The passage in which Claverhouse mentions the officers killed in the engagement has always been read as referring to only two; and it has caused some surprise that he should have omitted to report the loss of a third, about whose death there cannot be a doubt, and who, moreover, was a kinsman of his – Cornet Graham. Captain Creichton who, it must be remembered, is speaking of a comrade, and whose words alone might be looked upon as absolutely authoritative, states, in his Memoirs, that ‘the rebels finding the cornet’s body, and supposing it to be that of Clavers, because the name of Graham was wrought in the shirt-neck, treated it with the utmost inhumanity; cutting off the nose, picking out the eyes, and stabbing it through in a hundred places.’ Andrew Guild, in his Latin poem, ‘Bellum Bothwellianum,’ records the same barbarity. ‘They laid savage hands on him,’ he says, ‘and mutilated his manly face; having cut off his tongue, his ears, and his hands, they scattered his brains over the rough stones.’ In an old ballad on the Battle of Loudon Hill – another name for the fight of Drumclog – Claverhouse’s cornet and kinsman is twice made to foretell his own death: —
‘I ken I’ll ne’er come back again,
An’ mony mae as weel as me.’
In another Covenanting poem, ‘The Battle of Bothwell Brig,’ Claverhouse is represented as avenging young Graham’s death on the fugitives: —
‘Haud up your hand,’ then Monmouth said;
‘Gie quarters to these men for me;’
But bloody Claver’se swore an oath,
His kinsman death avenged should be.
Russell, too, states that Graham was killed, and refers to the mutilation of the lifeless body, though he accounts for it in a very remarkable way. The passage is as follows: ‘One Graham, that same morning in Strevan his dog was leaping upon him for meat, and he said he would give him none, but he should fill himself of the Whig’s blood and flesh by night; but instead of that, his dog was seen eating his own thrapple (for he was killed), by several; and particularly James Russell after the pursuit, coming back to his dear friend James Dungel, who was severely wounded, asked at some women and men who it was; they told that it was that Graham, and afterwards they got certain word what he said to his dog in Strevan.’
In the face of such evidence, it is hardly possible to deny the actual fact of Graham’s death. Neither can it be looked upon as probable that his kinsman had no knowledge of it when he wrote his despatch. If, therefore, Claverhouse really did omit to report it amongst the other casualties, his silence is difficult to understand. But, it must be pointed out that the whole question may, after all, resolve itself into one of punctuation. The insertion of a single comma makes three persons of ‘the Cornet, Mr Crafford and Captain Bleith.’ A matter so utterly trifling in itself would not be deserving of notice if some of Claverhouse’s irrational detractors, no less than some of his irrational apologists, had not magnified it out of all proportion.
Throughout the engagement Claverhouse made himself conspicuous by his courage, and was exposed to special danger because of the attention which he attracted. One of the Covenanters, a Strathaven man, was subsequently wont to relate that he had concealed himself behind a hillock and fired eight shots at the leader of the royal troops; and it may be assumed that, in those days, want of skill on the part of the marksman was not considered the cause of his failure. It is also stated by De Foe, that William Cleland, who, in later years distinguished himself as a soldier and rose to be Lieutenant-Colonel of the Cameronian regiment, actually succeeded in catching hold of Claverhouse’s bridle, and that the latter had a narrow escape of being taken prisoner. Thanks to his coolness and presence of mind no less than to his good fortune, he left the field unscathed, but only when the discomfiture of his men had become so complete as to render any effort to rally them wholly hopeless. Like them, he galloped back to Strathaven; and local tradition still points out the spot where he shot down one of the townsmen who endeavoured to stay him in his flight. Some accounts relate that on his road he had to pass the house where the outlawed minister King had been left under guard, when the soldiers set out for Drumclog, and that, as he did so, his prisoner of the morning ironically invited him to remain for the afternoon sermon.
Before the engagement, Hamilton, who had assumed the command of the Covenanters, gave out the word that no quarter should be given. In spite of this, five out of seven men who had been captured, were granted their lives and allowed to depart. ‘This,’ writes a contemporary, ‘greatly grieved Mr Hamilton, when he saw some of Babel’s brats spared, after that the Lord had delivered them into their hands, that they might dash them against the stones.’ When he returned from the pursuit of the routed royalists, a discussion had arisen as to the fate of the two remaining prisoners. Hamilton settled it, in so far at least as one of them was concerned, by killing him on the spot. ‘None could blame me,’ he wrote in a letter of justification published five or six years later, ‘to decide the controversy; and I bless the Lord for it to this day.’
Wodrow gives it as ‘the opinion of not a few,’ that if the ‘country men’ had pushed their success, followed their chase, and gone straight to Glasgow that day, they might easily, with the help of the reinforcements that would have come to them on the road, as soon as their success became known, have driven out the garrison, ‘and very soon made a great appearance.’
Without entering into a futile discussion as to what might have happened, it may be pointed out that the actual circumstances of the case scarcely justify so sanguine a view. When Claverhouse and his troopers rode back to Glasgow, they had no certainty that, in the flush of victory, the Covenanters would not continue the pursuit right up to the city, and endeavour to take the fullest advantage of their success. Indeed, the conduct of the royalist officers rather seems to imply that they recognised the possibility of such a course on the part of the enemy, for they caused half the men to stand to their arms all night. If, therefore, the few horsemen on the Covenanting side, who alone could possibly perform the distance of nearly thirty miles before dusk, even on a long June day, had ventured on an attack, it may be believed that they would have met with a reception calculated to make them regret their rashness.
There is no occasion to assume that any reason but that dictated by common prudence induced the foremost of the pursuers to halt at a considerable distance from Glasgow, in order to await the coming of the unmounted men, with such recruits as they might have been able to gather on the way. Statements differ as to the precise place where the greater number of them determined to stay for the night; but Wodrow is probably accurate in saying that they did not press further forward than Hamilton, and that it was from that town they resumed their march on the morrow.
In the meantime Lord Ross and his officers, Major White and Captain Graham, had not been idle. With carts, timber, and such other materials as could be hastily requisitioned, they erected four barricades in the centre of the city, and posted their men behind them to await the expected onset. At daybreak next morning, Creichton, with six dragoons, was sent out to take up his station at a small house which commanded a view of the two approaches to Glasgow, so that he might at once be able to report which of them the Covenanters decided to take. About ten o’clock he saw them advance to the place which he had been instructed to watch, and there, by a most injudicious manœuvre, divide themselves into two bodies. Of these, one, under Hamilton, marched towards the Gallowgate; whilst the other took a more circuitous road ‘by the Wyndhead and College.’ There may have been a vague intention of taking the military between two fires, but the movements were ill concerted, and resulted in two disjointed attacks, which were both easily repulsed.
As Creichton returned to inform Claverhouse of the enemy’s dispositions, he was followed close to the heels by that detachment which was making for the Gallowgate bridge. When they reached the barricade which had been raised on that side, they were received by Claverhouse and his men with a volley which killed several, and threw the remainder into confusion. The soldiers following up this first advantage, and jumping over the carts that formed the obstruction, then charged the wavering Covenanters, and drove them out of the town. They had time to do this and to return to their original position before those of the ‘country men,’ who had marched round by the north, came down by the High Church and the College. These were allowed to come within pistol shot; and when the soldiers fired into them at such close range, it was with the same effect as before.
The second party was also forced to fall back. They appear to have done so in better order than Hamilton’s men, for they were able to rally in a field behind the High Church, where they remained till five o’clock in the afternoon, unmolested by the soldiers, from whose sight they were concealed, and who, not knowing when they might again be attacked, and fully aware that the majority of the citizens were hostile to them, contented themselves with remaining on the defensive. Prudence prevailed with the Covenanters too, and without making any further attempt to carry the barricade, they retired to Toll Cross Moor. Finding that Claverhouse, who had been informed of the movement, had come out after them, they continued their retreat as far as Hamilton, protecting their rear so effectively with their cavalry, that Graham deemed it advisable to fall back upon Glasgow.
At Drumclog, and subsequently at Glasgow, unforeseen circumstances had imposed a leading and conspicuous part on Claverhouse. The measures which the Government was now called on to adopt for the purpose of quelling an insurrection of formidable proportions, were necessarily of such magnitude, that he naturally fell back to his own subordinate position, that of a captain of dragoons. To represent him as having incurred the displeasure of his chiefs, and as having been superseded in consequence, is contrary to fact, and wholly unfair to him. Proof is at hand that no blame was laid upon him for the defeat of Drumclog. In a letter written by the Council to Lauderdale on the 3rd of June, it was admitted that he had been overpowered by numbers; and six days later, through Lauderdale, the Chancellor conveyed the King’s thanks to Lord Ross and to Claverhouse for their great diligence and care, and his assurance that he would be very mindful of their conduct on all occasions.
Creichton, who did not supply Swift with the materials for his memoirs till many years later, and who, therefore, cannot always be implicitly depended upon as regards details of minor importance, states that the morning after the attack ‘the Government sent orders to Claverhouse to leave Glasgow and march to Stirling.’ But Wodrow, who founds his narrative on letters which he met with in the Council Registers, and which he duly quotes, makes no special reference to Claverhouse. He simply records the fact that ‘my Lord Ross and the rest of the officers of the King’s forces, finding the gathering of the country people growing, and expecting every day considerable numbers to be added to them, and not reckoning themselves able to stand out a second attack, found it advisable to retire eastward.’ He indicates, day by day, the marching and counter-marching of the royalist troops, and narrates all the steps that were taken to bring together a body sufficiently strong to disperse the Covenanting insurgents.
From all this it is evident that there was no room for independent action on the part of Claverhouse from the time of his leaving the West to that of his return to it with the Duke of Monmouth, who had been appointed Commander-in-Chief, and who, on the 22nd of June, encountered the Covenanters at Bothwell Bridge. In the course of the engagement which followed, no opportunity was given him of playing a prominent part. Sir Walter Scott asserts on two different occasions, that the horse were commanded by Claverhouse; and, in his well-known description of the battle, he adds the detail that ‘the voice of Claverhouse was heard, even above the din of conflict, exclaiming to the soldiers – “Kill, kill – no quarter – think of Richard Grahame.”’ The historical truth is, that Claverhouse was simply a captain of horse, as were also the Earl of Home, and the Earl of Airlie, and that he was himself under the command of his kinsman Montrose, Colonel of the Horse Guards. Beyond stating this no accounts of the encounter make any reference to him. In so far as he is personally concerned there is no reason for recalling the incident of the fight which effectively put an end to the Covenanting insurrection. His presence at it is the single, bare fact that requires mention.
There are no official documents extant to enable us to follow Claverhouse’s movements during the period immediately subsequent to Bothwell Bridge. All that has been stated with regard to his doings at this time rests on the authority of Wodrow, who himself admits, though not, it is true, for the purpose of questioning their accuracy, that the traditions embodied in his narrative were vague and uncertain. ‘Everybody must see,’ he says, ‘that it is now almost impossible to give any tolerable view to the reader, of the spulies, depredations and violences committed by the soldiers, under such officers as at that time they had. Multitudes of instances, once flagrant are now at this distance lost; not a few of them were never distinctly known, being committed in such circumstances as upon the matter buried them.’
The order of the Privy Council, in accordance with which Claverhouse again proceeded to the Western Counties, to begin his ‘circuit,’ as Wodrow styles it, a few days after the engagement which had proved so disastrous to the Covenanters has disappeared. It may, however, be assumed that the powers conferred upon him were wide; and there is no reason to suppose that he was instructed to deal leniently with those who had been in arms against the royal troops. Although no proof can be adduced in support of Wodrow’s statement, that Claverhouse ‘could never forgive the baffle he met with at Drumclog, and resolved to be avenged for it’; and although it would be rash to accept, except on the very strongest evidence, the further assertion that he was one of those who solicited Monmouth ‘to ruin the West Country, and burn Glasgow, Hamilton and Strathaven, to kill the prisoners, at least, considerable numbers of them, and to permit the army to plunder the western shires, who, they alleged, had countenanced the rebels,’ the principles which he unhesitatingly set forth in subsequent despatches, and in accordance with which in the following July, he consented to go to London, as an envoy from the Privy Council, to represent to the King the unwisdom of adopting Monmouth’s more conciliatory policy, and of granting the Covenanters favours, ‘to soften the clamour that was made upon the Duke of Lauderdale’s conduct,’ quite justify the assumption that he fully approved of severe measures against the actual rebels, and felt neither scruple nor compunction in carrying them out.
But, when this has been admitted, it is only fair to bear in mind that there were others besides Claverhouse, and ‘more bloody and barbarous than he,’ engaged in the odious work of hunting down and punishing the Bothwell outlaws, and preventing their friends and sympathisers from harbouring and concealing them. If, instead of indiscriminately attributing to him every alleged act of cruelty and rapacity, as partisan writers have not unfrequently done, care had been taken to ascertain whether he was even indirectly concerned in it, and whether he was so circumstanced that he could prevent the perpetration of it, there can be but little doubt that the list of atrocities imputed to him at this date would assume less terrible proportions.
Nor should it be forgotten that many of the instances of severity recorded against Claverhouse, harsh as they may have been, did not go beyond the letter, or, indeed, the spirit of the law. It was his duty to yield implicit obedience to the commands of his superiors. To condemn in him that loyalty which has always been looked upon as the essential quality of a soldier, and to hold him personally responsible for carrying out with all the zeal and energy of his nature the policy of the Government to which he owed allegiance, is inconsistent and unjust.
To object that, even as a soldier, he was not bound to support a cause which he knew to be bad, is to ignore what his very enemies recognised – that he was no reckless and ungodly persecutor of religion, but, on the contrary, a man of deep convictions and of strict, almost puritanical, practice. No estimate of his character can be adequate and impartial, which does not take into account the essential fact that he was as sincere – as fanatical, if the word be insisted upon – as those whom he treated as rebels.
IV
REJECTED ADDRESSES
There is a section of the extant correspondence of Claverhouse which opens about the end of 1678 and extends through several years, and which stands in remarkable contrast with the military despatches of the same period. It consists of letters addressed to William Graham, eighth and last Earl of Menteith. That nobleman, though twice married, had no issue. His nearest male relative was his uncle, Sir James Graham, whose only children were two daughters. With a view to settling the succession to the earldom, Menteith favoured a matrimonial alliance between Lady Helen, the younger of them, and some member of the Graham family. Sir William Fraser, who discovered and published the letters, is of opinion that the first thoughts of such a scheme were suggested to the Earl by his kinsman, John Graham of Claverhouse. The following passage in the earliest letter of the extant collection, though obviously not the first of the correspondence, seems to bear out this view: —
‘My Lord, as your friend and servant, I take the liberty to give you an advice, which is, that there can be nothing so advantageous for you as to settle your affairs, and establish your successor in time, for it can do you no prejudice if you come to have any children of your own body, and will be much for your quiet and comfort if you have none; for whoever you make choice of will be in place of a son. You know that Julius Cæsar had no need to regret the want of issue, having adopted Augustus, for he knew certainly that he had secured to himself a thankful and useful friend, as well as a wise successor, neither of which he could have promised himself by having children; for nobody knows whether they beget wise men or fools, besides that the ties of gratitude and friendship are stronger in generous minds than those of nature.
‘My Lord, I may, without being suspected of self-interest, offer some reasons to renew to you the advantage of that resolution you have taken in my favour. First, that there is nobody of my estate and of your name would confound their family in yours, and nobody in the name is able to give you those conditions, nor bring in to you so considerable an interest, besides that I will easier obtain your cousin german than any other, which brings in a great interest, and continues your family in the right line. And then, my Lord, I may say without vanity that I will do your family no dishonour, seeing there is nobody you could make choice of has toiled so much for honour as I have done, though it has been my misfortune to attain but a small share. And then, my Lord, for my respect and gratitude to your Lordship, you will have no reason to doubt of it, if you consider with what a frankness and easiness I live with all my friends.
‘But, my Lord, after all this, if these reasons cannot persuade you that it is your interest to pitch on me, and if you can think on anybody that can be more proper to restore your family and contribute more to your comfort and satisfaction, make frankly choice of him, for without that you can never think of getting anything done for your family: it will be for your honour that the world see you never had thoughts of alienating your family, then they will look no more upon you as the last of so noble a race, but will consider you rather as the restorer than the ruiner, and your family rather as rising than falling; which, as it will be the joy of our friends and relations, so it will be the confusion of our enemies.’
Claverhouse’s proposal found favour with the Earl of Menteith. He wrote a very earnest letter to his ‘much honorrd Unkle,’ who resided in Ireland; and formally made an offer of marriage in Claverhouse’s name. He described the ‘noble young gentleman’ in glowing terms. He was, the Earl said, ‘exceeding well accomplished with nature’s gifts,’ – as much so as any he knew. ‘All that is noble and virtuous’ might be seen in him; and as a further and not inconsiderable recommendation, it was added that he had ‘a free estate upwards of six hundred pound sterling yearly of good payable rent, near by Dundee,’ and also that he was ‘captain of the standing troops of horse in this kingdom,’ which was ‘very considerable.’ To crown all this, he was a Graham; and it would be ‘a singular happiness’ to the family to form an alliance with ‘such a gentleman as he.’ To persuasion the matchmaking Earl added something not very far removed from a menace, and concluded his letter with the following vigorous words: —
‘For if ye give and bestow that young lady on any other person bot he, I sall never consent to the mariag unless it be Cleverus, whom I say again is the only person of all I know fitest and most proper to marie yor daughter.’
Claverhouse, notwithstanding the important matters that were engaging his attention at the time, was willing to go over to Ireland to prosecute his suit in person. He would not, however, presume to do so until a line from Sir James and his lady brought the assurance that he should be welcome. In the meantime, he sent a messenger, probably with letters of his own, whose delay in returning with an answer called forth the following rather desponding letter, which bears date, Dumfries, February 14th, 1679: —
‘My dear Lord, – I have delayed so long to give a return to your kind letter, expecting that my man should return from Ireland, that I might have given your Lordship an account of the state of my affairs; but now that I begin to despair of his coming, as I do of the success of that voyage, I would not lose this occasion of assuring your Lordship of my respects. I have received letters from my Lord Montrose, who gives me ill news, that an Irish gentleman has carried away the Lady, but it is not certain, though it be too probable. However, my Lord, it shall never alter the course of our friendship, for if, my Lord, either in history or romance, either in nature or the fancy, there be any stronger names or rarer examples of friendship than these your Lordship does me the honour to name in your kind and generous letter, I am resolved not only to equal them, but surpass them, in the sincerity and firmness of the friendship I have resolved for your Lordship. But, my Lord, seeing it will, I hope, be more easy for me to prove it by good deeds in time to come, than by fine words to express it at present, I shall refer myself to time and occasion, by which your Lordship will be fully informed to what height I am, my dear Lord, your Lordship’s most faithful and most obedient servant,
J. Grahame.’
Claverhouse’s fears were not without foundation. His offer was declined. As the letter conveying Sir James’s refusal has not been preserved, it is impossible to learn what reasons he assigned for it. The first intimation to be found of his adverse decision occurs in a letter addressed to him, in the following November, by his nephew, who again approached him with a matrimonial scheme, this time in favour of Montrose. The terms of the wholly unromantic proposal were, that the Earldom of Menteith should, failing heirs male, be entailed upon the young Marquis, and that he, in return, should marry Helen Graham, and should allow the Earl a life annuity of a hundred and fifty pounds. Matters went so far that the necessary charter had been submitted to the King for signature, when Montrose broke off his engagement under circumstances which Claverhouse details in an indignant letter addressed from London to the Earl of Menteith, on the 3rd of July 1680: —
‘My Lord, – Whatever were the motives obliged your Lordship to change your resolutions to me, yet I shall never forget the obligations that I have to you for the good designs you once had for me, both before my Lord Montrose came in the play and after, in your endeavouring to make me next in the entail, especially in so generous a way as to do it without so much as letting me know it. All the return I am able to make is to offer you, in that frank and sincere way that I am known to deal with all the world, all the service that I am capable of, were it with the hazard or even loss of my life and fortune. Nor can I do less without ingratitude, considering what a generous and disinterested friendship I have found in your Lordship.
‘And your Lordship will do me, I hope, the justice to acknowledge that I have shown all the respect to your Lordship and my Lord Montrose, in your second resolutions, that can be imagined. I never inquired at your Lordship nor him the reason of the change, nor did I complain of hard usage. Though really, my Lord, I must beg your Lordship’s pardon to say that it was extremely grievous to me to be turned out of the business, after your Lordship and my Lord Montrose had engaged me in it, and had written to Ireland in my favour; and the thing that troubled me most was that I feared your Lordship had more esteem for my Lord Montrose than me, for you could have no other motive, for I am sure you have more sense than to think the offers he made you more advantageous for the standing of your family than those we were on.
‘Sir James and I together would have bought in all the lands ever belonged to your predecessors, of which you would have been as much master as of those you are now in possession; and I am sorry to see so much trust in your Lordship to my Lord Montrose so ill-rewarded. If you had continued your resolutions to me, your Lordship would not have been thus in danger to have your estate rent from your family; my Lord Montrose would not have lost his reputation, as I am sorry to see he has done; Sir James would not have had so sensible an affront put upon them, if they had not refused me, and I would have been, by your Lordship’s favour, this day as happy as I could wish. But, my Lord, we must all submit to the pleasure of God Almighty without murmuring, knowing that everybody will have their lot.
‘My Lord, fearing I may be misrepresented to your Lordship, I think it my duty to acquaint your Lordship with my carriage since I came hither, in relation to those affairs. So soon as I came, I told Sir James how much he was obliged to you, and how sincere your designs were for the standing of your family; withal I told him that my Lord Montrose was certainly engaged to you to marry his daughter, but that from good hands I had reason to suspect he had no design to perform it; and indeed my Lord Montrose seemed to make no address there at all in the beginning, but hearing that I went sometimes there, he feared that I might get an interest with the father, for the daughter never appeared, so observant they were to my Lord Montrose, and he thought that if I should come to make any friendship there, that when he came to be discovered I might come to be acceptable, and that your Lordship might turn the tables upon him. Wherefore he went there and entered in terms to amuse them till I should be gone, for then I was thinking every day of going away, and had been gone, had I not fallen sick. He continued thus, making them formal visits, and talking of the terms, till the time that your signature should pass; but when it came to the King’s hand it was stopped upon the account of the title.
‘My Lord Montrose who, during all this time had never told me anything of these affairs, nor almost had never spoken to me, by Drumeller and others, let me know that our differences proceeded from mistakes, and that if we met we might come to understand one another, upon which I went to him. After I had satisfied him of some things he complained of, he told me that the title was stopped, and asked me if I had no hand in it; for he thought it could be no other way, seeing Sir James concurred. I assured him T had not meddled in it, as before God, I had not. So he told me he would settle the title on me, if I would assist him in the passing of it. I told him that I had never any mind for the title out of the blood. He answered me, I might have Sir James’s daughter and all. So I asked him how that could be. He told me he had no design there, and that to secure me the more, he had given commission to speak to my Lady Rothes about her daughter, and she had received it kindly. I asked how he would come off. He said upon their not performing the terms, and offered to serve me in it, which I refused, and would not concur. He thought to make me serve him in his designs, and break me with Sir James and his Lady: for he went and insinuated to them as if I had a design upon their daughter, and was carrying it on under hand. So soon as I heard this, I went and told my Lady Graham all. My Lord Montrose came there next day and denied it. However, they went to Windsor and secured the signature, but it was already done. They have not used me as I deserved at their hands, but my design is not to complain of them, and they had reason to trust entirely one whom your Lordship had so strongly recommended. After all came to all, that Sir James offered to perform all the conditions my Lord Montrose required, he knew not what to say, and so, being ashamed of his carriage, went away without taking leave of them; which was to finish his tricks with contempt.