‘My Lord, as your friend and servant, I take the liberty to give you an

advice, which is, that there can be nothing so advantageous for you as

to settle your affairs, and establish your successor in time, for it can

do you no prejudice if you come to have any children of your own body,

and will be much for your quiet and comfort if you have none; for

whoever you make choice of will be in place of a son. You know that

Julius Cæsar had no need to regret the want of issue, having adopted

Augustus, for he knew certainly that he had secured to himself a

thankful and useful friend, as well as a wise successor, neither of

which he could have promised himself by having children; for nobody

knows whether they beget wise men or fools, besides that the ties of

gratitude and friendship are stronger in generous minds than those of

nature.

‘My Lord, I may, without being suspected of self-interest, offer some

reasons to renew to you the advantage of that resolution you have taken

in my favour. First, that there is nobody of my estate and of your name

would confound their family in yours, and nobody in the name is able to

give you those conditions, nor bring in to you so considerable an

interest, besides that I will easier obtain your cousin german than any

other, which brings in a great interest, and continues your family in

the right line. And then, my Lord, I may say without vanity that I will

do your family no dishonour, seeing there is nobody you could make

choice of has toiled so much for honour as I have done, though it has

been my misfortune to attain but a small share. And then, my Lord, for

my respect and gratitude to your Lordship, you will have no reason to

doubt of it, if you consider with what a frankness and easiness I live

with all my friends.

‘But, my Lord, after all this, if these reasons cannot persuade you that

it is your interest to pitch on me, and if you can think on anybody that

can be more proper to restore your family and contribute more to your

comfort and satisfaction, make frankly choice of him, for without that

you can never think of getting anything done for your family: it will be

for your honour that the world see you never had thoughts of alienating

your family, then they will look no more upon you as the last of so

noble a race, but will consider you rather as the restorer than the

ruiner, and your family rather as rising than falling; which, as it will

be the joy of our friends and relations, so it will be the confusion of

our enemies.’

Claverhouse’s proposal found favour with the Earl of Menteith. He wrote

a very earnest letter to his ‘much honorrd Unkle,’ who resided in

Ireland; and formally made an offer of marriage in Claverhouse’s name.

He described the ‘noble young gentleman’ in glowing terms. He was, the

Earl said, ‘exceeding well accomplished with nature’s gifts,’—as much so

as any he knew. ‘All that is noble and virtuous’ might be seen in him;

and as a further and not inconsiderable recommendation, it was added

that he had ‘a free estate upwards of six hundred pound sterling yearly

of good payable rent, near by Dundee,’ and also that he was ‘captain of

the standing troops of horse in this kingdom,’ which was ‘very

considerable.’ To crown all this, he was a Graham; and it would be ‘a

singular happiness’ to the family to form an alliance with ‘such a

gentleman as he.’ To persuasion the matchmaking Earl added something not

very far removed from a menace, and concluded his letter with the

following vigorous words:—

‘For if ye give and bestow that young lady on any other person bot he, I

sall never consent to the mariag unless it be Cleverus, whom I say again

is the only person of all I know fitest and most proper to marie yor

daughter.’

Claverhouse, notwithstanding the important matters that were engaging

his attention at the time, was willing to go over to Ireland to

prosecute his suit in person. He would not, however, presume to do so

until a line from Sir James and his lady brought the assurance that he

should be welcome. In the meantime, he sent a messenger, probably with

letters of his own, whose delay in returning with an answer called forth

the following rather desponding letter, which bears date, Dumfries,

February 14th, 1679:—

‘MY DEAR LORD,—I have delayed so long to give a return to your kind

letter, expecting that my man should return from Ireland, that I might

have given your Lordship an account of the state of my affairs; but now

that I begin to despair of his coming, as I do of the success of that

voyage, I would not lose this occasion of assuring your Lordship of my

respects. I have received letters from my Lord Montrose, who gives me

ill news, that an Irish gentleman has carried away the Lady, but it is

not certain, though it be too probable. However, my Lord, it shall never

alter the course of our friendship, for if, my Lord, either in history

or romance, either in nature or the fancy, there be any stronger names

or rarer examples of friendship than these your Lordship does me the

honour to name in your kind and generous letter, I am resolved not only

to equal them, but surpass them, in the sincerity and firmness of the

friendship I have resolved for your Lordship. But, my Lord, seeing it

will, I hope, be more easy for me to prove it by good deeds in time to

come, than by fine words to express it at present, I shall refer myself

to time and occasion, by which your Lordship will be fully informed to

what height I am, my dear Lord, your Lordship’s most faithful and most

obedient servant,

J. GRAHAME.’

Claverhouse’s fears were not without foundation. His offer was declined.

As the letter conveying Sir James’s refusal has not been preserved, it

is impossible to learn what reasons he assigned for it. The first

intimation to be found of his adverse decision occurs in a letter

addressed to him, in the following November, by his nephew, who again

approached him with a matrimonial scheme, this time in favour of

Montrose. The terms of the wholly unromantic proposal were, that the

Earldom of Menteith should, failing heirs male, be entailed upon the

young Marquis, and that he, in return, should marry Helen Graham, and

should allow the Earl a life annuity of a hundred and fifty pounds.

Matters went so far that the necessary charter had been submitted to the

King for signature, when Montrose broke off his engagement under

circumstances which Claverhouse details in an indignant letter addressed

from London to the Earl of Menteith, on the 3rd of July 1680:—

‘MY LORD,—Whatever were the motives obliged your Lordship to change your

resolutions to me, yet I shall never forget the obligations that I have

to you for the good designs you once had for me, both before my Lord

Montrose came in the play and after, in your endeavouring to make me

next in the entail, especially in so generous a way as to do it without

so much as letting me know it. All the return I am able to make is to

offer you, in that frank and sincere way that I am known to deal with

all the world, all the service that I am capable of, were it with the

hazard or even loss of my life and fortune. Nor can I do less without

ingratitude, considering what a generous and disinterested friendship I

have found in your Lordship.

‘And your Lordship will do me, I hope, the justice to acknowledge that I

have shown all the respect to your Lordship and my Lord Montrose, in

your second resolutions, that can be imagined. I never inquired at your

Lordship nor him the reason of the change, nor did I complain of hard

usage. Though really, my Lord, I must beg your Lordship’s pardon to say

that it was extremely grievous to me to be turned out of the business,

after your Lordship and my Lord Montrose had engaged me in it, and had

written to Ireland in my favour; and the thing that troubled me most was

that I feared your Lordship had more esteem for my Lord Montrose than

me, for you could have no other motive, for I am sure you have more

sense than to think the offers he made you more advantageous for the

standing of your family than those we were on.

‘Sir James and I together would have bought in all the lands ever

belonged to your predecessors, of which you would have been as much

master as of those you are now in possession; and I am sorry to see so

much trust in your Lordship to my Lord Montrose so ill-rewarded. If you

had continued your resolutions to me, your Lordship would not have been

thus in danger to have your estate rent from your family; my Lord

Montrose would not have lost his reputation, as I am sorry to see he has

done; Sir James would not have had so sensible an affront put upon them,

if they had not refused me, and I would have been, by your Lordship’s

favour, this day as happy as I could wish. But, my Lord, we must all

submit to the pleasure of God Almighty without murmuring, knowing that

everybody will have their lot.

‘My Lord, fearing I may be misrepresented to your Lordship, I think it

my duty to acquaint your Lordship with my carriage since I came hither,

in relation to those affairs. So soon as I came, I told Sir James how

much he was obliged to you, and how sincere your designs were for the

standing of your family; withal I told him that my Lord Montrose was

certainly engaged to you to marry his daughter, but that from good hands

I had reason to suspect he had no design to perform it; and indeed my

Lord Montrose seemed to make no address there at all in the beginning,

but hearing that I went sometimes there, he feared that I might get an

interest with the father, for the daughter never appeared, so observant

they were to my Lord Montrose, and he thought that if I should come to

make any friendship there, that when he came to be discovered I might

come to be acceptable, and that your Lordship might turn the tables upon

him. Wherefore he went there and entered in terms to amuse them till I

should be gone, for then I was thinking every day of going away, and had

been gone, had I not fallen sick. He continued thus, making them formal

visits, and talking of the terms, till the time that your signature

should pass; but when it came to the King’s hand it was stopped upon the

account of the title.

‘My Lord Montrose who, during all this time had never told me anything

of these affairs, nor almost had never spoken to me, by Drumeller and

others, let me know that our differences proceeded from mistakes, and

that if we met we might come to understand one another, upon which I

went to him. After I had satisfied him of some things he complained of,

he told me that the title was stopped, and asked me if I had no hand in

it; for he thought it could be no other way, seeing Sir James concurred.

I assured him T had not meddled in it, as before God, I had not. So he

told me he would settle the title on me, if I would assist him in the

passing of it. I told him that I had never any mind for the title out of

the blood. He answered me, I might have Sir James’s daughter and all. So

I asked him how that could be. He told me he had no design there, and

that to secure me the more, he had given commission to speak to my Lady

Rothes about her daughter, and she had received it kindly. I asked how

he would come off. He said upon their not performing the terms, and

offered to serve me in it, which I refused, and would not concur. He

thought to make me serve him in his designs, and break me with Sir James

and his Lady: for he went and insinuated to them as if I had a design

upon their daughter, and was carrying it on under hand. So soon as I

heard this, I went and told my Lady Graham all. My Lord Montrose came

there next day and denied it. However, they went to Windsor and secured

the signature, but it was already done. They have not used me as I

deserved at their hands, but my design is not to complain of them, and

they had reason to trust entirely one whom your Lordship had so strongly

recommended. After all came to all, that Sir James offered to perform

all the conditions my Lord Montrose required, he knew not what to say,

and so, being ashamed of his carriage, went away without taking leave of

them; which was to finish his tricks with contempt.

‘This is, my Lord, in as few words as I can, the most substantial part

of that story. My Lord Montrose and some of his friends endeavoured to

ruin that young lady’s reputation to get an excuse for his carriage. But

I made them quickly quit those designs, for there was no shadow of

ground for it. And I must say she has suffered a great deal to comply

with your Lordship’s designs for her; and truly, my Lord, if you knew

her, you would think she deserved all, and would think strange my Lord

Montrose should have neglected her.

‘My Lord, I know you want not the best advice of the nation, yet I think

it not amiss to tell you that it is the opinion of everybody that you

may recover your estate, and that you ought to come and make your case

known to the King and Duke. Your family is as considerable as Caithness

or Maclean, in whose standing they concern themselves highly. My Lord,

you would by this means recover your affairs; you would see your cousin;

and you and Sir James would understand one another, and take right

measures for the standing of your family. If you let your title stand in

the heirs male, your family must of necessity perish, seeing in all

appearance you will outlive Sir James, and then it would come to the

next brother, who has neither heirs nor estate, so that your only way

will be to transfer the title to that young lady, and get the father and

mother to give you the disposing of her. The Duke assures me, that if my

Lord Montrose would have married her, the title should have passed, as

being in the blood, and that it may be done for anybody who shall marry

her with your consent.

‘My Lord, if I thought your Lordship were to come up, I would wait to do

you service; for your uncle is old and infirm. My Lord, I hope you will

pardon this long letter, seeing it is concerning a business touches you

so near, and that of a long time I have not had the happiness to

entertain your Lordship. Time will show your Lordship who deserves best

your friendship.

‘My Lord, things fly very high here; the indictments appear frequently

against the honest Duke, and I am feared these things must break out. I

am sorry for it; but I know you, impatient of the desire of doing great

things, will rejoice at this. Assure yourself, if ever there be

barricades again in Glasgow, you shall not want a call; and, my Lord, I

bespeak an employment under you, which is to be your lieutenant-general,

and I will assure you we will make the world talk of us. And, therefore,

provide me trews, as you promised, and a good blue bonnet, and I will

assure you there shall be no trews trustier than mine.

‘My Lord, despond not for this disappointment, but show resolution in

all you do. When my affairs go wrong, I remember that saying of Lucan,

“Tam mala Pompeii quam prospera mundus adoret.” One has occasion to show

their vigour after a wrong step to make a nimble recovery. You have done

nothing amiss, but trusted too much to honour, and thought all the world

held it as sacred as you do.

‘My dear Lord, I hope you will do me the honour to let me hear from you,

for if there be nothing for your service here I will be in Scotland

immediately, for now I am pretty well recovered. I know my Lord Montrose

will endeavour to misrepresent me to your Lordship, but I hope he has

forfeited his credit with you, and anything he says to you is certainly

to abuse you. My Lord, I have both at home and abroad sustained the

character of an honest and frank man, and defy the world to reproach me

of anything. So, my Lord, as I have never failed in my respect to your

Lordship, I hope you will continue that friendship for me which I have

so much ambitioned. When I have the honour to see you I will say more of

my inclination to serve you. I will beg the favour of a line with the

first post.

‘I am, my Lord, your Lordship’s most faithful and humble servant,

J. GRAHAME.

‘Excuse this scribbling, for I am in haste, going to Windsor, though I

write two sheets.’

This long letter was followed at short intervals, by others to the same

effect, full of protestations on the part of Claverhouse of his desire

to serve the Earl. It would appear, however, that Menteith was not fully

satisfied as to his correspondent’s sincerity and disinterestedness. No

direct reply to the latter’s denunciation of Montrose has been

preserved; but there is a communication addressed to the young Marquis

himself, in which the Earl expresses himself very strongly and very

plainly with regard to the ‘malicious letters’ too often written to him,

and in which he assures him that his generous actings and noble

endeavours for the standing and good of the Menteith family, vindicate

to the world his Lordship’s honour and reputation from the false and

unjust aspersions that some unworthy and seditious persons, though they

were of no mean quality, would make all men believe.

It is true that the Earl of Menteith himself had good reason for wishing

to conciliate Montrose. He was not without hope that the Marquis would

‘effectuate a speedy and right course and method for the relieving of

the pressing debts of his poor, though ancient, family.’ Moreover, he

had a special favour to beg, and one which illustrates how greatly

fallen from its high estate the noble house of Menteith really was. The

wording and the spelling of the letter which contained it are scarcely

less remarkable than the request itself.

‘MY DEIR LORD,—After cerious consideration with myself, I thinck most

fiting and proper for me that I com to Edinburgh, God willing, agane the

siting of the Parliment, the twenti-awght of the nixt month. In ceass

that I should stay from the Parliment, his Royall Hyghnes might tak

exceptiones, and be offended at me if I ware not at the doune sitting

thairoff, and possablie might doe me much hearme in that bussines your

Lordship hes in hand conserning my affaer with the King. Therfor I am

fullie resolued to be at Edinburgh agane the twenty of Jwllay at

fardast, wherfor I humblie intreat your Lordship to prowid and get the

lene from sume Earle thair robs, fite mantle, and wellwat coats, and all

things that belongs to Parliment robs. I will heave four footmen in

liwra. Ther is no doubt but ther is sewerall Earles that will not ryd

the Parliment. Therfor be humblye pleased to get the lene to me of sume

Earle’s robes onley for a day to ryde in the Parliment, and they shall

be cearfulie keipt be me that none of them be spoylt, for all the robs

that belonged to my grandfather was destroyed in the Einglish tyme. The

last tyme when I reid the Parliment, I cearied the Secepter, and I head

the lene of the deces’d Earle of Lowdian’s robes, but it may be that

this Earle will reid himself. I hop your Lordship will get the lene of

robs to me from sume Earle or other, as also the lene of a peacable

horse, because I am werie unable in both my foot and both my hands as

yet. I thought good to acqwant your Lordship of this beforhand in a

letter by itself. Hoping to receave tuo lines of ane answer of returne

thairto from your Lordship, I pray let me know iff his Hyghnes will be

Woiceroy at this Parliment, or who it is that will represent the King. I

expect all the news from your Lordship, but on no termes doe not keip

the bearar heirof, who is my gardner; he must surlie be at hom agan

Thursdays night, so not willing to give farder trouble, I remaine

wncheangablie, my deir Lord,—Your Lordship’s most affectionat cousine

and faithful servant,

‘MENTEITH.’

The intricacy of a wooing in which there does not seem to have been an

excess of love-making, is made more puzzling by a letter addressed by

Isabella, wife of Sir James Graham, to the Earl of Menteith. It was

written about a month later than his own obsequious epistle to Montrose;

and yet it shows that at that time a match between Claverhouse and Lady

Helen was again under consideration. Lady Isabella informed his Lordship

that she had so far complied with his desires as to waive the

propositions of two matches, though the worse of the suitors had two

thousand pounds a year, besides a troop of horse, and a fair prospect of

many thousands more. At the same time, she bade him bear in mind that,

unless he were very willing to assist as far as he could towards the

recovering of such lands as formerly belonged to his ancestors, she

would decline all thoughts of matching her daughter in Scotland, where

she would be a daily spectator of the ruin of the noble family she came

from. Her Ladyship’s very outspoken letter also referred to the

dilatoriness that had so far marked the whole course of the

negotiations, and let it be understood that, in her opinion, the

responsibility for much of it lay with the Earl.

The delay with which Lady Graham found fault may, in its most recent

phase at least, have been due to rumours and reports which had reached

Menteith, to the effect that Claverhouse had spoken disparagingly of him

to the Duke of Lauderdale; for the next letter in the correspondence

contains an energetic, almost passionate denial of such conduct. The

writer swears before Almighty God, and upon his salvation, that he has

never given either a good or a bad character of the Earl to Lauderdale,

and that he has not even mentioned his person or affairs to him; he

declares himself ready to spend his blood in revenge of so base and

cowardly an injury on the ‘infamous liar’ who has traduced him, and to

whom he begs his letter may be shown. From Claverhouse’s special

insistence on the fact that he had never cast a doubt on the Earl’s

capacity for affairs, it may be presumed that this was one of the points

with regard to which he was charged with having ‘said things.’ Another

letter to the Earl, written on the same day, but as a distinct and more

confidential communication, suggests a suspicion that Menteith had been

very near committing disastrous blunders in his efforts to urge

Claverhouse’s suit. In answer, doubtless, to Lady Isabella’s pointed

letter, the Earl had written both to her and to her daughter, and had

commissioned the suitor himself to deliver these communications to the

ladies. Claverhouse, however, thought it wiser to refrain from doing so,

for reasons which he thus explained:—

‘I have not dared to present them (the letters) because that in my

Lady’s letter you wished us much joy, and that we might live happy

together, which looked as if you thought it a thing as good as done. I

am sure my Lady, of the humour I know her to be, would have gone mad

that you should think a business that concerned her so nearly, concluded

before it was ever proposed to her; and in the daughter’s you was

pleased to tell her of my affections to her, and what I have suffered

for her; this is very galant and obliging, but I am afraid they would

have misconstrued it, and it might do me prejudice; and then in both, my

Lord, you were pleased to take pains to show them almost clearly they

had nothing to expect of you, and took from them all hopes which they

had, by desiring them to require no more but your consent.’

The question of conditions and settlements being thus approached,

Claverhouse hastens to affirm his own absolute disinterestedness. ‘I

will assure you,’ he writes, ‘I need nothing to persuade me to take that

young lady. I would take her in her smock.’ He is not sure, however, of

such unselfish and generous treatment from the other side; and he

consequently requests the Earl to hold out hopes to them, though without

binding himself in any way. ‘When you say you give them your advice to

the match,’ he writes, ‘tell them that they will not repent it, and that

doing it at your desire, you will do us any kindness you can, and look

on us as persons under your protection, and endeavour to see us

thrive—which obliges you to nothing, and yet encourages them.’

This plain suggestion of a course which it would tax a casuist’s

ingenuity to distinguish from double-dealing and deception, is hardly

creditable to Claverhouse under any circumstances. For his sake it may

be hoped that the excuse for it lay in the fact that by this time he had

really fallen in love, and was, as he said, anxious to win the young

lady for her own sake. If such were not the case, there would be an

almost repulsive insincerity in his closing appeal, ‘For the love of God

write kindly of me to them. By getting me that young lady you make me

happy.’

Two months later negotiations were still dragging on—they had now

extended, from first to last, through fully three years, from the end of

1678 to the end of 1681. On the 11th of December, Claverhouse again

appealed to the Earl to come to some settlement of his affairs, either

one way or the other, for, in the meantime, his own age was slipping

away, and he was losing other occasions, as he supposed the young lady

also was doing. The Grahams, he feared, had gone back to Ireland; and,

if it were so, he proposed to invite them to come over to his house in

Galloway. But it would be necessary to offer something definite to

induce them to do so, for, ‘my Lady Graham was a very cunning woman, and

certainly would write back that she would be unwilling to come so far

upon uncertainties.’ He therefore further suggested that the Earl should

communicate directly with her Ladyship. That ‘they would take it much

more kindly, and be far the readier to comply’ was the reason urged for

this. But another was hinted. Claverhouse was ashamed to write, not

knowing what to say, seeing that after all he had promised on Menteith’s

behalf, his Lordship had not yet come to a final decision.

Claverhouse’s letter does not appear to have produced any effect. As

late as the beginning of March 1682, matters were still in the same

unsettled and unsatisfactory state. The Earl had not yet resolved on any

decisive action, and was doubtless endeavouring to make a bargain as

favourable as possible to himself, when he received a short but urgent

letter from Claverhouse. It asked for an early meeting, and indicated

the reason for it in these words: ‘I have had one in Ireland whom I

shall bring along with me, and you shall know all. Send nobody to

Ireland; but take no new measures till I can see you.’

There are no letters from Claverhouse relative to subsequent

negotiations. It appears from other documents, however, that Sir James

Graham had come to believe in the existence of a plot between the two

suitors, to get the better of both him and the Earl. Everything, he

declared, had been contrived by the hand of Claverhouse; and it was his

ambitious desire to make himself the head of their ancient family that

had brought them all the trouble of my Lord Montrose’s business. There

was, he asserted, an agreement that Montrose should use his interest

with the Earl for a settlement of his honours and estates upon

Claverhouse, who, on his side, had bound himself to make over the

estates privately to Montrose. The letter setting all this forth in

tones of the bitterest resentment was written from Drogheda in March

1683. Before that, however, Lady Helen had made further matrimonial

arrangements impossible. She had married Captain Rawdon, son of Sir

George Rawdon, and nephew, as well as heir apparent to the Earl of

Conway. And so an Irish gentleman, who was possibly no myth when

Montrose wrote about him four years earlier, carried away the lady.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

V

MATTERS CIVIL, MILITARY AND MATRIMONIAL

THE letters which enable us to trace the course of Claverhouse’s

matrimonial negotiations are also the documents upon which we have

mainly to depend for our knowledge of his movements during the period

immediately subsequent to the ‘circuit’ which he made in the

south-western counties after the Battle of Bothwell Bridge. From these

we learn that he was in London during the summer of 1680; and a letter

from Charles Maitland of Hatton to Queensberry, suggests a probable

motive for the journey to town. ‘Claverhouse’s commission as to the

rebels’ goods,’ he wrote, ‘is recalled by the Council; so your man will

have room for his payment; that ye need not fear.’ This measure, with

which, to judge from the tenor of Maitland’s remarks, Queensberry was

not improbably connected, appears to have followed upon a charge of

misappropriation of public monies, brought against Claverhouse by the

Treasurer, and intended to supply an excuse for preventing him from

entering into possession of the forfeited estate of Patrick Macdowall of

Freugh, bestowed upon him by royal grant in consideration of ‘his good

and faithful services.’ It is warrantable to suppose that the immediate

object of his journey to London was to appeal from the Council’s

decision to the King himself. In any case, there is evidence that he

availed himself of his stay in the English capital to bring the matter

before his sovereign, and to plead his cause in person. The result may

be gathered from a letter addressed by Charles to the Lords

Commissioners of the Treasury, on the 26th of February 1681. ‘As to what

you have represented concerning Claverhouse, particularly in reference

to the commission granted by you unto him for uplifting and

sequestrating not only the rents, duties, and movables belonging to

Freugh, but of all the rebels in Wigtownshire who have been in the

rebellion, whereof you say he hath made no account yet, we have spoke to

him about it, and he doth positively assert, that, while he was in

Scotland, he received not one farthing upon that account, and that if

anything have since been recovered by those whom in his absence he hath

entrusted with the execution of that commission, he believes it to be so

inconsiderable as it will not much exceed the charges that must

necessarily be laid out in that affair. However, we do expect that he

will meet with no worse usage from you, upon that occasion than others

to whom you have granted the like commissions.’ The letter also conveyed

his Majesty’s ‘express pleasure’ that the Commissioners should remove

the stop that was put upon the gift of forfeiture, and should cause the

same to be passed in the Exchequer at their very next meeting.

In October 1681, also, Claverhouse was in London; and though there is

nothing to show whether his stay there had been continuous, the fact

that there is no record of his doings in Scotland during the interval,

may be taken as negative, yet strong, evidence of his absence from the

country. There is a curious document to prove that, on the 26th of the

next month he crossed the Firth of Forth from Burntisland to Leith. It

is a poem entitled ‘The Tempest,’ and written by Alexander Tyler, the

minister of Kinnettles, who describes it as ‘being an account of a

dangerous passage from Burntisland to Leith in a boat called the

_Blessing_, in company of Claverhouse, several gentlewomen, ministers

and a whole throng of common passengers upon the 26th of November 1681.’

On the 11th of the following month, Claverhouse dates a letter from

Edinburgh; and, from that time, his activity and his influence again

begin to be felt.

The Earl of Queensberry, writing from Sanquhar to Lord Haddo on the 2nd

of January 1682, reports that in his part of the country all is

peaceable, ‘save only that in the heads of Galloway some rebels meet.’

Their numbers being inconsiderable, and their business ‘only to drink

and quarrel,’ neither Church nor State need, in his judgment, fear them;

still, he is of opinion that ‘the sooner garrisons be placed, and a

competent party sent with Claverhouse for scouring that part of the

country, the better.’ ‘Besides,’ he adds, ‘I’m told field-conventicles

continue in Annandale and Galloway, but all will certainly evanish upon

Claverhouse’s arrival, as I have often told.’ It would appear from this,

that Captain Graham had returned to Scotland for a special and definite

purpose; and this view is borne out by his appointment on the 31st of

January to be heritable sheriff of Wigtownshire, in the place of Sir

Andrew Agnew of Lochnaw, and heritable bailie of the regality of

Tongland, instead of Viscount Kenmure, both the former possessors having

been deprived of their commissions in consequence of their refusal to

take the prescribed test. In terms of his appointment, Claverhouse was

to have jurisdiction within the shire of Dumfries and stewartries of

Kirkcudbright and Annandale; but, with regard to these districts, it was

specially provided that the powers conferred upon him were in no way to

be prejudicial to the rights of the heritable sheriff or steward, and

that he was ‘only to proceed and do justice,’ when he was ‘the first

attacher,’ that is to say, only in cases with regard to which no legal

proceedings had already been taken.

Claverhouse had not long assumed his new duties before he discovered

that the ‘rebels’ and ‘conventiclers’ were not the only people with whom

he had to deal, and that a task far more difficult than hunting them

down or scattering their meetings would be to expose the connivance of

some of the leading families, and to check the disorders arising from

it. As early as the 5th of March, in a letter to Queensberry, he wrote,

‘Here, in the shire, I find the lairds all following the example of a

late great man, and still a considerable heritor among them, which is,

to live regularly themselves, but have their houses constant haunts of

rebels and intercommuned persons, and have their children baptized by

the same; and then lay all the blame on their wives; condemning them and

swearing they cannot help what is done in their absence. But I am

resolved this jest shall pass no longer here; for it is laughing and

fooling the Government; and it will be more of consequence to punish one

considerable laird, than a hundred little bodies. Besides, it is juster;

because these only sin by the example of those.’

At the date of this communication, Claverhouse had already begun to

carry out the policy to which it referred; and a letter written four

days earlier supplies important details as to the course which he had

adopted. ‘The way that I see taken in other places, is to put laws

severely, against great and small, in execution, which is very just; but

what effects does that produce, but more to exasperate and alienate the

hearts of the whole body of the people? For it renders three desperate

where it gains one; and your Lordship knows that in the greatest crimes

it is thought wisest to pardon the multitude and punish the ringleaders,

where the number of the guilty is great, as in this case of whole

countries. Wherefore, I have taken another course here. I have called

two or three parishes together at one church, and after intimating to

them the power I have, I read them a libel narrating all the Acts of

Parliament against the fanatics; whereby I made them sensible how much

they were in the King’s reverence, and assured them he was relenting

nothing of his former severity against dissenters, nor care of

maintaining the established government; as they might see by his

doubling the fines in the late Act of Parliament; and, in the end, told

them that the King had no design to ruin any of his subjects he could

reclaim, nor I to enrich myself by their crimes; and, therefore, any who

would resolve to conform, and live regularly, might expect favour;

excepting only resetters and ringleaders. Upon this, on Sunday last,

there was about three hundred people at Kirkcudbright church; some that

for seven years before had never been there. So that I do expect that

within a short time I could bring two parts of three to the church.’

But though there seemed to be some hope of influencing the people, if

they were left to themselves, Claverhouse was fully alive to the fact

that it was vain to think of any settlement so long as their

irreconcilable ministers were able to exercise their influence. No

sooner was he gone, than they came in, he said, and all repented and

fell back to their old ways. With a view to remedying this, he strongly

and repeatedly urged the necessity of having a constant force of

dragoons in garrison; and, in the meantime, he took vigorous measures to

carry out the work entrusted to him. To quote his own summary of a

report presented by him to the Committee of the Privy Council, ‘The

first work he did, was to provide magazines of corn and straw in every

part of the country, that he might with conveniency go with the whole

party wherever the King’s service required; and, running from one place

to another, nobody could know where to surprise him; and in the meantime

quartered on the rebels, and endeavoured to destroy them by eating up

their provisions, but that they quickly perceived the design, and sowed

their corns on untilled ground. After which he fell in search of the

rebels; played them hotly with parties; so that there were several

taken, many fled the country, and all were dung from their haunts; and

then rifled so their houses, ruined their goods, and imprisoned their

servants, that their wives and children were brought to starving; which

forced them to have recourse to the safe conduct; and made them glad to

renounce their principles, declare Bothwell Bridge an unlawful

rebellion, swear never to rise in arms against the King, his heirs and

successors, or any having commission or authority from him, upon any

pretext whatsomever, and promise to live orderly hereafter.’

Three months of this repressive and coercive policy produced results

which Claverhouse himself declared to be beyond his expectation. Writing

to Queensberry, on the 1st of April 1682, he said, ‘I am very happy in

this business of this country, and I hope the Duke will have no reason

to blame your Lordship for advising him to send the forces hither. For

this country now is in perfect peace: all who were in the rebellion are

either seized, gone out of the country, or treating their peace; and

they have already so conformed, as to going to the church, that it is

beyond my expectation. In Dumfries, not only almost all the men are

come, but the women have given obedience; and Irongray, Welsh’s own

parish, have for the most part conformed; and so it is over all the

country. So that, if I be suffered to stay any time here, I do expect to

see this the best settled part of the Kingdom on this side the Tay. And

if those dragoons were fixed which I wrote your Lordship about, I might

promise for the continuance of it.

‘Your Lordship’s friends here are very assisting to me in all this work;

and it does not contribute a little to the progress of it, that the

world knows I have your Lordship’s countenance in what I do. All this is

done without having received a farthing money, either in Nithsdale,

Annandale, or Kirkcudbright; or imprisoned anybody. But, in end, there

will be need to make examples of the stubborn that will not comply. Nor

will there be any danger in this after we have gained the great body of

the people; to whom I am become acceptable enough; having passed all

bygones, upon bonds of regular carriage hereafter.’

The measures adopted by Claverhouse met with the fullest approval of the

Government, and the results achieved through them were deemed so

satisfactory as to call for special recognition. Wodrow states that on

the 15th of May, ‘Claverhouse got the Council’s thanks for his diligence

in executing his commission in Galloway.’

Further evidence of the favour in which Claverhouse was held is afforded

by the instructions given by the Council to General Dalziel, in view of

the military visitation of the shires of Lanark and of Ayr, which he was

appointed to hold. He is directed ‘to repair to the town of Ayr, and

there to meet with the Earl of Dumfries, and the Commissioners of that

shire, where the laird of Claverhouse is to be present, and there to

confer with them anent the security of that shire.’ After having

complied with this, he is to return to the shire of Lanark, and the

laird of Claverhouse with him, ‘and there to consider what further is

necessary to be done, as to the settling of the peace of both these

shires.’ Finally, when these matters have been fully considered and

discussed by them, he and Claverhouse ‘are to come in with all possible

diligence, and give an account to the Lord Chancellor’ of their

procedure, ‘to be communicated to his Majesty’s Privy Council.’

When Claverhouse was returning from Edinburgh to Galloway, at the

conclusion of this mission, there occurred an incident which must have

convinced him that, even if, as he said, he had become acceptable enough

to the great body of the people, there was a remnant of desperate men,

whom his repressive measures had only inspired with a still fiercer

hatred of him. His own account of it is contained in a letter to

Queensberry, to whom he says: “I thought to have waited on your Lordship

before this, but I was stayed at Edinburgh two days beyond what I

designed, which has proved favourable for me. Yesterday when I came at

the Bille, I was certainly informed that several parties of Whigs in

arms, to the number of six or seven score, were gone from thence but six

hours before. They came from Clydesdale upon Monday night, and passed

Tweed at the Bille, going towards Teviotdale, but went not above three

miles farther that way. They stayed thereabout, divided in small

parties, most all on foot, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, till Friday

morning, when they passed the hills towards Clydesdale. Some say they

had a meeting with Teviotdale folks; others would make me believe that

they had a mind for me. They did ask, in several places, what they heard

of me, and told they were sure my troop was far in, in Galloway. Others

say they were flying the West for fear of the diligence the gentry is

designed to use for their discovery. I could believe this, were they not

returned. I spoke with the minister, and several other people in whose

houses they were; but he kept out of the way. They did no prejudice in

his house, further than meat and drink. They gave no where that I could

learn any account of their design there; only, I heard they said they

were seeking the enemies of God, and inquired roughly if anybody there

kept the church. The country keeps up this business. I heard nothing of

it till I was within two miles of the Bille, and that was from a

gentleman on the road, who had heard it at a burial the day before.

There was a dragoon all Tuesday night at the change-house at the Bille,

and the master of the house confessed to me he let him know nothing of

it. They pretend it is for fear of bringing trouble to the country. I

sent from the Bille an express to acquaint my Lord Chancellor with it;

for I thought it fit the quarters should be advertised not to be too

secure, when these rogues had the impudence to go about so.’

Queensberry was as fully convinced as Claverhouse that there had been a

plot, which the unforeseen delay in Edinburgh had alone prevented from

being put to execution. Writing to the Chancellor a few days later, he

said: ‘I doubt not but your Lordship has full account of Clavers’

re-encounter at the Bille. It was good he did not come a day sooner; for

certainly their design was against him.’

In the course of the year 1682, the jealousy aroused by Claverhouse’s

appointment as Sheriff-Principal of Wigtownshire, and by the special

power bestowed upon him to hold criminal courts, culminated in an open

quarrel between him and the family of Stair, of which the head was Sir

James Dalrymple, who, but a short time previously, had fallen into

disgrace, and had been virtually deposed from his office of President of

the Court of Session, for not conforming with the Test Act. According to

the summary given of the case by Fountainhall, who was one of the

counsel for the Stair family, Captain Graham of Claverhouse having

imprisoned some of the Dalrymples’ tenants in Galloway for absenting

themselves from the parish church and attending conventicles, Sir John,

the ex-president’s son, took up the matter, and presented a bill of

suspension to the Privy Council, alleging that he, as heritable Bailie

of the Regality of Glenluce, within which the peasants lived, had

already taken cognizance of their case; and that Claverhouse, not being

the first attacher, was precluded by the limitations and restrictions of

his commission, from taking action in the matter, and had no claim to

the ‘casualities and emoluments of the fine.’

Claverhouse replied that it was he who had first cited the offenders,

and that Sir John’s action was collusive. When the matter was first

brought before the Privy Council, it was ordained that the imprisoned

tenants should be set at liberty, after consigning their fines, which

Fountainhall denounces as ‘most exorbitant,’ into the hands of the

clerk. The point of jurisdiction was reserved; but in the meantime, the

Council administered a reprimand to the Dalrymples, and told them in

very plain terms, that ‘heritable Bailies and Sheriffs who were

negligent themselves in putting the laws in execution, should not offer

to compete with the Sheriffs commissioned and put in by the Council, who

executed vigorously the King’s law.’

But it was not Claverhouse’s intention that his opponent should escape

so easily. He met the charges made against him with a bill of complaint,

in which the gravest accusations followed each other in overwhelming

array. The leading counts in the indictment bore that Sir John Dalrymple

had weakened the hands of the Government in the county of Galloway, by

traversing and opposing the commission which the King’s Council had

given Claverhouse; that he had done his utmost to stir up the people to

a dislike of the King’s forces there; that he kept disloyal and

disaffected persons to be bailies and clerks in his regality, and had

not administered the test to them till long after January 1682, contrary

to the Act of Parliament; that he had imposed on delinquents mock fines,

not the fiftieth or sixtieth part of what the law required, for the sole

purpose of anticipating and forestalling Claverhouse; that he and his

father had offered Claverhouse a bribe of £150 sterling, out of the

fines, to connive at the irregularities of his mother, Lady Stair, of

his sisters, and of others; that he had laughed insolently at the

proclamation of a court, made by Claverhouse, and had ordered his

tenants not to attend it; that he had traduced and defamed Claverhouse

to the Privy Council; and that he had accused him of cheating the King’s

Treasury, by exacting fines and not accounting for them.

When Sir John Dalrymple’s answers to these charges had been read, the

Chancellor gave some indication of the temper and feeling of the Council

by reproving him ‘for his tart reflections on Claverhouse’s ingenuity,’

and by denying his right to adduce witnesses, whilst, on the other side,

Claverhouse was allowed to call whom he chose, in support of the charges

brought by him against Sir John. Fountainhall states that ‘there was

much transport, flame, and humour in this cause;’ and he mentions that,

at one phase of the proceedings, when Dalrymple alleged that the people

of Galloway had turned orderly and regular, Claverhouse, alluding to the

latest Edinburgh novelty of the time, replied that there were as many

elephants and crocodiles in Galloway as loyal subjects. According to Sir

John himself, Claverhouse went much further than a direct denial of his

opponents’ assertions, and, in the presence of the Committee of Council

appointed to examine witnesses, threatened to give him a box in the ear.

As might have been foreseen from the tone and tenor of the whole

proceedings, the judgment of the Council, pronounced on the 12th of

February 1683, was a complete triumph for Claverhouse. Not only was it

found that he had done nothing but what was legal and consonant with his

commission and instructions; but, in addition to that, the Chancellor

complimented him, and, expressing wonder that he, not being a lawyer,

had walked so warily in so irregular a country, conveyed to him the

Council’s thanks, as an encouragement. With regard to Sir John

Dalrymple, on the other hand, the finding of the Council, set forth

under five specific heads, was, generally, to the effect that he had

exceeded his commission, weakened the authority of the King and of the

Council, and interfered with the due administration of the law. In

punishment of his conduct, he was deprived of his jurisdiction and

office, as bailie of the regality of Glenluce, and fined in the sum of

£500 sterling. Further, it was ordered that he should be submitted

prisoner in the Castle of Edinburgh, and detained there, not merely till

the money was paid, but during the Council’s pleasure. His incarceration

was not, however, of long duration. He was liberated on the 20th of the

same month, after paying the fine, acknowledging his rashness, and

craving the Council’s pardon.

Whilst the matter between Claverhouse and Dalrymple was still pending,

neither the Duke of York nor the King appears to have felt conscious of

any impropriety in giving expression to his personal sentiments and

sympathy. The former, writing to Queensberry at the beginning of

December, said: ‘I am absolutely of your mind as to Claverhouse; and

think his presence more necessary in Galloway than anywhere else; for he

need not fear anything Stairs can say of him, his Majesty being so well

satisfied with him.’ On the 25th of the same month, Charles, to show his

appreciation of Claverhouse’s ‘loyalty, courage, and good conduct,’

appointed him to be Colonel of a regiment of horse, which was formed for

his special benefit, and also gave him the captaincy of a troop in the

same regiment.

Shortly after his promotion Claverhouse undertook a journey to the

English court, partly on public business, as the bearer of despatches

from the Council, and partly as a private suitor, not only on his own

behalf but also in the interest of others who had not been slow to

recognise the favour in which he stood, and were anxious to avail

themselves of his influence. At this time, the Committee which, in June

1682, had been appointed to investigate the charges of peculation and

malversation brought against Charles Maitland of Hatton, younger brother

and heir presumptive to the Duke of Lauderdale, whom the family

influence had raised to the responsible position of General of the

Scottish mint, had not yet presented its report; but there existed no

doubt that the decision would prove adverse to Hatton, who had, in the

meantime, become Earl of Lauderdale, and greedy suitors were already

preparing to put forward their claims to a share of the spoils which the

ruin of the family would place at the King’s disposal. Amongst these

were Queensberry who, though but lately raised to a marquisate, already

aspired to a dukedom, and Gordon of Haddo, who was anxious to obtain a

grant of money, either a thousand pounds sterling a year, or twenty

thousand pounds sterling, which were thought to be the equivalent, to

enable him to maintain the double dignity of High Chancellor and of Earl

of Aberdeen recently conferred upon him.

Claverhouse, too, meant to avail himself of the opportunity thus offered

him, for the purpose of adding to his own estates in Forfarshire the

neighbouring lands of Dudhope, and of obtaining the constabulary of

Dundee. The main object of his visit to England was to look after these

several interests; and the letters written by him from Newmarket, where

the King and the Duke of York were staying at the time, give his

correspondents in Scotland a full and detailed account of the manner in

which he discharged his commission, in the intervals of ‘cock-fighting

and courses.’

When he returned to Scotland, about the middle of May 1683, he was able

to convey to those concerned satisfactory assurances, which the sequel

justified, as to the success of the extensive job which they had planned

between them. He had been preceded by a royal letter in which Charles

informed his ‘right trusty and right well-beloved cousins and

counsellors’ of his desire that Colonel John Graham of Claverhouse, in

consideration of his loyalty, abilities, and eminent services, should be

received and admitted a Privy Councillor. Claverhouse was accordingly

sworn in, on the 22nd of the month, and at once took an important part

in carrying out the further punitive measures which had been determined

upon during his stay at the English Court, and of which he was, in all

probability, the instigator.

More than twelve months earlier, on the report that an ‘indulgence’ was

to be granted, he had protested to Queensberry against such a course,

and had expressed a hope that nobody would be so mad as to advise it.

There is every reason to suppose that, as soon as the opportunity

occurred, he laid before the King opinions consonant with this, and was

directly instrumental in the appointment of a Circuit Court of

Justiciary for the enforcement of the Test Act. It was his views which

the royal proclamation embodied in the statement that the indemnities,

indulgences, and other favours granted to the fanatic and disaffected

party had hitherto produced no other effect than to encourage them to

further disorders and to embolden them to abuse the royal goodness; it

was his conviction to which it gave utterance in the assertion that

neither difference in religion, nor tenderness of conscience, but merely

principles of disloyalty and disaffection to the Government moved them

to disturb the quiet of the King’s reign and the peace of his kingdom;

and it was his experience of the evasions and subterfuges used by them

which dictated the steps to be taken, not only for the punishment of

obstinate recusants, but also for the encouragement of the

well-intentioned whom circumstances might hitherto have prevented from

formally signifying their submission and promising obedience.

The first sitting of the Circuit Court of Justiciary was to be held at

Stirling on the 5th of June. A few days previously, the Privy Council

issued an order that Colonel John Graham of Claverhouse should go along

with the Justices during their whole progress in the Justice Air, and

should command the forces in every place visited by them, with the

exception of Glasgow and Stirling, where it was supposed the

Lieutenant-General would be present. To this circumstance we owe it that

a report of the only case in which sentence of death was pronounced, can

be given in his own words. It is contained in a letter to the Lord

Chancellor, and is deserving of notice, not merely on account of the

facts which it relates, for those may be gathered from other documents,

but also because of the sentiments and principles which the writer found

opportunity to express in it, and which help us to understand the spirit

by which Claverhouse was actuated, and the view which he took of both

duty and expediency in carrying out the law.

As a brief recapitulation of Boog’s case, the writer says: ‘He was

actually in the rebellion; continued in that state for four years; and

now comes in with a false, sham certificate to fool the judges. For,

being desired to give his oath that he had taken the bond, he positively

refused. Being asked if Bothwell Bridge was a rebellion, refused to

declare it so. Or the Bishop’s murder, a murder. And positively refused,

in the face of the Court, the benefit of the King’s indemnity by taking

the Test. Upon which the Judges, moved by the outcry of all the

bystanders, as by their conviction of the wickedness of the man,

referred the matter to the knowledge of an inquest, who brought him in

guilty. After which, he begged to acknowledge his folly; and offered to

take the Test, with the old gloss,—“as far as it consisted with the

Protestant religion, and the glory of God.” And after that was refused

him, offered in end to take it any way. By all which it clearly appears,

that he would do anything to save his life, but nothing to be reconciled

to Government.’

After having thus summarised the heads of the case, Claverhouse proceeds

to justify the action of the Government in not allowing men to take the

Test after they were condemned. All casuists agree, he says, that an

oath imposed where the alternative is hanging cannot in any way be

binding; and it may consequently be supposed that they who refused it

when they had the freedom of choice, and took it after being condemned,

did it only because they thought themselves not bound to keep it. In

point of prudence, too, he argues, such leniency would be misplaced and

pernicious; it would leave it in the power of the disaffected to

continue all their tricks up to the very last day fixed for taking

benefit of the indemnity, and then, if they should be apprehended and

condemned, enable them to escape the punishment of their treason by

taking the Test. Against this he protests as turning the whole thing

into ridicule; ‘for great clemency has, and ought to be, shown to people

that are sincerely resolved to be reclaimed, but the King’s indemnity

should not be forced on villains.’ As to the effect which severity in

Boog’s case might produce, Claverhouse scouts the idea that it would

deter others from ‘coming in’; and in support of his opinion to the

contrary, he points to the actual fact that twenty have taken the Test

since the man was condemned, and that the ‘terror of his usage’ is

generally looked upon as likely to induce many more to submit.

Referring to the rescue of a prisoner, which had recently been effected

by a party of armed men, and in the course of which one of the King’s

guards had been killed—a crime for which Wharry and Smith were

subsequently executed in Glasgow and hung in chains near

Inchbellybridge, between Kirkintilloch and Kilsyth, where their

‘monument’ may still be seen—Claverhouse continues, ‘If this man should

not be hanged, they would take advantage, that they have disappointed us

by rescuing the other, and give us such apprehensions that we durst not

venture on this.’ Then he gives expression to a sentiment which should

never be lost sight of in forming an estimate of his character and

conduct: ‘I am as sorry to see a man die, even a Whig, as any of

themselves. But when one dies justly, for his own faults, and may save a

hundred to fall in the like, I have no scruple.’

At the beginning of July 1683, Claverhouse returned to Edinburgh. For

the next ten months his labours mainly consisted in attendance at the

meetings of the Privy Council, and do not bring him specially into

prominence. Towards the close of the comparatively quiet period he again

appears in the character of a suitor. On this occasion, his matrimonial

plans met with more success than those of which Lady Helen Graham had

been the object. By what may seem a singular freak of fate, Jean,

youngest daughter of the late Lord Cochrane, the lady on whom he had

bestowed his affections, belonged to a family of strong Covenanting

sympathies. Her father had, in the earlier days of the religious

troubles, refused the Bond, and protested against the illegality of the

clause which obliged masters to answer for their servants’ attendance at

church. Her mother, a Kennedy by birth, professed the stern and

uncompromising Presbyterianism of her house. Her grandfather, Lord

Dundonald, had been the subject of an inquisition for keeping a chaplain

who prayed God to bless the rebels in the West with success. And her

uncle, Sir John Cochrane, was an outlawed rebel and a suspected traitor.

The circumstances of Claverhouse’s wooing were not overlooked by his

enemies and ill-wishers. Amongst them was the Duke of Hamilton, whose

professed loyalty does not appear to have placed him above suspicion,

and whose daughter, Lady Susannah, was at this very time sought in

marriage by Lord Cochrane, Claverhouse’s prospective brother-in-law.

This coincidence afforded the Duke an opportunity of which he

ingeniously availed himself to direct attention to the nature of the

alliance contemplated by Claverhouse. The way in which he did so is

indicated by the following passage from a letter addressed by the latter

to Queensberry. Referring to his intended marriage, he says: ‘My Lord

Duke Hamilton has refused to treat of giving his daughter to my Lord

Cochrane till he should have the King and the Duke’s leave. This, I

understand, has been advised him, to goad me. Wherefore I have written

to the Duke, and told him that I would have done it sooner, had I not

judged it presumption in me to trouble his Highness with my little

concerns; and that I looked upon myself as a cleanser, that may cure

others by coming amongst them, but cannot be infected by any plague of

Presbytery; besides, that I saw nothing singular in my Lord Dundonald’s

case, save that he has but one rebel on his land for ten that the rest

of the lords and lairds of the South and West have on theirs; and that

he is willing to depone that he knew not of there being such. The Duke

is juster than to charge my Lord Dundonald with Sir John’s crimes. He is

a madman, and let him perish; they deserve to be damned would own him.

The Duke knows what it is to have sons and nephews that follow not

advice.

‘I have taken pains to know the state of the country’s guilt as to

reset; and if I make it not appear that my Lord Dundonald is one of the

clearest of all that country, and can hardly be reached in law, I am

content to pay his fine. I never pleaded for any, nor shall I hereafter.

But I must say I think it hard that no regard is had to a man in so

favourable circumstances—I mean considering others—upon my account, and

that nobody offered to meddle with him till they heard I was likely to

be concerned in him.’ After further comments and protests in this tone

of suppressed indignation, he concludes his letter with the following

emphatic words: ‘Whatever come of this, let not my enemies misrepresent

me. They may abuse the Duke for a time, and hardly. But, or long, I

will, in despite of them, let the world see that it is not in the power

of love, nor any other folly, to alter my loyalty.’

There is a remarkable proof of the annoyance which Claverhouse felt at

the attacks directed against him, and, perhaps, also of his secret

consciousness that if the political position of his intended bride’s

family did not wholly justify them, it at least supplied that element of

partial truth which makes slander doubly dangerous. On the same day he

wrote another letter to Queensberry, and dealt once more and at

considerable length with his approaching marriage. After again

expressing his opinion as to the real motive and meaning of Hamilton’s

ostentatious scruples, and repeating the assurance that he was proof

against the infection of Presbyterianism, he asserted, if not the

absolute at least the comparative, loyalty of the Cochrane family, in

which he saw very little but might be easily rubbed off, and added what

was even more important, an emphatic declaration of the soundness of

Lady Jean’s own sentiments. ‘And for the young lady herself, I shall

answer for her. Had she not been right principled, she would never in

despite of her mother and relations, have made choice of a persecutor,

as they call me. So, whoever thinks to misrepresent me on that head,

will find themselves mistaken. For both in the King’s and the Church’s

cause, drive as fast as they think fit, they will never see me behind.

However, my Lord, malice sometimes carries things far; so I must beg

your Lordship will defend me if you find anything of this kind

stirring.’

This was written on the 19th of May 1684. On the 9th of the following

month, the marriage contract between Colonel John Graham of Claverhouse

and Lady Jean Cochrane was signed in Paisley. The bride’s mother had,

apparently, proved relentless in her opposition to the ‘persecutor.’ Her

signature does not appear on the document.

The lady’s dowry consisted of forty thousand merks—rather more than two

thousand pounds sterling. Her jointure was fixed at five thousand merks,

or about two hundred and seventy-six pounds yearly. As heritable

security for it, the bridegroom’s lands and houses were set forth in

imposing array. Amongst them was included the estate of Dudhope which,

with the Constabulary of Dundee, had come into Claverhouse’s possession

a few months earlier, after prolonged litigation, and in spite of a

private bargain which Aberdeen and Lauderdale had made between them, and

which but for the direct interposition of the King’s authority, would

have prevented his acquiring the long coveted lands.

Whilst Claverhouse was in Paisley, events were leading up to a sudden

and dramatic interruption of the bridal festivities. On Sunday, the 8th

of June, that is, the day before that upon which the marriage contract

was signed, General Dalziel, the commander of the forces in Glasgow,

received information, as he was ‘at the forenoon’s sermon,’ that a

conventicle was being held near the Black Loch, a small lake in

Renfrewshire, about eight miles south-east of Paisley. He at once sent

out forty men, of whom twenty were dragoons, under the command of

Lieutenant-Colonel Winrhame. They were informed that a party of about a

hundred, mostly men armed with guns and swords, had assembled at

Drumlech-hill, and had thence proceeded through the moors, in a

south-westerly direction. But, though traces of them were found at

Allanton, at Cambusnethan, and at Crossford, where they passed the

water, the nature of the country made it impossible to come up with

them. After marching all night in fruitless pursuit, Winrhame returned

to Glasgow on the Monday with his wearied men.

On the previous Saturday, Claverhouse had informed Dalziel of his

departure for Paisley, so that there might be no delay in conveying

orders to him, if he were required for special duty. Possibly out of

consideration for the bridegroom, it was not to him, but to Lord Ross,

who was one of the wedding guests, and had acted as witness for his

brother-officer the day before, that, on the Tuesday morning, the

General sent information of what had taken place.

When the purport of the letter was communicated to Claverhouse, he had

no hesitation as to his own course of action. With a growl at the

‘dogs,’ who ‘might have let Tuesday pass,’ and a vow that he would, some

time or other, be revenged on them for ‘the unseasonable trouble’ they

were causing him, he made hasty preparation, and set out on the rebels’

track. Tuesday night and Wednesday all day he scoured the country,

leaving ‘no den, no knowe, no moss, no hill unsearched.’ Beyond catching

sight of two men, who were running to the hills, but who, on account of

the marshy nature of the ground, could not be overtaken he was not more

successful than Winrhame had been. On reaching Strathaven, he decided to

ride back to Paisley, and gave over the command to Colonel Buchan, with

instructions to follow more leisurely and, on his march, to search the

skirts of the hills and moors on the Clydesdale side.

On the Friday morning Buchan sent his superior officer a report of the

stirring incidents of the previous day. After Claverhouse had left him,

he had met a man from whom he learnt that there were numbers of rebels

in arms in the heart of the hills, on the Clydesdale side, and who gave

him a description of the two leaders—one a lusty, black, one-eyed man,

with a velvet cap; the other a good-like man, who wore a grey hat.

Buchan at once made for the place which had been indicated. On the way

to it, a party of foot, that he had sent out on his right, accidentally

came upon the armed Covenanters. Four soldiers, who formed a kind of

advance-guard, were fired on by seven men that started up suddenly, out

of a glen, and one of them was wounded. The other three, after

discharging their pieces without effect at their assailants, thought it

safer not to venture in pursuit over the treacherous ground. Hastening

back, they informed their colonel of the encounter; but, though Buchan

made all possible diligence, he could not succeed in even catching sight

of the fugitives. He could only learn that they had made for Cumnock,

and he himself proceeded with all speed in the same direction, in the

hope of preventing their passing into Galloway.

By noon that same Friday, Claverhouse had again taken a hurried leave of

his bride, and was on the road to Ayrshire. From that point his

movements may best be narrated in his own terse words: ‘I went

immediately to Mauchline, and from this to Cumnock, where we learned

that on Thursday night they had passed at the bog-head, near Airdsmoss,

and were then only fifty-nine in arms. They were running in great haste,

barefooted many of them, and taking horses in some places, to help them

forward. We heard they went from that to a place called the Hakhill,

within two miles of Cumnock, and from that to the Gap, which goes to the

hills lying betwixt the Sanquhar and Moffat. But we could never hear

more of them. I sent on Friday night for my troop from Dumfries, and

ordered them to march by the Sanquhar to the Muirkirk, to the

Ploughlands, and so to Straven. I sent for Captain Strachan’s troop from

the Glenkens, and ordered him to march to the old castle of Cumnock,

down to the Lorne, and through the country to Kilbride, leaving

Mauchline and Newmills on his left, and Loudon-hill on his right. By

this means they scoured this country, and secured the passages that way.

‘Colonel Buchan marched with the foot and dragoons some miles on the

right of my troop, and I, with the Guards and my Lord Ross and his troop

up by the (Shaire?). We were at the head of Douglas. We were round and

over Cairntable. We were at Greenock-head, Cummer-head, and through all

the moors, mosses, hills, glens, woods; and spread in small parties, and

ranged as if we had been at hunting, and down to Blackwood, but could

learn nothing of those rogues. So the troops being extremely harassed

with marching so much on grounds never trod on before, I have sent them

with Colonel Buchan to rest at Dalmellington, till we see where these

rogues will start up. We examined all on oath, and offered money, and

threatened terribly, for intelligence, but we could learn no more.’

No further information is available as to the result of Claverhouse’s

search. That a number of people residing in the district were

apprehended about this time, however, appears from the fact that the

next recorded appearance of the ‘rogues’ denounced by him had for its

object the rescue of some prisoners whom he had sent from Dumfries to

Edinburgh under the escort of a detachment of his dragoons. A carefully

planned ambush was laid by a number of armed men, amongst whom some

English borderers were said to be. The spot chosen as most favourable

for it was near Enterkin hill, ‘where there is a very strait road and a

deep precipice on both sides.’ Taken at a disadvantage in this narrow

pass, the soldiers of whom several were killed at the first discharge,

had but slight chance of success against superior numbers. The accounts

of the encounter differ from each other as regards several details; but

they leave no doubt about this one fact, at least, that the dragoons

were worsted, and that it was with at most two of their prisoners only

that they succeeded in reaching Edinburgh.

This daring act of aggression called forth fresh measures on the part of

the Government. On the 1st of August, the Privy Council passed an Act

redistributing the cavalry through the country, with a view to the more

effectual suppression of ‘all such rebellious courses for the future.’

Claverhouse’s troop of Guards, and that of his friend Lord Ross,

together with two troops of dragoons, respectively commanded by Captain

Inglis and Captain Cleland, were ordered for service in Ayrshire. In

addition to this, Claverhouse was appointed, with Lieutenant-Colonel

Buchan as his second, to command all the forces, ‘foot, and horse, and

dragoons, in the shires of Ayr and Clydesdale.’ Further, to the effect

that discovery might be made of the rebels in arms, and of such as had

been present at field conventicles, the two officers were empowered and

commissioned to call for and examine upon oath, all persons able to

supply any information, and to use all legal diligence for that purpose.

In accordance with his new commission, Claverhouse again swept the

south-western shires in every direction. If the actual capture of rebels

be taken as the standard by which to estimate the result of his efforts,

it appears to have been absolutely null. In spite of the promptitude of

his movements, and in spite, too, of the care which he took to conceal

them, it was impossible for him to secure secrecy. No sooner was his

arrival known at any point than the news of his presence was spread

through the surrounding country; and when his search through the wild

moorlands and over the pathless hills began, those whom he hoped to

surprise were either in safe hiding or beyond the reach of his troopers.

‘They have such intelligence,’ he wrote to Queensberry on the 5th of

August, ‘that there is no surprising them’; and he added, with something

of despondency in his tone, ‘I fear we do nothing.’ But, on the other

hand, his success in temporarily clearing the district of conventiclers

appears to have been rapid. Before the end of the same month he was able

to delegate his duties to his subordinates, and to retire for a short

time to Dudhope.

During his stay he had occasion to exercise, probably for the first

time, his power as Constable of Dundee. The way in which he did so is

set forth in the Register of the Privy Council:—‘Edinburgh, 10th

September 1684.—Whereas, it being represented to the Lords of his

Majesty’s Privy Council by Colonel Graham of Claverhouse, Constable of

Dundee, that there are several prisoners in the Tolbooth of that burgh

for petty or small thefts, or picking, which will be fitter to be

punished arbitrarily than by death; the said Lords do therefore give

full power and commission to the said Colonel Graham of Claverhouse,

Constable of Dundee, to restrict the punishment appointed by law,

against such persons within his jurisdiction already made prisoners, or

that shall hereafter be made prisoners upon account of the foresaid

petty and small thefts, or picking, to an arbitrary punishment, such as

whipping, or banishment, as he shall find cause.’

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

VI

THE KILLING TIME

THE last year of the reign of Charles II. was marked by a recrudescence

of fanaticism on the part of the Covenanting extremists. It found

expression in an ‘apologetical declaration’ drawn up by Renwick, and

ordered to be affixed, as though it were a royal proclamation, ‘upon a

sufficient and competent number of the public market-crosses of the

respective burghs, and of the patent doors of the respective kirks

within this kingdom.’ This document disowned the authority of Charles

Stuart, and threatened to inflict the severest punishment, not only on

those who were actively employed in enforcing the penal laws, ‘such as

bloody militia men, malicious troopers, soldiers and dragoons,’ but also

on the ‘viperous and malicious bishops and curates,’ and all such sort

of counsellors and ‘intelligencers.’

This ‘declaration’ was dated the 28th of October 1684, and was

promulgated on the 8th of November. It appeared so outrageous even to

some of the Covenanters themselves, that they denounced it as ‘but a

State invention, set on foot by the soldiers, to make that party odious

and themselves necessary.’ But before many days these sceptics were to

be convinced ‘of the reality of this declared war.’ On the 20th of

November news reached Edinburgh that, the night before, some of the

desperate fanatics had broken in upon two of the King’s Life

Guards—Thomas Kennoway and Duncan Stewart—who were lying at Swyne Abbey,

beyond Blackburn, in Linlithgowshire, and murdered them most

barbarously. ‘This,’ adds Fountainhall, one of the contemporary

chroniclers of the incident, ‘was to execute what they had threatened in

their declaration.’

This was not the only act of violence by which Renwick’s proclamation

was followed. Within the next month there occurred two others, of which

the scene lay within the district committed to the care of Claverhouse.

The prompt and successful measures which he took to punish the

perpetrators supply the elements of fact which partisan writers have

distorted and exaggerated into one of the most wanton atrocities of the

‘killing times’; and much may be learnt from an examination of the whole

episode in its successive phases.

It opens with the murder of the curate of Carsphairn on the night

between the 11th and the 12th of December. The victim was Mr Peter

Peirson. The worst of the unsubstantiated charges brought against him by

Wodrow, who, whilst professing to abhor and detest the crime, is

nevertheless at great pains to find extenuating circumstances in the

‘unwarrantable provocations this ill man gave,’ amount to this, that he

was a surly, ill-natured man, and horridly severe; that he was very

blustering and bold, and used openly to provoke the poor people by

saying in public companies, ‘He feared none of the Whigs, nor anything

else but rats and mice’; that he was openly a favourer of popery, and

not only defended the doctrine of purgatory, but also declared openly

that Papists were much better subjects than Presbyterians; that he was a

notorious informer and instigator of all the violent measures resorted

to in that part of the country; and that he kept a number of fire-arms

loaded in his chamber—a precautionary measure for which justification

might be found in the fact that the curate lived at the manse alone,

without so much as a servant with him.

Towards the end of the year 1684, a number of the ‘wanderers’ who were

hiding in the neighbourhood ‘entered into a concert with an express

proviso of doing no harm to Mr Peirson’s person, to meet together and

essay to force him to give a written declaration that he would forbear

instigating their enemies and other violent courses, and deter him from

them in time to come, still expressly declaring they would do him no

bodily harm.’ In view of the sequel, even as it is narrated by Wodrow

himself, it would be superfluous to discuss the veracity of the whole

statement as to the innocent ‘concert,’ and still more so to inquire

into the sincerity of the alleged declaration. It may, however, be

incidentally recalled that the murderers of Archbishop Sharp were

asserted by Covenanting apologists to have come together for the

harmless purpose of intimidating the obnoxious Carmichael, or as it was

still more mildly expressed, of scaring him from his cruel courses, when

chance threw the prelate in their way.

On the occasion, now under consideration, the circumstances that led to

the tragic termination of the peaceful errand on which M’Michael,

Padzen, Mitchell, Herron, Watson and some others were engaged are thus

set forth: ‘One night, having notice that Mr Peirson was at home, they

came to the manse and sent those named above to desire Mr Peirson to

speak with some friends who were to do him no harm. One account says,

and it is not inconsistent with the other, that two of them who were

sent, got in and delivered the commission, which put Mr Peirson in a

rage, and, drawing a broadsword, and cocking a gun or pistol, he got

betwixt them and the door; upon which they called, and M’Michael and

Padzen came to the door and knocked. The other account makes no mention

of this circumstance, but says when they knocked at the door, Mr Peirson

opened it himself, and, with fury, came out upon them with arms; and

James M’Michael, as he said, laying his account with present death if he

had not done it, resolved, if he could, to be beforehand with him, and

firing a pistol at him, shot him dead on the spot. The rest, at some

distance, hearing a noise, came running up crying, “take no lives”; but

it was too late.’

A few days after the murder of the curate, a body of ‘Wanderers’

committed a more open act of violence in the town of Kirkcudbright.

According to Sir Robert Dalziel’s official report to Queensberry, upon

the Tuesday morning preceding the 18th of December, they invaded the

town, to the number of a hundred and eight, broke open the prisons,

carried away such prisoners as would go with them, and all the arms they

could seize on, together with the town drum. It was then that

Claverhouse set out in pursuit of the rioters. The accounts of his

expedition are interesting in their variations from each other and from

actual facts.

In the volume entitled ‘A Cloud of Witnesses for the Royal Prerogatives

of Jesus Christ,’ there is a section specially devoted to an enumeration

of those ‘who were killed in the open fields, without trial, conviction,

or any process of law, by the executioners of the Council’s murdering

edict.’ On the authority of ‘A Short Memorial of the Sufferings and

Grievances of the Presbyterians in Scotland,’ printed in the year 1690,

it is there stated that Claverhouse coming to Galloway, in answer to the

Viscount of Kenmure’s letter, with a small party, surprised Robert

Stewart, John Grier, Robert Ferguson, and James MacMichael, and

instantly shot them dead at the water of Dee. It is added that their

corpses having been buried, were, at his command, raised again.

The same incident is reported by De Foe, with the addition of certain

details that enhance its atrocity. In his summary of the cold-blooded

cruelties perpetrated by the most furious persecutor of the ‘poor

people,’ he has the following entry: ‘Four more men who were betray’d to

him, being hid in a house at the water of Dee, and were at the time his

men came praying together; he caused them to be dragged just to the

door, and shot them dead as they came out, without any enquiry whether

they were the persons that he came to apprehend; their being found

praying to God was, it seems, sufficient testimony of their party and

offence; after this, coming to the same place, at two or three days’

distance, and understanding the people of the town had buried the

bodies, he caused his men to dig them up again, and commanded that they

should lye in the fields: the names of these four were John Grier,

Robert Ferguson, Archibald Stewart, and Robert Stewart.’

It will be noticed that the name of Archibald Stewart figures in this

list instead of that of James MacMichael. Whether accidental or

intentional the substitution is of considerable importance, as the

sequel will show.

Without any intention of palliating the conduct of Claverhouse, Wodrow

helps to place it in a different light. ‘Let me add,’ he says, ‘that

December 18th, Claverhouse when ranging up and down Galloway, with a

troop, came to the water of Dee; and at Auchinloy, came upon some of the

people, who were lurking and hiding, unexpectedly, and surprised six of

them together; for what I can find, they had no arms. According to the

instructions lately given by the Council, he shot four of them upon the

spot in a very few minutes, Robert Ferguson and James MacMichan from

Nithsdale, and Robert Stewart and John Grier, Galloway men; afterwards

their friends carried off their bodies to Dalry and buried them. Some

accounts before me say that by orders from Claverhouse, a party came and

uncovered their graves and coffins, and they continued so open four days

till the party went off. And it appears certain, that James MacMichan’s

body, after it was buried, was taken up and hung up on a tree. This was

strange barbarity and spite. The other two, Robert Smith in Glencairn

parish, and Robert Hunter, Claverhouse carried with him to

Kirkcudbright, and called an assize, and made a form of judging them,

and caused execute them there. They would not permit these two to write

anything, not so much as letters to their relations. There were two more

in the company who escaped and happy it was for them it was so, for

probably they would have gone the same way.’

Wodrow admits that ‘it may be the rescue of some prisoners of

Kirkcudbright by some of the wanderers a little before this, was the

pretext for all this cruelty.’ But he says no word from which it can be

gathered that the party which broke open the Tolbooth of Kirkcudbright

could reasonably be suspected of including some of the men who murdered

Peirson. He gives no hint of his knowledge that it was whilst pursuing

these rioters that Claverhouse came upon the Deeside fugitives; and it

almost seems as though, by a slight change of name, he wished to conceal

the fact that the James Macmichan, whose body was treated with such

‘strange barbarity and spite,’ was no other than the James Macmichael

whom he himself names as the actual murderer of Peirson.

The information which he failed to supply may be got from Fountainhall,

who, in his ‘Historical Notices,’ under date of the 20th of December,

announces the receipt of letters from Claverhouse, reporting that he had

met with a party of the rebels, who had skulked, that he had followed

them, killed five, and taken three prisoners, some of whom were the

murderers of the minister of Carsphairn, and that he was to judge and

execute the three prisoners by his justiciary powers.

Such is the origin and development of one of those ‘atrocities’ to which

Claverhouse owes the opprobrious epithet of ‘bloody.’

For an impartial judgment of the extent of Claverhouse’s personal

connection with some of the incidents of this particular period, it must

be remembered that early in the year Colonel Douglas was appointed on

special duty against the ‘Western fanatics.’ In addition to this, on the

27th of March, the judicial powers previously held by Claverhouse were

also conferred on Douglas, as Justice in all the southern and western

shires. The instructions given him by the Privy Council contained a

special clause referring to the treatment of women that might be brought

before him or any of the members of his Commission. Only such as had

been active in a signal manner in treasonable courses were to be

examined; and those if found guilty, were to be drowned.

It was in accordance with this provision that Margaret Maclachlan and

Margaret Wilson were condemned to death. Whether the sentence was

actually carried out, or whether the account of their drowning on the

sands of the Solway Firth given by Wodrow and repeated by Macaulay be

wholly apocryphal, as Napier maintained, is a question into which it is

not necessary to enter, though the difficulty of believing that so

circumstantial a narrative can be a mere Covenanting fiction may readily

be admitted. But it is not unimportant to point out that Claverhouse was

neither directly nor indirectly concerned either in the trial, the

sentence, or the execution, and that, though still nominally a Privy

Councillor when Douglas superseded him, he was absent from the meeting

at which his rival was appointed Justice, and at which the drowning of

women was ordered.

From the command of his own regiment, Claverhouse had not been removed.

In the discharge of the duties which this position laid on him, he was

brought into immediate connection with another incident which is

commonly adduced as illustrative of the atrocities committed during the

‘killing time,’ but of which the real nature, terrible at best, it

cannot be denied, is materially affected by the truth or the falseness

of the details which have found their way into some accounts of the

event. Claverhouse’s report of the occurrence is contained in the

following despatch forwarded to Queensberry from Galston on the 3rd of

May 1685.

‘On Friday last, amongst the hills betwixt Douglas and the Ploughlands,

we pursued two fellows a great way through the mosses, and in the end

seized them. They had no arms about them, and denied they had any. But,

being asked if they would take the abjuration, the eldest of the two,

called John Brown, refused it. Nor would he swear not to rise in arms

against the King, but said he knew no king. Upon which, and there being

found bullets and match in his house, and treasonable papers, I caused

shoot him dead; which he suffered very unconcernedly.

‘The other, a young fellow and his nephew, called John Brownen offered

to take the oath; but would not swear that he had not been at Newmills

in arms, at rescuing of the prisoners. So I did not know what to do with

him. I was convinced that he was guilty, but saw not how to proceed

against him. Wherefore, after he had said his prayers, and carbines

presented to shoot him, I offered to him that if he would make an

ingenuous confession, and make a discovery that might be of any

importance for the King’s service, I should delay putting him to death,

and plead for him. Upon which he confessed that he was at that attack at

Newmills, and that he had come straight to this house of his uncle’s, on

Sunday morning.

‘In the time he was making this confession, the soldiers found out a

house in a hill, under ground, that could hold a dozen of men, and there

were swords and pistols in it; and this fellow declared that they

belonged to his uncle, and that he had lurked in that place ever since

Bothwell, where he was in arms. He confessed that he had a halbert, and

told who gave it him about a month ago, and we have the fellow prisoner.

He gave an account of the names of the most part who were there. They

were not above sixty, and they were all Galston and Newmills men, save a

few out of Straven parish. He gave also an account of a conventicle kept

by Renwick at the back of Cairntable, where there were thirteen score of

men in arms, mustered and exercised, of which number he was with his

halbert. He tells us of another conventicle, about three months ago,

kept near Loudon hill; and gives account of the persons who were at

both, and what children were baptized; particularly that at Cairntable,

which was about the time that Lieutenants Murray and Creichton let them

escape. He also gives account of those who gave any assistance to his

uncle; and we have seized thereupon the goodman of the upmost

Ploughlands; and another tenant, about a mile below that, is fled upon

it.

‘I doubt not, if we had time to stay, good use might be made of his

confession. I have acquitted myself, when I have told your Grace the

case. He has been a month or two with his halbert; and if your Grace

thinks he deserves no mercy, justice will pass on him. For I, having no

commission of Justiciary myself, have delivered him up to the

Lieutenant-General, to be disposed of as he pleases.’

Such a report is not that of a man anxious to urge excuses for an action

which he felt in his conscience to be unjustifiable. Nor can there be

any doubt that, from his point of view, Claverhouse had done nothing but

what a soldier’s duty required of him. Immediately after the

proclamation of Renwick’s manifesto, and the subsequent murder of the

two guardsmen at Swyne Abbey, it had been enacted that ‘Any person who

owns or will not disown the late treasonable declaration on oath,

whether they have arms or not, be immediately put to death, this being

always done in the presence of two witnesses, and the person or persons

having commission to that effect.’

Such was the law; and the blind obedience to orders which Claverhouse

looked upon as a part of his duty as a soldier, on which he prided

himself, and which, as has been seen, he declared in so many words to be

his one guiding principle, left him no option as to enforcing it in the

case of John Brown. With respect to the nephew, on the other hand, the

same spirit of strict discipline forbade him to inflict summary

punishment, not because he thought him less guilty than the uncle, but

because he had complied with the letter of the law. If further action

were to be taken in the case, it would have to be by those who possessed

that power of justiciary of which he had been deprived.

This John Brown who was executed in due form of martial law is the

‘Christian Carrier’ whom Wodrow accuses Claverhouse of having killed

with his own hand. After representing Brown as a man of ‘shining piety,’

who ‘was no way obnoxious to the Government, except for not hearing the

Episcopal minister,’ and after stating that he was apprehended whilst

‘at his work, near his own house in Priestfield, casting peats,’ the

historian continues: ‘Claverhouse was coming from Lesmahagow, with three

troops of dragoons: whether he had got any information of John’s piety

and nonconformity, I cannot tell, but he caused bring him up to his own

door, from the place where he was. I do not find they were at much

trouble with interrogatories and questions; we see them now almost

wearied of that leisurely way of doing business, neither do any of my

informations bear that the abjuration oath was offered him. With some

difficulty he was allowed to pray, which he did with the greatest

liberty and melting, and withal, in such suitable and scriptural

expressions, and in a peculiar judicious style, he having great measures

of the gift, as well as the grace of prayer, that the soldiers were

affected and astonished; yea, which is yet more singular, such

convictions were left in their bosoms, that, as my informations bear,

not one of them would shoot him, or obey Claverhouse’s commands, so that

he was forced to turn executioner himself, and in a fret shot him with

his own hand, before his own door, his wife with a young infant standing

by, and she very near the time of her delivery of another child. When

tears and entreaties could not prevail, and Claverhouse had shot him

dead, I am credibly informed the widow said to him, “Well, sir, you must

give an account of what you have done.” Claverhouse answered, “To men I

can be answerable, and as for God, I’ll take Him into mine own hand.” I

am well informed that Claverhouse himself frequently acknowledged

afterwards that John Brown’s prayer left such impressions upon his

spirit that he could never get altogether worn off, when he gave himself

liberty to think of it.’

A comparison of the two accounts might suffice to establish their

respective credibility. But another test is available. There is a third

version of the death of John Brown. It is given by Patrick Walker, a

pedlar and Covenanting martyrologist, who implies that he himself got it

from Brown’s widow, ‘sitting upon her husband’s gravestone.’ Apart from

minor discrepancies between his narrative and that of Wodrow, there are

at least three important points with regard to which it directly

confirms Claverhouse’s report. It not only asserts that the carrier,

when brought to his house, was examined by his captor, but it also adds

that though a man of a stammering speech, he yet answered distinctly and

solidly. In contradiction of the statement that ‘with some difficulty he

was allowed to pray,’ it represents Claverhouse as saying to him, ‘Go to

your prayers, for you shall immediately die.’ Most important of all,

however, it affirms distinctly and circumstantially that ‘Claverhouse

ordered six soldiers to shoot him,’ and that ‘the most part of the

bullets came upon his head, which scattered his brains upon the ground.’

Within a week after the shooting of John Brown, there occurred another

execution, the responsibility for which has been laid on Claverhouse by

several of the writers who chronicle the sufferings of the Covenanters

at this time The first of them is Alexander Shields. ‘The said

Claverhouse,’ he says, ‘together with the Earl of Dumbarton and

Lieutenant-General Douglas, caused Peter Gillies, John Bryce, Thomas

Young (who was taken by the Laird of Lee), William Fiddisone, and John

Buiening to be put to death upon a gibbet, without legal trial or

sentence, suffering them neither to have a Bible nor to pray before they

died.’ De Foe, whilst deepening the atrocity of the deed, allows no one

to share the guilt of it with Claverhouse. According to him, somebody

had maliciously told Graham that five men who lay in ‘several prisons,’

to which they had been committed by ‘other persecutors,’ were ‘of the

Whigs that used the field meetings; upon which, without any oath made of

the fact, or any examination of the men, without any trial or other

sentence than his own command, his bloody soldiers fetched them all to

Mauchline, a village where his headquarters were, and hanged them

immediately, not suffering them to enter into any house at their coming,

nor at the entreaty of the poor men would permit one to lend them a

Bible, who it seems offered it, nor allow them a moment to pray to God.’

The case of two of these men, that of Peter Gillies and John Bryce

has been cited by Macaulay as one of the instances of the crimes by

which Claverhouse and men like him, goaded the peasantry of the

Western Lowlands into madness. His account, based on that given by

Wodrow, refutes the statement made by De Foe as to the absence of

all legal formality. He admits that the two artisans were tried by a

military tribunal consisting of fifteen men; and thus sets aside

what both Shields and De Foe put forward as the crowning atrocity of

the deed. But, on the other hand, by mentioning the execution

amongst other alleged instances of Claverhouse’s cruelty, he leaves

the reader under the impression that it was he and his dragoons who

acted as judge and jury. Now Wodrow distinctly states that, on being

taken to Mauchline, Gillies and Bryce, ‘with some others, were

examined by Lieutenant-General Drummond,’ and that ‘an assize was

called of fifteen of the soldiers,’ with Drummond himself as

‘Commissioner of Justiciary.’ Claverhouse’s name does not once occur

in Wodrow’s detailed account of the incident, and evidence to

connect him directly and personally with the trial or execution is

consequently wanting.

The last instance drawn from ‘the history of a single fortnight,’ of

that lamentable month of May 1685, is the summary execution of Andrew

Hislop, in Eskdale Muir. There are two accounts of it. One of them is to

be found in ‘The Cloud of Witnesses.’ The other is given by Wodrow.

About Hislop himself, the latter tells us that he was but a youth, and

lived with his mother, to whom one of the ‘suffering people’ had come

for shelter, and in whose house he had died. For her charity towards the

proscribed Covenanter, and for affording his body burial, the poor widow

brought down upon herself the vengeance of the Laird of Westerhall, who

though ‘once a Covenanter, a great professor and zealot for the

presbyterian establishment,’ had become a violent persecutor of his

former brethren, ‘as all apostates generally are.’ To signalise his

loyalty, Westerhall pulled down the woman’s cottage, carried off

everything that was portable, and drove her with her children into the

fields. Her eldest son Andrew, however, was reserved for a worse fate,

as to the actual circumstances of which there are conflicting

narratives. That contained in the book commonly known as ‘The Cloud of

Witnesses’ states that Westerhall delivered him up to Claverhouse, ‘and

never rested until he got him shot by Claverhouse’s troops.’ Wodrow,

though he was acquainted with this account, and actually refers to it,

so far departs from it as to make Claverhouse the lad’s captor.

‘Claverhouse,’ he says, ‘falls upon Andrew Hislop in the fields, May

10th, and seizes him, without any design, as appeared, to murder him,

bringing him prisoner with him to Eskdale, unto Westerhall that night.’

To the first account, which is that favoured by Macaulay, there is this

objection, that Claverhouse had been deprived of his judicial power,

and, for that very reason had refused to deal with John Brown’s nephew,

and delivered him up to the Lieutenant-General. Westerhall, on the other

hand, is stated by Wodrow to have been ‘one empowered by the Council’;

and that is probably why the historian inverts the parts played by the

two respectively. But, against accepting his account, there is the

difficulty of understanding how Westerhall allowed Hislop to escape from

his clutches in the first instance. Whichever may be the true statement

of the case, the sequel is practically identical according to both

versions. ‘Claverhouse,’ says Wodrow, ‘in this instance was very

backward, perhaps not wanting his own reflections upon John Brown’s

murder, and pressed the delay of the execution. But Westerhall urged

till the other yielded, saying, the blood of this poor man be upon you,

Westerhall, I am free of it.’ Thereupon, it is stated, Claverhouse

ordered a Highland gentleman, who, with his company, was temporarily

under his orders, to provide the firing-party. But the Captain,

continues the account, peremptorily refused, and drawing off his men to

a distance, swore he would fight Claverhouse and his dragoons rather

than act the part of executioner. Three troopers were then called out,

and Hislop fell before their fire.

There are circumstances that make it difficult to accept this statement

of the case. If Claverhouse was averse to the summary execution of

Hislop, it may very safely be assumed, on the strength of what is known

concerning his character, that nothing but his respect for superior

authority and the blind obedience to it, which he repeatedly declared to

be his guiding principle as a soldier, would have induced him to take

any part in it. In that case, the whole responsibility would be removed

from him, and laid upon Westerhall, whose orders he merely carried out.

But this substitution is not possible. As Claverhouse cannot but have

known, Westerhall was not in a position to act as judge in the case; and

there would consequently have been no breach and no infringement of the

strictest discipline in disregarding commands which he was not justified

in giving.

Wodrow, as has been seen, states that Westerhall was ‘one empowered by

the Council.’ The commission to which this refers had been granted on

the 3rd of January 1684; and, it may be incidentally mentioned that the

power which it gave him to judge desperate rebels, could not be

exercised by him individually and alone, but in conjunction with two

other colleagues. But what Wodrow either overlooked or ignored, is the

fact that, on the 21st of April 1685, General Drummond was invested with

the whole authority previously held conjointly by the commissioners; and

that the royal warrant by which this supersession was effected,

expressly declared that all former commissions granted either by the

King or by the Privy Council for trying or punishing criminals, were

void and extinct. It consequently follows that if Claverhouse acted as

he is alleged to have done, he did not merely consent, sullenly or

otherwise, to the carrying out of a cruel and iniquitous, but strictly

legal sentence, he actually became an accomplice in a deliberate murder

of which he did not approve and which he could have prevented by taking

up the same position as the Highland gentleman is said to have assumed.

Were this the case, the shooting of Hislop would be one of the most

indefensible of the atrocities with which Claverhouse has been charged.

And yet we do not find that those who were watching his conduct at the

time with all the keenness of enmity, and who would gladly have availed

themselves of such an opportunity for doing him an ill turn, took any

notice of the occurrence.

Still more convincing is it, that the Covenanting writers who record the

incident, whilst bitter enough in their denunciations of Claverhouse’s

inhumanity, are absolutely silent as to the lawlessness of his action.

This difficulty has been met by the suggestion that there were probably

other proceedings, of which the accounts omit to make mention; that

Hislop was asked to take the oath, and, by refusing to do so, made

himself amenable to the full penalty of the law. Such an assumption

clears both Westerhall and Claverhouse of the actual guilt of murder. It

does not free the latter from the charge of having acted with a weakness

and a subserviency as unjustifiable in themselves as they seem foreign

to his nature. Under the circumstances, the least that can be claimed

for him is an open verdict. To convict him on such evidence as has been

adduced, and to do so for the purpose of vindicating the veracity of

writers who are not even in accord with each other would be palpably

unjust.

Matthew Meiklewrath is another of the victims of this terrible time; and

if the account of his death given by De Foe were as accurate as it is

circumstantial, no term but that of murder could be applied to the

outrage alleged to have been committed by Claverhouse. ‘At Comonel, in

the County of Carrick,’ states the chronicler of his misdeeds, ‘he saw a

man run hastily across the street before his troop, and as he might

suppose did it to escape from or avoid them, though, as the people of

the place related it, the poor man had no apprehensions of them, but as

he took all occasions for his bloody designs, he commanded his men to

shoot this person, without so much as examining him, or asking who he

was.’ The refutation of this charge of wanton barbarity is to be found

in the epitaph quoted in ‘The Cloud of Witnesses’ from a stone in the

churchyard where Meiklewrath was interred:—

‘In this parish of Colmonel,

By bloody Claverhouse I fell,

Who did command that I should die,

For owning covenanting Presbytery.

My blood a witness still doth stand,

‘Gainst all defections in this land.’

The cases that have been cited do not exhaust the black list that might

be drawn up from the accounts already referred to. They may suffice,

however, to show, not indeed that Claverhouse performed the odious

duties imposed upon him by his position otherwise than sternly and

remorselessly, but, at least, that the most notorious of the instances

which represent him as going far beyond even what the merciless laws

required or authorised, as delighting in suffering and revelling in

bloodshed, are demonstrably exaggerations, and that impartial

investigation, whilst it may lead us to deplore the relentless severity

with which he carried out the orders of the Government, does not justify

us in holding him up to obloquy as a monster of cruelty.

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VII

UNDER KING JAMES