Claverhouse Part 4

His remedy was to raise a hundred dragoons for a permanent garrison: the Crown was to pay the soldiers, and the country would find maintenance for the horses, he bearing his own part as "a Galloway laird," which he was as trustee of Macdowall's estate. The command of this new force he was willing to undertake without any additional pay.

It does not seem that this remedy was ever sanctioned; but at any rate Claverhouse so managed matters that a month later he was able to report to the Council that all was "in perfect peace."

"All who were in the rebellion are either seized, gone out of the country, or treating their peace; and they have already so conformed, as to going to the Church, that it is beyond my expectation. In Dumfries not only almost all the men are come, but the women have given obedience; and Irongray, Welsh's own parish, have for the most part conformed; and so it is all over the country. So that, if I be suffered to stay any time here, I do expect to see this the best settled part of the Kingdom on this side the Tay.

And if these dragoons were fixed which I wrote your Lords.h.i.+p about, I might promise for the continuance of it.... All this is done without having received a farthing money, either in Nithsdale, Annandale, or Kirkcudbright; or imprisoned anybody. But, in end, there will be need to make examples of the stubborn that will not comply. Nor will there be any danger in this after we have gained the great body of the people; to whom I am become acceptable enough; having pa.s.sed all bygones, upon bonds of regular carriage hereafter."[37]

For these services Claverhouse was summoned to Edinburgh to receive the thanks of the Council, to whom he presented an official report of his proceedings which is no more than a summary of his letters to Queensberry.[38]

It was not likely that a man so uniformly successful and of such high spirit would be able to steer clear of all offence to men, who probably felt towards him much as Elizabeth's old courtiers felt towards the triumphant and masterful Raleigh. Nor, conscious of his own powers and confident in the royal favour, is it probable that he was always at much pains to avoid offence, for, though neither a quarrelsome nor a wilful man, he had his own opinions, and was not shy of expressing them when he saw fit to do so. With all his const.i.tutional regard for authority and his soldier's respect for discipline, Claverhouse would suffer himself to be browbeaten by no one. In those jealous intriguing days a man who could not fight for his own hand was bound to go down in the struggle.

Claverhouse was now to give a signal proof that he both could and would fight for his when the need came.

The Dalrymples of Stair had been settled in Galloway for many generations. Sir James, the head of the house, was one of the first lawyers of the day, and had held the Chair of Philosophy in the University of Glasgow: the son, Sir John (afterwards to earn an undying name in history as prime mover in the Ma.s.sacre of Glencoe), was heritable Baillie in the regality of Glenluce. There had been bad blood between them and Claverhouse for some time past. The father had not profited sufficiently by his studies either in law or philosophy to recognise the folly of a man in disgrace venturing to measure swords with one of fortune's favourites. And Sir James at the time of his quarrel with Claverhouse was in disgrace. At the close of 1681 he had been dismissed from the office of President of the Court of Session for refusing the Test Act; and for some while previously he had been coldly regarded for his advocacy of gentler measures than suited Lauderdale and his creatures. The Dalrymples were strict Presbyterians; and though the men were too cautious to meddle openly with treasonable matters, their womenfolk were notoriously in active sympathy with the rebels. All through Claverhouse's letters of this time run allusions to some great personage whom it might be wise to make an example of, and he himself had taken an early opportunity of impressing on Sir James the necessity of caution.[39] But the latter would not be warned. He set himself against Claverhouse at every opportunity, both openly and in secret. He wrote long querulous letters to Edinburgh, complaining of the latter's disrespect. Finally, when he found it prudent to leave the country for a while, his son carried the business to a height by bringing a formal charge against Claverhouse of extortion and malversation. The latter saw his opportunity, and at once carried the war into the enemy's country.

He preferred a specific bill of complaint against Sir John, in the course of which it came out that he had been offered a bribe both by father and son not to interfere with their hereditary jurisdictions; and, notwithstanding the exertions of Sir George Lockhart and Fountainhall, the most eminent counsel of the Scottish bar, utterly defeated him on every point. The Court found that Sir John Dalrymple had been guilty of employing rebels and of winking at treasonable practices: of not exacting the proper fines by law ordained for such misdemeanours: of stirring up the country-folk against the King's troops; and, finally, of grossly misrepresenting Claverhouse to the Council. For these offences he was sentenced to pay a fine of five hundred pounds and the whole costs of the proceedings, and to be imprisoned in the Castle of Edinburgh till the money should be paid. Claverhouse, on his side, received not only a full and most complimentary acquittal from all his adversary's charges, but also a signal proof of the royal favour in the presentation to a regiment of cavalry raised especially for this purpose. His commission was dated December 25th, 1682, and in the following March he was sent into England with despatches from the Council to the King and the Duke of York, who was still nominally Commissioner for Scottish Affairs.[40]

Hitherto Claverhouse may be said to have stood conspicuous among the men of his time for his persistent refusal to enrich himself at the public cost. He had certainly had many opportunities, as had a still more famous captain after him, of wondering at his own moderation, yet his enemies had been unable to bring home to him a single instance of malpractice. But we have now come to an episode in his life for which an extremely virtuous or an extremely censorious moralist might, were he so minded, find occasion to re-echo the popular epithet of rapacious.

Claverhouse was in no sense of the word an avaricious man; but, like all sensible men, he had a strong belief in the truth of the maxim, the labourer is worthy of his hire. He had laboured long and successfully; and the time, he thought, had now come for his hire.

Lauderdale was dying, and from every side the vultures were flocking fast to their prey. In those days politicians looked for promotion mainly to the death or disgrace of their comrades, and the death of any powerful statesman generally meant the disgrace of his family. All parties were now busy in antic.i.p.ation over the rich booty that was so soon to come into the market. His brother and heir, Charles Maitland of Hatton, was attacked before the breath was out of the old man's body.

Among the many lucrative posts he enjoyed, the most lucrative was that of Governor (or General, as the style went) of the Scottish Mint. At the instigation of Sir George Gordon of Haddo, who had become in quick succession President of the Court of Session, Lord Chancellor, and Earl of Aberdeen, a Commission was appointed to inquire into the state of the coinage, with the result that Maitland (by this time Earl of Lauderdale, for the dukedom began and ended with his brother) was declared to have appropriated to his own use no less than seventy thousand pounds of the revenue. In the general division of spoil which this verdict gave signal for, Claverhouse saw no reason why he should go empty away. Eleven years previously, when the old statesman was at the height of his evil power, his brother had been appointed Constable of Dundee and presented with the estate of Dudhope, lying conveniently near to Claverhouse's few paternal acres. A bargain, which would have seemed in those days no disgraceful thing to any human being, was accordingly struck between Claverhouse and the various claimants for the dead man's shoes.

Queensberry, though but lately advanced to a marquisate, had set his heart upon a dukedom: the Chancellor was in want of money to support his new honours. And there were other pet.i.tioners for the good offices of the amba.s.sador to Whitehall: Huntly and the Earl Marischal and Sir George Mackenzie had each marked his share of the general prize. To one and all Claverhouse promised his services; and they on their part were to advance by all means in their power his designs on the fat acres of Dudhope. All this, no doubt, sounds very contemptible to us now, who manage these matters so much more circ.u.mspectly; but it must be remembered that Lauderdale, though his offence was probably greatly exaggerated, and though a large part of the fine in which he had been originally cast was in fact remitted, had certainly been guilty of gross carelessness, if not of actual malversation; while Claverhouse on his pact offered to pay, and did pay, whatever sum might be legally fixed as due for his share of the booty.[41]

All these bargains were in time brought to a successful issue.

Claverhouse was in England from the beginning of March to the middle of May. He was with the Court at Newmarket, Windsor, and London, always in high favour, but at the former place finding the King more eager for his company at the c.o.c.kpit and race-course than in the council-chamber.[42]

Early in May he returned to Scotland, and shortly after his return he took his seat at Edinburgh as a Privy Councillor. This was his present reward: Dudhope and the Constabulary were to follow later, with Queensberry's and Huntly's dukedoms and the other honours. But Dudhope was not destined to drop into his lap. The Chancellor, whom he counted as his particular friend, had played him false. Lauderdale's fine had been reduced by Charles from seventy thousand pounds to twenty thousand, sixteen thousand of which were granted to the Chancellor and four thousand to Claverhouse. But should Lauderdale and his son agree to a.s.sign to the Chancellor under an unburdened t.i.tle the lands and lords.h.i.+p of Dundee and Dudhope, then the whole sum was to be remitted, Lauderdale binding himself to discharge the fines inflicted on his subordinates. Power was also given to Claverhouse to redeem this property from the Chancellor at twenty years' purchase; and it seems also to have been privately agreed between them that the purchase-money was not to be exacted, on condition of the former buying certain other lands in the neighbourhood that the latter wished to dispose of. But the crafty Chancellor saw an easier and quieter way to get hold of his money. For the sum of eight thousand pounds he privately relinquished all his rights to Lauderdale, thus leaving the latter free to deal with Claverhouse on his own terms. This bit of sharp practice was effected in August 1683; and it was not till the following March that the business was finally settled, after a long and tedious wrangle before the Court, in the course of which Claverhouse seemed to have found occasion to speak his mind pretty sharply to the Chancellor. On the question of the former's right to demand Dudhope on the terms of twenty years' purchase Lauderdale had to give way; but on the other question of clearing the t.i.tle he was so difficult to deal with that the King himself had to interfere; and not till a peremptory order had gone down from Whitehall, cancelling the royal pardon till all the terms of the original agreement had been satisfactorily settled, was the affair finally closed, the t.i.tle cleared, and Claverhouse established as master of the long-coveted estate.

It was not till the autumn of 1684 that Claverhouse found himself master of Dudhope and Constable of Dundee. Meanwhile one of the few domestic events of his life that have come down to us had taken place. On June 10th he had been married to the Lady Jean Cochrane, granddaughter to the old Earl of Dundonald.

This young lady was the daughter of William, Lord Cochrane, by Catherine, daughter of the Presbyterian Earl of Ca.s.silis and sister to that Lady Margaret Kennedy whom Gilbert Burnet had married. Her father had died before Claverhouse came on the scene, leaving seven children, of whom Jean was the youngest. Her mother, whose notoriously Whiggish sympathies had brought both her husband and father-in-law into suspicion, was furiously opposed to the match; though worldly prudence may have touched her heart as well as religious scruple, for Claverhouse, though he had risen fast and was marked by all men as destined to rise still higher, was hardly as yet perhaps a very eligible husband for the pretty Lady Jean. But in truth it was a strange family for him to seek a wife in, and many were the whispered gibes the news of his courts.h.i.+p provoked at Edinburgh. Was this strong Samson, men asked, to fall a prey at last to a Whiggish Delilah? Hamilton, whose own loyalty was by no means unimpeachable, and who was no friend to Claverhouse, affected to be much distressed by the Lady Susannah's partiality for the young Lord Cochrane, and made great parade of his disinclination to give his daughter to the son of such a mother without the express consent of the King; and this Claverhouse chose to take as a hit at him, who had not thought it necessary to ask any one's permission to choose his own wife. Affairs were still further complicated by the backslidings of Sir John Cochrane, Lady Jean's uncle, a notorious rebel who was then in hiding for his complicity with Russell and Sidney, and was even suspected of knowing something of that darker affair of the Rye House. Claverhouse was furious at the gossip. "My Lord Duke Hamilton,"

he wrote to Queensberry,

"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 load 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 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 d.a.m.ned that 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 circ.u.mstances--I mean considering others--upon my account, and that n.o.body offered to meddle with him till they heard I was likely to be concerned in him.... 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."

And again on the same day:

"For my own part, I look upon myself as a cleanser. I may cure people guilty of that plague of Presbytery by conversing with them, but cannot be infected. And I see very little of that amongst those persons but may be easily rubbed off. 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, made choice of a persecutor, as they call me."[43]

The young lady seems to have been well-favoured, though it is not easy to learn much from the female portraits of those days, which are all very much of a piece. What else she may have been it is impossible to say. She is a name in her husband's history and nothing more, and in the few stormy years that were yet to run for him she could not well have been much more. However, she seems to have been well pleased with her handsome lover; and, in spite of her mother's opposition, the marriage was pushed briskly forward. The contract was signed at Paisley on June 10th, and on the following day the marriage was celebrated at the same place. Lady Catherine's is not among the signatures; but there is to be seen the almost illegible scrawl of the old grandfather and of Euphrame his wife, a daughter of Sir William Scott of Ardross. The bride's eldest brother, whose own marriage with the Lady Susannah Hamilton was soon to follow, and her cousin John, son of the outlaw of Ochiltree, were also among the witnesses; and for the bridegroom, his brother-in-arms Lord Ross[44] and Colin Mackenzie, brother of the Lord Advocate, Sir George of Rosehaugh. The lady's jointure was fixed at five thousand merks Scots (something over two hundred and seventy pounds of English money), secured on certain property in Forfars.h.i.+re and Perths.h.i.+re; while she on her side brought her husband what in those days was reckoned a very comfortable fortune for a younger child.[45]

The marriage was made under an evil star. Hardly had the blessing been spoken when word came down in haste from Glasgow that the Whigs were up.

Since the Sanquhar Declaration and the deaths of Cameron and Cargill, the Covenanters had been comparatively quiet. The work of pacification had indeed not slackened, but rather taken a fresh departure in the appointment of a Court of High Commission, or Justiciary Circuit, which in the summer of 1683 was held in the towns of Stirling, Glasgow, Ayr, Dumfries, Jedburgh, and Edinburgh. Claverhouse was expressly ordered to attend the justices in their progress as captain of the forces, except at places where the Commander-in-Chief would naturally be present. But though the discovery of the Rye House Plot had just then stirred the kingdom to its centre, and given fresh energies both to the Government and its enemies, only three men suffered during this circuit, of whom two were convicted murderers. In each town members of the gentry as well as of the common people flocked to take the Test; some to clear themselves of suspicion, others only to air their loyalty, but all, in the words of the report, cheerfully. Where time, moreover, was asked for consideration, it was granted on good security. But from the end of July, 1683, to the day of his marriage, Claverhouse seems to have been occupied almost entirely with his duties as Councillor at Edinburgh, and only to have left the capital for brief tours of inspection through the western garrisons.

But with the day of his marriage came a change. On the previous Sunday news had been brought to Glasgow of an unusually large and well-armed conventicle to be held at Blacklock, a moor on the borders of Lanarks.h.i.+re and Stirlings.h.i.+re. Dalziel (who was in church when the message came, but who did not suffer his duty towards G.o.d to interfere with his duty towards man) put the soldiers on the track at once; but for the next eight-and-forty hours the country from Hamilton northwards to the ford of Clyde was scoured in vain. The Covenanters marched fast, and the country folk, many of them probably still fresh from the Test, kept their secret well. Claverhouse was sent for in haste from Paisley.

He was in the saddle and away before the bridal party could recover from their first shock of surprise. But even Claverhouse was foiled. His lieutenant, however, had better luck. Colonel Buchan, as he was returning to Paisley by way of Lismahago, came upon an ambuscade of two hundred Covenanters, whose advanced post fired on and wounded one of the soldiers.[46] "They followed the rogues," wrote Claverhouse to Queensberry, "and advertised Colonel Buchan; but before he could come up, our party had lost sight of them. Colonel Buchan is yet in pursuit and I am just taking horse. I shall be revenged some time or other of this unseasonable trouble these dogs give me. They might have let Tuesday pa.s.s." This despatch was written from Paisley on the morning of the 13th, while fresh horses were being saddled. By noon he was off again, and for the next three days rode fast and far, leaving "no den, no knowl, no moss, no hill unsearched." He could track his game from Aird's Moss to within two miles of c.u.mnock town, and thence on towards Cairntable. But there all traces of them had vanished.

"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 Streven. I sent for Captain Strachan's troop from the Glenkens, and ordered him to march to the old castle of c.u.mloch, down to the Sorne, and through the country to Kilbryde, leaving Mauchline and Newmills on his left, and Loudon-hill on his right. By this means they scoured this country, and secured the pa.s.sages that way. Colonel Buchan marched with the foot and the 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, c.u.mmer-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 hara.s.sed 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."[47]

The "rogues" were to start up soon and with a vengeance. On a day in July (the date is not specified) a party of troopers were escorting sixteen prisoners to Dumfries. They were Claverhouse's men, but their captain was not with them. At Enterkin Hill, a narrow pa.s.s with a deep precipice on either side, a rescue was attempted by a considerable body of men,--English Borderers, it was whispered. Some of the prisoners escaped: others were killed in the scuffle or broke their necks over the precipice: only two were brought into Edinburgh: a few of the soldiers were also killed. This audacious affair spurred the Government on to new energies. The garrisons were increased through all the western s.h.i.+res.

Claverhouse, with Buchan for his second in command, was put in charge of all the forces in Ayrs.h.i.+re and Clydesdale, and a special civil commission was added to their military powers.

At length, towards the end of August, there was a lull, and the master of Dudhope was able at last to enjoy the society of his bride and the pleasures of a country life. But of the latter he soon grew weary.

"Though I stay a few days here," he wrote to Queensberry on August 25th, "I hope none will reproach me of eating the bread of idleness." That, at least, is a reproach his worst enemies have never tried to fasten on him. To be doing something was, indeed, a necessity of his existence; and his duties as Constable soon furnished him with something to do. In the Tolbooth of Dundee lay a number of poor wretches whom the hard laws of the time had sentenced to death for various offences, the gravest of which did not rise above theft. It was within the Constable's power to order them at any moment for execution; and doubtless some of those who have meddled with his life, had they been aware of this circ.u.mstance in it, would have risked the conclusion that he did so. Yet, strange as it may seem, he exerted himself to save the prisoners. And he exerted himself so successfully that not only was the capital sentence reprieved to such milder punishment as he might order, but the same license was granted to him for dealing with all future criminals of the same cla.s.s.[48]

FOOTNOTES:

[35] "We have spoken to him about it," runs the royal Order, "and he doth positively a.s.sert that while he was in Scotland he received not one farthing upon that account" (Napier, ii. 238). The two Orders are dated respectively February 3rd and 26th, 1681.

[36] The Marquis of Queensberry was then Lord Treasurer, and practically, since Lauderdale's disgrace, first Minister of Scotland.

[37] Claverhouse to Queensberry, April 1st, 1682.

[38] A copy of this report was printed in the Aberdeen Papers (1851) from the original in Claverhouse's own hand: Napier, ii. 276.

[39] "Here in the s.h.i.+re I find the lairds all following the example of a late great man, and still a considerable heritor here among them; which is, to live regularly themselves, but have their houses constant haunts of rebels and intercommuned persons, and have their children baptized by the same; and then lay all the blame on their wives; condemning them, and swearing they cannot help what is done in their absence."

Claverhouse to Queensberry, March 5th, 1682.

[40] Napier, ii. 285-309.

[41] "I must beg your Lords.h.i.+p's a.s.sistance in that business of the lands of Dudhope. My Lord Chancellor designs nothing but to sell it, and buy lands in the north, seeing he is to get Stirling Castle to dwell in.

Wherefore I desire leave to ask the house of Dudhope, and the Constabulary, and other jurisdictions of Dundee belonging to my Lord Lauderdale; and I offer to buy forty chalders of victual from my Lord Chancellor lying about it [meaning the land bearing so much, at a valuation], though I should sell other lands to do it. I have no house, and it lies within half-a-mile of my land; and all that business would be extremely convenient for me, and signify not much to my Lord Chancellor, especially seeing I am willing to buy the land. I would take this for the greatest favour in the world, for I cannot have the patience to build and plant." Claverhouse to Queensberry, March 20th, 1683.

[42] "It is hard to get any business done here. I walked but nine miles this morning with the King, besides c.o.c.k-fighting and courses."

Claverhouse to Queensberry, Newmarket, March 9th, 1683.

[43] Both these letters were written from Edinburgh, May 19th, 1684.

[44] William, twelfth Lord Ross, son of the one previously mentioned.

[45] Napier, ii. 385-393. The contract was first printed in the volume of Claverhouse's letters edited by George Smythe for the Bannatyne Club in 1826. That volume contains also portraits of the bride and bridegroom, a drawing of which was made by Sharpe for Napier. The portrait of the latter is the one known as the Leven portrait, now in possession of Lady Elizabeth Cartwright. The portrait of Lady Jean is from a picture then belonging to the editor. There is also an engraving of a mourning ring belonging to the editor's grandmother, Catherine Cochrane, wife of David Smythe of Methven, said to have been given to her by her father, Lady Dundee's brother. The ring contains a lock of Dundee's hair, on which the letters V.D. are worked in gold, with a Viscount's coronet above. The motto is "Great Dundee for G.o.d and me. J.

Rex." One child was born of the marriage in April 1689, and he died three months after his father fell at Killiecrankie. Lady Dundee married secondly William Livingstone, afterwards Lord Kilsyth, of whom mention will be made elsewhere. A son was born also of this marriage, but in the autumn of 1695 both mother and child were killed by the fall of a house in Holland. Lord Kilsyth was "out in the Fifteen," and died an outlaw at Rome in 1733, after which the t.i.tle became extinct. Napier (iii., Appendix 2) gives a curious account of the opening of Lady Dundee's coffin more than a hundred years after her burial in the family vault at Kilsyth Church.

[46] "So when we came to Streven (Strathavon), I left the command to Colonel Buchan, and desired him to return the troops to their quarters; but, in his march, to search the skirts of the hills and moors on the Clydesdale side; which he did, and gave me an account that, going in by the Greenock-head, he met a man that lives down on Clydeside, that was up buying wool, who told him that on Lidburn, which is in the heart of the hills on the Clydesdale side, he had seen a great number of rebels in arms, and told how he had considered the commanders of them. One of them, he said, was a l.u.s.ty black man with one eye, and the other was a good-like man, and wore a grey hat. The first had on a velvet cap. But before he (Colonel Buchan) could come near the place, a party of foot, that he had sent to march on his right, fell accidentally on them. Four of our soldiers going before to discover, were fired on by seven that started up out of a glen, and one of ours was wounded. They fired at the rebels, who, seeing our party of foot making up, and the horse in sight, took the alarm, and gained the hills, which was all moss." Claverhouse to the Archbishop of Saint Andrews (Alexander Burnet), Paisley, June 16th, 1684.

[47] Claverhouse to the Archbishop, Paisley, June 16th, 1684.

[48] "Privy Council Register," Edinburgh, September 10th, 1684: Napier, ii. 410.

CHAPTER VII.[49]

I propose now to examine, with more care than there has yet been occasion for, those charges of wanton and illegal cruelty which have for close upon two centuries formed the basis of the popular--I had almost written the historical--conception of the character of Claverhouse. I have used the words "illegal cruelty" because Claverhouse is not only commonly believed to have far surpa.s.sed all his contemporaries in his treatment of the Scottish Covenanters, but to have even gone beyond the sanction of a law little disposed to be illiberal in such matters. Some reason has, I trust, been already shown for at least reconsidering the popular verdict. But as we are now approaching that period of his life when, for a time all too short for his own reputation, Claverhouse at last found free play for those eminent abilities which none have denied him, it will be well, before pa.s.sing into this larger field, to be finally rid of a most tiresome and distasteful duty. The controversial element is, I fear, inseparable from this part of the subject, but I shall endeavour to do with as little of it as possible.

Although the significant t.i.tle of "the Killing Time" seems to have been occasionally used in Scotland during the subsequent century to cover the whole period from Lauderdale's administration to the Revolution, yet the phrase was originally and more properly applied to the years of James's reign alone. The most notorious of the acts attributed to Claverhouse were, as a fact, committed within that time; but it will be more convenient not to adhere too rigidly to chronological sequence, and to take the charges rather in order of their notoriety and of the importance of those who have a.s.sumed them to be true. Following this order, the two first on the list will naturally be the death, by Claverhouse's own hand, of John Brown, and the deaths, by drowning on the sands of Solway Firth, of the two women, Margaret Maclachlan and Margaret Wilson--popularly known as the Wigtown Martyrs.

An attempt has been made to prove that this last affair is a pure romance of Covenanting tradition. It has never been disputed that the women were tried for high treason (that is to say, for refusing to abjure the Covenant and to attend Episcopal wors.h.i.+p) and condemned to death; but it has been denied that the sentence was ever carried into effect, on the strength of a reprieve granted by the Council at Edinburgh before the day of execution. That a reprieve, or rather a remand, was granted is certain, as the pages of the Council register remain to this day to testify. But it is not so certain that the decision of the Council at Edinburgh ever reached the magistrates at Wigtown; and that, if it did reach them, they at least paid no attention to it, remained for upwards of a century and a half the fixed opinion of all writers and readers of history. The women were sentenced on April 18th, 1685: the remand is dated April 30th, but the period for which it was to run has been left blank, pending the result of a recommendation for full pardon with which it was accompanied: the sentence was executed on May 11th--in Wodrow's words, "a black and very remarkable day for blood in several places."