears the date November 12th, 1688. This proves, what indeed fewpeople can have doubted, that the damning testimony of "The Cloud ofWitnesses" wants at least the weight of contemporary evidence. Anauthority, however, for this particular epitaph can be traced back to1690, when Alexander Shields published his martyrology. [60] "The saidClaverhouse, " he wrote, "together with the Earl of Dumbarton andLieut. -General Douglas, caused Peter Gillies, John Bryce, Thomas Young(who was taken by the Laird of Lee), William Fiddisone, and JohnBuiening to be put to death upon a gibbet, without legal trial orsentence, suffering them neither to have a Bible nor to pray before theydied. "[61] Defoe has evidently followed Shields;[62] but Walker, thoughhe quotes the aforesaid epitaph, does not himself implicateClaverhouse. 

Wodrow does not appear to have heard any of these stories. He names onlyGillies and Bryce, quoting from the indictment, which does not specifythe other sufferers, to show that the men were tried before GeneralDrummond and a tribunal of fifteen soldiers on May 5th, and hanged onthe following day. We have already seen that a few days previouslyClaverhouse had sent a prisoner for trial to this same General Drummond, because he had himself at that time no commission to try prisoners. Unless, therefore, we are ready to suppose that officers were in thehabit of sitting on a jury with their own troopers, or to believe thatwithin three days a change had taken place in Claverhouse's position ofwhich there is no record either in his own letters or in any otherexisting document, we must accept Wodrow's narrative as the true one, and exonerate Claverhouse from all responsibility for the deaths ofGillies and his unfortunate fellow-sufferers. 

Two cases yet remain of the five cited by Macaulay. With one ofthese--the case of the three men shot near Glasgow for refusing to prayfor the King--no writer has ever pretended to implicate Claverhousepersonally; but with the other he is directly concerned. Andrew Hislopwas the son of a poor widow in whose house a proscribed Covenanter hadlately died. This was discovered by one Johnstone of Westerhall, anapostate Presbyterian, and, like most of his class, particularly bitteragainst his former associates. He turned the woman with her youngerchildren into the fields, pulled down her house, and dragged the eldestson before Claverhouse, then marching through that part of the country. So Macaulay tells the story, following for once the "Cloud of Witnesses"rather than Wodrow. According to the latter, Claverhouse found Hislopwandering about the fields, and carried him before Westerhall, "withoutany design, as appeared, to murder him. " Westerhall voted for instantdeath, while Claverhouse pleaded for the lad, and only yielded at laston the other's insistence, saying: "The blood of this poor man be uponyou, Westerhall. I am free of it. " He thereupon ordered the captain of aHighland company, then brigaded with his own men, to provide afiring-party; but the Highlanders angrily refused, and the troopers hadto do the work. Both versions, it will be seen, agree in representingClaverhouse as inclined to mercy but overborne by Westerhall. Thequestion remains, how was it that the former, a masterful man and noteasy to be silenced when he was in the right, could not save this poorlad if he had a mind to do so?

The answer is in truth not easy to find. The explanation that Westerhallwas at that particular time superior in authority to Claverhouse willhardly serve. It is true that the latter had just then no civiljurisdiction at all, either to condemn or pardon--no commission ofjusticiary, as he wrote to Queensberry. He had been since the close ofthe previous year in disgrace at headquarters, in consequence of aquarrel between him and the Treasurer, arising out of some action ofColonel James Douglas, the latter's brother, of which Claverhouse seemsto have expressed his disapproval rather too warmly. His name hadaccordingly been removed from the list of Privy Councillors soon afterJames's accession, and himself deprived of all his civil powers. Hispunishment did not indeed last long, nor was it allowed to affect hismilitary rights. An order for his restoration to the Council had beensigned on the very day of Hislop's death (though he did not take hisseat again till July), but his civil powers had not been renewed. Westerhall was one of those who had in the previous year been empoweredby royal commission to try prisoners, and his commission was stillrunning when Claverhouse was disgraced. But on April 20th GeneralDrummond was appointed to the supreme authority in all the southern andwestern shires, and his appointment was expressly declared to cancel allother civil commissions previously granted. Unless, therefore, someparticular reservation had been made in Westerhall's favour, of whichthere is no existing record, he had no more jurisdiction thanClaverhouse, and both were equally guilty of breaking the law. It was, indeed, still open to Claverhouse to act as he had acted with JohnBrown--to put the abjuration oath, and, on its being refused, to orderthe recusant to instant execution. There is no mention by any of theCovenanting writers that this oath was offered to Hislop. But unless itwas, it is difficult to see how either Westerhall or Claverhouse couldhave been empowered to kill him. Nor is it likely that the latter, knowing well how many sharp eyes were on the look-out in Edinburgh tocatch him tripping, would have ventured on so flagrant a breach of thelaw. It must also be remembered that neither Wodrow nor Walker, nor anywriter on that side, has charged Claverhouse with exceeding the law. They cry out against the cruelty of the deed, but on its unlawfulnessthey are silent. We must suppose, therefore, that Hislop's case was thecase of John Brown: he had refused the oath, and was therefore liable todeath. But we cannot suppose that if Claverhouse had stood firm he couldnot have saved the lad's life. It is absurd to believe that at the headof his own soldiers, with another captain of the same way of thinking byhim, such a man as Claverhouse was not strong enough to carry his ownwill against one who had not even the powers of an ordinary justice ofthe peace. We must, therefore, conclude that he was unwilling at thattime to run the risk of further disgrace by any charge of unreasonableleniency to rebels. Like Pilate, he was willing to let the prisoner go;but, like Pilate again, he preferred his own convenience, and theprisoner was put to death. 

On Defoe's list of victims murdered, as he calls it, by Claverhouse'sown hand is the name of Graham of Galloway. The young man, he says, being pursued by the dragoons, had taken refuge in his mother's house;but being driven out thence was overtaken by Claverhouse and shot deadwith a pistol, though he offered to surrender and begged hard for hislife. Shield so words his version of the story as to make it doubtfulwhether the shot was fired by Claverhouse himself. In the "Cloud ofWitnesses" it is not even made certain that Claverhouse was present. Atthe close of the year in which this alleged murder was committed SirJohn Dalrymple brought his action against Claverhouse. It is not likelythat so shrewd a lawyer would have overlooked such a chance as this, acase of murder committed in his own country; for murder it wouldcertainly have been, were Defoe's story true. In 1682 militaryexecutions had not been sanctioned by law; and for a soldier to shoot aman offering to surrender would have been as clear a case of murder aswas the butchery on Magus Moor. Yet throughout Dalrymple's indictment isno hint of any such offence. Claverhouse is accused of oppression byexcessive fines and illegal quartering of troops, of malversation, andso forth; but of taking man's life unlawfully there is no single word. 

Another of Defoe's victims is Matthew Mekellwrath. Claverhouse, he says, riding through Camonel in Carrick, saw a man run across the street infront of the soldiers, as though to get out of their way, and instantlyordered him to be shot, without any examination. In the "Cloud ofWitnesses" an epitaph is quoted to show that the man was shot forrefusing the abjuration oath. 

Next we find four men dragged out of a house at Auchencloy, on Dee-side, where they had met for prayer, and shot before the door, without anyexamination. Defoe gives the names of the four as John Grier, RobertFergusson, Archibald Stuart, and Robert Stuart. Shields substitutes forArchibald Stuart the name of James Macmichael. In "The Cloud ofWitnesses" only Grier, Robert Stuart, and Fergusson are named. InWodrow's pages the four men become eight: of these four, as given byShields (Macmichael, however, being spelt Macmichan), were shot at once:two more, Smith and Hunter, were carried to Kirkcudbright and hangedafter a form of trial: two, unnamed, got safe away. "It may be, " addsWodrow, "the rescue of some prisoners at Kirkcudbright by some of thewanderers, a little before this, was the pretext for all this cruelty. "

It may indeed have been so, and something more than a rescue ofprisoners may have helped. The affair on Dee-side took place December18th, 1684. On the 11th of the same month (just after Renwick'sproclamation of war) a party of men, headed by James Macmichael, murdered Peter Peirson, minister of Carsphairn, at his own door. Wodrowcannot shirk this fact: he finds it detestable, and generally denouncedand disowned by the more respectable of the Covenanters; but he alsomanages to find as many excuses for it as he conveniently can in theprovocation given by the victim. Peirson, he says, was "a surly, ill-natured man, and horridly severe. " He was of great service to Laggin ferreting out rebels, used to sit in court with him to advise him ofthe prisoners' characters, and generally make himself obnoxious to theCovenanters. He was also accused of leaning to popery, and is said onone occasion to have openly defended the doctrine of purgatory; onanother he maintained Papists to be much better subjects thanPresbyterians--as, indeed, from the Government's point of view theycertainly were. How far Peirson deserved this character we cannot surelytell. The fact of his being hated by the Covenanters is not necessarilyto his discredit; but we may assume that he was not conciliatory in hisspeech, that he meddled more in civil matters than became his cloth, and, in short, was probably made much after the same pattern as some ofthe chosen vessels of the Covenanting tabernacle. He lived alone in hismanse, without even a servant, but took care always to have his firearmshandy. The accounts of the murder vary a little in detail. One says thathe was killed in a scuffle arising out of his furious and unprovokedtreatment of a deputation which waited on him at midnight, to requesthim to come outside and speak with some friends who meant him no harm--arequest which in the circumstances he can hardly be blamed for havingreceived with some degree of suspicion. But the most authentic versionrepresents him as shot dead the instant he opened his door. Macmichaelfired the shot, and the man who called Peirson out was Robert Mitchell, nephew to James Mitchell, who was hanged five years previously for anattempt on Sharp's life. [63]

A week later, on December 18th, a party of Covenanters more than onehundred strong burst into Kirkcudbright ("the most irregular place inthe kingdom, " Claverhouse used to call it), killed the sentry whochallenged them, broke open the gaol, set all the prisoners free, andthen marched victoriously off, beating the town drum, with such of theirrescues as would go with them, and all the arms they could lay hands on. 

It is clear, then, from a comparison of the dates and names, that themen killed at Auchencloy were no innocent folk met together for prayer, but certainly included Peirson's murderer, and probably some of thoseconcerned in the rescue at Kirkcudbright, as the place where they weresurprised was but a few miles from that town. Moreover, it appears fromanother account that, so far from these men having been shotunresistingly, they were part of a larger force which had only beendispersed after a sharp skirmish. [64]

One more instance, and this part of my business will be done. Defoenames Robert Auchinleck as shot by Claverhouse without examination fornot answering his challenge, the man, as was subsequently discovered, being too deaf to hear what was said to him. There is no mentionelsewhere of Robert Auchinleck; but Shields includes in his list a mancalled Auchinleck, of Christian name unknown, who was killed in similarcircumstances; and Wodrow gives a different version of the death of oneWilliam Auchinleck, both assigning the act to one Captain Douglas, whowas marching from Kirkcudbright with a company of foot. [65]

These instances have been chosen as the most notorious and the mostcircumstantially recorded of the indictments made against Claverhouse. Of the traditions that gathered in the following century about his nameI have taken no notice, nor of the vague charges brought by writers ofstill later date on no better authority than those traditions. [66] Itwas inevitable that as time wore on these floating legends would begathered to one common head, and that the most important figure would beselected to bear the sins of all. It is of course possible that many andmore damning instances might be added to the foregoing list, of whichthe record has now perished. But the most that can be done is to takewhat the counsel for the prosecution have brought forward, and toexamine it as strictly as can now be possible. 

It must always be difficult to reconsider with absolute impartiality anyverdict that has been generally accepted for close upon two hundredyears. On the one hand, there is a not unnatural disinclination for thetrouble necessary to re-open a case already heard and judged: on theother, is a most natural inclination to take every fresh factdiscovered, or every old blunder detected, as of paramount importance. The explorer in strange lands is too apt to take every mole-hill for amountain. And when the verdict is one that has been endorsed byMacaulay, he must be a bold man indeed who thinks to upset it. Nevertheless, something has, I hope, been done to bear out my beliefthat Claverhouse has been too harshly judged. No attempt has been madeto gloss over or conceal any crime that can be brought fairly home tohim. The case of Andrew Hislop (a far blacker case than the morenotorious one of John Brown) has been left as it stands, so far as theimperfect evidence enables us now to judge it. If that one case be heldenough to substantiate the general verdict, if nothing can be setagainst it, there is no more to be said--save that, if this be justice, many a better man than Claverhouse must go to the wall. 

One thing, at least, should be clear. He was no capricious andunlicensed oppressor of a God-fearing and inoffensive peasantry, but asoldier waging war against a turbulent population carrying arms andwilling to use them. I have nowhere tried to soften the bitter tale offolly, misrule, and cruelty which drove those unhappy men intorebellion, nor to heighten by a single touch their responsibility fortheir own misfortunes. I have not tried to find excuses for the menwhose orders Claverhouse obeyed, nor arguments to show that in thecircumstances such orders were inevitable. But I have tried to show thatin no single instance, of which the record is complete, did he gobeyond the letter of his commission, and that in more than one instancehe construed its spirit with a mildness for which he has never yet beengiven credit. 

But nothing will avail to save him in the eyes of those who maintainthat the law of human morality is fixed and immutable, and that men ofevery age and every country can only be judged, and must be judged, bythe eternal laws of right and wrong. They, of course, will not allow theexcuse that he was a soldier obeying the orders of his superiorofficers, even should they be disposed to admit that he did no more thanthat. The orders, they will say, were cruel and unjust: he should haverefused to obey them. But is this unswerving standard possible as agauge of human actions? Who then shall be safe? There are offenceswhich, in Coleridge's happy phrase, are offences against the goodmanners of human nature itself. The man who committed such offences inthe reign of Chedorlaomer was no doubt as guilty as the man who shouldcommit them in the reign of Victoria. But are the offences which can befairly laid to Claverhouse's account of such a kind? His most able andhis bitterest accuser pronounces him to have been "rapacious andprofane, of violent temper and obdurate heart. " Yet every attempt of hisenemies to convict him of extortion or malversation broke signally down. The decorum of his life and conversation was allowed even by theCovenanters; and it is recorded as a notable thing that, howeverdisturbed or thwarted, he was never known to use profane language. Theimperturbable calm of his temper is said by one of their own party tohave at once exasperated and terrified those who were brought beforehim far more than the brutal fury of men like Dalziel and Lag. [67] Hisheart was indeed hard to those whom he regarded as plotters andmurderers, traitors to their King and enemies of the true religion. Hewas indeed in his own way as much a fanatic as the men whom he wasempowered to crush. His devotion to the Crown and to the Protestantfaith was a passion as deep and sincere as that which moved the simplepeasants of the West to find the gospel of Christ in the horriblecompound of blasphemy and treason which too often made up the eloquenceof the Conventicles. But his hardness, if not tempered with mercy, wasat least guided by more justice than was common among his colleagues. Heboth advocated and practised the policy of distinguishing between themultitude and their ringleaders. The just punishment of one of thelatter might save, he said, many of the former;[68] and his entreaty forthe prisoners whom he found under sentence of death at Dundee provesthat his actions were dictated by no vulgar thirst for blood. Whenjudged by the general manners of the age, the circumstances of the timeand his position, I do not believe him to have been cruel by nature orcareless of human life. The standard of military morals in vogue twohundred years ago cannot be weighed by that in vogue to-day. Thehumanity of one generation is not the humanity of the next. Wellingtonwas certainly not a cruel man, and he certainly was a most strictdisciplinarian. Yet it is well known that many things were done duringthe Peninsular campaign which no general now would dare to passunpunished, which no soldier now would even dare to do; and it is quitepossible that eighty years hence our descendants will read with horrorof the deeds done by their grandsires among the rocky passes ofAfghanistan or on the burning sands of Egypt. I do not claim forClaverhouse that he was gentle, merciful, or humane beyond his time, though I believe him to have had as large a share of those qualities asany of his contemporaries would have displayed in similar circumstances. But I do claim for him that his faults were the faults not of the manbut of his age; and I maintain that his age cannot in such matters betried by the standard of this. 

FOOTNOTES:

[49] I have been much indebted in this chapter to an anonymous pamphletentitled "A Note to the Pictorial History of Scotland, on Claverhouse, "apparently printed at Maidstone; but when, or on whose authority, I havebeen unable to discover. It was sent to me by an equally namelessbenefactor. 

[50] Napier, iii. Appendix 3, and his "Case for the Crown": Blackwood'sMagazine, December 1863. On the other side see Barton, vii. 255:Macmillan's Magazine, December 1862; and a pamphlet by the Rev. Archibald Stewart, "History Vindicated in the case of the WigtownMartyrs, " 2nd ed. 1869. 

[51] According to "The Cloud of Witnesses, " first published in 1714, theepitaph ran as follows:

 "Murdered for owning Christ supreme Head of his Church, and no more crime But her not owning Prelacy, And not abjuring Presbytery. Within the sea, tied to a stake, She suffered for Christ Jesus' sake. "

The stone on which these lines were inscribed covered, according to thesame authority, "the body of Margaret Wilson, who was drowned in thewater of the Blednock upon the 11th of May, 1684 [5], by the Laird ofLagg. "

[52] In Colonel Fergusson's most entertaining chapter of family history, "The Laird of Lagg, " he mentions an old lady, still alive in 1834, whoremembered her grandfather's account of the execution, which he declaredhe had himself witnessed: "There were cluds o' folk on the sands thatday in clusters here and there, praying for the women as they were putdown. "

[53] Charles Kingsley, for example, wrote in "Alton Locke" of "theScottish Saint Margaret whom Claverhouse and his men bound to a stake. "

[54] Wodrow, iv. 244. 

[55] Claverhouse to Queensberry, May 3rd, 1685. Napier, i. 141; and iii. 457. 

[56] "John Inglis, captain of a troop of dragoons, lying in garrison atNewmills, in the West, a house belonging to the Earl of Loudon, havingtaken some of these fanatics prisoners, and though he had power toexecute them, yet keeping them alive, some of their desperate comradesbreaks in upon the garrison and rescues them, to their great shame; forwhich Inglis was degraded, and his place was given to Mr. GeorgeWinrahame, a bigot Papist. " Fountainhall, quoted by Napier, iii. 457. This Winrahame may be the Winram who had to do with the Wigtown Martyrs. According to "The Cloud of Witnesses, "

 "The actors of this cruel crime Was Lagg, Strachan, Winram, and Grahame. "

A letter more or less in a name was of no account in the cacography ofthose times. 

[57] "The new reign was not to remain long undisturbed; before the endof April there was the apprehension of a great civil war, and in May thenews came that it had begun both in England and Scotland. " These areBurton's words (vii. 258), and no one can accuse Burton of unduepartiality to James or his government. See also Aytoun's Appendix to his"Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, " which, however, was written before thepublication of Napier's book had proved Claverhouse's responsibility forthe death of John Brown. 

[58] Wodrow, iv. 148-9. He prints the declaration in full from a copy inRenwick's own handwriting. The following extracts will give some idea ofit: "We have disowned the authority of Charles Stuart (not authority asGod's institution, either among Christians or heathens) and allauthority depending upon him, for reasons given elsewhere (disclaimingall such things as infer a magistratical relation betwixt him and us);and also we have declared war against him, and his accomplices such aslay out themselves to promote his wicked and hellish designs. . . . We dohereby declare unto all that whosoever stretcheth forth their handsagainst us . . . By shedding our blood actually, either by authoritativecommanding, such as bloody counsellors . . . Especially that so-calledjusticiary, generals of forces, adjutants, captains, lieutenants, andall in civil and military power, who make it their work to embrue theirhands in our blood, or by obeying such commands, such as bloody militiamen, malicious troopers, soldiers, and dragoons; likewise such gentlemenand commons who, through wickedness and ill-will, ride and run with theforesaid persons . . . We say all and every one of such shall be reputedby us enemies to God and the covenanted work of reformation, andpunished as such, according to our power and the degree of theiroffence. . . . Let not any think that (our God assisting us) we will be soslack-handed in time coming to put matters in execution as heretofore wehave been, seeing we are bound faithfully and valiantly to maintain ourcovenants and the cause of Christ. "

[59] For example, in the earliest edition of the pamphlet containing hisversion of this affair ("The Life of Peden") an "old singular Christianwoman named Elizabeth Menzies" is mentioned as the first neighbour whocame to condole with Mrs. Brown. In later editions Elizabeth Menziesbecomes Jean Brown. The wife also is sometimes Isabel and sometimesMarion. Walker's "Biographia Presbyteriana" is a collection of tractspublished by him at different times, of which this "Life of Peden" isthe earliest and the best. 

[60] "A Short Memorial of the Sufferings of the Presbyterians. "

[61] This Buiening is called Bruning in "The Cloud of Witnesses, " andmay be the Brownen of Claverhouse's letter, that is to say, the nephewof John Brown. 

[62] "It seems somebody had maliciously told this Graham they were ofthe Whigs who used the field meetings, upon which, without any trial orother sentence than his own command, his soldiers fetched them all toMauchline, a village where his headquarters were, and hanged themimmediately, not suffering them to enter into any house at their coming, nor at the entreaty of the poor men would suffer one to lend them aBible, who it seems offered it, nor allow them a moment to pray to God. "Defoe's "Memoirs of the Church of Scotland" were first published in1717, a few years before Wodrow's History. Elsewhere in the same work hestates that Claverhouse had "among the rest of his cruelties barbarouslymurdered several of the persecuted people with his own hands, " also that"this man is said to have killed above a hundred men in this kind ofcold blood cruelty. " But Defoe's qualifications for a historian of thosetimes are, to say the least, uncertain. He mentions Cameron and Cargillas alive and busy in 1684, four years after one had died fighting atAird's Moss, and the other on the scaffold at Edinburgh. 

[63] Wodrow, iv. 197; Napier, i. 89. I have called this the mostauthentic version because it professes to have come from the murderersthemselves. It is to be found in a letter to Wodrow (printed by Napier)now in the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh. The date is 1715, and thewriter, who only signs his initials, J. C. , calls Wodrow "cousin. " "Igive you the account, " he writes, "from the best information it'spossible to be got, viz. , from Robert Dun, in Woodheade of Carsphairn, and John Clark, then in that parish, now in Glenmont, in the parish ofStrathone, anent the curate's death of Carsphairn, which they had fromthe actors' own mouths. " Wodrow adds a little touch of his own--"Mr. Peirson with fury came out upon them with arms"--and is silent on thefact of Mitchell's presence. 

[64] Fountainhall's "Historical Notices, " and a letter to Queensberryfrom Sir Robert Dalzell and others, quoted by Napier, ii. 427-8. 

[65] Wodrow, iv. 184. 

[66] For example, the story told of Claverhouse sparing a man's life forthe sport his capture had afforded, but ordering his ears to be shornoff. This may be found in a book called "Gleanings among the Mountains, or Traditions of the Covenanters, " published at Edinburgh, in 1846, bythe Rev. Robert Simpson, of Sanquhar. The same gentleman is responsiblefor an earlier volume, "The Times of Claverhouse, " in which theCovenanters are described as a class of "quiet and orderly men, "maintaining the standard of their gospel in "the most peaceful andinoffensive way. " In neither volume is any authority offered for thesestories: even the evidence of time and place is rarely vouchsafed. 

[67] Walker's "Biographia Presbyteriana:" Lochiel's Memoirs. 

[68] See _ante_, p. 92: also Napier, ii. 360, for a letter to the LordChancellor, June 9th, 1683. "I am as sorry to see a man die, even aWhig, as any of themselves. But when one dies justly, for his ownfaults, and may save a hundred to fall in the like, I have no scruple. "

CHAPTER VIII. 

Both in Scotland and England events were now moving fast to theirinevitable conclusion, but of Claverhouse's part in public affairs thereis for the next three years little record. Only two of his letters havesurvived between May, 1685, and October, 1688, when the disastrous marchinto England began. From one of these it is clear that his restorationto favour at Whitehall had not improved his position at Edinburgh. Gratitude was not then a common virtue among public men. Claverhouse haddone for his colleagues all that he had promised. The recollection oftheir debt to him, and the unlikelihood of their being able to increaseit, did not serve to endear to them this successful soldier of fortune, who had indeed helped them to their ambition, but who had thereby showna dangerous capacity for helping himself. At the head of thesemalcontents was, of course, Queensberry, though, as the King had shownhimself determined not to lose the services of his brilliant captain, itwas necessary for the Treasurer to give his jealousy a guarded form. Hecomplained to Dumbarton (then commanding the forces in Scotland) thatClaverhouse had misused some of his tenants, though in what manner isnot clear. There is a letter from Claverhouse expressing in respectfulterms his regret at Queensberry's annoyance, which he declares to havebeen founded on misapprehension of the facts. 

 "I am convinced (he writes) your Grace is ill-informed; for, after you have read what I wrote to you two days ago on that subject, I daresay I may refer myself to your own censure. That I had no desire to make great search there, anybody may judge. I came not from Ayr till after eleven in the forenoon, and went to Balagen with forty heritors again night. The Sanquhar is just in the road; and I used these men I met accidentally on the road better than ever I used any in these circumstances. And I may safely say that, as I shall answer to God, if they had been living on my ground I could not have forborne drawing my sword and knocking them down. However, I am glad I have received my Lord Dumbarton's orders anent your Grace's tenants, which I shall most punctually obey; though, I may say, they were safe as any in Scotland before. "[69]

The previous letter here referred to has been lost; but it is probablethat the complaint originated in Claverhouse's summons to theseheritors, or small proprietors, to take arms in the King's service, asthey were bound to do. Men will mostly follow their master's lead. TheTreasurer's tenants knew well, we may be sure, how little love theirmaster bore for the imperious soldier, and were no doubt somewhat saucyin their remonstrances; and sauciness Claverhouse would not brook fromany man alive, whatever his quality. 

But Queensberry and his crew had to nurse their grudge in secret. Muchas the knowledge may have chafed them, they knew well that Claverhousewas the one man on whom they could depend for wise counsel and promptaction in emergency. A few weeks before this matter of the tenants hehad received an urgent despatch from Edinburgh, signed by "hisaffectionate friends and servants" of the Council, authorising him totake what steps he thought best for disposing the troops. Argyle was onthe sea, and the Campbells were mustering fast to their chief's call. Measures had already been taken in the northern shires. Athole had beenappointed Lord-Lieutenant of Argyleshire, and held Inverary with a largeforce of his Highlanders. The Gordons, under their new-made Duke, wereguarding the sea-board of Invernessshire. Glasgow was occupied by astrong body of militia. Ships of war watched the Firth of Clyde. To keepthe Western Lowlands and the Border quiet was Claverhouse's charge. Itis unnecessary to remind my readers what followed. Within little morethan a month from his landing in Scotland Argyle stood upon the scaffoldin Edinburgh; and a fortnight later Monmouth closed his short unhappylife on Tower Hill. 

In this same despatch Claverhouse was told that the King had raised himto be a brigadier of both horse and foot, that James Douglas hadreceived the same promotion, and that the latter's commission borepriority of date. He wisely took no notice of this slight, --for, comparing the weight of his services to the Government with the servicesof Douglas, a slight it undoubtedly was, and was meant to be. He knewthat it did not come from the King, and he was much too prudent and tooproud to let the others see that he was annoyed by a stupid insult hewas powerless to resent. But there exists a letter from SecretaryMurray to Queensberry which makes the business very clear. It is worthquoting as significant of the petty intrigues in which men of rank andposition were not then ashamed to indulge. 

 "The King ordered two commissions to be drawn, for your brother and Claverhouse to be brigadiers. We were ordered to see how such commissions had been [drawn?] here, and in Earl Middleton's office we found the extract of one granted to Lord Churchill, another to Colonel Worden, the one for horse, the other for foot. So Lord Melfort told me the King had ordered him to draw one for your brother for the foot and Claverhouse for the horse. I told him that could not be; for by that means Claverhouse would command your brother. To be short, we were very hot on the matter. He said he knew no reason why Colonel Douglas should have the precedency, unless that he was your brother. I told him that was enough, but that there was a greater, and that was, that he was an officer of more experience and conduct, and that was the King's design of appointing brigadiers at this time. He said Claverhouse had served the King longer in Scotland. I told him that was yet wider from the purpose, for there were in the army that had served many years longer than Claverhouse, and of higher quality, and without disparagement to any, gallant in their personal courage. By this time I flung from him, and went straight to the King and represented the case. He followed, and came to us. But the King changed his mind and ordered him to draw the commissions both for horse and foot, and your brother's two days' date before the other; by which his command is clear before the other. I saw the commissions signed this afternoon, and they are sent herewith by Lord Charles Murray. Now, I beseech Your Grace, say nothing of this to any; nay, not now to your brother. For Lord Melfort said to Sir Andrew Forrester, that he was sure there would be a new storm on him. I could not, nor is [it] fit this should have been kept from you; but you will find it best for a while to know or take little notice, for it gives him but ground of talking, and serves no other end. "[70]

But these jealous fellows were not to have it all their own way. In theautumn of the same year Claverhouse was summoned to London withBalcarres to be heard on a complaint he had in his turn to make againstQueensberry. Early in the spring he had been peremptorily ordered todischarge a bond he had given to the Treasury for fines due fromdelinquents in Galloway. He answered that his brother (thenDeputy-Sheriff of that shire) was collecting the fines, and requestedmore time for payment. On being told that he might take five or sixdays, he replied that, considering the difficulty of collection and thedistances to be travelled, they might as well give him none. "Then, "answered Queensberry, "you shall have none. "[71] Claverhouse had manytimes applied for leave to be heard in his own defence; but Murray hadhitherto persuaded the King to answer that no audience could be grantedto him until he had made his peace with the Treasurer and been restoredto his seat at the Council. But the name of Queensberry was not now thepower it had been at Whitehall. It is difficult to believe that he wasmuch more concerned with religion than Lauderdale; but he was, at anyrate by profession, a staunch Protestant, and there were those amonghis colleagues ready to take every advantage of this passport to James'sdisfavour. It was determined to hear what Claverhouse had to say forhimself. He was summoned to London, graciously received by the King, andpleaded his cause so effectually that the Treasurer was ordered torefund the money. 

Claverhouse and Balcarres returned to Edinburgh on December 24th. Withthem came the Chancellor Perth and his brother, John Drummond, the newLord Melfort. The brothers were in James's best books, for they hadrecently professed themselves converted to the Roman Catholic faith bythe convincing logic of the papers found in Charles's strong-box andmade public by the King. [72] But they were not so popular in Edinburgh. The new year opened with something very like a No Popery riot. LadyPerth was insulted on her way home from mass by a baker's boy. The PrivyCouncil ordered the lad to be whipped through the Canongate, but the'prentices rose to the rescue of their comrade. The guard was calledout: there was firing, and some citizens fell. There was disaffection, too, among the troops: one soldier was arrested for refusing to fire ona Protestant: another was shot for threatening to run his sword througha Papist. In the Council Perth moved that one Canaires, minister atSelkirk, should be arraigned for preaching against the Pope; but hefound no man on his side except Claverhouse, who, though Protestant tothe backbone, had no mind to see his King insulted under the cloak ofreligion. James's famous scheme of Universal Toleration was soon foundto be what every sensible man had foreseen--a scheme of toleration forhis own religion and of persecution for all others. 

But the history of the next three years, with its wretched tale ofviolence and folly, of oppressions that broke the hearts of the loyal, and concessions that only moved the scorn of the mutinous, may be readelsewhere. The last appearance of Claverhouse on the scene is at theCouncil in February, 1686, where he supports Perth in his motion tobring the indiscreet minister to book, till he appears again in hisproper character as a soldier commanding the cavalry of the Scottishcontingent on its march south to join the army of England. We know, however, that in that same year, 1686, he was promoted to beMajor-General, and in March, 1688, was made Provost of Dundee. We mustnow pass to the memorable autumn of the latter year. 

In September, 1688, a despatch in James's own hand was sent down to theCouncil at Edinburgh announcing the imminent invasion of England by thePrince of Orange. Perth, still Chancellor and a Papist, was told to donothing without consulting Balcarres and Tarbat. Their advice wasunquestionably the best that could have been given for James and theworst for England; for, had it been followed, instead of the shortHighland campaign of the following year, that began at Killiecrankie andended at Dunkeld, there would in all probability have been civil warthroughout the kingdom. They advised that the regular troops underDouglas and Claverhouse, now between three and four thousand strong, should be augmented by a force of twelve thousand raised from theHighland clans and the militia, and that these troops should bedistributed along the Border and through the northern shires of England. Preparations were at once begun to this effect. The chiefs of the greatclans were ordered to hold their claymores ready: the castles ofEdinburgh and Stirling were munitioned for war: the militia was calledout in every county, and volunteers enrolled in every town. In the midstof the bustle arrived a second despatch from James, ordering the regulartroops to march at once for England to join the army under Feversham. This foolish order was Melfort's doing, urged by his secretary, Stewartof Goodtrees, who, after having been concerned in all the most notoriousplots of the last twenty years, and actually condemned to death for hisshare in Argyle's rebellion, had now blossomed into an Under-Secretaryof State. Remonstrance was useless. "The order, " wrote Balcarres, "waspositive and short--advised by Mr. James Stewart at a supper, and wroteupon the back of a plate, and an express immediately despatchedtherewith. "

And so "with a sorrowful heart, " he goes on to remind the exiled King, "they began their march--three thousand effective young men--vigorous, well-disciplined and clothed, and, to a man, hearty in your cause, andwilling, out of principle as well as duty, to hazard their lives for thesupport of the Government as then established both in Church andState. "[73] The loyalty of some of these fine fellows was, however, destined soon to suffer a change in the disturbing atmosphere ofEngland. 

The full strength of the Scottish contingent was three thousand sevenhundred and sixty-three men. Douglas was in command, with Claverhouseunder him at the head of the cavalry, which mustered eight hundred andforty-one sabres, including his own regiment, Livingstone's troop ofLife Guards, and Dunmore's dragoons, a regiment which, as the ScotsGreys, has since earned a reputation second to none in the British Army. The infantry was made up of Douglas's own regiment of Foot Guards, nowthe Scots Guards: Buchan's regiment, now the Twenty-first of the Line, or, to give them their latest title, the Royal Scots Fusiliers; andWauchope's regiment:--two thousand nine hundred and twenty-two men inall. [74] They left Scotland in the beginning of October, the footmarching by way of Chester, the horse by way of York, on London. Earlyin November they reached the capital, where they lay for a few days:Claverhouse, with his own regiment and the Horse Guards, being quarteredin Westminster, the dragoons in Southwark, and Douglas, with his FootGuards, in Holborn. On the tenth of the month they marched forSalisbury, where the King's army was now gathered. During the marchClaverhouse received the last and most signal proof of favour James wasto give him. On November 12th he had been created Viscount of Dundee. 

In the royal camp all was confusion and doubt. William was at Axminster, and not a single enemy was in his rear. Many of the great English houseshad already joined him, and each hour brought news to Salisbury of freshdisaffection in every part of the kingdom. James was at first anxious tofight, but Feversham warned him that, though the men were steady, few ofhis officers could be depended on. Before leaving London the King hadcalled his chief captains together and offered passes to all who weredesirous to leave him for the Prince of Orange, "to spare them, " hesaid, "the shame of deserting their lawful sovereign. " All were profusein professions of loyalty, and among them were Churchill, Grafton, andthe butcher Kirke. Churchill, we know, continued these professions up tothe eleventh hour. On the evening of the 24th James held a council ofwar, in which Churchill's voice was loudest for battle. That night heleft Salisbury for Axminster, and Grafton went with him. Some of theScottish officers stood firm, but not all. Dumbarton offered to lead hisregiment alone against the enemy. Dundee urged James to do one of threethings: to fight the Prince, to demand from him in person his businessin England, or to retire into Scotland with his faithful troops. But theKing still hesitated, and while he hesitated the moment passed. Kirke, who commanded the advance guard at Warminster, flatly refused to obeythe orders sent him from Salisbury, and a rumour spread that he had goneover to William with all his men. The King broke up the camp and beganhis retreat to London; and before he had got farther on his way thanAndover, Ormonde and Prince George had joined the deserters, taking withthem young Drumlanrig. Douglas did not himself go over; but one of hisbattalions did, without any attempt on his part to stop them. He hadsounded Dundee on the expediency of making terms for themselves withWilliam; but as he had done so under an oath of secrecy, Dundee felthimself bound in honour to keep silence, and we may suppose made it apart of the bargain that Douglas should stay where he was. 

James left no orders behind him, and after his retreat the movements ofhis army are somewhat confused. Dundee marched his cavalry to Reading, where he was joined by Dumbarton. Thence they were ordered to Uxbridgeto consult with Feversham on the chances of a battle. But hardly hadthey got there when the latter received orders to disband the army, andheard at the same time of the King's flight from London. The Scottishtroops clamoured for Dundee to lead them back to their country. Hemarched them to Watford, and while there, it is said, received a letterfrom William, who had now advanced to Hungerford, bidding him stay wherehe was and none should harm him. [75] According to Balcarres, Dundee madeat once for London on the news of the King's flight, and was still thereon his return. But the fact is that few of these contemporary writersdescend to dates, and it is almost impossible therefore to track any oneman's movements through those troubled days. It is, however, certainthat a meeting of the Scottish Council was summoned in London byHamilton at some period between James's first flight and his return, andthat Dundee attended it. That Hamilton meditated declaring for Williamis certain, and that he would have taken all his colleagues with him, except Dundee and Balcarres, is probable; but the King's sudden returnto Whitehall postponed matters for a time. 

James reached London from Rochester on the afternoon of Sunday, December16th. William was then at Windsor, and James expressed a wish to meethim in London, offering St. James's Palace for his quarters. Williamsent an answer that he could not come to London while there were anytroops there not under his command. On the 17th a council was held atWindsor, with Halifax in the chair, to determine what should be donewith James. William himself would not be present. It was decided thatJames must, at any rate, leave London, and the decision was brought tohim that night as he lay asleep in bed. No resistance was possible, hadany been intended. The Dutch had occupied Chelsea and Kensington earlyin the afternoon; and when Halifax, Shrewsbury, and Delamere arrivedwith their message from Windsor, three battalions of foot, with sometroops of horse, were bivouacked in St. James's Park, and Dutchsentinels were posted at Whitehall. 

Early on the morning of the 17th Dundee and Balcarres had waited on theKing. None were with him but some gentlemen of his bedchamber. Balcarrestold him that he had orders from his colleagues to promise that, if theKing would give the word, an army of twenty thousand men should be readywithin four-and-twenty hours. "My lord, " replied James, "I know you tobe my friend, sincere and honourable: the men who sent you are not so, and I expect nothing from them. " It was a fine morning, and he said heshould like a walk. Balcarres and Dundee attended him into the Mall. When they had got there the King asked them, how came they still to bewith him when all the world had forsaken him for the Prince of Orange?Both answered that their fidelity to so good a master would be ever thesame, and that they had nothing to do with the Prince of Orange. "Willyou two, " then asked the King, "say you have still attachment to me?""Sir, " was the answer, "we do. " "Will you give me your hands upon it asmen of honour?" They did so. "Well, " said the King, "I see you are themen I always took you to be; you shall know all my intentions. I can nolonger remain here but as a cypher, or to be a prisoner to the Prince ofOrange, and you know there is but a small distance between the prisonsand the graves of kings. Therefore I go for France immediately; whenthere you shall have my instructions--you, Lord Balcarres, shall have acommission to manage my civil affairs, and you, Lord Dundee, to commandmy troops in Scotland. "

They then parted. On the next morning, the morning of the 18th, in darkand rainy weather, the royal barge was ready at Whitehall stairs, underan escort of boats filled with Dutch soldiers. Halifax, with hiscolleagues from Windsor, attended the King to the water-side. Dumbarton, Arran, and a few others followed him down the river, and stayed by himduring the few painful days he lingered at Rochester. At dawn of the23rd James left England for ever. 

Dundee stayed on in London. His regiment had been disbanded, and therest of the Scottish forces, after a spirited but futile attempt to takematters into their own hands, had settled quietly down under their newcolonels, some of the most doubtful ones being sent out of harm's way toHolland. Dunmore had thrown up his command, and his dragoons were now inthe charge of Sir Thomas Livingstone. Schomberg was placed, to theirintense disgust, at the head of Dumbarton's infantry, once James'sfavourite regiment. Some of his old troopers, however, still kept by thecaptain whom they had known as Claverhouse. 

Hamilton and his party pressed William to exempt from the generalamnesty certain members of the Scottish Council whom they named asparticular and unscrupulous instruments of James's tyranny, and unsafeto be let go at large. But the Prince with his usual good sense refusedto drive any man into opposition: the past even of the most guiltyshould, he said, be forgotten till he was forced to remember it. AgainstDundee and Balcarres he had been especially warned. He remembered bothwell: Balcarres had married a lady of his family, and Dundee had foughtby his side. He asked them both to enter his service. They refused, andBalcarres, plainly avowing the commission entrusted to him by James, asked if, in such circumstances, he could honourably take service withanother. "I cannot say that you can, " was the answer, "but take carethat you fall not within the law, for otherwise I shall be forcedagainst my will to let the law overtake you. " Dundee was told that if hewould live quietly at home, no allegiance should be exacted from him andno harm done to him. He answered that he would live quietly, if he werenot forced to live otherwise. Early in February the two friends leftLondon for Edinburgh. [76]

FOOTNOTES:

[69] Claverhouse to Queensberry, June 16th, 1685. 

[70] Napier, iii. 464: this Murray was Alexander Stuart, Earl of Murray, descendant and heir of the famous Regent. He declared himself a convertto the Church of Rome at the same time as Perth and Melfort. 

[71] Napier, iii. 435: quoted from Fountainhall. 

[72] Burnet, ii. 341. 

[73] The memoirs of Colin Lindsay, third Earl of Balcarres, werepresented to James at Saint Germains in 1690. The edition I have used isthat printed for the Bannatyne Club in 1841 by the late Lord Crawford, from a transcript made by James, the son of the writer, andgreat-grandfather of Lord Crawford. The editions previously printed in1715 and 1754, and in Walter Scott's edition of Somers's Tractspublished in 1814, contain many passages not to be found in the firsttranscript, and declared, by its latest editor, to reflect the opinionsand sentiments of the copyist rather than those of the original author. 

[74] Cannon's "Historical Records of the British Army:" Napier, iii. 475-76. Claverhouse's own regiment was disbanded early in the followingyear. The first colonel of the Greys, then officially known as "TheRoyal Regiment of Scots Dragoons, " was Dalziel, Lord Charles Murray(afterwards created Earl of Dunmore) serving as captain under him. Dalziel died in 1685, and was succeeded in the command by Dunmore. Napier gives the muster-roll of Claverhouse's regiment for May, 1685. Itconsisted of six troops, of which the colonel, as the custom then was, commanded the first in person, the other captains being LordsDrumlanrig, Ross, Airlie, Balcarres, and William Douglas; hardly themen, perhaps, to sanction the pranks of Macaulay's Apollyons andBeelzebubs. Napier also quotes an amusing passage in a letter fromAthole to Queensberry, which, as he says, may recall memories of acertain historic injunction of later times, "to take care of Dowb. "Athole had been superseded in his command of the Life Guards byMontrose, and when the latter fell sick, made interest with Queensberryto be reinstated. "As you will oblige me, " the passage runs, "prayremember Geordie Murray [who held a commission in the regiment], but notin wrath. "

[75] Creichton. 

[76] It is not clear that Dundee had an audience of William. Macaulaysays in one place that he was not ungraciously received at SaintJames's, and in another that he employed the mediations of Burnet. Bothstatements are of course compatible with each other. The latter rests onBurnet's own authority; but for the former I can find none in any of thewriters from whom Macaulay has taken his narrative of these days. Dalrymple's words are, "Dundee refused without ceremony, " which may meananything. It is, I think, not improbable that William employed Burnet tosound Dundee, and that the good bishop, among whose qualities tact wasnot pre-eminent, managing the matter clumsily, met with an unceremoniousrefusal for his pains. The point, however, is of no importance. It isclear enough that William, would have been glad to see both men in hisservice, and that they both declined to enter it. As Macaulay has calledDundee's conduct disingenuous, apparently on Burnet's authority, it maybe well to give the bishop's own words. "He [Dundee] had employed me tocarry messages from him to the King, to know what security he mightexpect if he should go and live in Scotland without owning hisgovernment. The King said, if he would live peaceably, and at home, hewould protect him: to this he answered, that, unless he was forced toit, he would live quietly. " "History of My Own Time, " iii. 29. Macaulay's paraphrase is as follows. "Dundee seems to have been lessingenuous. He employed the mediation of Burnet, opened a negotiationwith Saint James's, declared himself willing to acquiesce in the neworder of things, obtained from William a promise of protection, andpromised in return to live peaceably. Such credit was given to hisprofessions, that he was suffered to travel down to Scotland under theescort of a troop of cavalry. " "History of England, " iv. 281. I do notthink the text quite bears out the commentary; and indeed elsewhere inthe chapter Macaulay seems inclined to allow more credit to theseprofessions. The "escort" under which Dundee was "suffered to travel"consisted of his own troopers, who had followed him from Watford toLondon, and stayed with him to the end. 

CHAPTER IX. 

All eyes were now turned to Scotland. England had practically acceptedWilliam, and although the terms of acceptance were still in somequarters kept open to question, there was no longer fear that the finalanswer would have to be given by the sword. In Scotland the case wasdifferent. Many of the great nobles and other dignitaries had indeedprofessed themselves in favour of William, but political morality, acustom nowhere in those days very rigidly observed, may be said to havebeen honoured by Scottish statesmen almost wholly in the breach. No mantrusted his neighbour, and his neighbour was perfectly aware of thefact. It was impossible to say what an hour might not bring forth; andin this flux of things no man could guarantee that the Whigs of to-daywould not be the Jacobites of to-morrow. Hamilton was the recognisedleader of the Whigs, Athole of the Jacobites. Both were great andpowerful noblemen. The influence of Hamilton was supreme in the WesternLowlands: only Mac Callum More could muster to his standard a largergathering than the lord of Blair, and the glory of Mac Callum More wasnow in eclipse. Yet Hamilton had been one of James' Privy Councillors, and had not declared for William till the Dutch guards were atWhitehall. His son Arran and his brother Dumbarton were both on theother side: Arran had accompanied James to Rochester, and Dumbarton hadrefused to hold his commission under the Prince of Orange. Athole hadmore than once coquetted with the Whigs, and his present Jacobitism wasshrewdly suspected to be due to the coolness with which his advances hadbeen received: his son Lord Murray, who had married a daughter ofHamilton, had declared for William. These great noblemen had indeed thesatisfaction of feeling that, however the die might fall, their titlesand estates were at least secured. But the wisdom of their familyarrangements did not increase their reputation with their parties. TheDuke of Gordon held the castle of Edinburgh for James; and, though theDuke was a weak creature, his position was strong. The bulk of thecommon people were undoubtedly Whigs: the bishops, and the clergygenerally, were, if not exactly Jacobites, undoubtedly Tories. 

There were religious troubles of course to swell the political ones. When the news of James's flight reached Edinburgh, Perth had beenimprudently induced to disband the militia, and the Covenanters had beenquick to take advantage of the imprudence. The Episcopal clergymen wererabbled throughout all the western shires. Their houses were sacked, andthemselves and their families insulted and sometimes beaten: thechurches were locked, and the keys carried off in triumph by the piouszealots. In Glasgow the Cathedral was attacked, and the congregationpelted through the streets. In Edinburgh Holyrood Palace was carried bystorm: the Catholic chapel, which James had built and adorned with greatsplendour, was gutted, and the printing-press, employed to publishtracts in favour of the Catholic religion, was broken up. Perth fled forhis life, but was overtaken at sea, carried back and lodged in StirlingCastle, followed by the threats and curses of the mob. Such was thetemper of the Scottish nation when the Convention of Estates, summonedby William, met at Edinburgh on March 14th, 1689. 

The Act depriving the Presbyterians of the franchise had been annulled, and the elections had gone strongly in favour of the Whigs. Hamilton hadbeen chosen President by a majority of forty votes over Athole, whereupon twenty ardent Jacobites went straightway over to the otherside. The next thing to be done was to get rid of Gordon. It wasimpossible, they said, for a free Parliament to deliberate under theshadow of hostile guns. Two of his friends, the Earls of Lothian andTweeddale, were accordingly sent to the Duke with a message from theConvention, offering him favourable terms of surrender. He asked a nightfor consideration; but during the night he was also visited by Dundeeand Balcarres. They showed him the commissions entrusted to them byJames, and told him that if things did not go better for their partythey had resolved to exercise their power of summoning a new Conventionto Stirling. At his request Dundee also gave him a paper guaranteeinghis action in holding the castle as most necessary to the cause. On thefollowing day, when the earls returned, Gordon told them he had decidednot to surrender his trust except upon terms too extravagant to beseriously considered. He was accordingly summoned in form by theheralds: guards were posted round the castle, and all communicationsbetween it and the town declared treasonable. The Duke replied by alargess of money to the heralds to drink King James's health, tellingthem that they should in common decency have turned the King's coatsthey wore on their backs before they came to declare the King's subjectstraitors. 

Meanwhile a messenger had arrived with a sealed despatch for the Estatesfrom James. It seemed strange both to Dundee and Balcarres that themessage had not been to them, or at least accompanied by a letterinforming them of its purport; but they had no suspicion of itscontents, and willingly agreed to the terms on which the Whigs consentedto hear it read. These terms were, that the Convention was a legal andfree meeting, and would accept no order to dissolve until it had securedthe liberty and religion of Scotland. The vote was passed, and theletter was read, to the consternation of the Jacobites and the delightof the Whigs. Of all the foolish acts committed by James the despatch ofthis letter was, in the circumstances, the most foolish. Not a word didit contain of any intention to respect the religion or the liberty ofmen whom it still professed to address as subjects. Pardon was promisedto all who should return to their allegiance within a fortnight: to allothers punishment was threatened in this world, and damnation in thenext. Nothing was wanting to heighten the imprudence. The letter was inthe handwriting of Melfort, who was equally odious to both parties; andit had been preceded by one from William expressed in terms as wise andmoderate as the others were headstrong and foolish. But the feeling ofthe more temperate Jacobites will best be shown in the account Balcarreshimself gave to his master of the effect produced by this fatal epistle. "When the messenger was announced, " he wrote, "His coming was joyful to us, expecting a letter from your Majesty to the Convention, in terms suitable to the bad situation of your affairs in England, and as had been advised by your friends before we left London; and so assured were they of their advices being followed, that they had encouraged all the loyal party, and engaged many to come to the Convention, in hopes such full satisfaction would be given in matters of religion and liberty, that even most of those who had declared against you would return to their duty. But, as in place of such a letter as was expected, or letters to particular persons, as was advised, came a letter from your Majesty to the Convention, without any copy to show your friends, in terms absolutely different from those we had agreed upon, and sent to your Majesty by Mr. Lindsay from London. Upon other occasions such a letter might have passed, if there had been power to have backed it, or force to make good its reception; but after the Parliament of England had refused to read a letter from your Majesty because of the Earl of Melfort's countersigning it [and considering] that England had made the Prince of Orange their King, and that it was known you had none to sustain your cause but those who advised letters of another strain, it was a fault of your advisers hardly to be pardoned. . . . Crane was brought in and the letter read, with the same order and respect observed upon such occasions to our Kings; but no sooner was it twice read and known to be Earl Melfort's hand and style, but the house was in a tumult--your enemies in joy and your friends in confusion. Glad were your enemies to find nothing so much as promised of what we had asserted should be done for their satisfaction, [they] having much feared many of their party would have forsaken them if your Majesty's letter had been written in the terms we advised from London. Mr. Crane could give no account why the advice of your friends was not followed, but Mr. Lindsay made no secret of it after he came back from St. Germain's, but informed us that, after he had delivered to [the] Earl of Melfort the letters and advices of your friends at London to your Majesty, his Lordship kept him retired, and he was not suffered to attend you--fearing that what he had written to your Majesty relating to his Lordship might spoil his project of going to Ireland with you. We had observed at London the great aversion men of all professions had at his being employed, and we knew he was in no better esteem in his own country, which made us entreat your Majesty to leave him in France, and some, upon his own account, advised his not coming over, knowing the danger he might be in; but his Lordship either suppressed our letters or gave our advices another turn than was intended, by which all our hopes of succeeding in the Convention vanished, nor was ever seen so great an alteration as was observed at the next meeting after your letter was read, which made all your friends resolve to leave Edinburgh and to call a Convention of Estates at Stirling, as your Majesty had given the Archbishop of St. Andrews, the Viscount of Dundee, and myself the power to do this by a warrant sent by Mr. Brown from Ireland. "

Dundee was anxious to be gone. He saw that the game was up in theConvention, and there were other reasons. For many days past troops ofstrange, fierce-looking men, carrying arms but half-concealed beneaththeir plaids, had been flocking into Edinburgh. These were the men ofthe hill-sides and moorlands of the West, the wild Western Whigs, whofeared and hated the name of Claverhouse more than anything on earth. Their leader was William Cleland, a survivor from the fields of Drumclogand Bothwell, a brave and able young man, of good education and humaneabove his fellows, but who, it was well known, was burning to havevengeance upon Dundee. Some of these men had been heard to mutter thatthe tables were turned now, and "bloodly Clavers" should play thepersecutor no more. Word was brought to Dundee that a plot was on footto assassinate him and Sir George Mackenzie, the most hated of allJames's lawyers. Whether the rumour were true or not, it was at leasttoo probable to be disregarded. Dundee laid the matter before Hamilton, offered to produce his witnesses, and demanded that these armedstrangers be ordered to leave the town. Hamilton (who was, in fact, responsible for their presence) answered that the Convention had moreimportant matters to think of, that the city could not be leftdefenceless to Gordon and his rebellious garrison, and, it is said, twitted Dundee with imaginary fears unbecoming a brave man. 

A meeting of the Jacobites was held. It was decided to call a freshConvention at Stirling. Mar, who held the castle there, professedhimself staunch, and Athole promised to have a force of his Highlandersin readiness. This was on Saturday, March 16th: it was determined toleave Edinburgh on the following Monday. 

When Monday came Athole proposed to wait another day. As hisco-operation was of the greatest importance, his proposal was accepted. But Dundee would wait no longer. In vain Balcarres told him that hishaste would ruin all their plans. He answered that he would take noaction without the agreement of the rest, but in Edinburgh he would stayno longer. He had made an appointment for that day with some friendsoutside the walls, and he could not break it. His troopers had been inreadiness since an early hour, and Dundee returning to his lodgings gavesignal to mount. The streets were thronged with scowling faces, but theyshrank to right and left as those stern riders came clattering down theCanongate. A friend called from the crowd to know whither they went. Dundee raised his hat from his head and answered: "Wherever the spiritof Montrose shall direct me. " When clear of the walls he led his men tothe left up the Leith Wynd and along the bank of the North Loch, theground now occupied by the busy and handsome thoroughfare known asPrince's Street. The road to Stirling winds beneath the Castle rock, andas the cavalcade came on, their leader saw the Duke on the ramparts, making signals to him for an interview. Dundee dismounted, and scrambledup the steep face of the rock. What passed between them is not clearlyknown. Balcarres says Dundee told the Duke of the design for Stirling, and once more prayed him to stand firm. But it seems clear that Dundeehad by that time abandoned all hopes of a fresh Convention, and it isdoubtful whether he had any definite plan in his mind. Dalrymple'sreport of the conversation seems more likely to be the true one. According to him Dundee pressed the Duke to come north with him, leavingthe castle to the charge of the Lieutenant-Governor, Winram, a man whohad made himself too odious to the people to leave room for any doubtof his fidelity to James. But these bold ventures were not to the Duke'staste: his courage was of that sort which shows best behind stone walls:and his answer was ingeniously framed to conceal his timidity under ashow of discipline. "A soldier, " he said, "cannot in honour quit thepost that is assigned to him. "

Meanwhile the city was in an uproar. A number of people had gatheredround the foot of the rock to stare at the strange sight. The watchersfrom the city magnified this idle crowd into a hostile force. Amessenger came in haste to the Convention with the news that Dundee wasat the gates with an army, and that the Duke of Gordon was preparing tofire on the town. 

Hamilton, who, while affairs were still in the balance, had behaved withunexpected moderation, now gave loose to his temper. The time had come, he said, for all good friends of order to see to their safety whenenemies to their liberties and religion were taking arms. There wasdanger within as well as without. The traitors must be kept close; buttrue men had nothing to fear, for thousands were ready to start up intheir defence at the stamp of his foot. He then ordered the room to belocked, and the keys to be laid on the table. The drums beat to arms:the town-guard, and such force of militia as was still in the city, fellin; while from garrets and cellars the Westland men came thronging intothe streets, with weapons in their hands, and in their faces fury andfear of their terrible enemy. After a time, as the news came that Dundeehad ridden off northward and that all seemed quiet in the castle, thetumult subsided. The doors of the Parliament House were opened, and themembers came out. Hamilton and his party were greeted with loud cheers:threats and execrations no less loud assailed the few and downcastJacobites. From that memorable day the friends of William had nothingmore to fear in the capital of Scotland. For a while, indeed, some showof opposition was still maintained, faintly stimulated by the arrival ofQueensberry from London. But he had come too late. His power was nolonger what it had been; nor were his professions of loyalty regarded bymen like Balcarres as above all suspicion. For Queensberry had been wisewith the wisdom of Hamilton and Athole. The great House of Douglas wasprudently divided against itself, and come what might it should notfall. And Athole now, after with great show of bravery urging Gordon tofire on the town, had grown somewhat less than lukewarm, while Mar, theGovernor of Stirling Castle, put an end for ever to any thoughts of afresh Convention in that city by boldly declaring for William. The hopesand the hearts of the Jacobites had gone northward with Dundee; and intruth there was not at this moment a brave company of either. 

Dundee did not draw rein in Stirling. He galloped through the town, across the bridge, and on by Dunblane, where he stayed the night, to hisown home at Dudhope, where his lady was then waiting her confinement. The only man of his own quality who had ridden with him from Edinburghwas George Livingstone, Lord Linlithgow's son, whose troop of LifeGuards had been taken from him in the general re-arrangement ofregiments that had followed the fiasco of Salisbury; and he had lefthis companion on the road to make for Lord Strathmore's house at Glamis. For a week of unwonted quiet, the last he was to know on earth, Dundeerested at Dudhope. Then his enemies found him. On the morning of the26th Hamilton's messengers appeared before his gates, summoning him tolay down his arms and return to his duty at the Convention, on pain ofbeing proclaimed traitor and outlaw. Dundee replied by a letter which, as it has been styled both disrespectful and disingenuous, it is worthwhile to print in full. 

 "Dudhope, March 27th, 1689. 

 "May it please your Grace:--The coming of an herald and trumpeter to summon a man to lay down arms that is living in peace at home, seems to me a very extraordinary thing, and, I suppose, will do so to all that hear of it. While I attended the Convention at Edinburgh I complained often of many people being in arms without authority, which was notoriously known to be true; even the wild hill-men; and no summons to lay down arms under the pain of treason being given them, I thought it unsafe for me to remain longer among them. And because a few of my friends did me the favour to convey me out of the reach of these murderers, and that my Lord Livingstone and several other officers took occasion to come away at the same time, this must be called being in arms. We did not exceed the number allowed by the Meeting of Estates. My Lord Livingstone and I might have had each of us ten; and four or five officers that were in company might have had a certain number allowed them; which being, it will be found we exceeded not. I am sure it is far short of the number my Lord Lorn was seen to march with. And though I had gone away with some more than ordinary, who can blame me when designs of murdering me was made appear? Besides, it is known to everybody that, before we came within sixteen miles of this, my Lord Livingstone went off to his brother, my Lord Strathmore's, house; and most of the officers and several of the company went to their respective homes or relations. And, if any of them did me the favour to come along with me, must that be called being in arms? Sure, when your Grace represents this to the Meeting of the States, they will discharge such a groundless pursuit, and think my appearance before them unnecessary. Besides, though it were necessary for me to go and attend the meeting, I cannot come with freedom and safety, because I am informed there are men-of-war and foreign troops in the passage; and till I know what they are and what are their orders, the Meeting cannot blame me for not coming. Then, my Lord, seeing the summons has proceeded on a groundless story, I hope the Meeting of States will think it unreasonable I should leave my wife in the condition she is in. If there be anybody that, notwithstanding of all that is said, thinks I ought to appear, I beg the favour of a delay till my wife is brought to bed; and in the meantime I will either give security or parole not to disturb the peace. Seeing this pursuit is so groundless, and so reasonable things offered, and the Meeting composed of prudent men and men of honour, and your Grace presiding in it, I have no reason to fear further trouble. 

 "I am, may it please your Grace, your most humble servant, "DUNDEE. 

 "I beg your Grace will cause this read to the Meeting, because it is all the defence I have made. I sent another to your Grace from Dunblane with the reasons of my leaving Edinburgh. I know not if it be come to your hands. "

The letter was read to the Convention on the following day, and onSaturday, March 30th, John Graham, Viscount of Dundee, was proclaimedtraitor with all the usual ceremonies. Thrice was his name called withinthe Parliament House, and thrice outside its doors, and thrice withsound of trumpet at the market-cross of the good town of Edinburgh. 

About the same time happened a still more untoward thing. James was nowin Ireland. He had learned how matters had gone in Scotland, andconceived that the moment for action had come. A commission wasaccordingly despatched to Dundee, constituting him Lieutenant-Generaland Commander-in-Chief in Scotland, together with a letter in James'sown hand, informing him that five thousand foot and three hundred horsewould presently be at his disposal. There were letters also from Melfortboth to Dundee and Balcarres. Either by the folly or the knavery of themessenger the papers fell into the hands of Hamilton, who read them tothe Convention. As usual, Melfort's letters were in the most foolish andviolent language. "You will ask no doubt, " he wrote to Dundee, "how weshall be able to pay our armies; but can you ask such a question whileour enemies, the rebels, have estates to be forfeited? We will beginwith the great and end with the small ones. " To Balcarres he wrote inthe same strain. "The estates of the rebels will recompense us. You knowthere were several lords whom we marked out, when you and I weretogether, who deserved no better fate. When we get the power, we willmake these men hewers of wood and drawers of water. " No man wasmentioned by name, so that each man was at liberty to take these threatsfor himself. "You hear, " cried Hamilton, "you hear, my lords andgentlemen, our sentence pronounced. We must take our choice, to die, orto defend ourselves. " There was a terrible uproar, the new Whig recruitsbeing among the loudest in their exposition of the dangers to whichtheir love for their religion and their country was likely to exposethem. Leven was ordered with two hundred of his new regiment to arrestboth Dundee and Balcarres. [77] The latter was taken easily enough, andclapped into the Tolbooth. But Dundee got wind of his danger, and wasoff before the soldiers could reach Dudhope. He went northward still, toGlen Ogilvy, his wife's jointure-house, in the parish of Glamis, not farfrom the old historic castle of Macbeth; and thither Leven did not thinkit prudent to pursue him. 

FOOTNOTES:

[77] During the first alarm raised by Dundee's departure the Conventionhad passed an order to raise and arm a regiment of eight hundred men, and had given the command to Leven. It is said that the men were foundwithin two hours. See "An Account of the Proceedings of the Estates inScotland, " London, 1689. 

CHAPTER X. 

Dundee had ridden out of Edinburgh with no clear plan of action beforehim. Balcarres afterwards declared that his friend had no intention ofmaking for the Highlands till he learned that warrants were out for hisapprehension. Yet it is probable that the idea of a Highland campaignhad already begun to take shape in Dundee's mind before Mackay's advanceforced him over the Grampians. His orders were, in the event of theEstates declaring for William, to keep quiet till the arrival of aregular force from Ireland should enable him to take the field with somechance of success. And, indeed, he had at that time no alternative. Itwas clear to him that the game was lost in the Lowlands, but it was notyet clear to him that anything was to be gained in the Highlands. Theexample of his famous kinsman might indeed serve to fire both hisimagination and his ambition; but it could hardly serve to make himhopeful of succeeding with the weapons which had failed Montrose. A fewthousand claymores would no doubt prove a useful supplement to the smallbody of troops James might be able to spare from Ireland; but even amind so ardent and sanguine as Dundee's might well have shrank fromfacing the chances of war with no other resources than a handful oftroopers and a rabble of half-armed, half-naked, and whollyundisciplined savages. And in truth experience had shown that thesefierce and jealous spirits were little less dangerous as allies than asenemies. Every clan had its hereditary feud, and no one could say thaton the day of battle the claymores might not be drawn against each otherinstead of against the common foe. Branches even of the same stock didnot conceive themselves inevitably bound by the tie of blood, though itwas a claim never forgotten when it was convenient to make or allow it. Sometimes a few of the smaller clans would make common cause against theoppressions of a more powerful, or the cattle of a wealthier neighbour;but it was rarely that friendship went beyond the conditions of an armedneutrality. Though the feudal system had long prevailed in many parts ofthe Highlands, it had never superseded the older patriarchal system. Thechief of the clan might pay homage to a great lord like Argyle orAthole; but in the clan he was king, and his word was law. Moreover, brave as the Highlanders undoubtedly were, they were not a warlike race. They would rise to the signal of the fiery cross, without questioningthe cause; and they would on occasion fight for their own hand, forrevenge or plunder. But the long service of a regular war was little totheir taste. Of military science and military discipline they knewnothing. To win the battle with the rush of the first onset, and whenthe battle was won to make off to their homes with all the plunder theycould lay hands on, --this was their notion of warfare, and it was anotion which the chiefs were too ignorant or too prudent to interferewith. What chance could there be of inducing such spirits as these tocombine in one great confederacy, and to undertake a long and desperatestruggle for the sake of a king of whom the most part had never heard, and of a cause which they could not understand?

But Dundee had learned something at Dunblane which had given him freshviews. During the few hours he had passed there he had talked much witha Highland gentleman, Alexander Drummond of Bahaldy, son-in-law to SirEwan Cameron of Lochiel, the great chief of the clan Cameron. Drummondtold him that Lochiel had been busy all the winter among his neighbours, that they were now ripe for war, and were only waiting a leader and somesuccours of regular troops and ammunition; that James had beencommunicated with, and had approved their plan in a letter written withhis own hand to Lochiel; and that an early day had been appointed for arendezvous of the clans in Lochaber, the headquarters of the Camerons. 

It is now generally acknowledged that on this occasion, however it mayhave been in the next century, the action of the Highland chiefs was notinspired by devotion to the House of Stuart. Lochiel himself may indeedhave been moved by some personal consideration for the exiled King. Hehad fought bravely under Montrose for Charles the First, and underMiddleton for Charles the Second. From the latter King he had receivedmore than one letter full of those flattering assurances Charles knew sowell how to make. By James he had been graciously welcomed at Whitehall, and had received the honour of knighthood from the royal hand. He wasbrave, wise, generous, and faithful, and, even in a less rude societythan that in which his lot was cast, his manners would have been calledagreeable and his education certainly not contemptible. But evenLochiel's loyalty was not suffered to run counter to his interests. InLochaber the name of James was as nothing compared with the name of EvanDhu, and the law of the King of England gave place to the law of thegreat Chief of the Camerons. As for the rest, the dispute between Whigsand Jacobites was no more to them than the dispute between the Guelphsand Ghibellines had been to their ancestors. They cared not the value ofa single sheep whether James or William sat on the throne of GreatBritain, so long as neither interfered with them. No later than theprevious year the authority of James had been insulted and his soldiersbeaten by one of these independent lordlings--Colin Macdonald ofKeppoch, familiarly known as Coll of the Cows, for his skill in trackinghis neighbour's cattle over the wildest mountains to the most secretcoverts. [78]

But for what loyalty to the House of Stuart was powerless to effect amotive was found in the hatred to the House of Argyle. Nearly all thechiefs of the Western Highlands were vassals to Mac Callum More, thehead of the great clan of Campbell. The numerous branches of theMacdonalds, who had once been lords of the Hebrides and all the mountaindistricts of Argyleshire and Invernessshire, the Camerons, theMacnaghtens, the Macleans, the Stuarts of Appin, all these paid tribute(it would be probably more correct to say owed tribute) to the Marquisof Argyle, and all were ready to welcome any chance of freedom from thatodious bondage. The early loyalty of Lochiel had probably been as muchinspired by the fact that he was fighting against an Argyle as for aStuart, as it is possible had been the loyalty of Montrose himself. In1685 he had cheerfully summoned his clan to repel the invasion ofanother chief of that hated House; and now the Revolution had broughtback from exile yet another to exercise the old tyranny. This was enoughto make the Revolution a hateful thing in the eyes of Lochiel and hisneighbours. But it was also believed that James had conceived the ideaof buying up from the great Highland nobles their feudal rights over theclans, and had only been prevented from carrying his idea into effect bythe Revolution. In the minds of these Western chiefs, then, William wasthe oppressor and James the deliverer. Throughout the winter they hadwatched eagerly for news from the South. At length they learned that theEstates had declared for William; that their prime enemy was restored tofavour and power; and that Dundee, whose exploits against the party ofwhich for three generations an Argyle had been the acknowledged headwere well known to them, was an outlaw and a fugitive. In him they atonce recognised the leader for whom they waited. Drummond wasaccordingly sent to invite him to their councils, and to promise that asufficient escort should be ready at the proper time to convey him tothe appointed meeting-place. 

Meanwhile it had become necessary for Dundee to look to his own safety. A more dangerous enemy than Leven was now in the field against him. Assoon as William had learned the decision of the Estates he haddespatched a body of troops into Scotland under General Mackay. HughMackay, of Scourie, was himself of a Highland stock. Like Dundee, he hadlearned the art of war first in France, and afterwards in the LowCountries, where he had risen to the command of the Scots Brigade, asthose regiments were called which upwards of a century before the newProtestant enthusiasm of England had raised to support Holland againstthe tyranny of Spain. He was a good man, a brave if not a dashingsoldier, a prudent tactician, and well skilled in all the machinery ofwar. 

Mackay at first contented himself with sending Livingstone and hisdragoons after Dundee, while he turned his attention to Gordon, who wasstill maintaining some show of resistance in the castle. But Livingstonewas too late. He found the nest warm, but the bird had flown. Dundee hadgone northwards over the Grampians into the Gordons' country, where theEarl of Dunfermline, the Duke's brother-in-law, at once joined him witha most welcome addition to his little band of troopers. Mackay foresawthat the Highlands were to be the real scene of operations, and that nodanger need be apprehended from the vapouring Gordon. He sent word, therefore, to Livingstone to await him in Dundee, and marched himselffor that place with some two hundred of his own brigade and one hundredand twenty of Lord Colchester's dragoons. [79]

It is as difficult for the reader to follow Dundee through these Aprildays as Mackay found it. In the sounding hexameters of the "Grameis, "his movements are indeed described with more labour than lucidity; butat this early stage of the campaign it is not necessary to track himover every mountain and river, and by every town and castle. [80] It willbe enough to say that in an incredibly short space of time he beat upfor recruits the greater part of the counties of Aberdeen, Inverness, and Perth, while the bewildered Mackay, whose training and troops werealike unfitted to this sort of campaigning, toiled after him in vain. Healso found time for a flying visit to Dudhope, where his wife had beensafely delivered of a son. He can have stayed with her but a day atmost; and when he left her, he was to see her face no more. 

From Dudhope Dundee crossed the Grampians again for Inverness. Here ithad been arranged for him to meet Keppoch and the promised escort ofHighlanders. And here, accordingly, he found them; but he also found astate of things which gave him a lively foretaste of the character andconduct of his new allies. 

Between the clan of Macdonald and the clan of Mackintosh there hadexisted for many centuries a deadly feud, the exact origin of which hadlong been lost in the mists of fable. On the other hand, a goodunderstanding had long existed between the Mackintoshes and the town ofInverness. Though the town in those days consisted only of some fivehundred mean buildings surrounded by a crazy wall, the busy littlecolony of artisans which inhabited it, and the occasional visit of atrading vessel to its port, had invested it among the Highlanders withthe reputation of vast wealth. Here was an opportunity for gratifyinghis love of revenge and his love of plunder which Keppoch was not theman to lose. He advanced through the territory of the Mackintoshes, harrying and burning as he marched, up to the walls of Inverness. Fortwo days he lay before its crazy gates threatening fire and sword, whilethe burghers mustered to arms within, and the ministers exhorted themfrom the market-place. Such was the state of affairs Dundee found whenhe and his troopers rode into the Highland camp on the first day of May. 

Keppoch tried to excuse himself. The town, he said, owed him money, andhe sought only to recover his own. On the other hand, the magistratessaid that he had forced them to promise him four thousand marks. Dundeeanswered that Keppoch had no warrant from him to be in arms, much lessto plunder. But it was not yet safe for him with his handful of horse touse such brave language to the chief at the head of his eight hundredclaymores. He therefore temporised. By his advice the magistrates agreedto pay two thousand dollars: half of this sum was raised on the spotwith some difficulty: for the other half Dundee gave his bond toKeppoch. He also promised the magistrates that, when James was restoredto his throne, the money should be refunded to them. Dundee had savedthe town, but for the present he had lost his allies. Keppoch and histhieves, laden with the silver of Inverness and the cattle of theMackintoshes, retired in dudgeon to their mountains. 

But Dundee was destined to achieve something before he joined the musterat Lochaber. After he had parted from Keppoch he turned westward downthe valley of the Ness, by the noble castle of Glengarry, whichCumberland destroyed after Culloden, by Kilcummin, where Fort Augustusnow stands, memorable in his eyes as the spot whence Montrose had ledthe clans to break the power of the Campbells at Inverlochy, and sosouthwards again through the forest of Badenoch to the Tay. As he waspainfully toiling through this vast and rugged recruiting-ground wordwas brought to him that a regiment of cavalry was being raised in Perthunder the auspices of the Laird of Blair, a rich and powerful gentlemanwho had married into Hamilton's family. He determined on a bold stroke. He was sorely in need of powder, provisions, money, and especially offresh mounts for his troopers, the long rapid marches, cold weather, andscanty forage having reduced his horses to a very sorry plight. In Perthhe might lay hands on all these, and possibly on a few recruits into thebargain. He was in Blair when the messengers found him on May 10th. Withhis handful of sabres he swooped down on Dunkeld, which he reached justin time to relieve a tax-collector of the dues he had been successfullyraising for William. At Dunkeld he rested his men till nightfall, andthen rode straight for Perth. At two o'clock in the morning he enteredthe city, surprised Blair and his lieutenant, Pollock, in their beds, collected forty horses, a store of arms and powder, some provisions, andsome of the public money, and was off again with his booty and hisprisoners before the startled citizens had fairly realised the weaknessof their invaders. He recrossed the Tay, and halted at Scone to refreshhimself and his men at the charges of Lord Stormont, an involuntary actof hospitality on the latter's part for which he had some trouble toexcuse himself in Edinburgh. [81]

While in the wilds of Badenoch Dundee had received another message whichhad interested him much. In the dragoons now under Livingstone's commandwere several of Dunmore's old officers still well affected to James. Chief among these were William Livingstone, [82] a relation of thecolonel, and that Captain Creichton of whom mention has been alreadymade. While lying in garrison at Dundee Creichton found means to getsecretly into Dudhope, and to assure Lady Dundee that he and many of hiscomrades were only waiting an opportunity to join her husband. She sentoff word of this to the wanderer, who managed to convey an assurance toCreichton of his plans, and of the strength of the reinforcements heexpected from Ireland. On their landing, he added, he should expect thedragoons to join him. 

This note was received by Creichton from the hands of a raggedHighlander two days after he had marched with a part of his regiment tojoin Mackay at Inverness. Could he have waited a little longer he wouldhave seen his correspondent in person. On the afternoon of Monday, May13th, the inhabitants of the town which had given this terribleClaverhouse his title saw to their amazement the crest of the highground to the north glittering with steel-clad riders. At the same timeLord Rollo, who was camped outside the walls with some new levies ofhorse, came flying through the gates with the news that Dundee was uponthem. The drums beat to arms: the gates were closed; and barricadeshastily thrown up in the principal streets, while the citizens crowdedon the walls to stare at the audacious foe. 

It is possible that Dundee, who was ignorant of Creichton's departure, thought that his appearance might bring the dragoons over to his side atonce. But the officer who was then in command kept his troops quiet; andafter manoeuvring his men up to the very walls of the town Dundee drewoff as night fell to Glen Ogilvy. [83] It is impossible that even he canhave conceived the idea of a serious attack on the place; and the storyof his actually entering and plundering the town is certainlyapocryphal, though his men very probably made free with Rollo's camp. 

Meanwhile Mackay at Inverness was busy in his turn among the clans. Lochiel had only sent the cross round among those chiefs who, like him, hated the Campbells. Dundee had gone further afield, but had not beensuccessful. The gratitude of the Mackintoshes was not enough to do morethan keep them neutral, --which was perhaps fortunate, for had theyjoined the muster at Lochaber they would inevitably have been at blowswith the Macdonalds before a day had passed. The Macphersons also keptaloof, and the Macleods. Mackay's invitations were received with thesame indifference. Some of the Grants, whose chief had suffered underthe late Government for his allegiance to Argyle, joined him; and fromthe northern shires of Ross and Sutherland a few Mackays came to fightfor a captain of their own blood. But the two sources on which theGovernment had mainly relied for help were both found wanting. TheCampbells had suffered so severely from the invasion of Athole in theprevious year that Argyle found it impossible to rally them in time tobe of service in the present campaign. The Covenanters, though hailingthe rule of William as a deliverance from the rule of James, werepersuaded by their ministers that it was a sin to take military service, even against the abhorred Dundee, with men whose orthodoxy was, to saythe least, not above suspicion. Seaforth, Lovat, Breadalbane, and theother great lords of the east and south Highlands, would not bid theirvassals arm for either side. Athole had indeed once more professedallegiance to the new order, but while affairs were still in anuncertain state he would not commit himself to any decisive action. Itwas clear to Mackay that the name of William was no name to charm within Scotland, and that the most he could hope to effect was to prevent ageneral rising of the clans for James. The sagacious Tarbat had alreadypointed out to him how this might be done. Five thousand pounds, hesaid, would be ample to satisfy all Argyle's claims upon the chiefs whoowed him vassalage. If these claims were satisfied, and the clansassured that under William they would secure the freedom they had hopedfor from James, though it might not be possible to persuade them tofight for the former, not a single claymore would follow Dundee to thefield for the latter. William was now induced to try the experiment. Butby a blunder so extraordinary as to suggest treachery somewhere, theagent entrusted to manage the affair was himself a Campbell. The chiefsnaturally refused to listen to such a messenger, and treated allsubsequent overtures with a contemptuous refusal or a still morecontemptuous silence. It is not certain that any money was actuallyexpended; but if so, it is very certain that not a penny of it went toany Cameron or Macdonald. 

Dundee had now reached Lochaber, where he was cordially welcomed byLochiel, and lodged in a building close to the chief's own house, a rudestructure of pine-wood, but in his men's eyes a magnificent palace. Theclans had proved true to their tryst. Every Cameron who could wield abroadsword was there. From the wild peaks of Corryarrick and Glen Garry, from the dark passes of Glencoe and the storm-beaten islands of thewestern seas, the men of Macdonald came trooping in. Sir John of Duartbrought a strong gathering of Macleans from Mull, promising that more ofthe name were on the road. Young Stewart of Appin had led his littleband from the shores of Loch Finnhe. The Macnaghtens were there from thevery heart of the great enemy's country, where the hated towers ofInverary cast their shadow on the waters of Loch Fyne. Fraser of Foyersand Grant of Urquhart, disregarding the action of their respectivechiefs, each brought a small following of his own vassals. 

It is impossible to calculate the exact force which, at any time duringhis short campaign, Dundee had at his disposal. But the number ofclaymores which this first muster brought to Lochaber cannot have beenless than two thousand. Besides these, there was his little body ofcavalry, some fifty sabres in all, partly composed of his own troopers, and partly of Dunfermline's followers. That nobleman and Lord Dunkeldwere of the party. Dundee's own brother, too, seems to have been withhim, and a member of the Duntroon branch of the Grahams. Certaingentlemen from the Lowlands had also joined him: Sir Alexander James ofCoxtone, Sir Archibald Kennedy of Cullean, Hallyburton of Pitcur, Murrayof Abercairny, and others. 

Still there was no sign from Ireland, and Dundee hesitated to take thefield against Mackay with such capricious and irregular allies. He didnot doubt the courage of his Highlanders, but he had grave doubts oftheir obedience. That they would fight bravely when it was their cue tofight, he knew well; but he was much less confident that they would taketheir cue from him. He had at first conceived the idea of putting themthrough some course of military training, but Lochiel urged so many andsuch weighty reasons against it that he gave up the plan. "There is nottime, " said the sagacious old chief, "for our men to learn your methodof warfare. They would merely unlearn their own. This is one which mustseem strange to your notions of war; but it is one which they thoroughlyunderstand, and which makes them, when led by such a general as you, amatch for the most practised veterans. Think of what they did underMontrose, and be sure that they will show the same courage and win asgreat victories under you. " It, therefore, became more than evernecessary that the promised succours should be no longer delayed. Someregular troops, however few, would serve both as a rallying-point and asan example to the Highlanders. And, indeed, it had been only on thepromise of such support that Lochiel had induced the chiefs to arm. Dundee sent letter after letter to Ireland full of cheerful accounts ofthe good promise of affairs, but urging the instant despatch of troops, together with a store of money, ammunition, and all the othernecessaries for an army about to take the field, of which there was, intruth, a most plentiful lack in Lochaber. There were not above fiftypounds of powder in the camp; and though the Highland fashion was totrust more to the cold steel than the bullet, powder was a necessity ofwar that could not well be altogether dispensed with. Dundee also urgedupon Melfort the good effect James' own presence would have upon hisScottish allies. If that could not be managed, he said, at least let himsend the Duke of Berwick. There was no petty jealousy in Dundee'scharacter. He would have cheerfully put himself under the command of anyman if by so doing he were likely to further the cause he had at heart. But no answer came to these appeals. In one of the last letters Dundeewrote, he reminds Melfort that for three months he had received not asingle line from him or from James. 

Meanwhile, his tact, his good temper, courtesy, and liberality had wonthe hearts of his new allies. With the money he had brought with himfrom the Lowlands, and the supplies his wife and some of his friendswere able occasionally to send him, he contrived to maintain anestablishment that was at least superior to anything which most of hisnew friends were accustomed to. Every day he entertained some of thechiefs at his table. He made himself acquainted with the faces and namesof the principal tacksmen of each clan, and mastered a few words ofGaelic to enable him to address and return salutations. In the field helived no better than the meanest of his men, sharing their coarse foodand hard lodging, and often marching on foot by their side over theroughest country and in the wildest weather. His powers of enduranceextorted the wonder even of those sturdy mountaineers who had beeninured from childhood to the extremes of hunger and fatigue. More than acentury after his death it was still told with admiration how once, after chasing Mackay from dawn to sunset of a summer's day over theruggedest part of the Athole country, he had spent the night in writing, only resting his head occasionally on his hands to snatch a few momentsof sleep. Among the Camerons he was always spoken of as the General, andhonoured next to Lochiel himself. At the same time, he was careful tomaintain his authority and to exact the respect due to his position. Heknew well that among those lawless spirits he who would be obeyed mustbe feared. On one occasion he administered a public rebuke to thearch-thief, Keppoch, who had found time for another raid on theMackintoshes. In the presence of all the chiefs Dundee told the offenderthat he would sooner serve in the ranks of a disciplined regiment thancommand men who were no better than common robbers; that he wouldcountenance such outrages no more, nor any longer keep in his army thosewho disgraced the King's cause by their private quarrels. Keppoch, whowould infallibly have struck his dirk into any other man who had usedsuch language to him, attempted some lame excuses, muttered an apology, and ended by promising for the future neither he nor any of his menwould stir a foot save at the General's command. There is no strongerproof of Dundee's genius and capacity for affairs than the singularinfluence he was able in a few short weeks to gain over men who couldnot speak his language and who hated his race. When on the dark day ofCulloden the wavering clans looked in vain to their Prince, an oldchief, who had heard his father talk of Ian Dhu Cean (Black John, theWarrior), exclaimed in a passion of rage and grief, "Oh, for an hour ofDundee!"

But loth as he was to engage Mackay with the Highlanders alone, Dundeeknew that he could not hope to keep them long together inactive. Provisions were running short. If they could not harry James's enemies, they would make free with their own. Dundee was particularly anxious togive no cause of offence to those clans whose neutrality he hoped to beable to turn into friendship. Already a serious prospect of disunion hadthreatened the little army. A party of the Camerons had made a raid onthe Grants, in which a Macdonald of Glengarry had been killed. The manhad become affiliated to the Grants, and had refused to join the musterof his own tribe. He had therefore forfeited all the right of clanship. Yet Glengarry, as much perhaps from policy as from any overpoweringsense of kinship, demanded vengeance; and it needed all the combinedtact of Dundee and Lochiel to prevent him from drawing out his men toattack the Camerons. When, therefore, Dundee learned that Mackay hadleft Inverness to join some reinforcements from Edinburgh, he determinedon action. 

The troops Mackay expected to find in Badenoch were six hundred men ofhis own Scots Brigade under Colonel Ramsay. Ruthven Castle on the Speywas the place of meeting, and May 26th the time. But Ramsay had beendetained in Edinburgh by an alarm of an invasion from France, and it wasnot till the 27th that he entered the Athole country. Here he learnedthat Dundee was on the march to meet him. The population did not seemfriendly: he could get no news of Mackay; and on the whole he judged itprudent to retire to Perth. That he might do this with more speed heblew up his ammunition train, to prevent it falling into Dundee's hands. Mackay, who, as soon as he learned that Ramsay was fairly on the road, had marched with all speed from Inverness, was too late to save RuthvenCastle. It had been surrendered by the governor, Captain Forbes, on the29th, and reduced to a heap of ruins. 

This was the beginning of a series of marches and counter-marches on thepart of the two generals, which lasted far into June, without anyadvantage on either side. On one occasion a party of the Macleans ofLochbuy, marching to join Dundee in Badenoch, came to blows with some ofLivingstone's dragoons; and there were other skirmishes, of no materialresult, at none of which was either general present in person. More thanonce Dundee was in striking distance of Mackay; but he never foundhimself in a position to engage with sufficient assurance of victory. Adefeat he dared not risk; and even victory, unless complete enough toneed no second blow, had its dangers. An army which considered the safestorage of his booty as the first duty of a successful soldier could notsafely be trusted to make good the result of a doubtful battle. And infact he found his forces each day diminishing as food became more scarcein those barren wilds, or as some lucky raid necessitated a departurefor home with the prize. At length, wisely determining to sanction whathe could not prevent, and feeling that even his iron frame and dauntlessspirit were in need of rest, Dundee dismissed the clans for the present, on their giving a promise to join him again when he should require them. Keeping only some two hundred of the Macleans with him, he returned tohis old quarters, on the pressing invitation of Lochiel, who swore tohim that while there was a cow in Lochaber neither he nor his men shouldwant. Mackay did not attempt to follow him. At such a game ofhide-and-seek he saw that his men were no match for the activelight-marching Highlanders. He accordingly put garrisons into certainfortified parts of Invernessshire and Perthshire, sent the rest intoquarters, and himself repaired to Edinburgh. 

From the middle of June to the end of July the war therefore languished. But Dundee was not idle. The arts of diplomacy were as familiar to himas the arts of war. He still maintained an active correspondence withthe neutral chiefs, and kept Melfort well informed of all he had doneand proposed to do for his master's service. I shall conclude thischapter with an extract from the last despatch he sent to Ireland. It islong; but it gives so graphic an account of his proceedings since themuster at Lochaber, of the state of the country, and the relativepositions and prospects of the two parties, that its length may beexcused. It also shows, what one would not perhaps have otherwisesurmised, that the writer had some little touch of humour. The letter isdated from Moy, in Lochaber, June 27th, 1689. I omit the first part, which seems to refer to some complaints Melfort had made of his havingbeen ill-spoken of by Dundee. 

 "My Lord, I have given the King, in general, account of things here; but to you I will be more particular. As to myself, I have sent you it at large. You may by it understand a little of the state of the country. [84] You will see there, when I had a sure advantage I endeavoured to profit on it; but on the other hand, shunned to hazard anything for fear of a ruffle. For the least of that would have discouraged all. I thought if I could gain time, and keep up a figure of a party without loss, it was my best till we got assistance, which the enemy got from England every day. I have told the King I had neither commission, money, nor ammunition. My brother-in-law and my wife found ways to get credit. [85] For my own nobody durst pay to a traitor. I was extremely surprised when I saw Mr. Drummond, the advocate, in Highland habit, come up to Lochaber to me, and gave account that the Queen had sent 2, 000_l. _ sterling to London, to be paid to me for the King's service, and that two more was a-coming. I did not know the Queen had known anything of our affairs. I received a very obliging letter from her with Mr. Crane, but I know no way to make a return. However, when the money comes, I shall keep count of it and employ it right. But I am feared it will be hard to bring it from Edinburgh. 

 "When we came first out I had but fifty pounds of powder. More I could not get. All the great towns and seaports were in rebellion, and had seized the powder, and would sell none. But I had one advantage--the Highlanders will not fire above once, and then take to the broadsword. 

 "But I wonder, above all things, that in three months I never heard from you, seeing by Mr. Hay I had so earnestly recommended it to you, and told of this way by Inverlochy as sure. If you could not have sent expresses, we thought you would at least have hastened the dispatch of those we sent. McSwyne has now been away near two months, and we know not if the coast be clear or not. However, I have ventured to advise Mr. Hay to return straight, and not go further in the country. He came not here until the 22nd, and they surrendered on the 13th. [86] It was not Mr. Hay's fault he was so long of coming, for there has been two English men-of-war and the Glasgow frigates amongst the islands till of late. For the rest of the letters I undertook to get them delivered. Most of the persons to whom they are directed are either put in bond, or in prisons, or gone out of the kingdom. The Advocate is gone to England, a very honest man, firm beyond belief, [87] and Athole is gone too, who did not know what to do. Earl Hume, who is very frank, is taken prisoner to Edinburgh, but will be let out on security. Earl Breadalbane keeps close in a strong house he has, and pretends the gout. Earl Errol stays at home. So does Aberdeen. Earl Marischal is at Edinburgh, but does not meddle. Earl Lauderdale is right, and at home. The Bishops? I know not where they are! They are now the Kirk invisible. I will be forced to open the letter, and send copies attested to them, and keep the original till I can find out our Primate. The poor ministers are sorely oppressed over all. They generally stand right. Duke Queensberry was present at the Cross when their new mock king was proclaimed, and, I hear, voted for him, though not for the throne vacant. His brother, the Lieutenant-General, some say is made an earl. He is come down to Edinburgh, and is gone up again. He is the old man, and has abused [deceived] me strangely. For he swore to me to make amends. Tarbat is a great villain. Besides what he has done at Edinburgh, he has endeavoured to seduce Lochiel by offers of money which is under his hand. He is now gone up to secure his faction (which is melting), the two Dalrymples and others, against Skelmorly, Polwart, Cardross, Ross, and others, now joined with that worthy prince, Duke Hamilton. Marquis Douglas is now a great knave, as well as beast, as is Glencairn, Morton, and Eglinton. And even Cassilis is gone astray, misled by Gibby. [88] Panmure keeps right and at home. So does Strathmore, Southesk, and Kinnaird. Old Airlie is at Edinburgh under caution. So is Balcarres and Dunmore. Stormont is declared fugitive for not appearing. All these will break out, and many more, when the King lands, or any from him. Most of the gentry on this side the Forth, and many on the other, will do so too. But they suffer mightily in the meantime, and will be forced to submit if there be not relief sent very soon. The Duke of Gordon, they say, wanted nothing for holding out but hopes of relief. Earl of Dunfermline stays constantly with me, and so does Dunkeld, Pitcur, and many other gentlemen, who really deserve well, for they suffer great hardships. When the troops land, there must be blank commissions sent for horse and foot for them, and others that will join. There must be a Commission of Justiciary, to judge all but landed men. For there should be examples made of some who cannot be judged by a council of war. They take our people, and hang them up, by their new sheriffs, when they find them straggling. [89]

 "My Lord, I have given my opinion to the King concerning the landing. I would first have a good party sent over to Inverlochy; about five or six thousand, as you have convenience of boats; of which as many horse as conveniently can. About six or eight hundred would do well, but rather more. For had I had horse, for all that yet appeared I would not have feared them. Inverlochy is safe landing, far from the enemy, and one may choose, from thence, to go to Moray by Inverness, or to Angus by Athole, or to Perth by Glencoe, and all tolerable ways. The only ill is the passage is long by sea, and inconvenient because of the island; but in this season that is not to be feared. So soon as the boats return, let them ferry over as many more foot as they think fit to the point of Kintyre, which will soon be done; and then the King has all the boats for his own landing. I should march towards Kintyre, and meet, at the neck of Tarbet, the foot, and so march to raise the country, and then towards the passes of Forth to meet the King, where I doubt not but we would be numerous. 

 "I have done all I can to make them believe the King will land altogether in the west, on purpose to draw their troops from the north, that we may easier raise the country if the landing be here. I have said so, and written it to everybody; and particularly I sent some proclamations to my Lady Errol, and wrote to her to that purpose, which was intercepted and carried to Edinburgh, and my Lady taken prisoner. I believe it has taken the effect I designed; for the forces are marched out of Kintyre, and I am just now informed Major-General Mackay is gone from Inverness by Moray, towards Edinburgh. I know not what troops he has taken with him as yet; but it is thought he will take the horse and dragoons (except a few) and most of the standing forces; which, if he do, it will be a rare occasion for landing here, and for raising the country. Then, when they hear of that, they will draw this way, which will again favour the King's landing. Some think Ely a convenient place for landing, because you have choice of what side, and the enemy cannot be on both. Others think the nearer Galloway the better, because the rebels will have far to march before they can trouble you. Others think Kirkcudbright or thereabouts, because of that sea for ships, and that it is near England. Nobody expects any landing here now, because it is thought you will alter the design, it having been discovered. And to friends and all I give out I do not expect any. 

 "So I am extremely of opinion this would be an extreme proper place, unless you be so strong that you need not care where to land. The truth is, I do not admire their mettle. The landing of troops will confound them terribly. I had almost forgot to tell you that the Prince of Orange, as they say, has written to his Scotch Council, telling them he will not have his troops any more harassed following me through the hills, but orders them to draw to the West, where, he says, a great army is to land; and, at the same time, gives them accounts that eight sail of men-of-war is coming from Brest, with fifteen thousand men on board. He knows not whether they are designed for England or Ireland. I beg you will send an express before, whatever you do, that I may know how to take my measures; and if the express that comes knows nothing, I am sure it shall not be discovered for me. I have told Mr. Hay nothing of this proposal, nor no man. If there come any party this way, I beg you send me ammunition, and three or four thousand arms of different sorts--some horse, some foot. 

 "I have just now received a confirmation of Mackay's going south, and that he takes with him all the horse and dragoons, and all the standing foot. By which I conclude, certainly, they are preparing against the landing in the west. I entreat to hear from you as soon as possible; and am, in the old manner, most sincerely, for all Carleton can say, my lord, your most humble and faithful servant, "DUNDEE. "

It appears by a postscript added on the following day, that beforeDundee's messenger left Lochaber letters had arrived from Melfort. Theyseem to have been again full of complaints of the hard things said abouthim, and of the undeserved dislike with which all classes in Scotlandseemed to regard him. But of help there was no more than the usualvague promises, and glowing accounts of apocryphal successes in Ireland. Dundee congratulated the Secretary on their master's good fortune, diplomatically fenced with the question of unpopularity, and reiteratedhis appeal for succour. 

 "For the number" [he wrote], "I must leave [that] to the conveniency you have. The only inconveniency of the delay is, that the honest suffer extremely in the low country in the time, and I dare not go down for want of horse; and, in part, for fear of plundering all, and so making enemies, having no pay. I wonder you send no ammunition, were it but four or five barrels. For we have not twenty pounds. "

FOOTNOTES:

[78] The passage in which Macaulay has explained the condition andsentiment of the Highlanders at this time, will be familiar to everyreader. What may be less familiar is a pamphlet entitled "Remarks onColonel Stewart's Sketches of the Highlanders, " published at Edinburghin 1823, the year after Stewart's book. 

[79] Now the Third Dragoon Guards. 

[80] In Napier's third volume will be found many translations in prosefrom this poem, from which I have taken a few touches. 

[81] Napier (iii. 552, note) quotes the following minute in the recordsof the Estates:--"13th May, 1689: A missive letter from the Viscount ofStormont to the President was read, bearing that the Viscount Dundee hadforced his dinner from him at his house of Scone, on Saturday last, andtherefore desiring that his intercommuning with him, being involuntary, might be excused. " He was cited, however as a delinquent, together withhis father-in-law, Scott of Scotstarvet and his uncle, Sir John Murrayof Drumcairn (a Lord of Session), who had also to assist at theinvoluntary banquet. Throughout his short campaign Dundee was carefulnever to take a penny from the pocket of any private person. Heconsidered, he said, that he was justified in appropriating the King'smoney to the King's use. 

[82] Creichton calls him Lord Kilsyth, but he had not then succeeded tothe title. He is the same who afterwards married Lady Dundee. 

[83] It is doubtful who this officer was. Mackay, in his memoirs, saysit was William Livingstone, calling him either a coward or a traitor fornot showing fight. If Livingstone it was, he may not have felt sureenough of the men who were left with him to join Dundee in so open amanner, and to fight was not his cue. But another account puts oneCaptain Balfour in command. The whole account of the affair is even moreconfused than are most of Dundee's exploits. But that he did make ademonstration of some sort against the town is proved by the Minutes ofthe Estates. 

[84] None of his previous despatches from the Highlands are inexistence. 

[85] Robert Young of Auldbar had married Dundee's youngest sister, Anne. 

[86] The Duke of Gordon surrendered the Castle of Edinburgh on June13th, after a resistance which towards the end assumed the characteralmost of a burlesque. 

[87] Sir George Mackenzie. 

[88] Gilbert Burnet, the bishop. His wife was a sister of Lord Cassilis. 

[89] On Dundee's retreat from Badenoch, some of his men who hadstraggled for plunder had been caught and hung by Gordon of Edenglassie, Sheriff of Banff. 

CHAPTER XI. 

Mackay had now decided on a new plan of campaign. He would apply to theservice of war a device employed by the Highlanders in the chase, andput in practice against them their own tactics of the tinchel. [90] Achain of fortified posts was to be established among the Grampians, andat various commanding points in Invernessshire. On the west a stronggarrison was to be placed in the castle of Inverlochy, the northernmostpoint of Argyle's country overlooking the stronghold of the Camerons. Asmall fleet of armed frigates drawing a light draft was to cruise offthe western coasts, and to watch those dangerous islands whence issuedthe long war-galleys of the Macdonalds and the Macleans. Stores andtransport enough to keep a considerable force in the field for one monthwas to be collected; and a skilled body of pioneers, equipped with allthe tools necessary for road-making, was to accompany the column. 

Having already sketched out this plan in a letter to Hamilton, Mackaywas in hopes to find on his arrival in Edinburgh that measures had beenbegun to put it into operation. He was grievously disappointed. He foundnothing but quarrels and intrigues in the Parliament House and out ofit. Each man was too intent on out-manoeuvring his neighbour in thegreat struggle for place, to spare a thought for a foe who was happilyseparated from them by a vast barrier of mountains and many hundreds ofmiles of barren moorland, deep waters, and dense forests. He saw thathis plan for subduing the warriors of the Highlands must wait till theLowland politicians were at leisure to listen to him; yet he determinedto return to his duty, and to do his best with such means as he couldfind or make for himself. It was possible that Argyle might now havesufficiently repaired his affairs to be able to render some assistancefrom the West; and there was an ally in Perthshire who might, if hewould, prove of even more value than Argyle. [91]

Lord Murray, Athole's eldest son, had, unlike his father, made up hismind early in the Revolution and kept to it. But it happened that therewas one now in possession of Blair Castle who had also chosen his sidewith equal resolution. Athole had slunk off to England, leaving hiscastle and his vassals to the charge of his agent, Stewart of Ballechin. Ballechin was a sturdy Jacobite; and though he had not yet dared to armthe Athole men for James, he had managed on more than one occasion to dotimely service to Dundee. Blair was one of the most important posts inthe proposed line of garrisons. It commanded on one side the only roadby which troops could march from the low country of Perth into theHighlands, and on the other the passes leading to the Spey and the Dee. Whoever held Blair practically held the key of the Highlands. Mackaytherefore urged Murray, who was then in Edinburgh, to get rid of thisunjust steward and make sure of so valuable a stronghold for theGovernment. Murray promised to do what he could. He did not profess tobe very sanguine of persuading the men of Athole to fight for William;but for the castle, he could not suppose that Ballechin would dare toshut the gates of his own father's house against him. "Keep the Atholemen from joining Dundee, " said Mackay, "and that is all I ask, or canexpect from your father's son. " He pressed Murray to start at once forBlair, promising to follow as soon as he could collect the necessaryforce of troops and stores. 

It was tedious work preparing for a campaign in Edinburgh, where, nobodyfeeling himself in immediate danger, nobody was concerned to guardagainst it. Mackay was detained longer than he had expected, and beforehe could take the field bad news had come down from Perthshire. Ballechin was strongly entrenched in Blair, and resolute not to budge aninch. The Athole men had gathered readily enough to their young lord'ssummons; but when they found he had summoned them to fight for KingWilliam they had gone off in a body shouting for King James. [92] Andthere was yet worse news. The fiery cross was speeding once more throughthe Western Highlands. There could be no doubt that Ballechin was actingunder orders from Dundee. A few men had stayed with Murray, and withthese he proposed to watch the castle and the pass till Mackay shouldcome. But the clans were mustering fast. Dundee himself was said to bein the neighbourhood. Unless troops could be brought up at once, Blairwould be irretrievably lost, and the key of the Highlands in the handsof Dundee. 

Dundee was in the neighbourhood. He was at Struan, close to Blair, whence he wrote more than one letter to Murray, using every argument hecould think likely to influence the interests or the prejudices ofAthole's son. Professing to be convinced that Murray was really forJames, though doubtful about the time for declaring himself, he declaredthat he had only sent help to Ballechin to keep the rebels at bay tillMurray was able to act as his principles and education would naturallysuggest. The King, he said, had seen the mistakes into which Melfort hadhurried him. He had now given his word to secure the Protestantreligion as by law established, to allow full liberty of conscience toall dissenters, and to grant a general pardon for all except those whohad been actively engaged in dethroning him. What more might benecessary to satisfy the people, Dundee begged Murray to let him know. The King was particularly anxious for advice on these points, and readyto go all reasonable lengths; and Murray, he well knew, would advisenothing unreasonable. No more was to be feared from Melfort, who hadpromised to forgive all old quarrels, and even to resign his officerather than force himself upon those who were unwilling to receive him. Finally (keeping to the last the most powerful argument he coulddevise), he declared that it was now in Murray's power to "have thehonour of the whole turn of the King's affairs. " Murray would make noanswer, refused to see Dundee's messengers, and sent all his letters onto Mackay. [93]

Dundee knew the importance of Blair as well as Mackay. As soon as heheard from Ballechin of Murray's action, he threw a garrison into thecastle, and sent signal to the clans to join him at once. The time wasshort: too short even to muster all the outlying Camerons. Some daysmust elapse before he could expect to see round him such a force as hehad commanded two months earlier, and every hour was precious. Lochielurged him to march at once for Blair with such forces as were at hand, promising to follow with the rest. But Dundee was loth to advancewithout Lochiel. He relied much on the old chief's sagacity andexperience, on his knowledge of the Highland character, and his tact inmanaging it: without his counsel and support he did not feel even nowcertain of his quarrelsome captains. He prayed Lochiel, therefore, tocome with him, leaving his son to bring on the late musters. 

As they marched through Badenoch they were joined by the long-promisedsuccours from Ireland--three hundred ragged Irish recruits, halfstarved, badly armed, and entirely ignorant of war. Their leader was anofficer named Cannon, who bore a commission from James giving him ranknext to Dundee, a position which neither his abilities nor hisexperience entitled him to hold in such an army. Some stores of powderand food had been sent with them; but the vessels containing them had, through Cannon's negligence, been taken in the Hebrides by Englishcruisers. Dundee had neither powder nor food to spare. There had been notime to collect provisions; and for many days past his officers hadeaten no bread and drunk nothing but water. The great promises of helpon which the Highlanders had so confidently relied, on the assurance ofwhich they had taken the field, and for which their general hadrepeatedly given his own word, had shrunk to this--three hundred emptymouths to feed, and three hundred useless hands to arm. [94]

And now word came that Mackay was approaching. He had marched by way ofStirling to Perth, at which place he had appointed his muster. AtStirling he had found six troops of dragoons, which he had ordered tofollow him to Perth. On July 26th he was at Dunkeld, where he receivedword from Murray of Dundee's arrival at Blair, but not the dragoons hewas expecting from Stirling. His own cavalry consisted of but twotroops, chiefly composed of new levies. He dared no longer trustLivingstone's dragoons in the face of the enemy. Half of the officers hehad been obliged to send under guard to Edinburgh as traitors: the restof the regiment was out of harm's way in quarters at Inverness. Thehorses of Colchester's men were in such a plight after their marchesamong the Grampians that they could not carry a saddle. Mackay knew wellhow important cavalry was to the work before him. A mounted soldier wasthe one antagonist a Highlander feared; and his fear was much the samesuperstitious awe that a century and a half earlier the hordes ofMontezuma had felt for the armoured horsemen of Cortez. But the messagesfrom Murray were urgent, and he dared not delay. At break of day onSaturday, the 27th, he marched out from Dunkeld for the glen ofKilliecrankie. 

His force, according to his own calculation, was between three and fourthousand strong; but barely one half of these were seasoned troops. There was the Scots Brigade, indeed, of three regiments, his own, Balfour's, and Ramsay's. But before despatching them to Scotland Williamhad ordered them to be carefully weeded of all Dutch soldiers, that thepatriotism of the natives might be offended by no hint of a foreigninvasion; and the gaps thus made had been hastily filled up inEdinburgh. Besides this brigade were three other regiments of infantry:the one lately raised by Lord Leven (now the Twenty-fifth of the Line, and still recognizing its origin in its title of The Borderers), Hastings' (now the Thirteenth of the Line), and Lord Kenmure's. [95] Ofthese, Hastings' was manned chiefly by Englishmen, and seems to havebeen the only one of the three that had had any real experience of war. One troop of horse was commanded by Lord Belhaven: the other should havebeen commanded by Lord Annandale, whose name it bore, but Mackay couldpersuade neither him nor Lord Ross to take the field. Some feeling ofcompunction may have kept the latter from drawing his sword against anold comrade in arms; but Lord Annandale had always been fonder ofwrangling than fighting. Mackay makes no mention of any artillery; butit appears that he had a few small field-pieces of the kind known asSandy's Stoups from the name of their inventor. [96]

It is only possible to guess at Dundee's numbers. When he broke up hisarmy early in June he seems to have had about three thousand claymoresunder him. The second muster was, we know, much smaller than the first;and though it was slightly increased on the march, and while he waitedat Blair, the whole force he led at Killiecrankie cannot have muchexceeded two thousand men. Over and above the claymores he had not fourhundred. The Irish were three hundred, and his cavalry mustered aboutfifty sabres. Highland tradition puts the claymores at nineteen hundred;and this is probably much about the truth. Artillery, of course, he hadnone. 

As soon as it was known that Mackay was at the mouth of the pass, Dundeecalled a council of war. Three courses, he told his officers, werebefore them: to harass Mackay's advance with frequent skirmishes, avoiding a general engagement till the reinforcements a few days wouldcertainly bring had made the numbers more equal: to attack him in thepass; or to wait till he had reached the level ground above it. His ownofficers, and the Lowland gentlemen generally, were in favour of thefirst plan. Some of the chiefs were in favour of the second. Dundeelistened courteously to all, and then turned to the old chief of theCamerons who had not yet spoken. What, he asked, did Lochiel advise?Lochiel had no doubt. They must fight and fight at once, were the enemythree to one. Their men were in heart: they would have all the advantageof the ground: let Mackay get fairly through the pass that theHighlanders might see their foes, and then charge home. He had no fearfor the result; but he would answer for nothing were the claymores to bekept back now the Saxons were fairly at their feet. 

Those who watched Dundee saw his eye brighten. He answered that heagreed with every word Lochiel had spoken. Delay would bringreinforcements to Mackay as well as to them, and Mackay's reinforcementswould almost certainly include more cavalry. To fight them in the passwas useless. In that narrow way the weight of the Highland onset wouldbe lost. The claymores would not have room for their work, and half thecolumn would escape. They must fight on open ground and on fair terms, as Montrose would have fought. [97]

There was no more opposition. The word for battle went through theclans, and was hailed with universal delight. Then Lochiel spoke again. He had always, he said, promised implicit obedience to Dundee, and hehad kept his promise; but for once he should command. "It is the voiceof your Council, " he went on, "and their orders are that you do notengage personally. Your Lordship's business is to have an eye on allparts, and to issue out your commands as you shall think proper. It isours to execute them with promptitude and courage. On you depends thefate not only of this little brave army, but also of our King andcountry. " He finished by threatening that neither he nor any of his clanshould draw sword that day unless his request were granted. Dundeeanswered that he knew his life to be at that moment of some importance, but he could not on that day of all days refuse to hazard it. TheHighlanders would never again obey in council a general whom theythought afraid to lead them in war. Hereafter he would do as Lochieladvised, but he must charge at the head of his men in their firstbattle. "Give me, " he concluded, "one _Shear-Darg_ (harvest-day's work)for the King, my master, that I may show the brave clans that I canhazard my life in that service as freely as the meanest of them. "[98]

Mackay had reached the mouth of the pass at ten in the morning. Here hefound Murray and his little band, who had not judged it prudent toremain longer in the neighbourhood of Blair. Two hundred picked men wereaccordingly sent forward to reconnoitre under Colonel Lauder; and atnoon, the ground having been reported clear in front, the whole columnadvanced. 

The pass of Killiecrankie is now almost as familiar to the Southron asto the Highlander. It forms the highest and narrowest part of amagnificent wooded defile in which the waters of the Tummel flowingeastward from Loch Rannoch meet the waters of the Garry as it plungesdown from the Grampians. Along one of the best roads in the kingdom, orby the swift and comfortable service of the Highland railway, thetraveller ascends by easy gradations from Pitlochrie, through thebeautiful grounds of Faskally to the little village and station ofKilliecrankie, where a guide earns an unlaborious livelihood byconducting the panting Saxon over the famous battle-field and to variouscommanding points of the defile. How the scene must have looked in thosedays, and what thoughts it must have suggested to men either ignorant ofwar or accustomed to pursue it in civilised countries, has beendescribed by Macaulay in a passage which it were superfluous to quoteand impertinent to paraphrase. Near sixty years later, when someHessian troops were marching to the relief of Blair Castle, thenbesieged by the forces of Prince Charles, the stolid Germans turned fromthe desperate sight and, vowing that they had reached the limits of theworld, marched resolutely back to Perth. The only road that then ledthrough this Valley of the Shadow of Death was a rugged path, so narrowthat not more than three men could walk abreast, winding along the edgeof a precipitous cliff at the foot of which thundered the black watersof the Garry. Balfour's regiment led the van of this perilous march: thebaggage was in the centre, guarded by Mackay's own battalion:Annandale's horse and Hastings' foot brought up the rear. 

For about the last mile and a half the pass runs due north and south;but at the summit the river bends westward, and the mountains sweep backto the right. As the head of the column emerged into open air it founditself on a small table-land, flanked on the left by the Garry, and onthe right by a tier of low hills sparely dotted with dwarf trees andunderwood. Above these hills to the north and east rose the lofty chainof the Grampians crowned by the towering peaks of Ben Gloe and BenVrackie. In front the valley gradually opened out towards Blair Castle, about three miles distant, and along this valley Mackay naturally lookedfor the Highland advance. He sent some pioneers forward to entrench hisposition, and as each regiment came up on to the level ground, he formedit in line three deep. Balfour's regiment thus made the left wingresting on the Garry, while Hastings was on the right where the groundbegan to slope upwards to the hills. Next to Balfour stood Ramsay'smen, and then Kenmure's, Leven's, and the general's own regiment. Theguns were in the centre, and the two troops of horse in the rear of theguns. 

In the meantime Dundee had not been idle. Sending a few men straightdown the valley, he led his main body across the Tilt, which joins theGarry just below the castle, round at the back of the hills till he hadreached the English right. Mackay was in front with his skirmishers, watching what he supposed to be the approach of Dundee's van, when wordwas brought to him that the enemy were occupying the hills on the rightin force. Mackay saw his danger at a glance. The Highlanders would bedown like one of their own rivers in flood on his right flank, and rollthe whole line up into the Garry. On one of the hills overlooking hisposition stood what is now known as Urrard House, but was then called byits proper name of Renrorie. [99] Immediately below this stretched apiece of ground large and level enough in Mackay's judgment for his armyto receive, though not to give, the attack. He made no change in hisline, but wheeling it as it stood upon the right wing, he marched it upthe slope on to this new ground in the face of the enemy. [100] Hisposition was now better than it had been; but it was bad enough. Theriver was in his rear, and behind the river the inhospitable mountains. His only way of escape, should the day go against him, lay through thatterrible pass up which, with no enemy to harass him, he had just climbedwith infinite toil. He could hardly hope to make good his retreat downsuch a road with a victorious army maddening in his rear. In thepreliminary game of tactics he had been completely out-manoeuvred byhis old comrade. 

The clans were now forming for battle. The Macleans of Duart held thepost of honour on the right wing. Next to the Macleans stood Cannon withhis Irish. Then came the men of Clanranald, the men of Glengarry, andthe Camerons. The left wing was composed of the Macdonalds of Sleat andsome more Macleans. In the centre was the cavalry, commanded not ashitherto by the gallant Dunfermline, but by a gentleman bearing theillustrious name of Wallace. He had crossed from Ireland with Cannon;but nothing is heard of him till apparently on the very morning of theday he produced a commission from James superseding the Earl ofDunfermline in favour of Sir William Wallace of Craigie. What wouldotherwise appear one of those inexplicable freaks by which James everdelighted to confound his affairs at their crisis, is amply explained bythe fact that the new captain was the brother of Melfort's second wife. Fortunately Dunfermline was too good a soldier and too loyal a gentlemanto resent the slight. As Mackay's line was much longer than his, Dundeewas compelled to widen the spaces between the clans for fear of beingoutflanked, which left for his centre only this little cluster ofsabres. Lochiel's eldest son, John, was with his father, but Allan, thesecond, held a commission in Mackay's own regiment. As the general saweach clan take up its ground, he turned to young Cameron and said, pointing to the standard of Lochiel, "There is your father with his wildsavages; how would you like to be with him?" "It signifies little what Iwould like, " was the spirited answer; "but I recommend you to beprepared, or perhaps my father and his wild savages may be nearer to youbefore night than you would like!"[101]

Each general spoke a few words to his men. Dundee reminded his captainsthat they were assembled that day to fight in the best of causes, in thecause of their King, their religion and their country, against rebelsand usurpers. He urged them to behave like true Scotchmen, and to redeemtheir country from the disgrace cast on it by the treachery andcowardice of others. He asked nothing of them but what they should seehim do before them all. Those who fell would fall honourably like trueand brave soldiers: those who lived and conquered would have the rewardof a gracious King and the praise of all good men. Let them charge homethen, in the name of King James and the Church of Scotland. Mackay urgedthe same honourable duty on his battalions; but he added one verypractical consideration which suggests that he was not so confident ofthe issue as he afterwards professes to have been, and which was perhapsnot very wisely offered. They must fight, he said, for they could notfly. The enemy was much quicker afoot than they, and there were theAthole men waiting to pounce on all runaways. Such thoughts would hardlyfurnish the best tonic to a doubtful spirit. Nevertheless the troopsanswered cheerfully that they would stand by their general to the last;which, adds the brave old fellow ruefully in his despatch, "most of thembelied shortly after. "[102]

A dropping fire of musketry had for some time been maintained betweenthe two lines, and on the English left there had been some closerskirmishing between Lauder's sharpshooters and the Macleans. Mackay wasanxious to engage before the sun set. He doubted how his raw troopswould stand a night-attack from a foe to whom night and day were one:still more did he fear what might happen in the darkness during theconfusion of a retreat down that awful pass. But he could not attack, and Dundee would not, till his moment came. The darkness the otherfeared would be all in his favour. A very short time he knew would beenough to decide the issue of the battle. Should that issue befavourable to King James, as he felt confident it would be, he haddetermined that before the next morning dawned there should be no armyleft to King William in the Highlands. 

The sun set, and the moment he had chosen came. The Southrons sawDundee, who had now changed his scarlet coat for one of less conspicuouscolour, ride along the line, and as he passed each clan they saw plaidsand brogues flung off. They heard the shout with which the word toadvance was hailed; but the cheer they sent back did not carry with itthe conviction of victory. Lochiel turned to his Camerons with a smile. "Courage!" he said, "the day is our own. I am the oldest commander inthis army; and I tell you that feeble noise is the cry of men who aredoomed to fall by our hands this night. " Then the old warrior flung offhis shoes with the rest of them, and took his place at the head of hismen. Dundee rode to the front of his cavalry. The pipes sounded, and theclans came down the hill. 

They advanced slowly at first, without firing a shot, while Mackay'sright poured a hot volley into their ranks, and the leathern cannondischarged their harmless thunder from the centre. A gentleman of theGrants, who was fighting that day among the Macdonalds, was knocked overby a spent ball which struck his target. "Sure, the Boddachs are inearnest now!" he said, as he leaped to his feet with a laugh. It was nottill they had reached the level ground that the Highlanders deliveredtheir fire. One volley they poured in, and then, flinging their musketsaway, bounded forward sword in hand with a terrific yell. The soldiershad not time to fix their bayonets in the smoking muzzles of theirmuskets before the claymores were among them and the battle wasover. [103] On the left wing scarcely a trigger was pulled: the men brokeand ran like sheep. The famous Scots Brigade, in fact, set the exampleof flight. Their officers behaved like brave soldiers. Balfour, abandoned by his men, defended himself for a time against overwhelmingodds, till he was cut down by a young clergyman, Robert Stewart, agrandson of Ballechin. Eight officers of Mackay's own regiment werekilled, including his brother, the colonel; and many of Ramsay's. Invain was the cavalry ordered to charge. In vain did Belhaven like agallant gentleman gallop to the front. In vain did Mackay place himselfat their head, and, calling on them to follow him, spur into the thickof the flashing claymores. Before his horse they fell back right andleft in such a way as to justify his boast to Melville that with fiftystout troopers he could have changed the day even then; but one of hisown servants alone followed him. A few of the dragoons discharged theircarbines at random. Then all turned and spurred off among the crowd offootmen to the mouth of the pass. Some of the fugitives tried to crossthe Garry, and were either drowned in its swift waters, or cut down asthey scrambled drenched and unarmed through its fords. Down the pass toPitlochrie the rout went. The men of Athole, no longer doubtful of theissue, pounced from their lair upon the easy prey; and even women lenttheir hands to the butchery. [104]

Well might Mackay bitterly complain, "There was no regiment or troopwith me but behaved like the vilest cowards in nature except Hastingsand my Lord Leven's. "[105] For on the right matters had fared ratherbetter with the Lowlanders. Many of Leven's Borderers had stood firm andHastings' Englishmen; and where the Southrons stood firm the Highlanderswavered. But they were too few for Mackay to have any hopes ofretrieving the fortune of the day. The Highlanders were now busy withthe baggage, which offered a more tempting and less troublesome prizethan the struggling mass of fugitives. Mackay therefore collected thefew men he could get together, and led them across the Garry by a fordabove the field of battle over the mountains towards Stirling. On hismarch he overtook some more of his runaways whom Ramsay was leading inthe same direction. Mackay did all it was possible for a brave man to doto encourage his men and keep them together. But many were toofrightened to heed his words, or even the pistol with which hethreatened to shoot the first man he saw leaving his ranks. The news ofhis defeat had spread with marvellous rapidity: the whole country wasup: every glen and mountain sent out its reapers to the rich harvest. And where enemies did not exist, the fears of these poor wretches foundthem. Every drover with his herd, every shepherd with his flock, wasmagnified into a fresh array of the terrible Highlanders. On the eveningof Monday, the 29th, Mackay reached Stirling with barely one-fifth ofthe force with which he had marched out of the town a week earlier. 

The Highland loss was calculated at nine hundred men. The Macdonalds andCamerons were the principal sufferers, their position on the left andleft-centre having brought them in contact with the battalions who hadkept their ground. Glengarry's brother was among the killed, withMacdonald of Largo, and no less than five cousins of Macdonald of theIsles. Among the Lowlanders fell Hallyburton of Pitcur, and GilbertRamsay, Dundee's favourite officer, who had dreamed overnight of thevictory and of his death. But though the battle had been won for James, he had suffered a greater loss than William. A fresh army could replaceMackay's broken battalions; but no one could replace Dundee, and Dundeewas dead. 

He had ridden at the head of his cavalry straight on Mackay's centre. But for some unexplained reason his troopers had not followed him close;whether their new captain did not like the guns, or had misunderstoodhis orders, is not clear. Dunfermline, seeing his general's plumed hatwaving above the smoke, had spurred out of the ranks with sixteengentlemen, and with these sabres the guns were taken and silenced. Dundee, seeing that all went well on the right wing, turned to the leftwhere the Macdonalds were wavering before the firmer front of Hastings'Englishmen. As he galloped across the field to bring them to thecharge, a shot struck him in the right side immediately below hisbreastplate. For a few strides further he clung swaying to his saddle, and then sank from his horse into the arms of a soldier named Johnstone. Like Wolfe on the heights of Abraham, he asked how the day went. "Wellfor the King, " said the man, "but I am sorry for your Lordship. " Andlike Wolfe, Dundee answered, "It is the less matter for me, seeing theday goes well for my master. " As his officers returned from the pursuitthey found him on the field, and it is said, though one would be glad todisbelieve it, stripped by the very men whom he had led to victory. Byhis side was found a bundle of papers. Among them was a letter fromMelfort, bidding him be sure that both he and James would feelthemselves bound by no promise of toleration circumstances had inducedthem to make. Well might Balcarres, who knew his friend's dispositionbetter than Melfort, tell James how such foolish and disingenuousdealing had grieved Dundee and all who wished honestly to thecause. [106]

Dundee's body, wrapped in a plaid, was carried to the castle, and a fewdays later buried in the old church of Blair. In 1852 some bones, believed to be his, were removed from Blair to the Church of SaintDrostan in the parish of Old Deer, in Aberdeenshire; and eleven yearslater a window of stained glass was placed in the same church, bearing, on a brass plate in the window-sill, this inscription: "Sacred to thememory of John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, who died in thearms of victory, and whose battle-cry was 'King James and the Church ofScotland!'"

As no stone was ever known to mark his first grave; there is, of course, ample room for the incredulous to smile over this late tribute to hismemory. But in truth the shadow of doubt broods over him in death as inlife. It is certain only that he received his death-wound on the fieldof battle, and in the moment of victory. What else fell with him therewas well expressed by William. When the news from Killiecrankie camedown, the King was urged at once to send a large army into theHighlands. "It is needless, " he answered, "the war ended with Dundee'slife. "

FOOTNOTES:

[90] See the sixth canto of "The Lady of the Lake. "

 "We'll quell the savage mountaineer, As their tinchel cows the game. "

The tinchel was the name given to the circle of hunters which, graduallynarrowing, hemmed the deer into a small space, where they could beeasily slaughtered. 

[91] Mackay complains bitterly in his Memoirs of "the unconcerned methodof the Government in matters which touch them nearest as to theirgeneral safety, each being for his particular, and fixed upon hisprivate projects, so as neither to see nor be concerned for anythingelse. "

[92] "When in front of Blair Castle their real destination was disclosedto them by Lord Tullibardine [the heir of Athole did not assume thisstyle till 1695]. Instantly they rushed from their ranks, ran to theadjoining stream of Banovy, and, filling their bonnets with water, drankto the health of King James; and then, with colours flying and pipesplaying, 'fifteen hundred of the men of Athole, as reputable for arms asany in the kingdom' [Mackay's words], put themselves under the commandof the Laird of Ballechin and marched off to join Lord Dundee. "Stewart's "Sketches of the Highlanders of Scotland, " i. 67. But this isnot strictly true. They joined neither Ballechin nor Dundee, but wentoff on their own account to the mountains to watch the issue of events. 

[93] Probably Dundee wrote more confidently than he felt. He owned thatMurray might "have more to do to believe" Melfort's assurance thanJames's; but, in fact, there was too good reason to disbelieve both. From the first letter written from Struan it appears that the despatchfrom James which had fallen into Hamilton's hands was much moretemperate and conciliatory than the earlier one brought to theConvention by Crane. Dundee had not seen this despatch; and it ispossible that he described it rather as his own good sense urged him tobelieve it must have been, than as it really was. The letters tohimself, which he summarises for Murray's benefit, must have been thoseacknowledged in the postscript to Melfort of June 28th. It is, as weshall presently see, certain that about this time James was induced toassume, as he had before assumed when it was too late, the virtue oftoleration. How much of these promises Dundee really believed, it isimpossible to say. The history of our own time has shown, and is everyday showing, that neither wisdom nor experience will always avail toprevent a man from believing that which it is his interest to believe. 

[94] Memoirs of Balcarres and of Lochiel. 

[95] I have given the modern style of these regiments as they werebefore the last freak of the War Office. What they may be now, I do notknow; nor is the knowledge important, for the style I have used willprobably be most familiar to my readers. "My Uncle Toby, " it will beremembered, was of Leven's regiment. There exists a letter fromSchomberg to Lord Leven, especially commending to the latter's care agentleman of the name of Le Fevre. See the "Leven and Melville Papers. "

[96] Mackay says in his Memoirs that he left Edinburgh with two troopsof horse, and four of dragoons. It is certain that only the former wereengaged at Killiecrankie. But the general's narrative is throughoutextremely confused, and sometimes barely intelligible. Perhaps thelarger force was that he had counted on having; or the four troops ofdragoons may have been those he ordered to follow from Stirling. 

Alexander Hamilton, who commanded the artillery in the Covenanter's armywith which Leslie and Montrose made the famous passage of the Tyne in1640. From Burton's description of them they can hardly have been verydangerous, at least to the enemy. "They seem to have been made of tinfor the bore, with a coating of leather, all secured by tight cordage. Ahorse could carry two of them, and it was their merit to stand a fewdischarges before they came to pieces. " "History of Scotland, " vi. 302. 

[97] It is said that one of Dundee's arguments against attacking in thepass was, that it did not become brave soldiers to engage a foe atdisadvantage, an argument which I should imagine Dundee was much toosensible a man to employ to Highlanders. Had his force been sufficientfor him to close up the mouth of the pass after the Lowlanders hadentered, it is hard to imagine he would have lost the chance of catchingMackay in such a trap. But his force was too small to divide: while thenature of the ground would of course have told as much against those whomade as against those who met a charge, besides inevitably offending thejealous point of honour which forbad one clan to take precedence ofanother. It may be, too, that Dundee was not very well served by hisscouts. Mackay certainly seems to have got well on his way through thepass before the other knew that he had entered it. See the "Life ofMackay, " and the "Rebellions in Scotland. "

[98] Memoirs of Lochiel. 

[99] For long afterwards the battle was known among the Highlanders asthe battle of Renrorie. 

[100] Mackay's Memoirs: "a quart de conversion" is his own phrase forthis change of front. 

[101] "Sketches of the Highlanders. "

[102] Among the Nairne Papers is what purports to be a copy of Dundee'sspeech. It has been contemptuously rejected by some writers as amanifest forgery, on the ground that no Highlander would have understooda word of it. But there were Dundee's own officers and men to beaddressed; and, moreover, his language would have been perfectlyintelligible to some, at least, of the chiefs, who would have conveyedits purpose to their men. It was still the fashion for a general toharangue his troops before leading them into action, and it was afashion particularly in vogue among the Highlanders. I see no reason, therefore, to doubt the general authenticity of this speech. Exactly asit stands in the Nairne Papers probably Dundee did not deliver it; thestyle being somewhat more grandiloquent than he was in the habit ofemploying. But its general purpose, which I have endeavoured to give ina paraphrase, seems to be very much what such a man would have said atsuch a moment. The authority for Mackay's speech will be found in hisown despatch to Lord Melville after the battle. 

[103] It was the disastrous experience of this day that led Mackay todevise a plan of fixing the bayonet to the musket so that each could beused, as now, without interfering with the other. 

[104] "History of the Rebellions in Scotland. " Even the men who hadstood by Lord Murray joined in the slaughter. He did his best to keepthem quiet, but was forced to own afterwards to Mackay that he had notbeen very successful. "It cannot be helped, " he wrote, "of almost allcountry people, who are ready to pillage and plunder whenever they haveoccasion. " See the Bannatyne edition of Dundee's Letters, &c. 

[105] Mackay's opinion was that "the English commonalty were to bepreferred in matter of courage to the Scots. "

[106] One tradition, for a long while current among the Lowlands, declares him to have been shot by one of his own men in the pay ofWilliam Livingstone, who afterwards married Lady Dundee; Livingstonehaving been for some weeks a close prisoner in Edinburgh with the otherdisaffected officers of his regiment. Lady Dundee, the story goes on tosay, was aware of his intentions, and on the following New Year's daysent "the supposed assassin a white night-cap, a pair of white gloves, and a rope, being a sort of suit of canonicals for the gallows, eitherto signify that she esteemed him worthy of that fate, or that shethought the state of his mind might be such as to make him fit to hanghimself. " Another tradition makes Dundee fall by a shot fired from thewindow of Urrard House, in which a party of Mackay's men had lodgedthemselves. He was watering his horse at the time at a pond called theGoose-Dub, where the Laird of Urrard's geese were wont to disportthemselves. This story is evidently part of the old nurse's prophecymentioned on page 3. For these and many other anecdotes of the battle, see the "History of the Rebellions in Scotland. " I have taken my accountof Dundee's death from the memoirs of Balcarres and Lochiel, and fromthe depositions, printed by Napier, of certain witnesses examinedafterwards at Edinburgh, among them being an officer of Kenmure'sregiment, who was carried prisoner into the castle after the battle andheard Johnstone's story. As for the letter said to have been written byDundee to James after the battle, and now among the Nairne Papers, thereis more to be said for it than some have allowed. Macaulay, alluding toit as dated the day after the battle, calls it as impudent a forgery asFingal. But in fact it bears no date at all: the handwriting is declaredon the best authority to be beyond question contemporary; and there isno absolute proof that Dundee did not live long enough at least todictate an account of his victory to James. It is tolerably certain thathe would have done so had his strength permitted him. But in a letterwritten from Dublin in the following November by James to Ballechin, there is no mention of any letter from Dundee, and his death is therealluded to as having occurred at the beginning of the action. This, ofcourse, is not conclusive; James's actual words are, "the loss you had. . . At your entrance into action, " which need not imply instant death. On the whole, however, the balance of evidence seems to me to prove thatDundee died where he fell, and that the letter is not genuine, thoughcertainly no forgery of Macpherson's. Those who are still curious on apoint which is, after all, of no very great importance, will find itamply discussed in a note to the edition of Dundee's letters publishedfor the Bannatyne Club, and in an appendix to Napier's third volume. Astone still marks the spot where Dundee is said to have fallen, and wasseen by Captain Burt less than fifty years after the battle. 

INDEX. 

 Abjuration oath, the, 121

 Acts against the Covenanters, 35-6, 40, 45, 121

 Aird's Moss, skirmish at, 91

 Annandale, Lord, 200

 Argyle, Marquis of, 21, 22, 24, 25, 28, 34 Earl of (son of preceding), 45, 119, 139 Earl of (son of preceding), 171, 193

 Athole, Marquis of, 44, 46, 139, 145 _note_, 153, 154, 159, 162, 188, 194 men of, behaviour of the, 196 _note_, 211 and _note_

 Auchencloy, execution of Covenanters at, 128-31

 Auchinleck, Robert, execution of, 131-2

 Balcarres, Earl of, 141, 142, 143, 148, 149, 151, 155, 156, 157, 166, 189 memoirs of the Revolution by, 144 _note_

 Balfour, Colonel, 200, 205, 211 of Burley, John, 58, 60, 62, 65, 69, 83

 Ballechin, Stewart of, 194 letter to, from James, 215 _note_

 Belhaven, Lord, 200, 211

 Blair Castle, 194, 195, 201, 214 Church, 214, 215

 Bothwell Bridge, battle of, 83-6

 Brown, John, execution of, 116-22

 Bruce, Andrew, of Earlshall, 55, 91

 Buchan, Colonel, 107, 108, 109, 145

 Burnet, Bishop, on Claverhouse, 4, 151 _note_

 Cameron of Lochiel, Sir Ewan, 169, 170, 171, 179, 181, 185, 198, 202, 203, 210 memoirs of, 5 _note_ Allan, 207-8 Richard, 91

 Cameronians, the, 91

 Cannon, Colonel, joins Claverhouse with Irishmen, 198

 Cargill, Rev. Donald, 78, 79, 91

 Charles the Second, signs the Covenant, 24 crowned in Scotland, 24 his opinion of Lauderdale's administration, 42 acquits Claverhouse of malversation, 91

 Charles the Second appoints Claverhouse to a regiment of cavalry, 97 his goodwill to Claverhouse, 100 and _note_ settles Claverhouse in possession of Dudhope, 101

 Claverhouse, birth of, 1 family and education, 2-7 supposed to have served in French army, 8, 9 gallant action at Seneff, 12, 13 resigns commission in Dutch service, 15 story of his reasons for resigning, 15, 16 _note_ applies to Montrose for employment, 44 receives lieutenant's commission, 45 portrait of, 46, 47 refuses to interfere illegally with Covenanters, 48 appointed Deputy-Sheriff of Dumfriesshire, 55 at Drumclog, 70 at Glasgow, 72, 73 at Bothwell Bridge, 85, 86 accused of malversation, 90, 91 _note_ appointed Sheriff of Wigtownshire, 92 his policy towards the Covenanters, 92-3, 135 and _note_ receives command of cavalry regiment, 97 his quarrel with the Dalrymples, 95-7 his visit to England, 97-100 made a Privy-Councillor, 100 obtains estate of Dudhope, 101 his marriage, 101-5 merciful conduct to prisoners, 109 examination into charges against, 111-36 in disgrace, 125-6 his character, 134-5 his quarrel with Queensberry, 139-42 second visit to England, 142 Provost of Dundee and Major-General, 143 marches into England, 145 quartered in London, 146 joins James at Salisbury, 146 created Viscount of Dundee, 146 his advice to James, 147 marches to Reading, 147 receives a message from William at Watford, 148 attends Scottish Council in London, 148 waits on James at Whitehall for the last time, 149 negotiations with William, 151 returns to Edinburgh, 151 plot to assassinate him, 158 leaves Edinburgh, 160 his interview with the Duke of Gordon, 160 proclaimed traitor by the Convention, 164 escapes to Glen Ogilvy, 166 a son born to him, 173 saves Inverness from Keppoch, 174 his raid upon Dunkeld and Perth, 175 demonstration outside Dundee, 177 at Lochaber, 179 the muster of the Clans, 179-80 his popularity with the Highlanders, 182-3 returns to Lochaber, 185 re-assembles the Clans, 198 garrisons Blair Castle, 198 holds Council of War, 201-4 addresses his soldiers, 208 death and burial, 213-15

 Cleland, William, 65, 159

 "Cloud of Witnesses, " the, value of the testimony of, 123

 Cochrane, Lady Jean, 101, 102, 104

 Convention of Estates, the, 155-9, 161-2, 165-6

 Covenanters, assembly of, at Mauchline, 21 under Strachan, 28 cruelties of, 29, 30 character of, 29, 59 address of, to Charles, 32 rising of, in the West, 37 divisions among, 77-80, 82, 83 declarations by, 63, 91, 120, 121 _note_ treatment of, after Bothwell Bridge, 87-8 rabble the Episcopalian clergy, 154

 Creichton, Captain, 176-7

 Cromwell, Oliver, his advice to the Presbyterians, 20 negotiates with Argyle, 21, 25 his policy towards the Presbyterians, 25-6

 Dalrymples of Stair, their quarrel with Claverhouse, 95-7

 Dalziel, Thomas, 38, 81, 85, 106, 145 _note_

 Declaration of Indulgence, the, 8 repeal of, 9 the Rutherglen, 63 the Hamilton, 82 the Sanquhar, 91

 Defoe on Claverhouse, 123 _note_, 127, 131 value of his testimony, 124 _note_

 Douglas, General James, 123, 126, 139-40, 145, 147, 188

 Drumclog, battle of, 64-71

 Drumlanrig, Viscount, 145 _note_, 147

 Drummond, General, 126 Alexander, of Bahaldy, 169 John, of Bahaldy, 5 _note_

 Drunken Parliament, the, 33

 Dumbarton, Earl of, 123, 137, 138, 147, 150

 Dundee, Viscount of. _See_ Claverhouse memoirs of, 16 _note_ Viscountess of, second marriage and death, 105 _note_ story of, and Col. Livingstone, 214 _note_

 Dundonald, Earl of, 101, 103

 Dunfermline, Earl of, 172, 180, 189, 207, 213

 Dunmore, Earl of, 145 _note_, 150

 Edinburgh, riots in, 142, 154-5

 Enterkin Hill, rescue of Covenanters at, 109

 Episcopal clergy, Scotch, Burnet's complaint against, 48 _note_

 Feud between Macdonalds and Mackintoshes, 123

 Field-preaching, Act against, 40

 Gordon, Duke of, in command of Edinburgh Castle, 155-6, 160-61, 187 _note_

 Graham, David, 3, 115, 180

 Graham, Robert, 68 and _note_

 Grameis, the, 13, 173

 Grierson, Sir Robert. _See_ Lag

 Hackston of Rathillet, 58, 60, 83, 91

 Hamilton, Duke of, 42, 102, 148, 153, 155, 159, 161-3, 165-6 Robert, 62-3, 65, 71-3, 77-9, 82-4

 Highland Host, the, 41-2

 Highlanders, loyalty of, 169-71 their value as soldiers, 168, 181

 Hislop, Andrew, execution of, 125-7

 James the Second, as Duke of York, favours Claverhouse, 44 High Commissioner in Scotland, 91, 97 promotes Claverhouse, 139-40 summons him to London, 141 announces invasion of England to Scotch Council, 143 orders Scotch troops to England, 144 at Salisbury, 145-7 his flight and return, 148 ordered to leave the capital by William, 148 his last interview with Balcarres and Claverhouse, 149-50 leaves England, 150 his foolish letter to the Estates, 156 his letter to Claverhouse falls into hands of Hamilton, 165 his promises of toleration, 197 _note_, 214 his letter to Ballechin, 215 _note_

 Keppoch, Colin Macdonald of, 170, 173-4, 183

 Killing-time, the, 111-36

 King, Rev. John, 64, 71

 Lag, the Laird of, 49-53, 114 _note_

 Latin poem on Battle of Bothwell Bridge, 68 _note_

 Lauderdale, Duke of, 33, 39, 42, 58, 98 Earl of, 98-101

 Leather guns, 201

 Leighton, Bishop, 34, 40

 Leslie, David, 30

 Letters from Claverhouse to Archbishop Burnet, 107, 108 to Duke of Hamilton, 163-4 to James, 215 _note_ to Earl of Melfort, 186-92 to Linlithgow, 48-9, 54, 56, 64-5, 67, 70 to Lord Murray, 196-7 to Queensberry, 92, 94, 96 _note_, 99 _note_, 103-4, 109, 117, 138

 Leven, Earl of, 166, 200, 212

 Linlithgow, Earl of, 44, 81

 Livingstone, George, Lord, 83, 145, 162-3 Sir Thomas, 150, 172, 185, 199 William, 176, 177 _note_, 214 _note_

 Macaulay on Claverhouse, 13, 17, 18, 119, 125, 151 _note_

 Macdonald of Keppoch, 170

 Macdonalds, killed at Killiecrankie, 213

 Mackay, General, story of his alleged quarrel with Claverhouse, 16 _note_ commands the troops in Scotland, 172 tries to raise the Clans for William, 178-9 marches against Claverhouse, 184-5 new plan of campaign, 193 sends Lord Murray to Blair Castle, 195 takes the field again, 199 the strength of his army, 200-1 and _note_ marches through the Pass of Killiecrankie, 204-5 his order of battle, 206 his address to his troops, 208 his bravery, 211 his opinion of English soldiers, 212 _note_ his retreat to Stirling, 212-13 John, of Rockfields, his biography of General Mackay, 16 _note_

 Mackenzie, Sir George, 99, 159, 188 Colin, 105

 Macpherson, James, alleged forgery of letters from Claverhouse by, 215 _note_

 Martyrs, the Wigtown, 112-15

 Mekellwrath, Matthew, execution of, 128

 Melfort, Earl of, 142, 144, 156-8, 165, 186, 207

 Mitchell, James, attempt to assassinate Sharp by, 58

 Mitchell, Robert, 130

 Monmouth, Duke of, appointed to command army in Scotland, 80 his leniency to the Covenanters, 82, 84, 87 executed, 139

 Montrose, Marquis of, 44-5, 46

 Munro, Dr. , on Claverhouse, 5

 Murray, Earl of, letter from to Queensberry, 140 Lord Charles. _See_ Earl of Dunmore Lord, 194-7, 204, 211 _note_

 Muster-roll of Claverhouse's regiment, 145 _note_

 Nairne Papers, the, 209 _note_, 215 _note_

 Napier, Mark, his "Life and Times of Dundee, " 5 _note_

 Peirson, Rev. Peter, murder of, 129-30

 Perth, Earl of, 39 _note_, 142, 154-5

 "Pilliwincks, " torture of the. _See_ Thumbkin

 Plot to assassinate Claverhouse and Mackenzie, 159

 Queensberry, Duke of, 55, 92, 99, 137-8, 141, 162. _See_ Letters from Claverhouse to

 Ramsay, Lieut. -Col. , 184, 211, 212 Gilbert, 213

 Remonstrants, the, 21, 25-8

 Renwick, head of the Covenanters, proclamation by, 121 _note_

 Resolutioners, the, 21, 25-8

 Ross, George, Lord, 57 and _note_, 61, 72 William, Lord, 105 and _note_, 200

 Rullion Green, battle of, 38

 Rutherford, Rev. Samuel, 35

 Ruthven Castle destroyed, 184

 Saint Drostan, church of, memorial to Claverhouse in, 215-6

 Sanquhar Declaration, the, 91

 Scotch troops ordered to England, 144

 Scotland, state of, reviewed, 17-76

 Scott, Sir Walter, his account of Drumclog in "Old Mortality, " 67 his account of Bothwell Bridge in the same, 85 and _note_

 Seneff, battle of, 12

 Sharp, James, 26, 31 consecrated Primate of Scotland, 34 murdered, 57, 60

 Simpson, Rev. Robert, on Claverhouse and the Covenanters, 132 _note_

 Smith, Robert, evidence on battle of Bothwell Bridge, 85

 Stormont, Viscount of, 176 and _note_

 Thumbkin, torture of the, 39 _note_

 Tinchel, the, 193 and _note_

 Traditions about Claverhouse, 3, 47 _note_, 70, 182, 214 _note_

 Turner, Sir James, 36-8

 Walker, Patrick, on Claverhouse, 7 _note_, 135 his opinion of Wodrow, 116 on death of John Brown, 116-17, 122 and _note_

 Welsh, Rev. John, 56-7, 78, 82

 Westerhall, Johnstone of, 125

 Western Shires, the, nursery of the Covenanters, 29

 Whiggamores' raid, the, 22

 Whigs, origin of the name of, 23 _note_ brought into Edinburgh by Hamilton, 158-9, 161

 William the Third, stories of his early acquaintance with Claverhouse, 12, 15-16 his message to Claverhouse, 148 tries to persuade Claverhouse and Balcarres to enter his service, 151 and _note_ his opinion of Claverhouse, 216

 Winrahame, George, 118 _note_, 160

 Wodrow, Rev. Robert, his "History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, " 51-2 vagueness of his charges against Claverhouse, 88 on the Wigtown Martyrs, 113-14 on the death of John Brown, 116 Andrew Hislop, 127 on the murder of Rev. Peter Peirson, 129-30 and _note_

 * * * * *

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

VARIANT SPELLINGSPage vi: John Mackay is of Rockfield (p. Vi); and Rockfields (p. 16 andindex, under Mackay). Amended Rockfield to Rockfields. 

Page vi. : Variant spelling of Scourie and Scowrie retained, however, asthe author could well have spelled it Scowrie (though online historicalsources suggest Hugh Mackay was born at Scourie). 

Page 133: Hyslop has been in all other instances spelt Hislop; corrected. 

Page 159: "bloodly Clavers" matches book: retained. 

Variant spelling of doggerel/doggrel (one instance of each) retained. 

VARIANT CAPITALISATIONSInconsistent capitalisation of Council-Board and Council-board (oneinstance of each) retained. 

Capitalisation of Churchman (p. 9) and Legislature (p. 9) retained

The Killing Time variously capitalised as killing-time, Killing-time, Killing-Time and Killing Time (one of each). Two of these are enclosedin quote marks and one is in the index. Retained. 

Popery and popery/popish and Popish variant capitalisations retained(read properly in context). 

VARIANT SPELLINGS IN QUOTED LETTERSWhile the author notes that Claverhouse could not spell correctly (forexample p. 6), the only misspellings that appear in the reproducedletters are proper names: there are no other spelling errors. It wouldappear that the transcriber was correcting the common English withoutcorrecting the proper names. Subsequently the following misspelledproper names have been corrected:

Page 108: Mauchlin corrected to Mauchline. 

Page 138: Sanquar corrected to Sanquhar (spelt correctly in a previousletter, p. 108). 

Page 188: Variant spelling of Locheil, elsewhere Lochiel, corrected. Inthe same letter there is a reference to Queenberry (otherwiseQueensberry), ditto corrected. 

Page 190: Kircudbright corrected to Kirkcudbright (spelt correctly in atleast 3 previous letters, see pp. 54, 93 and 94). 

HYPHENSOne instance of each headquarters, head-quarters and one split over theend of a line. Settled on headquarters as the more common spelling. 

PUNCTUATIONPage 69: "; amended to ;", which is the standard punctuation arrangementin the book. 

Page 188: "strangely, For" amended to "strangely. For". 

Page 192: Editorial comment in quoted letter (that) is in parenthesesand not square brackets as has been used elsewhere in book. Amended tosquare brackets. 

MISCELLANEOUSTOC created for this text (no TOC in the original book)

Page 117: ". . . I caused shoot him dead;" checks out against originalbook. Left as is. 

Index: Page reference for Whigs, origin of name fixed to page 23(footnote 8); no note on page 82 (original reference in book).