The true and faithful of the West, by the event recorded in the
foregoing chapter, being so instructed with respect to their own power
and numbers, stood in no reverence of any force that the remnants of the
Tyrant's sect and faction could afford to send against them. I therefore
resolved to return to Edinburgh; for the longing of my grandfather's
spirit to see the current and course of public events flowing from their
fountain-head, was upon me, and I had not yet so satisfied the yearnings
of justice as to be able to look again on the ashes of my house and the
tomb of Sarah Lochrig and her daughters. Accordingly, soon after the
turn of the year I went thither, where I found all things in uncertainty
and commotion.
Claverhouse, or, as he was now titled, Lord Dundee, with that scorn of
public opinion and defect of all principle, save only a canine fidelity,
a dog's love, to his papistical master, domineered with his dragoons, as
if he himself had been regnant monarch of Scotland; and it was plain and
probable, that unless he was soon bridled, he would speedily act upon
the wider stage of the kingdom the same Mahound-like part that he had
played in the prenticeship of his cruelties of the shire of Ayr. The
peril, indeed, from his courage and activity, was made to me very
evident, by a conversation that I had with one David Middleton, who had
come from England on some business of the Jacobites there, in connection
with Dundee.
Providence led me to fall in with this person one morning, as we were
standing among a crowd of other onlookers, seeing Claverhouse reviewing
his men in the front court of Holyrood-house. I happened to remark, for
in sooth it must be so owned, that the Viscount had a brave though a
proud look, and that his voice had the manliness of one ordained to
command.
"Yes," replied David Middleton, "he is a born soldier, and if the King
is to be restored, he is the man that will do it. When his Majesty was
at Rochester, before going to France, I was there with my master, and
being called in to mend the fire, I heard Dundee and my Lord, then with
the King, discoursing concerning the royal affairs.
"'The question,' said Lord Dundee to his Majesty, 'is, whether you shall
stay in England or go to France? My opinion, sir, is, that you should
stay in England, make your stand here, and summon your subjects to your
allegiance. 'Tis true, you have disbanded your army, but give me leave,
and I will undertake to get ten thousand men of it together, and march
through all England with your standard at their head, and drive the
Dutch before you;' and," added David Middleton, "let him have time, and
I doubt not, that, even without the King's leave, he will do as much."
Whether the man in this did brag of a knowledge that he had not, the
story seemed so likely, that it could scarcely be questioned; so I
consulted with my faithful friend and companion, Quintin Fullarton, and
other men of weight among the Cameronians; and we agreed, that those of
the societies who were scattered along the borders to intercept the
correspondence between the English and Scottish Jacobites, should be
called into Edinburgh to daunt the rampageous insolence of Claverhouse.
This was done accordingly; and from the day that they began to appear in
the streets, the bravery of those who were with him seemed to slacken.
But still he carried himself as boldly as ever, and persuaded the Duke
of Gordon, then governor of the castle, not to surrender, nor obey any
mandate from the Convention of the States, by whom, in that interregnum,
the rule of the kingdom was exercised. Still, however, the Cameronians
were coming in, and their numbers became so manifest, that the dragoons
were backward to show themselves. But their commander affected not to
value us, till one day a singular thing took place, which, in its
issues, ended the overawing influence of his presence in Edinburgh.
I happened to be standing with Quintin Fullarton, and some four or five
other Cameronians, at an entry-mouth forenent the Canongate-cross, when
Claverhouse, and that tool of tyranny, Sir George Mackenzie the
advocate, were coming up from the palace; and as they passed, the
Viscount looked hard at me, and said to Sir George,--
"I have somewhere seen that doure cur before."
Sir George turned round also to look, and I said,--
"It's true, Claverhouse--we met at Drumclog;" and I touched my arm that
he had wounded there, adding, "and the blood shed that day has not yet
been paid for."
At these words he made a rush upon me with his sword, but my friends
were nimbler with theirs; and Sir George Mackenzie interposing, drew him
off, and they went away together.
The affair, however, ended not here. Sir George, with the subtlety of a
lawyer, tried to turn it to some account, and making a great ado of it,
as a design to assassinate Lord Dundee and himself, tried to get the
Convention to order all strangers to remove from the town. This,
however, was refused; so that Claverhouse, seeing how the spirit of the
times was going among the members, and the boldness with which the
presbyterians and the Covenanters were daily bearding his arrogance,
withdrew with his dragoons from the city and made for Stirling.
In this retreat from Edinburgh he blew the trumpet of civil war; but in
less than two hours from the signal, a regiment of eight hundred
Cameronians was arrayed in the High-street. The son of Argyle, who had
taken his seat in the Convention as a peer, soon after gathered three
hundred of the Campbells, and the safety of Scotland now seemed to be
secured by the arrival of Mackay with three Scotch regiments, then in
the Dutch service, and which the Prince of Orange had brought with him
to Torbay.
By the retreat of Claverhouse the Jacobite party in Edinburgh were so
disheartened, and any endeavour which they afterwards made to rally was
so crazed with consternation, that it was plain the sceptre had departed
from their master. The capacity as well as the power for any effectual
action was indeed evidently taken from them, and the ploughshare was
driven over the ruins of their cause on the ever-memorable eleventh day
of April, when William and Mary were proclaimed King and Queen.
But though thus the oppressor was cast down from his throne, and though
thus, in Scotland, the chief agents in the work of deliverance were the
outlawed Cameronians, as instructed by me, the victory could not be
complete, nor the trophies hung up in the hall, while the Tyrant
possessed an instrument of such edge and temper as Claverhouse. As for
myself, I felt that while the homicide lived the debt of justice and of
blood due to my martyred family could never be satisfied; and I heard of
his passing from Stirling into the Highlands, and the wonders he was
working for the Jacobite cause there, as if nothing had yet been
achieved toward the fulfilment of my avenging vow.