THE HIGHLAND CAMPAIGN 141
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VISCOUNT DUNDEE
I
FAMILY, BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE
THE Grahams of Claverhouse were a younger branch of an old and
illustrious family which, from the twelfth century onwards, bore an
important part in Scottish affairs, and of which several members figured
prominently in the history of the nation prior to the time when the fame
of the house was raised to its highest point by the ‘Great Marquis,’ the
ill-fated Montrose.
The Claverhouse offshoot was connected with the main stock through Sir
Robert Graham of Strathcarron, son of Sir William Graham of Kincardine
by his second wife, the Princess Mary, daughter of King Robert III.
During the early years of the sixteenth century, John Graham of
Balargus, third in descent from Sir William, acquired the lands of
Claverhouse, in Forfarshire, a few miles north of Dundee. From these his
son took the territorial title which, a few generations later, was to
become so feared and so hated throughout covenanting Scotland, and
which, even at the present day, after the lapse of more than two hundred
years, is still a bye-word and a shaking of the head to many.
John Graham, the ‘Bloody Claverhouse’ of Whig denunciators, and the
‘Bonnie Dundee’ of Jacobite apologists, was the son of William Graham of
Claverhouse and Lady Magdalene Carnegie, fifth and youngest daughter of
John, first Earl of Northesk. On the authority of Charles Kirkpatrick
Sharpe and of Mark Napier, successive writers have stated that the
mother of the future Viscount was Lady Jean Carnegie. Sir William Fraser
has pointed out, however, that Lady Jean was only his maternal aunt, and
that she married, not a Claverhouse, but the Master of Spynie. This
mistake as to the name of the mother of Viscount Dundee, adds the author
of the ‘History of the Carnegies,’ is the more remarkable that she bore
the same Christian name and surname as her cousin, Lady Magdalene
Carnegie, first Marchioness of Montrose.
The precise date of Claverhouse’s birth is not known. Biographers,
accepting Napier’s computation, almost unanimously assume that it took
place about 1643. That is based on an erroneous deduction from a note to
a decision of the Court of Session, quoted by Fountainhall under date of
the 21st of July 1687. The matter under litigation was a claim put
forward by Fotheringham of Powrie to levy fish from the boats passing by
Broughty Castle. The Lords decided that his charter gave him sufficient
right and title ‘if so be he had possessed forty years by virtue of that
title.’ With special reference to one of the three defendants, it was
added, ‘as for Clavers, he was seventeen years of these forty a minor,
and so they must prove forty years before that.’ Napier assuming the
seventeen years of Claverhouse’s minority to have been coincident with
the first seventeen of the forty referred to, argued that, as a period
of forty years prior to 1687 leads back to 1647, Claverhouse was not
twenty-one years of age until seventeen years after 1647; in other
words, that he was of age about the year 1664, and, consequently, born
about 1643. The calculation is ingenious, and the result plausible; but
the marriage contract of Claverhouse’s parents proves the fallacy of the
original assumption from which everything depends. That authoritative
document, for the discovery of which we are indebted to Sir William
Fraser, was subscribed in 1645; the objection which that raises to the
date worked out by Napier is obviously insurmountable.
For the approximation thus shown to be erroneous, the ‘Dictionary of
National Biography’ substitutes another which has the merit of being
more in accord with the known dates of some of the events in
Claverhouse’s career. A memorandum preserved at Ethie and noted in the
‘History of the Carnegies,’ supplies the scrap of positive evidence upon
which it is founded. It shows that, in 1653, Lady Claverhouse, as
tutrix-testamentar to her son, signed a deed relating to a disposition
which she was bound to make to two of her kinsmen. It is not improbable
that this was done shortly after her husband’s death. If such were the
case, their eldest son, who, according to the note to the decision of
the Court of Session, was a minor for the space of seventeen years,
would have been four years of age at the time, and must therefore have
been born about the year 1649.
The only information now available concerning the future Viscount
Dundee’s early life, prior to his matriculation as a student, is
supplied by the Roll of the Burgesses of Dundee, which sets forth that,
on the 22nd of September 1660, ‘John Graham of Claverhouse and David
Graham, his brother, were admitted Burgesses and Brethren of the Guild
of Dundee, by reason of their father’s privilege.’ The register of St
Leonard’s College establishes the fact that the two brothers went up
together to the University of St Andrews towards the beginning of 1665.
This may be looked upon as a strong confirmation of the date which we
have assigned as that of Claverhouse’s birth. That he should begin his
academic course in his twenty-second year and continue it up to the age
of twenty-five, would have been quite contrary to the custom of a period
when Scottish undergraduates, more particularly those belonging to the
leading families of the country, were even more youthful than many of
them are at the present day.
It has generally been assumed that Claverhouse remained at St Andrews
for the full period of three years; but the University register supplies
no evidence in support of this. On the contrary, the absence of John
Graham’s name from the list of those of his class-mates who graduated in
due course, justifies the belief that his studies were brought to a
premature close before 1668. To what extent he availed himself of the
opportunities afforded him during such stay as he may have made at St
Andrews, is a matter with regard to which proof is wholly wanting and
testimony only bare and vague.
Dr Monro, the Principal of the College of Edinburgh, in his answer to
the charge brought against him on the ground of ‘his rejoicing the day
that the news of Claverhouse his victory came to the town,’ admitted
that he had not ‘rejoiced at the fall of my Lord Dundee,’ for whom he
‘had an extraordinary value’; and he challenged any ‘gentleman, soldier,
scholar or civilized citizen’ to find fault with him for holding the
fallen leader’s memory in respect. From this, the utterance of one well
qualified by personal acquaintance to form a competent judgment, and
unlikely, from his training and education to express it in inconsiderate
terms of meaningless exaggeration, it has been argued that the subject
of Monro’s eulogy must have possessed the attainments upon which men of
culture naturally set store. In support of this warrantable inference,
there is the statement of a writer who, though not a contemporary, is
undeniably a well-informed chronicler. The author of the Memoirs of Sir
Ewan Cameron says that Claverhouse ‘had ane education suitable to his
birth and genius.’ According to the same authority, he ‘made a
considerable progress in the mathematicks, especially in those parts of
it that related to his military capacity; and there was no part of the
Belles Lettres which he had not studyed with great care and exactness.
He was much master in the epistolary way of writeing; for he not onely
expressed himself with great ease and plaineness, but argued well, and
had a great art in giving his thoughts in few words.’
Burnet, who, though a connection of Claverhouse’s, is very far from
displaying any partiality for him, allows that he was ‘a man of good
parts.’ Dalrymple records that ‘Dundee had inflamed his mind from his
earliest youth, by the perusal of antient poets, historians and orators,
with the love of the great actions they praise and describe.’ Finally,
there is the testimony of the ‘officer’ who wrote the ‘Memoirs of
Dundee’ published in 1714, and who makes direct reference to his
‘liberal education in humanity and in mathematicks.’
The question of Claverhouse’s scholarship is not one of special moment
in itself; yet it acquires some interest from the animated controversy
to which it has given rise, and which originated in a hasty comment made
by Sir Walter Scott. The novelist, after referring to a newly published
letter, casually added, ‘Claverhouse, it may be observed, spells like a
chambermaid.’ Subsequent writers, interpreting this into a general
estimate of Dundee’s educational acquirements, repeated the petty and
irrelevant charge, in season and out of season, almost as though the
quality of his orthography constituted a test by which his whole
character was to be estimated. That Claverhouse was erratic in his
spelling cannot be denied. It may be questioned, on the other hand,
whether, in this respect, he displayed greater disregard for orthography
than the average gentleman of his day. If he wrote ‘I hop’ for ‘I hope,’
‘deuk’ for ‘Duke,’ ‘seased’ for ‘seized,’ ‘fisik’ for ‘physic,’ and
‘childring’ for ‘children,’ it does not require a very extensive
acquaintance with the correspondence of the seventeenth century to know
that dukes and earls, and even lawyers and divines, indulged in vagaries
equally startling. But, if the arbitrary and occasionally whimsical
spelling of his letters affords no proof of exceptional ignorance, the
vigour, clearness, and directness of the style in which they are written
give them a place rather above than below the epistolatory standard of
the time.
After leaving St Andrews, Claverhouse, following the example set by so
many generations of his countrymen, and notably by his illustrious
kinsman, the Marquis of Montrose, repaired to the Continent, with the
intention of devoting himself to a military career. According to his
earliest biographer, ‘an Officer of the Army,’ he ‘spent some time in
the French service as a volunteer, with great reputation and applause.’
This is repeated rather than confirmed by the author of the ‘Memoirs of
Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel,’ with the addition, it is true, of the
statement that it was ‘under the famous Marishall Turenne’ the young
soldier received his first training. Dalrymple, without supplying
precise information, records that Claverhouse ‘entered the profession of
arms with an opinion he ought to know the services of different nations,
and the duties of different ranks,’ that, ‘with this view he went into
several foreign services,’ and that ‘when he could not obtain a
command,’ he served as a volunteer.
The most trustworthy evidence in support of the statement that
Claverhouse served and fought in the armies of France, is that of James
Philip of Almerieclose, his standard-bearer at Killiecrankie, who, in
later years, devoted a Latin epic to the memory and the praise of the
gallant Graham. Referring to his hero, he says, ‘The French camps on the
Loire, where Orleans lifts her towers, and on the Seine, where her
increased waters lave the city of Paris, have beheld him triumphant over
the defeated enemy, stained with the blood-marks of relentless war.’ The
passage is, unfortunately, one in which the author has so obviously
taken poetical liberty with historical facts, that his words cannot be
taken literally. As the editor and translator of the poem points out,
‘there could have been no fighting on the Seine or Loire.’ Whether, on
the other hand, it be probable that ‘camps of instruction were there,
from which young soldiers were sent to the front,’ is a matter of little
moment. Even without such explanation the passage is valuable as
evidence. It may be accepted as definitively establishing the fact that
it was in France Claverhouse first learnt the art of war.
It has been further conjectured that he may have belonged to the
contingent of 6000 English and Scottish troops, which, under the
leadership of Monmouth, joined Turenne’s army in 1672. If such were the
case, the duration of his service must have been brief. There is
evidence to prove that, by the summer of 1674, he had transferred his
allegiance to William of Orange, and that he was present at the battle
of Seneff, fought in August of that year; and there are grounds for
believing that he was directly instrumental in rescuing the Prince from
a perilous situation.
Macaulay, it is true, rejects the story as ‘invented’ by some Jacobite
many years after both William and Dundee were dead. That, however,
appears to have been hastily done, on the erroneous assumption that the
account of the alleged incident went no further back than the Memoirs of
1714. They, indeed, do state of Claverhouse, that, ‘at the battle of St
Neff, 1674, when the Prince of Orange was dismounted, and in great
danger of being taken, he rescued him, and brought him off upon his own
horse.’ But this does not constitute the sole authority. In addition to
it, there is that of the Memoirs of Lochiel. It is the more valuable
that the author bases his own narrative on the Latin epic to which, in
the following passage, he refers as one of the sources of his
compilation. ‘Besides the assistance I have from the Earl of Balcarres
his memoirs of the wars, and the several relations I have had of them
from many who were eyewitnesses, I have before me a manuscript copy of
an historical Latin poem called “The Grameis,” written in imitation of
Lucan’s “Pharsalia,” but unfinished, by Mr Philips of Amryclos, who had
the office of standard-bearer during that famous expedition’ in the
Highlands. From Philips he not only draws the incident of Seneff, but
also gives a rough translation in English verse, of the passage
commemorating this ‘vigorous exploit.’ It runs thus:—
‘When the feirce Gaule, thro’ Belgian stanks yow fled,
Fainting, alone, and destitute of aid,
While the proud victor urg’d your doubtfull fate,
And your tir’d courser sunk beneath your weight,
Did I not mount you on my vigorous steed,
And save your person by his fatal speed?’
Until recently, Philips’ poem existed in manuscript only. That
circumstance consequently gives the value of distinct contemporary
evidence to another effusion, of which the author cannot be suspected of
having drawn from the ‘Grameis’ his allusion, unfortunately only a vague
one, to the exploits of Claverhouse whilst serving under the Prince of
Orange. Moreover, it was as early as January 1683, that is several years
before the occurrence of the leading events celebrated in the ‘Grameis,’
that the anonymous rhymer published ‘The Muse’s New Year’s Gift, and
Hansell, to the right honoured Captain John Graham of Claverhouse.’ In
that poem the following lines are to be found:—
‘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.’
Once, at least, during the period of his military service under the
Dutch, Claverhouse returned to Scotland. He was in Edinburgh in March
1676. From there he wrote two letters to John Stewart, younger of
Garntully, about the purchase of a horse and the gift of a ‘setting
dogue.’ By the beginning of the following month he had again left the
country; for, in a letter written by his directions after his hurried
departure, and dated the 4th of April, the hope is expressed that ‘this
day hie is in Holland.’ He was not to continue in the pay of the
States-General much longer. The very next year he resigned his
commission, and came home to solicit employment in the British Army. To
account for this apparently sudden determination, the author of the
Memoirs of Lochiel relates a highly dramatic incident, for which, it
must be added, there is no authority but his own, and of which the
details are not such as to command unhesitating belief. After having
given his account of William’s rescue by Claverhouse, at Seneff, the
chronicler continues:—
‘The Prince, in reward of this service, gave him a Captain’s commission,
and promised him the first regiment that should fall in the way; and
some years thereafter, there happening a vacancy in one of the Scotch
regiments, he stood candidate for it, not only upon the assurance of
that promise, but also of the letters he procured from King Charles and
the Duke of York, recommending him to the Prince, in very strong terms.
But, notwithstanding of all this, the Prince preferred Mr Collier, a son
of the Earl of Portmore, to the regiment. The Prince then resided at his
Palace of the Loo; and Captain Grahame, who was absent while this
intrigue was carrying on, chanceing to meet Mr Collier in the Palace
Court, expostulated the matter in very harsh terms, and gave him some
blows with his cane.
‘The Prince either saw or was soon informed of what passed, and ordering
Captain Grahame, who had been seized by the officer of the guards, to be
brought before him, he asked him how he dared to strick any person
within the verge of his Palace? The Captain answered, that he was indeed
in the wrong, since it was more his Highness his business to have
resented that quarrel than his; because Mr Collier had less injured him
in disappointing him of the regiment, than he had done his Highness in
making him breck his word. Then replyed the Prince, in an angry tone, “I
make yow full reparation, for I bestow on yow what is more valuable than
a regiment, when I give yow your right arm!” The Captain subjoyned, that
since his Highness had the goodness to give him his liberty, he resolved
to employ himself elsewhere, for he would not serve a Prince longer that
had brock his word.
‘The Captain having thus thrown up his commission was preparing in haste
for his voyage, when a messenger arrived from the Prince with two
hundred guineas for the horse on which he had saved his life. The
Captain sent the horse but ordered the gold to be distributed among the
grooms of the Prince’s stables. It is said, however, that his Highness
had the generosity to wryte to the King and the Duke recommending him as
a fine gentleman, and a brave officer, fitt for any office, civil or
military.’
In the “Life of Lieutenant-General Hugh Mackay,” the account given is
more summary: ‘About this time,’ it is said, ‘the lieutenant-colonelcy
of one of the regiments, forming the Scottish brigade, falling vacant,
two candidates started for the appointment, both excellent officers, but
men of characters widely different. These were Graham of Claverhouse,
then an officer in the Prince’s service, afterwards notorious for his
unrelenting cruelties to the Covenanters in the West of Scotland, and
Mackay, characterised by Bishop Burnet, as the most pious military man
he ever knew. The Prince preferred Mackay, which gave such mortal
offence to his rival, that he instantly quitted the service and returned
to Scotland, burning with resentment against the authors of his
disappointment.’
Neither of these two narratives is contemporary. But the more
circumstantial embodies the Jacobite legend current in the early years
of the eighteenth century, whilst the briefer is founded on the
tradition preserved in the family of Claverhouse’s Whig opponent. The
one point on which they both agree may therefore be accepted with some
confidence; and it seems plausible to ascribe Captain Graham’s
withdrawal from the Dutch service to the dissatisfaction which he felt
at the inadequate recognition of his claims to promotion.
Claverhouse experienced no difficulty in obtaining employment under his
own sovereign. Two letters bearing on the subject have been preserved.
They are both written by his relative, the Marquis of Montrose; one of
them is addressed to him, the other to the Laird of Monorgan, who was
also a Graham. The former is as follows:—
‘FOR THE LAIRD OF CLAVERHOUSE.
‘SIR,—You cannot imagine how overjoyed I should be, to have any
employment at my disposal that were worthy of your acceptance; nor how
much I am ashamed to offer you anything so far below your merit as that
of being my Lieutenant; though I be fully persuaded that it will be a
step to a much more considerable employment, and will give you occasion
to confirm the Duke in the just and good opinion which I do assure you
he has of you; he being a person that judges not of people’s worth by
the rank they are in.
‘I do not know, after all this, in what terms, nor with what confidence,
I can express my desire to have you accept this mean and inconsiderable
offer; whether by endeavouring to magnify it all I can, and telling you,
that it is the first troop of the Duke of York’s regiment; that I am to
raise it in Scotland; and that I pretend that none but gentlemen should
ride in it; or, by telling you that I am promised to be very quickly
advanced, and that you shall either succeed to me, or share with me in
my advancement. I can say no more, but that you will oblige me in it
beyond expression.
‘I do not expect any answer to this while I am here; for I do resolve to
be in Edinburgh against the first or second day of the next month;
where, if you be not already, I earnestly entreat you would be pleased
to meet me.—Sir, Your most affectionate cousin and servant,
'LONDON, _February 19th_ [1677-8].' MONTROSE.'
From this letter, it has been assumed that Claverhouse had previously
made application to his kinsman and titular chief. There can, indeed,
hardly be a doubt that it is a reply to a previous request. On the other
hand, however, the second letter, written on the same day, does not
altogether bear out this view. It was thus:—
‘FOR THE LAIRD OF MONORGAN.
‘SIR,—I hope now to be able, within a week or ten days, to give you an
account, by word of mouth, of my resolutions, and the reasons I have for
accepting a troop in the Duke of York’s regiment of horse; so I shall
forbear troubling you with a long letter; only I must tell you that I
have all along met with a great deal of favour from his Royal Highness,
and that he has assured me that this shall be but a step to a more
considerable employment.
‘He has a very good opinion of Claverhouse, and he bid me endeavour by
all means to get him for my Lieutenant. Therefore, I most earnestly beg
that you would be pleased to represent to him the advantages he may have
by being near the Duke, and by making himself better known to him. And
withal assure him from me, that, if he will embrace this offer, he shall
also share with me in my advancement and better fortune. I need not use
many words to show you the disparity that is betwixt serving under me
and anybody else, though of greater family, he being of my house, and
descended of my family.
‘You may say more to this purpose than is fit for me to do. I shall say
no more but that by this you will infinitely oblige.—Sir, Your most
affectionate cousin and servant,
'LONDON, _February 19th_ [1677-8].' MONTROSE.'
It is not necessary to look upon this, with Napier, as ‘conclusive
against the conjecture that Claverhouse had _applied_ for this service,’
and as affording proof that the commission was spontaneously offered him
in recognition of his military abilities. It is more plausible in
itself, and more in accordance with the purport of both letters, to
believe that Claverhouse had solicited employment from the Duke of York,
with whom a recommendation from the Prince of Orange, who had lately
become his son-in-law, was likely to possess considerable influence;
that James had referred the applicant to the young Marquis, who was then
raising a troop for the Duke’s regiment of horse-guards; and that he
had, at the same time urged Montrose to secure the services of an
officer so brave and so able as Claverhouse had already shown himself to
be.
It is not clear whether Claverhouse was really called upon to do duty as
a mere subaltern. If so, it was but for a few months. As early as the
21st of November 1678, the Marquis of Montrose superseded the Marquis of
Athole as commander of the Royal Horse Guards in Scotland; and the
opportunity thus afforded of fulfilling the promise recently made to his
kinsman was not neglected. Claverhouse was at once promoted to the
vacant post, and thus began that part of his career which was to make
him so prominent in the history of his country.
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II
THE COVENANT AND THE COVENANTERS
ON the 14th of May 1678, a letter addressed to the King by his Privy
Council in Scotland, contained a suggestion of which the adoption was
destined to exercise an important influence on Claverhouse’s career. It
was written in answer to a prior communication, which it sufficiently
explains, and ran as follows:—
‘We have of late had divers informations of numerous field-conventicles
kept in several places of the kingdom, who, with armed men, have in many
places resisted your authority, and which by your letter, we find has
reached your ears, and seeing these insolences are daily iterated, and
are still upon the growing hand, and that your Majesty is graciously
pleased to ask our advice, for raising of more forces,—It’s our humble
opinion that, for the present exigent, there may be two company of
dragoons, each consisting of one hundred, presently raised, whose
constant employment may be for dissipating and interrupting those
rendezvouses of rebellion; and therefore we have recommended to the
Major-General, the speedy raising of them; and your Majesty may be
pleased to give commissions to such qualified persons as the
Major-General hath, at our desire, given in a list, to command these two
companies; or to what other persons your Majesty shall think fit.’
In accordance with the advice conveyed in this letter, measures were
forthwith taken for raising two additional companies. When formed and
officered they were sent to join the troop which Claverhouse already
commanded. At the head of this body of some three hundred men he was
entrusted with the difficult task of ‘dissipating and interrupting’ the
conventicles in the western and south-western districts of Scotland.
To understand the principles, motives, and aims of those against whom
Claverhouse was now called upon to take action, it is necessary to
recall the circumstances which accompanied and some of the events which
followed the signing in 1643, of the ‘Solemn League and Covenant for
Reformation and Defence of Religion, the Honour and Happiness of the
King, and the Peace and Safety of the three kingdoms of Scotland,
England and Ireland.’
In the month of August of that year, the respective committees of the
General Assembly and of the Convention of Estates had submitted to those
bodies a draft of the document, as it had been drawn up by them, after
consultation and deliberation with the Committee of the English
Parliament. It had been duly sanctioned, and adopted as the most
powerful means, by the blessing of God, for settling and preserving the
true Protestant religion, with a perfect peace in all his Majesty’s
dominions, and propagating the same to other nations, and for
establishing his Majesty’s throne to all ages and generations.
Two months later—on the 11th of October—the commissioners of the General
Assembly issued an ordinance for the solemn receiving, swearing, and
subscribing of the League and Covenant. It contained special injunctions
to the Presbyteries that they should take account of the performance
thereof in their several bounds; that they should proceed with the
censures of the Kirk against all such as should refuse or shift to swear
and subscribe, as enemies to the preservation and propagation of
religion; and that they should notify their names and make particular
report of them to the Commission.
On the next day, the Commissioners of the Convention of Estates, in
their turn issued a proclamation by which, supplementing the censures of
the Church, they ordained as a penalty on those who should ‘postpone or
refuse,’ that they should ‘have their goods and rents confiscate for the
use of the public,’ and that they should not ‘bruik nor enjoy any
benefit, place nor office within this kingdom.’
The Covenant, which these ordinances thus required the people of
Scotland to subscribe, consisted in an oath binding them to support the
reformed religion in the Church of Scotland, in doctrine, worship,
discipline and government, according to the Word of God, and the example
of the best reformed Churches; to endeavour to bring the Churches of God
in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in
religion, confession of faith, form of Church government, directory for
worship, and catechising; to strive, without respect of persons, for the
extirpation of popery, prelacy (that is, Church government by
archbishops, bishops, their chancellors and commissaries, deans and
chapters, archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical officers depending
on that hierarchy), superstition, heresy, schism, profaneness and
whatsoever should be found to be contrary to sound doctrine and the
power of godliness; to endeavour to preserve the rights and privileges
of the Parliaments, and the liberties of the kingdoms, and to preserve
and defend the King’s person and authority, in the preservation and
defence of the true religion and liberties of the kingdoms; to endeavour
to discover all such as had been, or should be, incendiaries,
malignants, or evil instruments, by hindering the reformation of
religion, dividing the King from his people, or one of the kingdoms from
another, or making any factions or parties amongst the people, contrary
to the League and Covenant, that they might be brought to public trial,
and receive condign punishment, as the degree of their offences should
require or deserve, or the supreme judicatories of both kingdoms,
respectively, or others having power from them for that effect, should
judge convenient; and, finally, to assist and defend all those that
entered into this League and Covenant, and not to suffer themselves,
directly or indirectly by whatsoever combination, persuasion, or terror,
to be withdrawn from this blessed union and conjunction, whether to make
defection to the contrary part, or to give themselves to a detestable
indifference, or neutrality.
If, at its origin, the Covenant of 1643 was practically a treaty between
the heads of the Presbyterian party in Scotland and the leading
Parliamentarians in England, it entered upon a new phase after the
execution of Charles I. Notwithstanding the hostile attitude of the
Presbyterians towards the King himself, they were strongly opposed to
the subversion of the monarchical form of government. On the 5th of
February, six days after the King’s death, and one day earlier than the
formal abolition of the monarchy by the English House of Commons, the
Scottish Estates of Parliament passed an Act by which Prince Charles,
then in Holland, was proclaimed King, in succession to his father.
Following upon this, a deputation was sent to the Hague to invite
Charles to come over and take possession of the throne of his ancestors.
As a preliminary condition, however, it was required that he should give
adhesion to the principles set forth in the Solemn Covenant. This he
hesitated to do; and the commissioners returned, well pleased, indeed,
with “the sweet and courteous disposition” of the Prince, but
disappointed at the failure of their mission, owing to the pernicious
influence of the “very evil generation, both of English and Scots,” by
whom he was surrounded.
A second deputation, sent shortly after this, to treat with the Prince
at Breda, was more successful. Charles, seeing no other way open to him
of regaining possession of the throne, gave his consent to the demands
of the commissioners. In June 1650, he returned to Scotland. On the 1st
of January 1651, he was crowned at Scone. Before taking the oath of
coronation, and after the full text of the Solemn League and Covenant
had been distinctly read to him, kneeling and lifting up his right hand,
he assured and declared, on his oath, in the presence of Almighty God,
the searcher of hearts, his allowance and approbation of all it set
forth, and faithfully obliged himself to prosecute the ends it had in
view, in his station and calling. He bound himself in advance to consent
and agree to all Acts of Parliament establishing Presbyterial
government; to observe their provisions in his own practice and family;
and never to make opposition to them or endeavour to make any change in
them.
It was not till nearly ten years later that Charles II. was really
restored to the throne. The event was hailed with joy by the
Presbyterians, who looked upon it as the accession of a covenanting
king, and who founded their hopes, not only on the promise made at
Scone, but also on a letter which Charles had forwarded, through Sharp,
to the Presbytery of Edinburgh, to be communicated to all the
Presbyteries in Scotland, and in which he expressed his resolve to
protect and preserve the government of the Church of Scotland, as
settled by law, without violation.
But the law itself was to be modified in such a manner as to enable the
King to violate the spirit of his promise whilst leaving him a verbal
quibble with which to justify his breach of faith. On the 9th of
February an Act was passed annulling the Parliament and Committees of
1649, that is, declaring those proceedings to be illegal, by which
Presbyterianism had been established on its firmest foundations. Less
than three weeks later, two other Acts were passed with a view to
preparing the way for a complete revolution in Church matters. The first
of them, known as the Act Rescissory, had for its objects the annulling
of the ‘pretended Parliaments’ of the years 1640, 1641, 1644, 1645,
1646, and 1648—a measure which Principal Baillie described at the time
as ‘pulling down all our laws at once which concerned our Church since
1633.’ The other, which purported to be ‘concerning religion and Church
government,’ was substantially an assertion and recognition of the
King’s claim to be considered as head of the Church. It declared that it
was his full and firm intention to maintain the true reformed Protestant
religion in its purity of doctrine and worship, as it had been
established within the kingdom during the reigns of his father and of
his grandfather; to promote the power of godliness; to encourage the
exercises of religion, both public and private; and to suppress all
profaneness and disorderly walking; and that, for this end he would give
all due countenance and protection to the ministers of the Gospel, ‘they
containing themselves within the bounds and limits of their ministerial
calling and behaving themselves with that submission and obedience to
his Majesty’s authority and commands that is suitable to the allegiance
and duty of good subjects.’ A concluding clause provided that,
notwithstanding the Rescissory Act, the ‘present administration by
sessions, presbyteries, and synods—they keeping within bounds and
behaving themselves’—should, ‘in the meantime’ be ‘allowed.’
The official toleration of Presbyterianism lasted till the 27th of May
1662. On that day an Act of Parliament, after declaring in its preamble
that the ordering and disposal of the external government and policy of
the Church properly belonged to the King, as an inherent right of the
Crown, and by virtue of his royal prerogative and supremacy in causes
ecclesiastical, proceeded to re-establish the ancient government of the
Church by the sacred order of Bishops. A further step was taken on the
5th of September of the same year by the imposition of a test on all
persons in public trust. Before entering upon the duties of any office
under the Crown, they were called upon to subscribe a declaration
setting forth that they judged it unlawful in subjects, under pretence
of reformation, or for any motive, to enter into leagues and covenants;
that they more especially considered the Solemn League and Covenant to
have been contrary to the fundamental laws and liberties of the kingdom;
and that they repudiated any obligation laid upon them by their former
sworn recognition and acceptance of this bond.
As a sequel, an Act not of Parliament but of Council, ordained that the
Covenant should be burnt by the hand of the common hangman. Prior to
this, however, on the 11th of June 1662, an Act concerning such
benefices and stipends as had been possessed without presentations from
the lawful patrons deprived the Church of the right claimed by it of
calling and choosing its own ministers. Under its provisions, no
minister admitted subsequently to the year 1649 could possess any legal
claim to his stipend unless he obtained a new presentation, and
collation from the bishop of the diocese.
The number of those that consented to make the required application was
so small that it was thought necessary to have recourse to the Privy
Council for the purpose of enforcing the new law. On the 1st of October,
an order was issued which deprived the recusant ministers of their
parishes, and required them, with their families, to remove beyond the
bounds of their respective presbyteries before the first day of the
following November. The Archbishop of Glasgow, at whose instance this
coercive measure was adopted, had asserted that there would not be ten
in his diocese who refused compliance, under dread of such a penalty.
The result falsified his prediction. Nearly four hundred ministers
throughout Scotland abandoned their benefices, and subjected themselves
and their families to the hardships and privations of banishment rather
than recognise the new modelling of the Church.
In many cases the ejection of the ministers and the loss of their
stipends did not prevent them from continuing the duties of their
office. Secret meetings, either in private houses or in secluded
localities, replaced the ordinary services of the Church. For the
purpose of checking this violation of the law, the Council, on the 13th
of August 1663, again intervened with an Act. It commanded and charged
all ministers appointed in, or since, the year 1649, who had not
subsequently obtained presentations from the patrons, and yet continued
to preach or to exercise any duty proper to the functions of the
ministry, either at the parish churches or in any other place, to remove
themselves, their families and their goods, within twenty days, out of
their respective parishes, and not to reside within twenty miles of
them, nor within six miles of Edinburgh or any cathedral church, or
three miles of any burgh within the kingdom.
In 1665, this Act was extended so as to include the older ministers,
that is, those who had obtained their livings prior to the year 1649;
and, on the same day, a proclamation against conventicles and meetings
for religious exercises was published. It warned all such as should be
present at these unlawful gatherings, that they would be looked upon as
seditious persons, and should be punished by fining, confining and other
corporal punishments, according to the judgment of the Privy Council, or
any having the King’s authority.
To replace the recusant clergy, a number of ministers, King’s curates,
as they were called, had been appointed by the bishops. They were so
coldly received by the people that, to provide them with congregations,
the Privy Council commanded all loyal subjects to frequent the ordinary
meetings of public worship in their own parish churches; and required
magistrates to treat those who kept away as though they were Sabbath
breakers, and to punish them by the infliction of a fine of twenty
shillings for each absence. These measures having proved ineffective,
the pecuniary penalty was greatly increased by a subsequent Act of
Parliament. For refusing to recognise the curates, each nobleman,
gentleman or heritor was to lose a fourth part of his yearly revenue;
every yeoman, tenant or farmer was to forfeit such a proportion of his
free moveables (after the payment of the rents due to the master and
landlord) as the Privy Council should think fit, but not exceeding a
fourth part of them; and every burgess was to be deprived of the
privilege of merchandising and trading, and of all other ‘liberties
within burgh,’ in addition to the confiscation of a fourth part of his
moveable goods. Further, to prevent any evasion of the law against
conventicles, proclamations issued at various times, prohibited all
preaching and praying in families, if more than three persons, besides
the members of the household, were present; and made landlords,
magistrates and heads of families answerable for the default of those
under their charge to conform to the episcopal government and ritual.
It was not the intention of those who had instigated this coercive and
penal legislation that it should remain a dead letter. As a means of
enforcing obedience to it and of levying the fines imposed upon those
who would not yield dutiful submission, troops were sent into the
discontented districts. The south-western counties, in which the
Covenanters were most numerous and most determined, were entrusted to
Sir James Turner. His orders were to punish recalcitrant families by
quartering his men on them, and, if they remained obstinate, to distrain
their goods and gear, and to sell them in discharge of the fines
incurred. It was the carrying out of these instructions that first led
to armed resistance on the part of the Covenanters.
The immediate cause of the rising, however, is conflictingly stated by
different writers. Kirkton’s version of the occurrence, which has been
reproduced almost literally by Wodrow, is to the effect that, on the
13th of November 1666, four of the men who had abandoned their homes on
the appearance of the military, coming, in the course of their
wanderings, towards the old clachan of Dalry, in Galloway, to seek
refreshment after long fasting, providentially met, upon the highway,
three or four soldiers driving before them a company of people, for the
purpose of compelling them to thresh the corn of a poor old neighbour of
theirs, who had also fled from his house, and from whom the church
fines, as they were called, were to be exacted in this way. ‘This,’ says
Kirkton, ‘troubled the poor countrymen very much, yet they passed it in
silence, till, coming to the house where they expected refreshment, they
were informed the soldiers had seized the poor old man, and were about
to bind him and set him bare upon a hot iron gird-iron, there to torment
him in his own house. Upon this they ran to relieve the poor man, and
coming to his house, desired the soldiers to let the poor man go, which
the soldiers refused, and so they fell to words; whereupon two of the
soldiers rushing out of the chamber with drawn swords, and making at the
countrymen, had almost killed two of them behind their backs, and
unawares; the countrymen having weapons, one of them discharged his
pistol, and hurt one of the soldiers with the piece of a tobacco pipe
with which he had loaded his pistol instead of ball. This made the
soldiers deliver their arms and prisoner.’
The accuracy of the account given by Kirkton has been denied. Burnet
distinctly asserts that ‘this was a story made only to beget
compassion’; that after the insurrection was quashed, the Privy Council
sent commissioners to examine into the violences that had been
committed, particularly in the parish where this was alleged to have
been done; that he himself read the report they made to the Council, and
all the depositions taken by them from the people of the district, but
that no such violence on the part of the military was mentioned in any
one of them. The wounded soldier himself, one George Deanes, a corporal
in Sir Alexander Thomson’s company, from whose body ten pieces of
tobacco pipe were subsequently extracted by the surgeon, told Sir James
Turner that he was shot because he would not take the covenanting oath.
Whether premeditated and concerted, or merely ‘an occasional tumult upon
a sudden fray,’ this attack on the military was the signal for a
gathering of the discontented peasantry of the district. On the morrow,
the four countrymen, one of whom was M’Lelland of Boscob, being joined
by six or seven others, fell upon a second party of soldiers. One of
these, having offered resistance was killed; his comrades, about a dozen
in number, according to Kirkton, quietly gave up their arms. Within two
days the insurgents had recruited about fourscore horse and two hundred
foot. Proceeding to Dumfries, where Turner then lay with only a few of
his soldiers, the greater number of them being scattered about the
country in small parties, for the purpose of levying the fines, they
seized him, together with the papers and the money in his possession,
and carried him off as a prisoner. After this, ‘in their abundant
loyalty,’ as Wodrow characterises it, they went to the Cross and
publicly drank to the health of the King and the prosperity of his
Government.
In daily increasing numbers the insurgents marched towards Edinburgh. At
Lanark, where all the contingents they could expect from the south and
west had already joined them, and where ‘this rolling snow-ball was at
the biggest,’ they were estimated at some three thousand. Here they
renewed the Solemn League and Covenant. In spite of repeated warnings
from men who, whilst fully sympathising with them, yet understood the
hopeless nature of the enterprise in which they were engaged, the
leaders determined to push on towards the capital. But the enthusiasm of
many amongst their followers was beginning to wane; and by the time
Colinton was reached, the ill-armed and undisciplined crowd had dwindled
down again to a bare thousand. Then at length, even those who had
previously rejected the well-meant advice of their more cautious
friends, and had declared that, having been called by the Lord to this
undertaking, they would not retire till he who bade them come should
likewise command them to go, became conscious of their desperate plight,
and consented to a retreat towards the west. Turning the eastern
extremity of the Pentland hills, they directed their march towards
Biggar.
But it was too late. Dalziel, the governor of Edinburgh, who, at the
head of a hastily mustered body of regulars, had been sent out to
intercept them, came upon them at Rullion Green, on the evening of the
28th of November. A sharp engagement followed. Twice in the course of it
success seemed to favour the insurgents; but in the end the military
training and the superior weapons of their opponents prevailed, and the
Covenanters were scattered in headlong flight. Of the soldiers, only
five fell. On the other side there were about forty killed and a hundred
and thirty taken. These prisoners were next day marched into Edinburgh.
They might all have saved their lives if they had consented to renounce
the Covenant; but their refusal to do so was severely punished.
According to Burnet, who certainly does not exaggerate the number who
suffered the death penalty, ten were hanged upon one gibbet in
Edinburgh, and thirty-five more were sent to be hanged up before their
own doors. Many were transported across the seas. The torture of the
boot and of the thumbkins—the latter said to have been introduced by
Dalziel, who had learnt their use in Russia, where he served for a
time—was freely applied in the hope of wringing from the prisoners the
admission that the rising was part of a concerted plot for the
subversion of the existing government. They all strenuously denied it.
That shortly prior to this, a conspiracy had been formed for this object
is a well established fact. A document discovered by Dr M’Crie in the
Dutch archives and published by him in his edition of the Memoirs of
Veitch, shows that a plan was formed, in July 1666, for seizing on the
principal forts in the kingdom, and that ‘the persons embarked in this
scheme had carried on a correspondence with the Government of the United
Provinces then at war with Great Britain, and received promises of
assistance from that quarter.’ Another document referred to by the same
writer asserts that the castles of Edinburgh, Stirling, and Dumbarton
were amongst those to be taken possession of. Whether this Dutch plot
and the Galloway insurrection were connected with each other, is a point
with regard to which historians have maintained conflicting opinions in
accordance with their own sympathies. The strongest evidence that Napier
is able to adduce, on the one side, is the fact that a Mr Wallace is
mentioned as one of those in correspondence with Holland, and that
Colonel James Wallace was the leader of the insurgents whom Dalziel
routed at Rullion Green. But, on the other hand, it is pointed out by Dr
M’Crie that, as the other names are obviously fictitious, this
coincidence affords no ground for supposing that the Colonel was the
person referred to.
For many months after the Pentland rout, the harrying of the late
insurgents continued; but, at length, the political changes which placed
the administration of the country into the hands of Lauderdale, also
marked the inauguration of a more lenient policy towards the
Presbyterians. On the 15th of July 1669, a letter was communicated to
the Council, in which the King signified his desire that it should
authorise as many of the ejected ministers as had lived peaceably in the
places where they had resided, to return and preach, and exercise the
other functions of their office in the parish churches which they
formerly occupied, providing these were vacant. Ministers who took
collation from the bishop of the diocese and kept presbyteries and
synods, might be allowed to receive their stipends. The others were not
to be permitted ‘to meddle with the local stipend, but only to possess
the manse and glebe.’
This concession proved of little effect. The few who availed themselves
of the ‘Indulgence’—two and forty in all, according to Wodrow—were
looked upon as renegades by the irreconcilables, and found no more
toleration at their hands than the curates had done. The moderate
Presbyterians who accepted the ‘indulged’ clergy were denounced as
traitors to the cause. The conventicles which it had been hoped the new
measure would suppress, began to assume a more desperate character, as
the gatherings of those who, in their unbending determination to abide
by the very letter of the Covenant, declared themselves freed from their
allegiance to a king whom they considered as perjured, and against whose
agents, as malignant persecutors of the true religion, they believed
themselves justified in adopting the most violent measures. It is of
these extremists that the covenanting party now consisted.
It has been urged that these new developments were too natural, in the
circumstances of the time, not to have been anticipated, by some, at
least, of those who were responsible for the government of the country.
They have consequently been credited with the deliberate intention not
only of causing a disruption in the ranks of the Presbyterians, but also
of making the expected refusal of the indulgence a pretext for further
and sterner measures of coercion. If such were the case, the
machiavellian policy was successful. Within six months, the old system
of penal legislation was again adopted. On the 3rd of February 1670, a
proclamation prohibiting conventicles under heavy penalties was issued
by the Council. It was followed in August by an Act of Parliament which
made it illegal for outed ministers not licensed by the Council or for
any other persons not authorised or tolerated by the bishop of the
diocese, to preach, expound Scripture, or pray in any meeting, except in
their own houses and to members of their own family. Such as should be
convicted of disobedience to this law were to be imprisoned till they
found security, to the amount of five thousand merks, for their future
good behaviour. Persons attending meetings of this kind were to be
heavily fined, according to their respective conditions, for each
separate offence. Against outdoor meetings, or ‘field conventicles,’ the
law was still more severe. Death was to be the penalty for preaching or
praying at them, or even for convening them. A reward of five hundred
merks was offered to any of his Majesty’s subjects who should seize and
secure the person of an active conventicler. As a further inducement, a
subsequent proclamation made over to the captor the fine incurred by the
offender he secured.
Amongst the many devices resorted to at this time, with a view to
enforcing conformity, there is one which, because of its immediate
consequences, is deserving of special mention. In October 1677, the
Council addressed a letter to the Earls of Glencairn and Dundonald and
to Lord Ross, requiring them to call together the heritors of the shires
of Ayr and Renfrew, and to urge on them the necessity for taking
effective measures to repress conventicles. The answer given to the
three noblemen and forwarded by them to Edinburgh was practically a
refusal though it took the form of a plea of inability on the part of
those whose co-operation had thus been invoked. This alleged
powerlessness was made an excuse for the next step taken by the
Government, that of quartering a body of eight thousand Highlanders in
the disaffected counties, on those who refused to subscribe a bond by
which every heritor made himself answerable, not only for his wife,
children, and servants, but also for his tenants.
The commission for raising the Highlanders authorised them to take free
quarters, and, if need were, to seize on horses as well as on ammunition
and provisions. They were indemnified against all pursuits, civil and
criminal, which might at any time be intented against them or anything
they should do, by killing, wounding, apprehending, or imprisoning such
as should make opposition to the King’s authority, or by arresting such
as they might have reason to suspect. For two months the clansmen
availed themselves to the full of the arbitrary powers with which the
royal warrant invested them. At length the Duke of Hamilton appealed
directly to the King to put an end to the oppression exercised in his
name by the Highland men; and an express was sent down from London,
requiring the Council to disband them and to send them back to their
homes. This brings events down to 1678, the year in which Claverhouse
was appointed to the command of the dragoons who were to make another
effort to disperse the conventicles against which so many Acts of
Parliament and decrees of Council had been directed in vain, and which
even the depredations of the Highland host had failed to check.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
III
DISPERSING THE CONVENTICLERS
BY the end of 1678 Claverhouse was at Moffat, expecting to be joined
by one of the newly-levied troops of dragoons—that under Captain
Inglis. From that town he forwarded to the Earl of Linlithgow,
Commander-in-chief of the King’s forces, the first of a series of
despatches which contain a precise and detailed account of his
movements at this time. As indicating the spirit in which he had
undertaken the duties assigned to him, and the strict and literal
obedience to orders that characterised his execution of them, the
document is both interesting and valuable. It is dated the 28th of
December, and runs as follows:—
‘My Lord,—I came here last night with the troop, and am just going to
march for Dumfries, where I resolve to quarter the whole troop. I have
not heard anything of the dragoons, though it be now about nine o’clock,
and they should have been here last night, according to your Lordship’s
orders. I suppose they must have taken some other route. I am informed,
since I came, that this country has been very loose. On Tuesday was
eight days, and Sunday, there were great field-conventicles just by
here, with great contempt of the regular clergy, who complain extremely
when I tell them I have no orders to apprehend anybody for past
misdemeanours. And besides that, all the particular orders I have being
contained in that order of quartering, every place where we quarter must
see them, which makes them fear the less. I am informed that the most
convenient post for quartering the dragoons will be Moffat, Lochmaben
and Annan; whereby the whole country may be kept in awe. Besides that,
my Lord, they tell me that the end of the bridge of Dumfries is in
Galloway; and that they may hold conventicles at our nose and we not
dare to dissipate them, seeing our orders confine us to Dumfries and
Annandale. Such an insult as that would not please me; and, on the other
hand, I am unwilling to exceed orders, so that I expect from your
Lordship orders how to carry in such cases. I send this with one of my
troop, who is to attend orders till he be relieved. I will send one
every Monday, and the dragoons one every Thursday, so that I will have
the happiness to give your Lordship account of our affairs twice a week,
and your Lordship occasion to send your commands for us as often. In the
meantime, my Lord, I shall be doing, according to the instructions I
have, what shall be found most advantageous for the King’s service, and
most agreeable to your Lordship.—I am, my Lord, your Lordship’s most
humble and obedient servant,
J. GRAHAME.’
‘My Lord, if your Lordship give me any new orders, I will beg they may
be kept as secret as possible; and sent to me so suddenly as the
information some of the favourers of the fanatics are to send may be
prevented, which will extremely facilitate the executing of them.’
On the 6th of January 1679, Claverhouse, now at Dumfries, again
addressed a despatch to the Commander. He appears to have, in the
meantime, received an explanation of the Council’s intention, and an
intimation that his conscientious regard for the exact terms of his
commission did not meet with unqualified approval. This may be gathered
from the following paragraph in his letter:—
‘My Lord, since I have seen the Act of Council, the scruple I had about
undertaking anything without the bounds 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 have done anything but what my order
warranted; and since I knew it not, it was to me the same thing as if it
had not been. And for my ignorance of it, I must acknowledge that till
now, in any service I have been in, I never enquired farther in the
laws, than the orders of my superior officers.’
In another passage, having to report various incidents of recent
occurrence, with respect to some of which it was intended to make formal
complaint, he again gives proof of his respect for discipline, and
manifests his determination not only to enforce it, but also to
compensate those upon whom injury might be inflicted by any breach of it
on the part of the men under his command. At the same time, he does not
hesitate to make it clearly understood that, whilst ready to answer for
his own conduct, he repudiates responsibility for the actions of others.
His own words are as follows:—
‘On Saturday night, when I came back here, the sergeant who commands the
dragoons in the Castle came to see me; and while he was here, they came
and told me there was a horse killed just by, upon the street, by a shot
from the Castle. I went immediately and examined the guard, who denied
point blank that there had been any shot from thence. I went and heard
the Bailie take depositions of men that were looking on, who declared,
upon oath, that they saw the shot from the guard-hall, and the horse
immediately fall. I caused also search for the bullet in the horse’s
head, which was found to be of their calibre. After that I found it so
clear, I caused seize upon him who was ordered by the sergeant in his
absence to command the guard, and keep him prisoner till he find out the
man,—which I suppose will be found himself. His name is James Ramsay, an
Angusman, who has formerly been a lieutenant of horse, as I am informed.
It is an ugly business, for, besides the wrong the poor man has got in
losing his horse, it is extremely against military discipline to fire
out of a guard. I have appointed the poor man to be here to-morrow, and
bring with him some neighbours to declare the worth of the horse, and
have assured him to satisfy him if the Captain, who is to be here
to-morrow, refuse to do it. I am sorry to hear of another accident that
has befallen the dragoons, which I believe your Lordship knows better
than I, seeing they say that there is a complaint made of it to your
Lordship or the Council; which is, that they have shot a man in the arm
with small shot, and disenabled him of it, who had come this length with
a horse to carry baggage for some of my officers; but this being before
they came to Moffat, does not concern me.
‘The Stewart-Depute, before good company, told me that several people
about Moffat were resolved to make a complaint to the Council against
the dragoons for taking free quarters; that if they would but pay their
horse-corn and their ale, they should have all the rest free; that there
were some of the officers that had, at their own hand, appointed
themselves locality above three miles from their quarter. I begged them
to forbear till the Captain and I should come there, when they should be
redressed in everything. Your Lordship will be pleased not to take any
notice of this, till I have informed myself upon the place.
‘This town is full of people that have resetted, and lodged constantly
in their houses intercommuned persons and field preachers. There are
some that absent themselves for fear; and Captain Inglis tells me there
are Bailies have absented themselves there at Annan, and desired from me
order to apprehend them; which I refused, for they are not included in
all the Act of Council. Mr Cupar, who is here Bailie and Stewart for my
Lord Stormont, offered to apprehend Bell that built the meeting-house,
if I would concur. I said to him that it would be acceptable, but that
the order from the Council did only bear the taking up the names of
persons accessory to the building of it.’
The meeting-house referred to was situated in the neighbourhood of
Castlemilk, and had been built at the expense of the common purse of the
disaffected. It is described as a good large house, about sixty feet in
length and between twenty and thirty in breadth, with only one door and
with two windows at each side, and one at either end. After its purpose
had become known to the authorities, it was fitted up with stakes and
with a ‘hek’ and manger, to make it pass for a byre. In spite of this,
an order for its destruction was issued by the Privy Council, shortly
before Claverhouse’s arrival in the district.
The first duty he was called upon to perform was that of supplying the
squad that was to serve as an escort to James Carruthers, the
Stewart-Depute, who had been commissioned to carry out the order. The
dragoons themselves took no part in the actual demolition; but their
presence was necessary, not only to overawe resistance, but also to
compel the ‘four score of countrymen, all fanatics,’ whom Carruthers
brought with him, to pull down the building. ‘The Stewart-Depute,’
Claverhouse reported, ‘performed his part punctually enough. The walls
were thrown down, and timber burnt. So perished the charity of many
ladies.’
In subsequent despatches Claverhouse gives the most minute particulars
as to the manner in which he has carried out his orders for the
apprehension of various persons; and does not spare his comments on the
lack of adequate support in the discharge of his arduous and ungrateful
duties. A point upon which he lays great stress is the insufficiency of
the arrangements made for supplying his men with proper quarters and
with forage for their horses. He was obliged, he said, to let the
dragoons quarter at large; and he was convinced that this was extremely
improper at a time when the Council seemed resolved to proceed
vigorously against the disaffected. He thought it strange, too, that
they who had the honour to serve the King should have to pay more for
hay and straw than would be asked from any stranger. He was determined
for his part, that his troop should not suffer from the neglect or
indifference of the commissioners appointed to treat with him. Though
very unwilling to disoblige any gentleman, if his men ran short, he
would go to any of the commissioners’ lands that were near, and
requisition what was required, offering the current rates in payment.
This, he thought, was a step which he was justified in taking, and he
was ready to defend his conduct if called upon to do so.
Another serious ground for complaint was the want of proper information.
Good intelligence, he said, was the thing most wanted. The outlawed
ministers, men like Welsh of Irongray, were preaching within twenty or
thirty miles, yet nothing could be done for want of spies to bring
timely and trustworthy information concerning their movements. On the
other hand, the conventiclers received regular and speedy knowledge of
any expedition intended against them. There was reason to suppose that
their informants were sometimes the troopers entrusted with orders. Of
the treachery of one of these, who did not deliver till the twentieth a
despatch dated the fifteenth, he was so convinced that, had it not been
for the man’s influential patrons, he would have turned him out of the
troop with infamy, instead of merely putting him under arrest. The
result of such insufficient and unsatisfactory service was well
exemplified in the case of a number of persons whom he had been
instructed to seize in Galloway. He had set out the very night he
received his orders, and had covered forty miles of country. Of those
for whom search was made, only two were apprehended, and that because
they refused to take the same precautions as the rest for their safety.
‘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.’
Claverhouse’s complaints produced but slight effect, though they were
repeated until he grew weary of making them. Failing to obtain
satisfaction, he bluntly declared that he would never solicit more, but
that, if the King’s service suffered in consequence, he would let the
blame lie where it should.
About this time, however, an important measure, and one which brought
down upon him the jealous displeasure of the Marquis of Queensberry, who
resented it as an infringement of his rights, was adopted in
Claverhouse’s favour. Even if all the magistrates in the disaffected
districts had been men of unimpeachable loyalty to the Government, the
necessity for obtaining their co-operation would frequently have
hampered and delayed the military authorities. But many of them were
soon discovered to be lukewarm partisans at best; whilst not a few, if
they did not openly side with the conventiclers, aided and abetted them
by a deliberate and studied inactivity. To remedy this, and to give
Claverhouse freer hand, he was, in March 1679, appointed sheriff-depute
of the shires of Dumfries and Wigtown, and also of the stewartries of
Annandale and Kirkcudbright. Andrew Bruce of Earlshall, the lieutenant
of his own troop of horse, was given him as a colleague. They were not,
however, wholly to supersede the sheriffs previously in office, but only
to sit with those judges or to supply them in their absence. Moreover,
their powers were limited to putting the laws into execution only
against withdrawers from the public ordinances, keepers of conventicles,
and such as were guilty of disorderly baptisms and marriages, resetting
and communing with fugitives, and intercommuned persons and vagrant
preachers.
Claverhouse had not been long in the exercise of his twofold duties
before he began to realise that his efforts were far from producing the
desired results. Not only were conventicles as numerous as before, but
there were also signs which convinced him that passive resistance was
not all he would soon have to encounter. In a despatch which he wrote
from Dumfries on the 21st of April 1679, he informed the Earl of
Linlithgow that Mr Welsh was accustoming both ends of the country to
face the King’s force, and certainly intended to break out into an open
rebellion. In view of this, he pointed out that the arms of the militia
in Dumfriesshire as well as in Wigtownshire and Annandale, were in the
hands of the country people, though very disaffected; and that those
taken from the stewartry were in the custody of the town of
Kirkcudbright, the most irregular place in the kingdom. He consequently
suggested that they should be entrusted to his keeping, and also that
his own men should be provided with more suitable weapons, those which
they had got from the Castle being worth nothing.
A few days later, Lord Ross, writing from Lanark, conveyed a similar
warning. He could learn nothing, he said, but of an inclination to rise,
although there were none yet actually in arms. This was on the 2nd of
May. On the 5th he forwarded another despatch in which he had to report
an encounter between a small party of troopers and some peasants of the
district. The soldiers had been sent out to apprehend a man who was
reported to have in his possession some of the ‘new-fashioned arms,’
that is, halberts which were provided with a cleek, or crooked knife,
for the purpose of cutting the dragoons’ bridles, and of which the
manufacture was in itself an indication of what was intended. After
seizing the young fellow, who did not deny that he had been enlisted as
one of those who were to defend the conventicles in arms, the troopers,
instead of returning with their prisoner stabled their horses and fell
a-drinking. Some of the neighbours, availing themselves of the
opportunity, attacked them with forks, and the like, and wounded one of
them ‘very desperately ill.’
The next day Claverhouse also forwarded his report from Dumfries. It
contained, in addition to an account of his own movements, the following
comment on orders which he had just received, and which indicated that
the Earl of Linlithgow was also alive to the dangers of the situation:—
‘My Lord, I have received an order yesterday from your Lordship, which I
do not know how to go about on a sudden, as your Lordship seems to
expect. For I know not what hand to turn to, to find those parties that
are in arms. I shall send out to all quarters, and establish spies; and
shall endeavour to engage them Sunday next, if it be possible. And if I
get them not here, I shall go and visit them in Teviotdale or Carrick;
where they say, they dare look honest men in the face.’
On the 3rd of May, a few days before Lord Ross and Claverhouse drew up
their respective reports, there had happened an event which was destined
to bring matters to an immediate crisis, and which proved the signal for
another, and a far more serious rising than that of 1666. James Sharp,
Archbishop of St Andrews and Primate of Scotland, was murdered on Magus
Muir, by a party of Covenanters.
Of this terrible tragedy, each side has its own account. On the one
hand, there is that which is based on the narrative subsequently drawn
up by Russell, one of the leading actors in it. According to this
version, no premeditation existed on the part of the nine men concerned.
They were in search of William Carmichael, the Sheriff-depute of
Fifeshire, a man who had made himself obnoxious by the unrelenting
severity which he displayed in carrying out the laws against the
Covenanters. Having missed him, they were about to separate, when
information was brought them that Sharp’s carriage was approaching.
Interpreting this into ‘a clear call from God to fall upon him,’ they
there and then resolved ‘to execute the justice of God upon him for the
innocent blood he had shed.’
But if the Archbishop’s murder was not determined upon until the actual
moment when circumstances cast him into the hands of his enemies,
Russell’s account shows that it had been discussed a short time prior to
its perpetration. He states that, on the 11th of April, a meeting was
held to consider what course should be taken with Carmichael to scare
him from his cruel courses; that it was decided to fall upon him at St
Andrews; and that when ‘some objected, what if he should be in the
prelate’s house, what should be done in such a case, all present judged
duty to hang both over the post, especially the Bishop, it being by many
of the Lord’s people and ministers judged a duty long since, not to
suffer such a person to live, who had shed and was shedding so much of
the blood of the saints, and knowing that other worthy Christians had
used means to get him upon the road before.’ He further represents
himself as urging the murder of Sharp, in the course of the hurried
consultation held as the primate’s carriage was approaching, on the
ground that ‘he had before been at several meetings with several godly
men in other places of the kingdom, who not only judged it their duty to
take that wretch’s life, and some others, but had essayed it twice
before.’
Whilst it would appear from this account that no definite plan had been
formed, to be carried out on the 3rd of May, though some of the more
desperate of the Covenanters had come to a general understanding not to
neglect any favourable opportunity ‘to execute the justice of God’ upon
the wretch whom the Lord delivered into their hands, the other version,
accepting the official narrative published immediately after the murder,
asserts a distinct and premeditated purpose on the part of the
assassins. It founds this on the ‘informations’ which were sent from St
Andrews to the Privy Council, and which purported to embody the evidence
of persons alleged to have been in communication with the men who
perpetrated the crime.
In these it was stated that his Grace was waylaid by divers parties and
could not escape, whether he went straight to St Andrews or repaired to
his house at Scotscraig; that three days before the murder, several of
those concerned in it met in Magask, at the house of John Miller, one of
the witnesses, where they concerted the business; that the next night
they put up with Robert Black, another witness, whose wife was a great
instigator of the deed; that at parting, when one of them kissed her,
the woman prayed that God might bless and prosper them, adding, ‘if long
Leslie’—the episcopalian minister of Ceres—‘be with him, lay him on the
green also,’ to which the favoured individual whom she more particularly
addressed, holding up his hand, answered, ‘this is the hand that shall
do it’; and that further, on the morning of the 3rd of May, the nine men
followed the coach for a considerable distance, intending to attack it,
first on the heath to the south of Ceres, and then at the double dykes
of Magask, though owing to various circumstances, duly detailed, they
did not get what seemed an available opportunity of doing so until it
reached Magus Muir.
Standing thus, the question of premeditation gave rise to a long and
acrimonious controversy in which recriminations and invectives were
freely bandied, and which, being characterised, on either side, rather
by a determination to uphold a preconceived opinion than by a desire to
arrive at the plain truth, naturally led to no satisfactory conclusion.
The murder of Archbishop Sharp was followed by further proclamations
against the Covenanters, to whom, as a body, the Government attributed
the crime; and the episcopalian agents throughout the country, actuated
partly by a desire for revenge, partly by fear for their own safety,
displayed increased zeal in carrying out the repressive enactments of
the Privy Council. This was met on the other side with corresponding
measures for self-defence. Even before the tragedy at Magus Muir, a
determination to repel force by force had been noted and reported, and
conventicles had ceased to be merely peaceful gatherings of unarmed men.
They now began to assume the appearance of military camps, to which the
numerous smaller congregations that joined together for mutual
protection gave formidable proportions.
That with a view to bringing matters to an issue and saving themselves
by a general rising, Balfour and the other outlaws who had fled as he
had, for protection, to the west, after the murder of the primate, were
further instrumental in stirring up a spirit of rebellion, scarcely
admits of doubt, and is, indeed, conceded by Wodrow. But it is probable
that they only helped to precipitate what would not long have been
delayed under any circumstances, and what Robert Hamilton, brother to
the Laird of Preston, and others who, like him, were violently opposed
to the indulgence, had for some time been working to bring about.
Towards the end of May, these men put forth a manifesto, in which they
declared it to be their duty ‘to publish to the world their testimony to
the truth and cause which they owned, and against the sins and
defections of the times.’
In accordance with this proclamation, they decided that a party of armed
men should go to some public place and burn the Acts of Parliament
passed since 1660 ‘for overturning the whole covenanted reformation.’
Amongst these was included ‘that presumptuous Act for imposing an holy
anniversary day to be kept yearly upon the 29th of May, as a day of
rejoicing and thanksgiving for the King’s birth and restoration,’
whereby the appointers had ‘intruded upon the Lord’s prerogative,’ and
the observers had ‘given the glory to the creature that is due to our
Lord Redeemer, and rejoiced over the setting up an usurping power to the
destroying the interest of Christ in the land.’
The 29th of May was at hand; and it was thought fitting that the
obnoxious anniversary should witness the public protest and
demonstration. Glasgow was the place originally chosen for the
‘declaration and testimony of some of the true Presbyterian party in
Scotland,’ and for burning ‘the sinful and unlawful Acts’ passed against
them, just as their own ‘sacred covenant’ had been burned. But a
considerable number of the royal troops previously quartered in Lanark
having been sent up to the city, it was thought prudent to go no nearer
to it than Rutherglen. A party of the irreconcilables accordingly
marched to the royal burgh. After burning the hated Acts in the bonfire
with which the day was being solemnised, they put it out as a further
protest against the celebration, publicly read their own declaration and
testimony, and affixed a copy of it to the Market Cross.
On that same Thursday, Claverhouse, now at Falkirk, sent the Earl of
Linlithgow a despatch containing the following paragraph:—
‘I am certainly informed there is a resolution taken among the Whigs,
that eighteen parishes shall meet Sunday next in Kilbride Moor, within
four miles of Glasgow. I resolve, though I do not believe it, to
advertise my Lord Ross, so that with our joint force we may attack them.
They say they are to part no more, but keep in a body.’
At once taking measure to carry out the plan thus indicated, Claverhouse
set out for Glasgow. On his way he received information of the
proceedings at Rutherglen Cross, and thought it his duty to proceed,
with his men, to the scene of the demonstration. The sequel is told in
the next despatch to the Earl of Linlithgow:—
‘GLASGOW, _June 1st, 1679_.
‘MY LORD,—Upon Saturday’s night, when my Lord Rosse came into this
place, I marched out; and because of the insolency that had been done
two nights before at Ruglen, I went thither, and inquired for the names.
So soon as I got them, I sent out parties to seize on them, and found
not only three of those rogues, but also an intercommuned minister
called King. We had them at Strathaven about six in the morning
yesterday; and resolving to convey them to this, I thought that we might
make a little tour, to see if we could fall upon a conventicle; which we
did little to our advantage. For, when we came in sight of them, we
found them drawn up in battle, upon a most advantageous ground, to which
there was no coming but through mosses and lakes.
‘They were not preaching, and had got away all their women and children.
They consisted of four battalions of foot and all well armed with fusils
and pitchforks, and three squadrons of horse. We sent both parties to
skirmish; they of foot and we of dragoons: They run for it, and sent
down a battalion of foot against them: We sent threescore of dragoons,
who made them run shamefully: But, in the end (they perceiving that we
had the better of them in skirmish), they resolved a general engagement,
and immediately advanced with their foot, the horse following: They came
through the loch, and the greatest body of all made up against my troop:
We kept our fire till they were within ten pace of us: They received our
fire, and advanced to shock: The first they gave us brought down the
Cornet Mr Crafford and Captain Bleith: Besides that, with a pitchfork,
they made such an opening in my sorrel horse’s belly, that his guts hung
out half an ell; and yet he carried me off a mile; which so discouraged
our men, that they sustained not the shock, but fell into disorder.
‘Their horse took the occasion of this, and pursued us so hotly that we
got no time to rally. I saved the standards; but lost on the place about
eight or ten men, besides wounded. But the dragoons lost many more. They
are not come easily off on the other side, for I saw several of them
fall before we came to the shock. I made the best retreat the confusion
of our people would suffer; and am now laying with my Lord Ross. The
town of Strathaven drew up as we was making our retreat, and thought of
a pass to cut us off; but we took courage and fell on them, made them
run, leaving a dozen on the place. What these rogues will do, yet I know
not; but the country was flocking to them from all hands. This may be
counted the beginning of the rebellion, in my opinion.—I am, my Lord,
your Lordship’s most humble servant,
J. GRAHAME.’
‘My Lord, I am so wearied, and so sleepy, that I have written this very
confusedly.’
As to the respective numbers of the combatants engaged in the battle of
Drumclog, as it is commonly called from the place near which it was
fought, and which Claverhouse forgot to name in his despatch, it is
difficult to arrive at a definite conclusion. Russell, who was in the
ranks of the Covenanters, sets down the ‘honest party’ as consisting of
‘about fifty horse and about as many guns, and about a hundred and fifty
with forks and halberts’; but that is not consistent with the details
which he himself gives of the fighting. Sir Walter Scott, who has been
followed by most modern writers, computes the forces opposed to
Claverhouse at about one thousand, horse and foot, and the regulars at
no more than two hundred and fifty. But even this estimate of the latter
is probably excessive. In a letter written from Mugdock on the 30th of
May, the Marquis of Montrose informed the Earl of Menteith that he had
that day met with Claverhouse, who had been sent ‘with his troop and a
troop of dragoons, to guard some arms and ammunition transported to this
country.’ That may be taken to mean an escort of about two hundred men.
But Captain Creichton, who was then serving as a lieutenant under
Claverhouse, states that he, with Captain Stewart’s troop of dragoons
remained in Glasgow, when his commanding officer set out to enquire into
the Rutherglen demonstration; and he adds that those who fought at
Drumclog were about one hundred and eighty strong. Apart from the fact
that there is no reason for doubting his veracity, the number which he
gives exactly agrees with that which may be deduced from the casual
reference in Montrose’s letter; and there is, consequently, good reason
for accepting it as correct. With regard to the insurgents, it is less
easy to make even an approximative calculation. It is generally
admitted, however, that they greatly outnumbered their adversaries; and
this seems implied by the despatch which Lord Ross forwarded to the
commander-in-chief immediately after Claverhouse’s return to Glasgow on
the memorable Sunday. ‘Be assured,’ he wrote to the Earl, ‘if they were
ten to one, if you command it, we shall be through them if we can.’
Moreover, it is difficult to believe that the Covenanting forces could
have increased to some six thousand within a week after Drumclog, as
Hamilton, one of their leaders, boasts they did, if, on the 1st of June,
they numbered no more than the mere handful of Russell’s estimate.
The passage in which Claverhouse mentions the officers killed in the
engagement has always been read as referring to only two; and it has
caused some surprise that he should have omitted to report the loss of a
third, about whose death there cannot be a doubt, and who, moreover, was
a kinsman of his—Cornet Graham. Captain Creichton who, it must be
remembered, is speaking of a comrade, and whose words alone might be
looked upon as absolutely authoritative, states, in his Memoirs, that
‘the rebels finding the cornet’s body, and supposing it to be that of
Clavers, because the name of Graham was wrought in the shirt-neck,
treated it with the utmost inhumanity; cutting off the nose, picking out
the eyes, and stabbing it through in a hundred places.’ Andrew Guild, in
his Latin poem, ‘Bellum Bothwellianum,’ records the same barbarity.
‘They laid savage hands on him,’ he says, ‘and mutilated his manly face;
having cut off his tongue, his ears, and his hands, they scattered his
brains over the rough stones.’ In an old ballad on the Battle of Loudon
Hill—another name for the fight of Drumclog—Claverhouse’s cornet and
kinsman is twice made to foretell his own death:—
‘I ken I’ll ne’er come back again,
An’ mony mae as weel as me.’
In another Covenanting poem, ‘The Battle of Bothwell Brig,’ Claverhouse
is represented as avenging young Graham’s death on the fugitives:—
‘Haud up your hand,’ then Monmouth said;
‘Gie quarters to these men for me;’
But bloody Claver’se swore an oath,
His kinsman death avenged should be.
Russell, too, states that Graham was killed, and refers to the
mutilation of the lifeless body, though he accounts for it in a very
remarkable way. The passage is as follows: ‘One Graham, that same
morning in Strevan his dog was leaping upon him for meat, and he said he
would give him none, but he should fill himself of the Whig’s blood and
flesh by night; but instead of that, his dog was seen eating his own
thrapple (for he was killed), by several; and particularly James Russell
after the pursuit, coming back to his dear friend James Dungel, who was
severely wounded, asked at some women and men who it was; they told that
it was that Graham, and afterwards they got certain word what he said to
his dog in Strevan.’
In the face of such evidence, it is hardly possible to deny the actual
fact of Graham’s death. Neither can it be looked upon as probable that
his kinsman had no knowledge of it when he wrote his despatch. If,
therefore, Claverhouse really did omit to report it amongst the other
casualties, his silence is difficult to understand. But, it must be
pointed out that the whole question may, after all, resolve itself into
one of punctuation. The insertion of a single comma makes three persons
of ‘the Cornet, Mr Crafford and Captain Bleith.’ A matter so utterly
trifling in itself would not be deserving of notice if some of
Claverhouse’s irrational detractors, no less than some of his irrational
apologists, had not magnified it out of all proportion.
Throughout the engagement Claverhouse made himself conspicuous by his
courage, and was exposed to special danger because of the attention
which he attracted. One of the Covenanters, a Strathaven man, was
subsequently wont to relate that he had concealed himself behind a
hillock and fired eight shots at the leader of the royal troops; and it
may be assumed that, in those days, want of skill on the part of the
marksman was not considered the cause of his failure. It is also stated
by De Foe, that William Cleland, who, in later years distinguished
himself as a soldier and rose to be Lieutenant-Colonel of the Cameronian
regiment, actually succeeded in catching hold of Claverhouse’s bridle,
and that the latter had a narrow escape of being taken prisoner. Thanks
to his coolness and presence of mind no less than to his good fortune,
he left the field unscathed, but only when the discomfiture of his men
had become so complete as to render any effort to rally them wholly
hopeless. Like them, he galloped back to Strathaven; and local tradition
still points out the spot where he shot down one of the townsmen who
endeavoured to stay him in his flight. Some accounts relate that on his
road he had to pass the house where the outlawed minister King had been
left under guard, when the soldiers set out for Drumclog, and that, as
he did so, his prisoner of the morning ironically invited him to remain
for the afternoon sermon.
Before the engagement, Hamilton, who had assumed the command of the
Covenanters, gave out the word that no quarter should be given. In spite
of this, five out of seven men who had been captured, were granted their
lives and allowed to depart. ‘This,’ writes a contemporary, ‘greatly
grieved Mr Hamilton, when he saw some of Babel’s brats spared, after
that the Lord had delivered them into their hands, that they might dash
them against the stones.’ When he returned from the pursuit of the
routed royalists, a discussion had arisen as to the fate of the two
remaining prisoners. Hamilton settled it, in so far at least as one of
them was concerned, by killing him on the spot. ‘None could blame me,’
he wrote in a letter of justification published five or six years later,
‘to decide the controversy; and I bless the Lord for it to this day.’
Wodrow gives it as ‘the opinion of not a few,’ that if the ‘country men’
had pushed their success, followed their chase, and gone straight to
Glasgow that day, they might easily, with the help of the reinforcements
that would have come to them on the road, as soon as their success
became known, have driven out the garrison, ‘and very soon made a great
appearance.’
Without entering into a futile discussion as to what might have
happened, it may be pointed out that the actual circumstances of the
case scarcely justify so sanguine a view. When Claverhouse and his
troopers rode back to Glasgow, they had no certainty that, in the flush
of victory, the Covenanters would not continue the pursuit right up to
the city, and endeavour to take the fullest advantage of their success.
Indeed, the conduct of the royalist officers rather seems to imply that
they recognised the possibility of such a course on the part of the
enemy, for they caused half the men to stand to their arms all night.
If, therefore, the few horsemen on the Covenanting side, who alone could
possibly perform the distance of nearly thirty miles before dusk, even
on a long June day, had ventured on an attack, it may be believed that
they would have met with a reception calculated to make them regret
their rashness.
There is no occasion to assume that any reason but that dictated by
common prudence induced the foremost of the pursuers to halt at a
considerable distance from Glasgow, in order to await the coming of the
unmounted men, with such recruits as they might have been able to gather
on the way. Statements differ as to the precise place where the greater
number of them determined to stay for the night; but Wodrow is probably
accurate in saying that they did not press further forward than
Hamilton, and that it was from that town they resumed their march on the
morrow.
In the meantime Lord Ross and his officers, Major White and Captain
Graham, had not been idle. With carts, timber, and such other materials
as could be hastily requisitioned, they erected four barricades in the
centre of the city, and posted their men behind them to await the
expected onset. At daybreak next morning, Creichton, with six dragoons,
was sent out to take up his station at a small house which commanded a
view of the two approaches to Glasgow, so that he might at once be able
to report which of them the Covenanters decided to take. About ten
o’clock he saw them advance to the place which he had been instructed to
watch, and there, by a most injudicious manœuvre, divide themselves into
two bodies. Of these, one, under Hamilton, marched towards the
Gallowgate; whilst the other took a more circuitous road ‘by the
Wyndhead and College.’ There may have been a vague intention of taking
the military between two fires, but the movements were ill concerted,
and resulted in two disjointed attacks, which were both easily repulsed.
As Creichton returned to inform Claverhouse of the enemy’s dispositions,
he was followed close to the heels by that detachment which was making
for the Gallowgate bridge. When they reached the barricade which had
been raised on that side, they were received by Claverhouse and his men
with a volley which killed several, and threw the remainder into
confusion. The soldiers following up this first advantage, and jumping
over the carts that formed the obstruction, then charged the wavering
Covenanters, and drove them out of the town. They had time to do this
and to return to their original position before those of the ‘country
men,’ who had marched round by the north, came down by the High Church
and the College. These were allowed to come within pistol shot; and when
the soldiers fired into them at such close range, it was with the same
effect as before.
The second party was also forced to fall back. They appear to have done
so in better order than Hamilton’s men, for they were able to rally in a
field behind the High Church, where they remained till five o’clock in
the afternoon, unmolested by the soldiers, from whose sight they were
concealed, and who, not knowing when they might again be attacked, and
fully aware that the majority of the citizens were hostile to them,
contented themselves with remaining on the defensive. Prudence prevailed
with the Covenanters too, and without making any further attempt to
carry the barricade, they retired to Toll Cross Moor. Finding that
Claverhouse, who had been informed of the movement, had come out after
them, they continued their retreat as far as Hamilton, protecting their
rear so effectively with their cavalry, that Graham deemed it advisable
to fall back upon Glasgow.
At Drumclog, and subsequently at Glasgow, unforeseen circumstances had
imposed a leading and conspicuous part on Claverhouse. The measures
which the Government was now called on to adopt for the purpose of
quelling an insurrection of formidable proportions, were necessarily of
such magnitude, that he naturally fell back to his own subordinate
position, that of a captain of dragoons. To represent him as having
incurred the displeasure of his chiefs, and as having been superseded in
consequence, is contrary to fact, and wholly unfair to him. Proof is at
hand that no blame was laid upon him for the defeat of Drumclog. In a
letter written by the Council to Lauderdale on the 3rd of June, it was
admitted that he had been overpowered by numbers; and six days later,
through Lauderdale, the Chancellor conveyed the King’s thanks to Lord
Ross and to Claverhouse for their great diligence and care, and his
assurance that he would be very mindful of their conduct on all
occasions.
Creichton, who did not supply Swift with the materials for his memoirs
till many years later, and who, therefore, cannot always be implicitly
depended upon as regards details of minor importance, states that the
morning after the attack ‘the Government sent orders to Claverhouse to
leave Glasgow and march to Stirling.’ But Wodrow, who founds his
narrative on letters which he met with in the Council Registers, and
which he duly quotes, makes no special reference to Claverhouse. He
simply records the fact that ‘my Lord Ross and the rest of the officers
of the King’s forces, finding the gathering of the country people
growing, and expecting every day considerable numbers to be added to
them, and not reckoning themselves able to stand out a second attack,
found it advisable to retire eastward.’ He indicates, day by day, the
marching and counter-marching of the royalist troops, and narrates all
the steps that were taken to bring together a body sufficiently strong
to disperse the Covenanting insurgents.
From all this it is evident that there was no room for independent
action on the part of Claverhouse from the time of his leaving the West
to that of his return to it with the Duke of Monmouth, who had been
appointed Commander-in-Chief, and who, on the 22nd of June, encountered
the Covenanters at Bothwell Bridge. In the course of the engagement
which followed, no opportunity was given him of playing a prominent
part. Sir Walter Scott asserts on two different occasions, that the
horse were commanded by Claverhouse; and, in his well-known description
of the battle, he adds the detail that ‘the voice of Claverhouse was
heard, even above the din of conflict, exclaiming to the soldiers—“Kill,
kill—no quarter—think of Richard Grahame.”’ The historical truth is,
that Claverhouse was simply a captain of horse, as were also the Earl of
Home, and the Earl of Airlie, and that he was himself under the command
of his kinsman Montrose, Colonel of the Horse Guards. Beyond stating
this no accounts of the encounter make any reference to him. In so far
as he is personally concerned there is no reason for recalling the
incident of the fight which effectively put an end to the Covenanting
insurrection. His presence at it is the single, bare fact that requires
mention.
There are no official documents extant to enable us to follow
Claverhouse’s movements during the period immediately subsequent to
Bothwell Bridge. All that has been stated with regard to his doings at
this time rests on the authority of Wodrow, who himself admits, though
not, it is true, for the purpose of questioning their accuracy, that the
traditions embodied in his narrative were vague and uncertain.
‘Everybody must see,’ he says, ‘that it is now almost impossible to give
any tolerable view to the reader, of the spulies, depredations and
violences committed by the soldiers, under such officers as at that time
they had. Multitudes of instances, once flagrant are now at this
distance lost; not a few of them were never distinctly known, being
committed in such circumstances as upon the matter buried them.’
The order of the Privy Council, in accordance with which Claverhouse
again proceeded to the Western Counties, to begin his ‘circuit,’ as
Wodrow styles it, a few days after the engagement which had proved so
disastrous to the Covenanters has disappeared. It may, however, be
assumed that the powers conferred upon him were wide; and there is no
reason to suppose that he was instructed to deal leniently with those
who had been in arms against the royal troops. Although no proof can be
adduced in support of Wodrow’s statement, that Claverhouse ‘could never
forgive the baffle he met with at Drumclog, and resolved to be avenged
for it’; and although it would be rash to accept, except on the very
strongest evidence, the further assertion that he was one of those who
solicited Monmouth ‘to ruin the West Country, and burn Glasgow, Hamilton
and Strathaven, to kill the prisoners, at least, considerable numbers of
them, and to permit the army to plunder the western shires, who, they
alleged, had countenanced the rebels,’ the principles which he
unhesitatingly set forth in subsequent despatches, and in accordance
with which in the following July, he consented to go to London, as an
envoy from the Privy Council, to represent to the King the unwisdom of
adopting Monmouth’s more conciliatory policy, and of granting the
Covenanters favours, ‘to soften the clamour that was made upon the Duke
of Lauderdale’s conduct,’ quite justify the assumption that he fully
approved of severe measures against the actual rebels, and felt neither
scruple nor compunction in carrying them out.
But, when this has been admitted, it is only fair to bear in mind that
there were others besides Claverhouse, and ‘more bloody and barbarous
than he,’ engaged in the odious work of hunting down and punishing the
Bothwell outlaws, and preventing their friends and sympathisers from
harbouring and concealing them. If, instead of indiscriminately
attributing to him every alleged act of cruelty and rapacity, as
partisan writers have not unfrequently done, care had been taken to
ascertain whether he was even indirectly concerned in it, and whether he
was so circumstanced that he could prevent the perpetration of it, there
can be but little doubt that the list of atrocities imputed to him at
this date would assume less terrible proportions.
Nor should it be forgotten that many of the instances of severity
recorded against Claverhouse, harsh as they may have been, did not go
beyond the letter, or, indeed, the spirit of the law. It was his duty to
yield implicit obedience to the commands of his superiors. To condemn in
him that loyalty which has always been looked upon as the essential
quality of a soldier, and to hold him personally responsible for
carrying out with all the zeal and energy of his nature the policy of
the Government to which he owed allegiance, is inconsistent and unjust.
To object that, even as a soldier, he was not bound to support a cause
which he knew to be bad, is to ignore what his very enemies
recognised—that he was no reckless and ungodly persecutor of religion,
but, on the contrary, a man of deep convictions and of strict, almost
puritanical, practice. No estimate of his character can be adequate and
impartial, which does not take into account the essential fact that he
was as sincere—as fanatical, if the word be insisted upon—as those whom
he treated as rebels.
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IV
REJECTED ADDRESSES
THERE is a section of the extant correspondence of Claverhouse which
opens about the end of 1678 and extends through several years, and which
stands in remarkable contrast with the military despatches of the same
period. It consists of letters addressed to William Graham, eighth and
last Earl of Menteith. That nobleman, though twice married, had no
issue. His nearest male relative was his uncle, Sir James Graham, whose
only children were two daughters. With a view to settling the succession
to the earldom, Menteith favoured a matrimonial alliance between Lady
Helen, the younger of them, and some member of the Graham family. Sir
William Fraser, who discovered and published the letters, is of opinion
that the first thoughts of such a scheme were suggested to the Earl by
his kinsman, John Graham of Claverhouse. The following passage in the
earliest letter of the extant collection, though obviously not the first
of the correspondence, seems to bear out this view:—