Chapter IX: The Highland Campaign 141 (4)

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.’

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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.