Viscount Dundee

The murder of Archbishop Sharp was followed by further proclamations against the Covenanters, to whom, as a body, the Government attributed the crime; and the episcopalian agents throughout the country, actuated partly by a desire for revenge, partly by fear for their own safety, displayed increased zeal in carrying out the repressive enactments of the Privy Council. This was met on the other side with corresponding measures for self-defence. Even before the tragedy at Magus Muir, a determination to repel force by force had been noted and reported, and conventicles had ceased to be merely peaceful gatherings of unarmed men. They now began to assume the appearance of military camps, to which the numerous smaller congregations that joined together for mutual protection gave formidable proportions.

That with a view to bringing matters to an issue and saving themselves by a general rising, Balfour and the other outlaws who had fled as he had, for protection, to the west, after the murder of the primate, were further instrumental in stirring up a spirit of rebellion, scarcely admits of doubt, and is, indeed, conceded by Wodrow. But it is probable that they only helped to precipitate what would not long have been delayed under any circumstances, and what Robert Hamilton, brother to the Laird of Preston, and others who, like him, were violently opposed to the indulgence, had for some time been working to bring about. Towards the end of May, these men put forth a manifesto, in which they declared it to be their duty ‘to publish to the world their testimony to the truth and cause which they owned, and against the sins and defections of the times.’

In accordance with this proclamation, they decided that a party of armed men should go to some public place and burn the Acts of Parliament passed since 1660 ‘for overturning the whole covenanted reformation.’ Amongst these was included ‘that presumptuous Act for imposing an holy anniversary day to be kept yearly upon the 29th of May, as a day of rejoicing and thanksgiving for the King’s birth and restoration,’ whereby the appointers had ‘intruded upon the Lord’s prerogative,’ and the observers had ‘given the glory to the creature that is due to our Lord Redeemer, and rejoiced over the setting up an usurping power to the destroying the interest of Christ in the land.’

The 29th of May was at hand; and it was thought fitting that the obnoxious anniversary should witness the public protest and demonstration. Glasgow was the place originally chosen for the ‘declaration and testimony of some of the true Presbyterian party in Scotland,’ and for burning ‘the sinful and unlawful Acts’ passed against them, just as their own ‘sacred covenant’ had been burned. But a considerable number of the royal troops previously quartered in Lanark having been sent up to the city, it was thought prudent to go no nearer to it than Rutherglen. A party of the irreconcilables accordingly marched to the royal burgh. After burning the hated Acts in the bonfire with which the day was being solemnised, they put it out as a further protest against the celebration, publicly read their own declaration and testimony, and affixed a copy of it to the Market Cross.

On that same Thursday, Claverhouse, now at Falkirk, sent the Earl of Linlithgow a despatch containing the following paragraph: —

‘I am certainly informed there is a resolution taken among the Whigs, that eighteen parishes shall meet Sunday next in Kilbride Moor, within four miles of Glasgow. I resolve, though I do not believe it, to advertise my Lord Ross, so that with our joint force we may attack them. They say they are to part no more, but keep in a body.’

At once taking measure to carry out the plan thus indicated, Claverhouse set out for Glasgow. On his way he received information of the proceedings at Rutherglen Cross, and thought it his duty to proceed, with his men, to the scene of the demonstration. The sequel is told in the next despatch to the Earl of Linlithgow: —

‘Glasgow, June 1st, 1679.

‘My Lord, – Upon Saturday’s night, when my Lord Rosse came into this place, I marched out; and because of the insolency that had been done two nights before at Ruglen, I went thither, and inquired for the names. So soon as I got them, I sent out parties to seize on them, and found not only three of those rogues, but also an intercommuned minister called King. We had them at Strathaven about six in the morning yesterday; and resolving to convey them to this, I thought that we might make a little tour, to see if we could fall upon a conventicle; which we did little to our advantage. For, when we came in sight of them, we found them drawn up in battle, upon a most advantageous ground, to which there was no coming but through mosses and lakes.

‘They were not preaching, and had got away all their women and children. They consisted of four battalions of foot and all well armed with fusils and pitchforks, and three squadrons of horse. We sent both parties to skirmish; they of foot and we of dragoons: They run for it, and sent down a battalion of foot against them: We sent threescore of dragoons, who made them run shamefully: But, in the end (they perceiving that we had the better of them in skirmish), they resolved a general engagement, and immediately advanced with their foot, the horse following: They came through the loch, and the greatest body of all made up against my troop: We kept our fire till they were within ten pace of us: They received our fire, and advanced to shock: The first they gave us brought down the Cornet Mr Crafford and Captain Bleith: Besides that, with a pitchfork, they made such an opening in my sorrel horse’s belly, that his guts hung out half an ell; and yet he carried me off a mile; which so discouraged our men, that they sustained not the shock, but fell into disorder.

‘Their horse took the occasion of this, and pursued us so hotly that we got no time to rally. I saved the standards; but lost on the place about eight or ten men, besides wounded. But the dragoons lost many more. They are not come easily off on the other side, for I saw several of them fall before we came to the shock. I made the best retreat the confusion of our people would suffer; and am now laying with my Lord Ross. The town of Strathaven drew up as we was making our retreat, and thought of a pass to cut us off; but we took courage and fell on them, made them run, leaving a dozen on the place. What these rogues will do, yet I know not; but the country was flocking to them from all hands. This may be counted the beginning of the rebellion, in my opinion. – I am, my Lord, your Lordship’s most humble servant,

J. Grahame.’

‘My Lord, I am so wearied, and so sleepy, that I have written this very confusedly.’

As to the respective numbers of the combatants engaged in the battle of Drumclog, as it is commonly called from the place near which it was fought, and which Claverhouse forgot to name in his despatch, it is difficult to arrive at a definite conclusion. Russell, who was in the ranks of the Covenanters, sets down the ‘honest party’ as consisting of ‘about fifty horse and about as many guns, and about a hundred and fifty with forks and halberts’; but that is not consistent with the details which he himself gives of the fighting. Sir Walter Scott, who has been followed by most modern writers, computes the forces opposed to Claverhouse at about one thousand, horse and foot, and the regulars at no more than two hundred and fifty. But even this estimate of the latter is probably excessive. In a letter written from Mugdock on the 30th of May, the Marquis of Montrose informed the Earl of Menteith that he had that day met with Claverhouse, who had been sent ‘with his troop and a troop of dragoons, to guard some arms and ammunition transported to this country.’ That may be taken to mean an escort of about two hundred men. But Captain Creichton, who was then serving as a lieutenant under Claverhouse, states that he, with Captain Stewart’s troop of dragoons remained in Glasgow, when his commanding officer set out to enquire into the Rutherglen demonstration; and he adds that those who fought at Drumclog were about one hundred and eighty strong. Apart from the fact that there is no reason for doubting his veracity, the number which he gives exactly agrees with that which may be deduced from the casual reference in Montrose’s letter; and there is, consequently, good reason for accepting it as correct. With regard to the insurgents, it is less easy to make even an approximative calculation. It is generally admitted, however, that they greatly outnumbered their adversaries; and this seems implied by the despatch which Lord Ross forwarded to the commander-in-chief immediately after Claverhouse’s return to Glasgow on the memorable Sunday. ‘Be assured,’ he wrote to the Earl, ‘if they were ten to one, if you command it, we shall be through them if we can.’ Moreover, it is difficult to believe that the Covenanting forces could have increased to some six thousand within a week after Drumclog, as Hamilton, one of their leaders, boasts they did, if, on the 1st of June, they numbered no more than the mere handful of Russell’s estimate.

The passage in which Claverhouse mentions the officers killed in the engagement has always been read as referring to only two; and it has caused some surprise that he should have omitted to report the loss of a third, about whose death there cannot be a doubt, and who, moreover, was a kinsman of his – Cornet Graham. Captain Creichton who, it must be remembered, is speaking of a comrade, and whose words alone might be looked upon as absolutely authoritative, states, in his Memoirs, that ‘the rebels finding the cornet’s body, and supposing it to be that of Clavers, because the name of Graham was wrought in the shirt-neck, treated it with the utmost inhumanity; cutting off the nose, picking out the eyes, and stabbing it through in a hundred places.’ Andrew Guild, in his Latin poem, ‘Bellum Bothwellianum,’ records the same barbarity. ‘They laid savage hands on him,’ he says, ‘and mutilated his manly face; having cut off his tongue, his ears, and his hands, they scattered his brains over the rough stones.’ In an old ballad on the Battle of Loudon Hill – another name for the fight of Drumclog – Claverhouse’s cornet and kinsman is twice made to foretell his own death: —

‘I ken I’ll ne’er come back again,An’ mony mae as weel as me.’

In another Covenanting poem, ‘The Battle of Bothwell Brig,’ Claverhouse is represented as avenging young Graham’s death on the fugitives: —

‘Haud up your hand,’ then Monmouth said;‘Gie quarters to these men for me;’But bloody Claver’se swore an oath,His kinsman death avenged should be.

Russell, too, states that Graham was killed, and refers to the mutilation of the lifeless body, though he accounts for it in a very remarkable way. The passage is as follows: ‘One Graham, that same morning in Strevan his dog was leaping upon him for meat, and he said he would give him none, but he should fill himself of the Whig’s blood and flesh by night; but instead of that, his dog was seen eating his own thrapple (for he was killed), by several; and particularly James Russell after the pursuit, coming back to his dear friend James Dungel, who was severely wounded, asked at some women and men who it was; they told that it was that Graham, and afterwards they got certain word what he said to his dog in Strevan.’

In the face of such evidence, it is hardly possible to deny the actual fact of Graham’s death. Neither can it be looked upon as probable that his kinsman had no knowledge of it when he wrote his despatch. If, therefore, Claverhouse really did omit to report it amongst the other casualties, his silence is difficult to understand. But, it must be pointed out that the whole question may, after all, resolve itself into one of punctuation. The insertion of a single comma makes three persons of ‘the Cornet, Mr Crafford and Captain Bleith.’ A matter so utterly trifling in itself would not be deserving of notice if some of Claverhouse’s irrational detractors, no less than some of his irrational apologists, had not magnified it out of all proportion.

Throughout the engagement Claverhouse made himself conspicuous by his courage, and was exposed to special danger because of the attention which he attracted. One of the Covenanters, a Strathaven man, was subsequently wont to relate that he had concealed himself behind a hillock and fired eight shots at the leader of the royal troops; and it may be assumed that, in those days, want of skill on the part of the marksman was not considered the cause of his failure. It is also stated by De Foe, that William Cleland, who, in later years distinguished himself as a soldier and rose to be Lieutenant-Colonel of the Cameronian regiment, actually succeeded in catching hold of Claverhouse’s bridle, and that the latter had a narrow escape of being taken prisoner. Thanks to his coolness and presence of mind no less than to his good fortune, he left the field unscathed, but only when the discomfiture of his men had become so complete as to render any effort to rally them wholly hopeless. Like them, he galloped back to Strathaven; and local tradition still points out the spot where he shot down one of the townsmen who endeavoured to stay him in his flight. Some accounts relate that on his road he had to pass the house where the outlawed minister King had been left under guard, when the soldiers set out for Drumclog, and that, as he did so, his prisoner of the morning ironically invited him to remain for the afternoon sermon.

Before the engagement, Hamilton, who had assumed the command of the Covenanters, gave out the word that no quarter should be given. In spite of this, five out of seven men who had been captured, were granted their lives and allowed to depart. ‘This,’ writes a contemporary, ‘greatly grieved Mr Hamilton, when he saw some of Babel’s brats spared, after that the Lord had delivered them into their hands, that they might dash them against the stones.’ When he returned from the pursuit of the routed royalists, a discussion had arisen as to the fate of the two remaining prisoners. Hamilton settled it, in so far at least as one of them was concerned, by killing him on the spot. ‘None could blame me,’ he wrote in a letter of justification published five or six years later, ‘to decide the controversy; and I bless the Lord for it to this day.’

Wodrow gives it as ‘the opinion of not a few,’ that if the ‘country men’ had pushed their success, followed their chase, and gone straight to Glasgow that day, they might easily, with the help of the reinforcements that would have come to them on the road, as soon as their success became known, have driven out the garrison, ‘and very soon made a great appearance.’

Without entering into a futile discussion as to what might have happened, it may be pointed out that the actual circumstances of the case scarcely justify so sanguine a view. When Claverhouse and his troopers rode back to Glasgow, they had no certainty that, in the flush of victory, the Covenanters would not continue the pursuit right up to the city, and endeavour to take the fullest advantage of their success. Indeed, the conduct of the royalist officers rather seems to imply that they recognised the possibility of such a course on the part of the enemy, for they caused half the men to stand to their arms all night. If, therefore, the few horsemen on the Covenanting side, who alone could possibly perform the distance of nearly thirty miles before dusk, even on a long June day, had ventured on an attack, it may be believed that they would have met with a reception calculated to make them regret their rashness.

There is no occasion to assume that any reason but that dictated by common prudence induced the foremost of the pursuers to halt at a considerable distance from Glasgow, in order to await the coming of the unmounted men, with such recruits as they might have been able to gather on the way. Statements differ as to the precise place where the greater number of them determined to stay for the night; but Wodrow is probably accurate in saying that they did not press further forward than Hamilton, and that it was from that town they resumed their march on the morrow.

In the meantime Lord Ross and his officers, Major White and Captain Graham, had not been idle. With carts, timber, and such other materials as could be hastily requisitioned, they erected four barricades in the centre of the city, and posted their men behind them to await the expected onset. At daybreak next morning, Creichton, with six dragoons, was sent out to take up his station at a small house which commanded a view of the two approaches to Glasgow, so that he might at once be able to report which of them the Covenanters decided to take. About ten o’clock he saw them advance to the place which he had been instructed to watch, and there, by a most injudicious manœuvre, divide themselves into two bodies. Of these, one, under Hamilton, marched towards the Gallowgate; whilst the other took a more circuitous road ‘by the Wyndhead and College.’ There may have been a vague intention of taking the military between two fires, but the movements were ill concerted, and resulted in two disjointed attacks, which were both easily repulsed.

As Creichton returned to inform Claverhouse of the enemy’s dispositions, he was followed close to the heels by that detachment which was making for the Gallowgate bridge. When they reached the barricade which had been raised on that side, they were received by Claverhouse and his men with a volley which killed several, and threw the remainder into confusion. The soldiers following up this first advantage, and jumping over the carts that formed the obstruction, then charged the wavering Covenanters, and drove them out of the town. They had time to do this and to return to their original position before those of the ‘country men,’ who had marched round by the north, came down by the High Church and the College. These were allowed to come within pistol shot; and when the soldiers fired into them at such close range, it was with the same effect as before.

The second party was also forced to fall back. They appear to have done so in better order than Hamilton’s men, for they were able to rally in a field behind the High Church, where they remained till five o’clock in the afternoon, unmolested by the soldiers, from whose sight they were concealed, and who, not knowing when they might again be attacked, and fully aware that the majority of the citizens were hostile to them, contented themselves with remaining on the defensive. Prudence prevailed with the Covenanters too, and without making any further attempt to carry the barricade, they retired to Toll Cross Moor. Finding that Claverhouse, who had been informed of the movement, had come out after them, they continued their retreat as far as Hamilton, protecting their rear so effectively with their cavalry, that Graham deemed it advisable to fall back upon Glasgow.

At Drumclog, and subsequently at Glasgow, unforeseen circumstances had imposed a leading and conspicuous part on Claverhouse. The measures which the Government was now called on to adopt for the purpose of quelling an insurrection of formidable proportions, were necessarily of such magnitude, that he naturally fell back to his own subordinate position, that of a captain of dragoons. To represent him as having incurred the displeasure of his chiefs, and as having been superseded in consequence, is contrary to fact, and wholly unfair to him. Proof is at hand that no blame was laid upon him for the defeat of Drumclog. In a letter written by the Council to Lauderdale on the 3rd of June, it was admitted that he had been overpowered by numbers; and six days later, through Lauderdale, the Chancellor conveyed the King’s thanks to Lord Ross and to Claverhouse for their great diligence and care, and his assurance that he would be very mindful of their conduct on all occasions.

Creichton, who did not supply Swift with the materials for his memoirs till many years later, and who, therefore, cannot always be implicitly depended upon as regards details of minor importance, states that the morning after the attack ‘the Government sent orders to Claverhouse to leave Glasgow and march to Stirling.’ But Wodrow, who founds his narrative on letters which he met with in the Council Registers, and which he duly quotes, makes no special reference to Claverhouse. He simply records the fact that ‘my Lord Ross and the rest of the officers of the King’s forces, finding the gathering of the country people growing, and expecting every day considerable numbers to be added to them, and not reckoning themselves able to stand out a second attack, found it advisable to retire eastward.’ He indicates, day by day, the marching and counter-marching of the royalist troops, and narrates all the steps that were taken to bring together a body sufficiently strong to disperse the Covenanting insurgents.

From all this it is evident that there was no room for independent action on the part of Claverhouse from the time of his leaving the West to that of his return to it with the Duke of Monmouth, who had been appointed Commander-in-Chief, and who, on the 22nd of June, encountered the Covenanters at Bothwell Bridge. In the course of the engagement which followed, no opportunity was given him of playing a prominent part. Sir Walter Scott asserts on two different occasions, that the horse were commanded by Claverhouse; and, in his well-known description of the battle, he adds the detail that ‘the voice of Claverhouse was heard, even above the din of conflict, exclaiming to the soldiers – “Kill, kill – no quarter – think of Richard Grahame.”’ The historical truth is, that Claverhouse was simply a captain of horse, as were also the Earl of Home, and the Earl of Airlie, and that he was himself under the command of his kinsman Montrose, Colonel of the Horse Guards. Beyond stating this no accounts of the encounter make any reference to him. In so far as he is personally concerned there is no reason for recalling the incident of the fight which effectively put an end to the Covenanting insurrection. His presence at it is the single, bare fact that requires mention.

There are no official documents extant to enable us to follow Claverhouse’s movements during the period immediately subsequent to Bothwell Bridge. All that has been stated with regard to his doings at this time rests on the authority of Wodrow, who himself admits, though not, it is true, for the purpose of questioning their accuracy, that the traditions embodied in his narrative were vague and uncertain. ‘Everybody must see,’ he says, ‘that it is now almost impossible to give any tolerable view to the reader, of the spulies, depredations and violences committed by the soldiers, under such officers as at that time they had. Multitudes of instances, once flagrant are now at this distance lost; not a few of them were never distinctly known, being committed in such circumstances as upon the matter buried them.’

The order of the Privy Council, in accordance with which Claverhouse again proceeded to the Western Counties, to begin his ‘circuit,’ as Wodrow styles it, a few days after the engagement which had proved so disastrous to the Covenanters has disappeared. It may, however, be assumed that the powers conferred upon him were wide; and there is no reason to suppose that he was instructed to deal leniently with those who had been in arms against the royal troops. Although no proof can be adduced in support of Wodrow’s statement, that Claverhouse ‘could never forgive the baffle he met with at Drumclog, and resolved to be avenged for it’; and although it would be rash to accept, except on the very strongest evidence, the further assertion that he was one of those who solicited Monmouth ‘to ruin the West Country, and burn Glasgow, Hamilton and Strathaven, to kill the prisoners, at least, considerable numbers of them, and to permit the army to plunder the western shires, who, they alleged, had countenanced the rebels,’ the principles which he unhesitatingly set forth in subsequent despatches, and in accordance with which in the following July, he consented to go to London, as an envoy from the Privy Council, to represent to the King the unwisdom of adopting Monmouth’s more conciliatory policy, and of granting the Covenanters favours, ‘to soften the clamour that was made upon the Duke of Lauderdale’s conduct,’ quite justify the assumption that he fully approved of severe measures against the actual rebels, and felt neither scruple nor compunction in carrying them out.