Viscount Dundee

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.

VII

UNDER KING JAMES

Charles II. died at the beginning of February 1685, and was succeeded by his brother. As Duke of York James had been Claverhouse’s chief patron; as King, one of his first actions was to express his disapproval of the conduct to which his favourite had been urged by a ‘high, proud and peremptory humour.’ This was the result of a quarrel with Queensberry, of which the origin, trifling in itself, went back to the beginning of the previous December. At a meeting of the Privy Council, held on the 11th of that month, there was read a complaint presented by some soldiers whom Queensberry’s brother, Colonel James Douglas had turned out of his regiment, and who alleged that their commanding officer ‘had taken the arrears of their pay, and clothed and shoed some of the rest of the soldiers therewith.’ The complainant’s cause was taken up by Claverhouse, on the ground that the treatment to which they had been submitted would discourage others from entering into his Majesty’s service. This the High Treasurer resented as reflecting on the manner in which his brother had done his duty; and thus, says Fountainhall, grew the difference between him and Claverhouse.

Whatever may have been the intrinsic merits of the case, and it is but fair to state that Douglas had otherwise shown himself a zealous and capable officer, there can be no doubt that Claverhouse had put himself in the wrong, by allowing his temper to get the better of him. This he himself admitted in a letter which he wrote to James, and in which he endeavoured ‘to excuse his warmth by saying he took what was said as levelled at him.’ But after reading this account and comparing it with that which he also received, not from Queensberry, but from ‘both the Chancellor and Lundy,’ the Duke was obliged to express his regret ‘that Claverhouse was so little master of himself the other day at Council,’ and promised that when he came to Scotland he would let the offender know that his behaviour was not approved of.

James’s accession prevented his leaving London at the time, as he had apparently intended to do. It was also the cause of Queensberry’s being summoned to Court. It may be assumed that during his stay the quarrel with Claverhouse formed the subject of conversation between him and the King; but there is nothing to show that he solicited further satisfaction than had already been given him by the appointment of Douglas to the command of the forces in the western shires, in supersession of Colonel Graham. When he returned to Scotland at the end of March as Lord High Commissioner to the Scottish Parliament, he does not appear to have known that it was the King’s intention to take further cognizance of the matter.

It was from Secretary Murray that he learnt Claverhouse’s exclusion from the Privy Council, ‘to show him and others that his Majesty would support his Minister, and not suffer any to do unfit or misbecoming things.’ The letter conveying the information was written on the 5th of April. Four days later a new Commission was produced at the Board, from which none of the former Privy Councillors but Claverhouse was omitted. Amongst the better informed, there was no doubt that this was ‘because of the discords between him and the High Treasurer and his brother,’ as Fountainhall asserts. But the same authority states the ‘pretence’ to have been ‘that having married into the Lord Dundonald’s fanatic family, it was not safe to commit the King’s secrets to him.’

While thus indicating his dissatisfaction with Claverhouse, James felt that the whole quarrel was too petty to justify him in punishing with lasting disgrace a faithful servant whose valuable help he had repeatedly acknowledged. He was at special pains to let him understand that if he tendered an apology to Queensberry he should be restored to place and favour. There is no direct evidence of submission on Claverhouse’s part; but, that his better sense, or, to put it at its lowest, a saner appreciation of his own interest soon prevailed over his pride may be gathered from the fact that a royal letter, dated the 11th of May, reinstated him as Privy Councillor.

Within a fortnight of his reappointment he received further proof of the value set on his services. About this time news had arrived of Argyle’s intended invasion of Scotland, and it would seem that Claverhouse had communicated some important information with regard to it, in a despatch to the Lord Commissioner. The document is not known to be extant; but its purport is indicated by the reply which it elicited from the Secret Committee of Council, and which was written on the 23rd of May. ‘If there be any danger by horse,’ he was told, ‘it must be from the Border’; and he was authorised to propose what he judged expedient with a view to meeting the emergency, and instructed to inform the Earl of Dumbarton, who had just received his commission as Commander-in-Chief, of the measures which he intended to adopt. He was also to keep in touch with Fielding the deputy-governor of Carlisle. This clearly shows that the danger which he apprehended and had pointed out threatened the disaffected western counties.

The discretionary powers with which the letter of the Council invested Claverhouse implied the recognition, not very willing, it may be assumed, on the part of all the ‘affectionate friends and servants’ who signed it, and at the head of whom Queensberry figured as Commissioner, of his special fitness to cope with it. But the most striking and interesting passage in the document consists of a couple of lines, thrown in almost casually, and curtly announcing his promotion. ‘The King has sent commissions to Colonel Douglas and you as Brigadiers, both of horse and foot. Douglas is prior in date.’ When it is remembered in what relation Claverhouse had stood to Queensberry and his brother, but a short time before, the ungracious tone of this communication becomes highly suggestive. The suspicions which it arouses are amply confirmed by a full statement of the case, as it is set forth by Secretary Murray in a confidential letter to Queensberry. There could be no more striking proof of the feelings of ill-will and of envy which Claverhouse had to contend against, on the part of the Government, or of the intrigues that were resorted to by his opponents: —

‘The King ordered two commissions to be drawn, for your brother and Claverhouse to be Brigadiers. We were ordered to see how such commissions had been here, and in Earl Middleton’s office we found the extract of one granted to Lord Churchill, another to Colonel Worden, the one for horse, the other for foot. So Lord Melfort told me the King had ordered him to draw one for your brother for the foot, and Claverhouse for the horse. I told him that could not be; for by that means Claverhouse would command your brother. To be short, we were very hot on the matter. He said he knew no reason why Colonel Douglas should have the precedency unless that he was your brother. I told him that was enough; but that there was a greater, and that was, that he was an officer of more experience and conduct, and that was the King’s design of appointing Brigadiers at this time. He said Claverhouse had served the King longer in Scotland. I told him that was yet wider from the purpose; for there were in the army that had served many years longer than Claverhouse, and of higher quality; and without disparagement to any, gallant in their personal courage. By this time I flung from him, and went straight to the King, and represented the case. He followed and came to us. But the King changed his mind, and ordered him to draw the commissions both for horse and foot, and your brother’s two days date before the other; by which his command is clear before the other. I saw the commissions signed this afternoon, and they are sent herewith by Lord Charles Murray. Now, I beseech your Grace, say nothing of this to any; nay, not even to your brother. For Lord Melfort said to Sir Andrew Forrester, that he was sure there would be a new storm on him. I could not, nor is it fit this should have been kept from you; but you will find it best for a while to know, or take little notice; for it gives him but ground of talking, and serves no other end.’

Even if Queensberry was as discreet as his correspondent advised him to be, there is no reason for supposing that Melfort considered himself bound to keep Claverhouse in ignorance of the stormy scene described by Murray. But although the newly-promoted Brigadier must have been well aware of the device by which his enemies had found means of coupling a slight with what was intended to be a mark of royal favour, he had the wisdom and the self-restraint to show no consciousness of it. A letter which he wrote to Queensberry on the 16th of June, bears testimony to his calm and self-respecting conduct, whilst, at the same time, it shows that the Lord Commissioner was as spitefully intent as ever on finding opportunities or excuses for annoying and humiliating him.

Documents for the reconstruction of the whole case are not available. All that can be ascertained is that, in carrying out the precautionary measures which his additional powers justified and which the emergency required, he had requisitioned the assistance of some of Queensberry’s tenants. This had been construed into an offence, and made the subject of a report to the commander-in-chief who had no course open to him but that of intimating the Duke’s displeasure to his subordinate. The reply, addressed to Queensberry himself was respectful but dignified. ‘I am sorry,’ he wrote, ‘that anything I have done should have given your Grace occasion to be dissatisfied with me, and to make complaints against me to the Earl of Dumbarton. I am convinced your Grace is ill informed; for after you have read what I wrote to you two days ago on that subject, I daresay I may refer myself to your own censure. That I had no design to make great search there anybody may judge. I came not from Ayr till after eleven in the forenoon, and went to Balagen, with forty heritors against night. The Sanquar is just in the road; and I used these men I met accidentally on the road better than ever I used any in these circumstances. And I may safely say, that, as I shall answer to God, if they had been living on my ground, I could not have forborne drawing my sword and knocking them down. However, I am glad I have received my Lord Dumbarton’s orders anent your Grace’s tenants, which I shall most punctually obey; though, I may say, they were safe as any in Scotland before.’

With this explanation, the matter appears to have been dismissed from Claverhouse’s mind; and the remainder of his letter is taken up with remarks concerning certain dispositions intended by the other commanders who, like himself, were watching the progress of the threatened invasion. His outspoken, but well-grounded criticism of them showed that the rebuke administered to him had not reduced him to a condition of cringing subserviency, and that the obedience which he was prepared to yield to those in authority above him did not include a readiness to bear responsibility for the result of measures which seemed to him ill-advised.

The extant correspondence between Claverhouse and Queensberry closes with a letter bearing date of the 3rd of July 1685. It is a report as to the manner in which an order from the Secret Committee with regard to the disposal of the moveables of rebels for the maintenance of the royal forces had been carried out. It is a straightforward and business-like statement, setting forth how the money already received had been laid out, and requesting instructions with respect to the sums still due.

Apart from the desire which every honourable man would feel, and with which Claverhouse may be credited, of placing himself above suspicion in all that concerned the management of the funds that came into his hands, he had special reason for exercising exceptional care in the matter in view of the humiliating treatment to which he had been subjected shortly before. In the preceding month of March, Queensberry, as High Treasurer had given orders to the cash-keeper to charge Claverhouse on a bond he had given to the Exchequer, for the fines of delinquents in Galloway. Claverhouse had replied that his brother, the Sheriff-depute, was gathering them in, and craved for delay, whereupon he was allowed five or six days’ grace. He objected that considering the distance, such a concession was as unreasonable as giving no time at all. To this the Treasurer had retorted, ‘Then you shall have none.’

Claverhouse had paid the money; but he was not content to remain under the imputation which Queensberry’s action towards him implied. He had repeatedly applied for leave to proceed to London, for the purpose of explaining his conduct to the King, both in this transaction and in other matters which had been made the grounds of complaints against him, and which had led to his temporary disgrace. He had been persistently refused, and it was not till the end of the year that he had an opportunity of pleading his cause before James. Then, however, he did it to good purpose. According to Fountainhall, ‘the King was so ill-satisfied with what the Treasurer had exacted of Claverhouse, that he ordered the Treasurer to repay it.’

On the 24th of December 1685, Claverhouse returned to Edinburgh in company with the Earl of Perth. The Chancellor had recently abjured Protestantism, and stood in high favour with the King. But if, as Halifax sarcastically remarked, his faith saved him at Court, it made him impossible in Scotland. Within a few weeks of his arrival, on Sunday, the 31st of January, there was a popular demonstration against the avowed and public meetings for the celebration of Mass and other acts of ‘Papish worship.’ The disorderly crowd, in which the apprentices of Edinburgh figured conspicuously, fell upon one of the priests, and compelled him, under threats of death, to renounce popery, and, on bended knees, to take the test oath. Others, as they came from church, were roughly treated and had mud thrown at them.

One of the victims of this popular violence was the Chancellor’s wife. The Earl was so incensed at the outrage that he caused some of the boys to be apprehended; and, next day, by order of the Council, one of them was taken to be whipped through the Canongate. But whilst the sentence was being carried out, the apprentices again mustered in large numbers, assaulted the executioner, and rescued their companion. Encouraged by their success, they became so riotous that the soldiers were called out. The crowd was fired upon, and three persons were killed. Next day further punishment was inflicted on the rioters. A woman and two men were flogged through the city; but the authorities had become so apprehensive of violence that the streets were lined with ‘two thick ranks and defiles of musketeers and pikemen.’

Even the military could not be depended upon. A grenadier was remitted to a court-martial for saying he would not fight in the quarrel against the Protestants; and a drummer having been denounced by some Catholics for drawing his sword and declaring that he could find it in his heart to run it through them was summarily shot. Later, a fencing-master was condemned to death and hanged for publicly giving expression to his approval of the tumult. Another man who was brought before the magistrates on a charge of speaking against the Papists, would perhaps have shared the same fate, had it not been proved on his behalf, that he was sometimes mad.

The protest of the street was taken up by the pulpit. A fortnight later, ‘Mr Canaires, lately Popish,’ but now minister at Selkirk, preached a violent sermon in the High Church of Edinburgh. In the course of it he gave utterance to the opinion ‘that no man, without renouncing his sense and reason,’ could embrace such doctrines as those of the Pope’s infallibility or of transubstantiation. At the next meeting of the Council, the Chancellor moved that notice should be taken of this seditious language. Fountainhall records that ‘Claverhouse backed the Chancellor in this. But, there being a deep silence in all the rest of the Councillors, it was passed over at this time.’

With this incident, which the unquestioned sincerity of his own religious belief makes it impossible to regard in any light but that of a protest against the insult offered to his sovereign, Claverhouse disappears for a time from the scene. There is no record of personal action on his part for a space of nearly three years. The only two events that have to be chronicled are his promotion, in 1686, to the rank of Major-General, still in subordination to his rival Douglas, and his appointment, in March 1688, to be Provost of Dundee, a dignity which, in conjunction with his Constable’s jurisdiction, made him absolute there.

Early in the month of September 1688, a royal messenger arrived in Edinburgh, bearing a letter in which James informed the Secret Committee of the Privy Council of the Prince of Orange’s designs on England. The news was wholly unexpected. So incredible did it at first seem, that suspicions of a device for raising money were aroused by it. The precautionary measures which the announcement made it incumbent on the Government to take for the security of the country, were nevertheless adopted without delay. On the 18th, a proclamation was issued, calling out the militia regiments and requiring all fencible men to hold themselves in readiness for active service as soon as they should see the light of the beacons that were to be kindled the moment a hostile fleet was sighted from the coast.

These preparations were nullified by a second despatch from London, which ordered all the regular troops to proceed at once to England, where they were to be under the orders of the Earl of Feversham, the commander-in-chief of the King’s forces. This new plan of action, suggested by James Stewart of Goodtrees, a notorious plotter who had actually been condemned to death for his connection with Argyle’s rebellion, and whose antecedents were not such as to justify the King’s confidence in him, was received with consternation in Edinburgh. The Council and Secret Committee, relying on the loyalty of the army, felt satisfied of their power to keep the nation in due respect; but they were fully alive to the danger which would arise if the country were denuded of troops. They accordingly sent a remonstrance to the King, at the same time that they submitted a feasible and efficient scheme of defence of their own. Its main features consisted in the retention of the regular forces in their several garrisons, for the maintenance of internal order, and in the protection of the Border by means of an army of thirteen thousand men, to be formed by a combination of the militia with the Highland clans.