Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border Volume Ii Part 3

_Gilbert Menzies, of high degree, By whom the king's banner was borne._--P. 42. v. 1.

Gilbert Menzies, younger of Pitfoddells, carried the royal banner in Montrose's last battle. It bore the headless corpse of Charles I., with this motto, _"Judge and revenge my cause, O Lord!"_ Menzies proved himself worthy of this n.o.ble trust, and, obstinately refusing quarter, died in defence of his charge. _Montrose's Memoirs_.

_Then woe to Strachan, and Hacket baith._--P. 42. v. 2.

Sir Charles Hacket, an officer in the service of the estates.

_And Huntly's gone, the self-same way._--P. 42. v. 4.

George Gordon, second marquis of Huntley, one of the very few n.o.bles in Scotland, who had uniformly adhered to the king from the very beginning of the troubles, was beheaded by the sentence of the parliament of Scotland (so calling themselves), upon the 22d March, 1649, one month and twenty-two days after the martyrdom of his master. He has been much blamed for not cordially co-operating with Montrose; and Bishop Wishart, in the zeal of partiality for his hero, accuses Huntley of direct treachery. But he is a true believer, who seals, with his blood, his creed, religious or political; and there are many reasons, short of this foul charge, which may have dictated the backward conduct of Huntley towards Montrose. He could not forget, that, when he first stood out for the king, Montrose, then the soldier of the covenant, had actually made him prisoner: and we cannot suppose Huntley to have been so sensible of Montrose's superior military talents, as not to think himself, as equal in rank, superior in power, and more uniform in loyalty ent.i.tled to equally high marks of royal trust and favour. This much is certain, that the gallant clan of Gordon contributed greatly to Montrose's success; for the gentlemen of that name, with the brave and loyal Ogilvies, composed the princ.i.p.al part of his cavalry.

THE BATTLE OF PENTLAND HILLS.

We have observed the early antipathy, mutually entertained by the Scottish presbyterians and the house of Stuart It seems to have glowed in the breast even of the good-natured Charles II. He might have remembered, that, in 1551, the presbyterians had fought, bled, and ruined themselves in his cause. But he rather recollected their early faults than their late repentance; and even their services were combined with the recollection of the absurd and humiliating circ.u.mstances of personal degradation,[A] to which their pride and folly had subjected him, while they professed to espouse his cause. As a man of pleasure, he hated their stern and inflexible rigour, which stigmatised follies even more deeply than crimes; and he whispered to his confidents, that "presbytery was no religion for a gentleman." It is not, therefore, wonderful, that, in the first year of his restoration, he formally reestablished prelacy in Scotland; but it is surprising, that, with his father's example before his eyes, he should not have been satisfied to leave at freedom the consciences of those who could not reconcile themselves to the new system. The religious opinions of sectaries have a tendency like the water of some springs, to become soft and mild, when freely exposed to the open day. Who can recognise in the decent and industrious quakers, and ana-baptists the wild and ferocious tenets which distinguished their sects, while they were yet honoured with the distinction of the scourge and the pillory? Had the system of coercion against the presbyterians been continued until our day, Blair and Robertson would have preached in the wilderness, and only discovered their powers of eloquence and composition, by rolling along a deeper torrent of gloomy fanaticism.

[Footnote A: Among other ridiculous occurrences, it is said, that some of Charles's gallantries were discovered by a prying neighbour. A wily old minister was deputed, by his brethren, to rebuke the king for this heinous scandal. Being introduced into the royal presence he limited his commission to a serious admonition, that, upon such occasions, his majesty should always shut the windows.--The king is said to have recompensed this unexpected lenity after the Restoration. He probably remembered the joke, though he might have forgotten the service.]

The western counties distinguished themselves by their opposition to the prelatic system. Three hundred and fifty ministers, ejected from their churches and livings, wandered through the mountains, sowing the seeds of covenanted doctrine, while mult.i.tudes of fanatical followers pursued them, to reap the forbidden crop. These conventicles as they were called, were denounced by the law, and their frequenters dispersed by military force. The genius of the persecuted became stubborn, obstinate, and ferocious; and, although indulgencies were tardily granted to some presbyterian ministers, few of the true covenanters or whigs, as they were called, would condescend to compound with a prelatic government, or to listen even to their own favourite doctrine under the auspices of the king. From Richard Cameron, their apostle, this rigid sect acquired the name of Cameronians. They preached and prayed against the indulgence, and against the presbyterians who availed themselves of it, because their accepting this royal boon was a tacit acknowledgment of the king's supremacy in ecclesiastical matters. Upon these bigotted and persecuted fanatics, and by no means upon the presbyterians at large, are to be charged the wild anarchical principles of anti-monarchy and a.s.sa.s.sination which polluted the period when they flourished.

The insurrection, commemorated and magnified in the following ballad, as indeed it has been in some histories, was, in itself, no very important affair. It began in Dumfries-s.h.i.+re where Sir James Turner, a soldier of fortune, was employed to levy the arbitrary fines imposed for not attending the episcopal churches. The people rose, seized his person, disarmed his soldiers, and having continued together, resolved to march towards Edinburgh, expecting to be joined by their friends in that quarter. In this they were disappointed; and, being now diminished to half their numbers, they drew up on the Pentland Hills, at a place called Rullien Green. They were commanded by one Wallace; and here they awaited the approach of General Dalziel, of Binns; who, having marched to Calder, to meet them on the Lanark road, and finding, that, by pa.s.sing through Collington, they had got to the other side of the hills, cut through the mountains, and approached them. Wallace shewed both spirit and judgment: he drew his men up in a very strong situation, and withstood two charges of Dalziel's cavalry; but, upon the third shock, the insurgents were broken, and utterly dispersed. There was very little slaughter, as the cavalry of Dalziel were chiefly gentlemen, who pitied their oppressed and misguided countrymen. There were about fifty killed, and as many made prisoners. The battle was fought on the 28th November, 1666; a day still observed by the scattered remnant of the Cameronian sect, who regularly hear a field-preaching upon the field of battle.

I am obliged for a copy of the ballad to Mr Livingston of Airds, who took it down from the recitation of an old woman residing on his estate.

The gallant Grahams, mentioned in the text, are Graham of Claverhouse's horse.

THE BATTLE OF PENTLAND HILLS.

_This Ballad is copied verbatim from the Old Woman's recitation._

The gallant Grahams c.u.m from the west, Wi' their horses black as ony craw; The Lothian lads they marched fast, To be at the Rhyns o' Gallowa.

Betwixt Dumfries town and Argyle, The lads they marched mony a mile; Souters and taylors unto them drew, Their covenants for to renew.

The whigs, they, wi' their merry cracks, Gard the poor pedlars lay down their packs; But aye sinsyne they do repent The renewing o' their covenant.

A the Mauchline muir, where they were reviewed, Ten thousand men in armour shewed; But, ere they cam to the Brockie's burn, The half o' them did back return.

General Dalyell, as I hear tell, Was our lieutenant general; And captain Welsh, wi' his wit and skill, Was to guide them on to the Pentland hill.

General Dalyell held to the hill, Asking at them what was their will; And who gave them this protestation, To rise in arms against the nation?

"Although we all in armour be, It's not against his majesty; Nor yet to spill our neighbour's bluid, But wi' the country we'll conclude."

"Lay down your arms, in the king's name, And ye shall all gae safely hame;"

But they a' cried out, wi' ae consent, "We'll fight a broken covenant."

"O well," says he, "since it is so, A willfu' man never wanted woe;"

He then gave a sign unto his lads, And they drew up in their brigades.

The trumpets blew, and the colours flew, And every man to his armour drew; The whigs were never so much aghast, As to see their saddles toom sae fast.

The cleverest men stood in the van, The whigs they took their heels and ran; But such a raking was never seen, As the raking o' the Rullien Green.

THE BATTLE OF LOUDONHILL.

The whigs, now become desperate, adopted the most desperate principles; and retaliating, as far as they could, the intolerating persecution which they endured, they openly disclaimed allegiance to any monarch who should not profess presbytery, and subscribe the covenant.--These principles were not likely to conciliate the favour of government; and as we wade onward in the history of the times, the scenes become yet darker. At length, one would imagine the parties had agreed to divide the kingdom of vice betwixt them; the hunters a.s.suming to themselves open profligacy and legalized oppression; and the hunted, the opposite attributes of hypocrisy, fanaticism, disloyalty, and midnight a.s.sa.s.sination. The troopers and cavaliers became enthusiasts in the pursuit of the covenanters If Messrs Kid, King, Cameron, Peden, &c.

boasted of prophetic powers, and were often warned of the approach of the soldiers, by supernatural impulse,[A] captain John Creichton, on the other side, dreamed dreams, and saw visions (chiefly, indeed, after having drunk hard), in which the lurking holes of the rebels were discovered to his imagination.[B] Our ears are scarcely more shocked with the profane execrations of the persecutors,[C] than with the strange and insolent familiarity used towards the Deity by the persecuted fanatics. Their indecent modes of prayer, their extravagant expectations of miraculous a.s.sistance, and their supposed inspirations, might easily furnish out a tale, at which the good would sigh, and the gay would laugh.

[Footnote A: In the year 1684, Peden, one of the Cameronian preachers, about ten o'clock at night, sitting at the fire-side, started up to his feet, and said, "Flee, auld Sandie (thus he designed himself), and hide yourself! for colonel----is coming to this house to apprehend you; and I advise you all to do the like, for he will be here within an hour;"

which came to pa.s.s: and when they had made a very narrow search, within and without the house, and went round the thorn-bush, under which he was lying praying, they went off without their prey. He came in, and said, "And has this gentleman (designed by his name) given poor Sandie, and thir poor things, such a fright? For this night's work, G.o.d shall give him such a blow, within a few days, that all the physicians on earth shall not be able to cure;" which came to pa.s.s, for he died in great misery.--_Life of Alexander Peden._]

[Footnote B: See the life of this booted apostle of prelacy, written by Swift, who had collected all his anecdotes of persecution, and appears to have enjoyed them accordingly.]

[Footnote C: "They raved," says Peden's historian, "like fleshly devils, when the mist shrouded from their pursuit the wandering whigs." One gentleman closed a declaration of vengeance against the conventiclers with this strange imprecation, "Or may the devil make my ribs a gridiron to my soul!"--MS. _Account of the Presbytery of Penpont._ Our armies swore terribly in Flanders, but nothing to this!]

In truth, extremes always approach each other; and the superst.i.tion of the Roman catholics was, in some degree, revived, even by their most deadly enemies. They are ridiculed by the cavaliers, as wearing the relics of their saints by way of amulet:--

"She shewed to me a box, wherein lay hid The pictures of Cargil and Mr Kid; A splinter of the tree, on which they were slain; A double inch of Major Weir's best cane; Rathillet's sword, beat down to table-knife, Which took at Magus' Muir a bishop's life; The worthy Welch's spectacles, who saw, That windle-straws would fight against the law; They, windle-straws, were stoutest of the two, They kept their ground, away the prophet flew; And lists of all the prophets' names were seen At Pentland Hills, Aird-Moss, and Rullen Green.

"Don't think," she says, "these holy things are foppery; They're precious antidotes against the power of popery."

_The Cameronian Tooth.--Pennycuick's Poems,_ p. 110.

The militia and standing army soon became unequal to the task of enforcing conformity, and suppressing conventicles In, their aid, and to force compliance with a test proposed by government, the Highland clans were raised, and poured down into Ayrs.h.i.+re.[A] An armed host of undisciplined mountaineers, speaking a different language, and professing, many of them, another religion, were let loose, to ravage and plunder this unfortunate country; and it is truly astonis.h.i.+ng to find how few acts of cruelty they perpetrated, and how seldom they added murder to pillage[B] Additional levies of horse were also raised, under the name of Independent Troops, and great part of them placed under the command of James Grahame of Claverhouse a man well known to fame, by his subsequent t.i.tle of viscount Dundee, but better remembered, in the western s.h.i.+res, under the designation of the b.l.o.o.d.y Clavers. In truth, he appears to have combined the virtues and vices of a savage chief.

Fierce, unbending, and rigorous, no emotion of compa.s.sion prevented his commanding, and witnessing, every detail of military execution against the non-conformists. Undauntedly brave, and steadily faithful to his prince, he sacrificed himself in the cause of James, when he was deserted by all the world. If we add, to these attributes, a goodly person, complete skill in martial exercises, and that ready and decisive character, so essential to a commander, we may form some idea of this extraordinary character. The whigs, whom he persecuted daunted by his ferocity and courage, conceived him to be impa.s.sive to their bullets,[C]

and that he had sold himself, for temporal greatness, to the seducer of mankind. It is still believed, that a cup of wine, presented to him by his butler, changed into clotted blood; and that, when he plunged his feet into cold water, their touch caused it to boil. The steed, which bore him, was supposed to be the gift of Satan; and precipices are shewn, where a fox could hardly keep his feet, down which the infernal charger conveyed him safely, in pursuit of the wanderers. It is remembered, with terror, that Claverhouse was successful in every engagement with the whigs, except that at Drumclog, or Loudon-hill, which is the subject of the following ballad. The history of Burly, the hero of the piece, will bring us immediately to the causes and circ.u.mstances of that event.

[Footnote A: Peden complained heavily, that, after a heavy struggle with the devil, he had got above him, _spur-galled_ him hard, and obtained a wind to carry him from Ireland to Scotland, when, behold! another person had set sail, and reaped the advantage of his _prayer-wind,_ before he could embark.]

[Footnote B: Cleland thus describes this extraordinary army:

--Those, who were their chief commanders, As sach who bore the pirnie standarts.

Who led the van, and drove the rear, Were right well mounted of their gear; With brogues, and trews, and pirnie plaids, With good blue bonnets on their heads, Which, oil the one side, had a flipe, Adorn'd with a tobacco pipe, With durk, and snap-work, and snuff-mill, A bag which they with onions fill; And, as their strict observers say, A tup-born filled with usquebay; A slasht out coat beneath her plaides, A targe of timber, nails, and hides; With a long two-handed sword, As good's the country can afford.

Had they not need of bulk-and bones.

Who fought with all these arms at once?

Of moral honestie they're clean, Nought like religion they retain; In nothing they're accounted sharp, Except in bag-pipe, and in harp; For a misobliging word, She'll durk her neighbour o'er the boord, And then she'll flee like fire from flint, She'll scarcely ward the second dint; If any ask her of her thrift.

Forsooth her nainsell lives by thift.