The last year of the reign of Charles II. was marked by a recrudescence of fanaticism on the part of the Covenanting extremists. It found expression in an ‘apologetical declaration’ drawn up by Renwick, and ordered to be affixed, as though it were a royal proclamation, ‘upon a sufficient and competent number of the public market-crosses of the respective burghs, and of the patent doors of the respective kirks within this kingdom.’ This document disowned the authority of Charles Stuart, and threatened to inflict the severest punishment, not only on those who were actively employed in enforcing the penal laws, ‘such as bloody militia men, malicious troopers, soldiers and dragoons,’ but also on the ‘viperous and malicious bishops and curates,’ and all such sort of counsellors and ‘intelligencers.’

This ‘declaration’ was dated the 28th of October 1684, and was promulgated on the 8th of November. It appeared so outrageous even to some of the Covenanters themselves, that they denounced it as ‘but a State invention, set on foot by the soldiers, to make that party odious and themselves necessary.’ But before many days these sceptics were to be convinced ‘of the reality of this declared war.’ On the 20th of November news reached Edinburgh that, the night before, some of the desperate fanatics had broken in upon two of the King’s Life Guards—Thomas Kennoway and Duncan Stewart—who were lying at Swyne Abbey, beyond Blackburn, in Linlithgowshire, and murdered them most barbarously. ‘This,’ adds Fountainhall, one of the contemporary chroniclers of the incident, ‘was to execute what they had threatened in their declaration.’

This was not the only act of violence by which Renwick’s proclamation was followed. Within the next month there occurred two others, of which the scene lay within the district committed to the care of Claverhouse. The prompt and successful measures which he took to punish the perpetrators supply the elements of fact which partisan writers have distorted and exaggerated into one of the most wanton atrocities of the ‘killing times’; and much may be learnt from an examination of the whole episode in its successive phases.

It opens with the murder of the curate of Carsphairn on the night between the 11th and the 12th of December. The victim was Mr Peter Peirson. The worst of the unsubstantiated charges brought against him by Wodrow, who, whilst professing to abhor and detest the crime, is nevertheless at great pains to find extenuating circumstances in the ‘unwarrantable provocations this ill man gave,’ amount to this, that he was a surly, ill-natured man, and horridly severe; that he was very blustering and bold, and used openly to provoke the poor people by saying in public companies, ‘He feared none of the Whigs, nor anything else but rats and mice’; that he was openly a favourer of popery, and not only defended the doctrine of purgatory, but also declared openly that Papists were much better subjects than Presbyterians; that he was a notorious informer and instigator of all the violent measures resorted to in that part of the country; and that he kept a number of fire-arms loaded in his chamber—a precautionary measure for which justification might be found in the fact that the curate lived at the manse alone, without so much as a servant with him.

Towards the end of the year 1684, a number of the ‘wanderers’ who were hiding in the neighbourhood ‘entered into a concert with an express proviso of doing no harm to Mr Peirson’s person, to meet together and essay to force him to give a written declaration that he would forbear instigating their enemies and other violent courses, and deter him from them in time to come, still expressly declaring they would do him no bodily harm.’ In view of the sequel, even as it is narrated by Wodrow himself, it would be superfluous to discuss the veracity of the whole statement as to the innocent ‘concert,’ and still more so to inquire into the sincerity of the alleged declaration. It may, however, be incidentally recalled that the murderers of Archbishop Sharp were asserted by Covenanting apologists to have come together for the harmless purpose of intimidating the obnoxious Carmichael, or as it was still more mildly expressed, of scaring him from his cruel courses, when chance threw the prelate in their way.

On the occasion, now under consideration, the circumstances that led to the tragic termination of the peaceful errand on which M’Michael, Padzen, Mitchell, Herron, Watson and some others were engaged are thus set forth: ‘One night, having notice that Mr Peirson was at home, they came to the manse and sent those named above to desire Mr Peirson to speak with some friends who were to do him no harm. One account says, and it is not inconsistent with the other, that two of them who were sent, got in and delivered the commission, which put Mr Peirson in a rage, and, drawing a broadsword, and cocking a gun or pistol, he got betwixt them and the door; upon which they called, and M’Michael and Padzen came to the door and knocked. The other account makes no mention of this circumstance, but says when they knocked at the door, Mr Peirson opened it himself, and, with fury, came out upon them with arms; and James M’Michael, as he said, laying his account with present death if he had not done it, resolved, if he could, to be beforehand with him, and firing a pistol at him, shot him dead on the spot. The rest, at some distance, hearing a noise, came running up crying, “take no lives”; but it was too late.’

A few days after the murder of the curate, a body of ‘Wanderers’ committed a more open act of violence in the town of Kirkcudbright. According to Sir Robert Dalziel’s official report to Queensberry, upon the Tuesday morning preceding the 18th of December, they invaded the town, to the number of a hundred and eight, broke open the prisons, carried away such prisoners as would go with them, and all the arms they could seize on, together with the town drum. It was then that Claverhouse set out in pursuit of the rioters. The accounts of his expedition are interesting in their variations from each other and from actual facts.

In the volume entitled ‘A Cloud of Witnesses for the Royal Prerogatives of Jesus Christ,’ there is a section specially devoted to an enumeration of those ‘who were killed in the open fields, without trial, conviction, or any process of law, by the executioners of the Council’s murdering edict.’ On the authority of ‘A Short Memorial of the Sufferings and Grievances of the Presbyterians in Scotland,’ printed in the year 1690, it is there stated that Claverhouse coming to Galloway, in answer to the Viscount of Kenmure’s letter, with a small party, surprised Robert Stewart, John Grier, Robert Ferguson, and James MacMichael, and instantly shot them dead at the water of Dee. It is added that their corpses having been buried, were, at his command, raised again.

The same incident is reported by De Foe, with the addition of certain details that enhance its atrocity. In his summary of the cold-blooded cruelties perpetrated by the most furious persecutor of the ‘poor people,’ he has the following entry: ‘Four more men who were betray’d to him, being hid in a house at the water of Dee, and were at the time his men came praying together; he caused them to be dragged just to the door, and shot them dead as they came out, without any enquiry whether they were the persons that he came to apprehend; their being found praying to God was, it seems, sufficient testimony of their party and offence; after this, coming to the same place, at two or three days’ distance, and understanding the people of the town had buried the bodies, he caused his men to dig them up again, and commanded that they should lye in the fields: the names of these four were John Grier, Robert Ferguson, Archibald Stewart, and Robert Stewart.’

It will be noticed that the name of Archibald Stewart figures in this list instead of that of James MacMichael. Whether accidental or intentional the substitution is of considerable importance, as the sequel will show.

Without any intention of palliating the conduct of Claverhouse, Wodrow helps to place it in a different light. ‘Let me add,’ he says, ‘that December 18th, Claverhouse when ranging up and down Galloway, with a troop, came to the water of Dee; and at Auchinloy, came upon some of the people, who were lurking and hiding, unexpectedly, and surprised six of them together; for what I can find, they had no arms. According to the instructions lately given by the Council, he shot four of them upon the spot in a very few minutes, Robert Ferguson and James MacMichan from Nithsdale, and Robert Stewart and John Grier, Galloway men; afterwards their friends carried off their bodies to Dalry and buried them. Some accounts before me say that by orders from Claverhouse, a party came and uncovered their graves and coffins, and they continued so open four days till the party went off. And it appears certain, that James MacMichan’s body, after it was buried, was taken up and hung up on a tree. This was strange barbarity and spite. The other two, Robert Smith in Glencairn parish, and Robert Hunter, Claverhouse carried with him to Kirkcudbright, and called an assize, and made a form of judging them, and caused execute them there. They would not permit these two to write anything, not so much as letters to their relations. There were two more in the company who escaped and happy it was for them it was so, for probably they would have gone the same way.’

Wodrow admits that ‘it may be the rescue of some prisoners of Kirkcudbright by some of the wanderers a little before this, was the pretext for all this cruelty.’ But he says no word from which it can be gathered that the party which broke open the Tolbooth of Kirkcudbright could reasonably be suspected of including some of the men who murdered Peirson. He gives no hint of his knowledge that it was whilst pursuing these rioters that Claverhouse came upon the Deeside fugitives; and it almost seems as though, by a slight change of name, he wished to conceal the fact that the James Macmichan, whose body was treated with such ‘strange barbarity and spite,’ was no other than the James Macmichael whom he himself names as the actual murderer of Peirson.

The information which he failed to supply may be got from Fountainhall, who, in his ‘Historical Notices,’ under date of the 20th of December, announces the receipt of letters from Claverhouse, reporting that he had met with a party of the rebels, who had skulked, that he had followed them, killed five, and taken three prisoners, some of whom were the murderers of the minister of Carsphairn, and that he was to judge and execute the three prisoners by his justiciary powers.

Such is the origin and development of one of those ‘atrocities’ to which Claverhouse owes the opprobrious epithet of ‘bloody.’

For an impartial judgment of the extent of Claverhouse’s personal connection with some of the incidents of this particular period, it must be remembered that early in the year Colonel Douglas was appointed on special duty against the ‘Western fanatics.’ In addition to this, on the 27th of March, the judicial powers previously held by Claverhouse were also conferred on Douglas, as Justice in all the southern and western shires. The instructions given him by the Privy Council contained a special clause referring to the treatment of women that might be brought before him or any of the members of his Commission. Only such as had been active in a signal manner in treasonable courses were to be examined; and those if found guilty, were to be drowned.

It was in accordance with this provision that Margaret Maclachlan and Margaret Wilson were condemned to death. Whether the sentence was actually carried out, or whether the account of their drowning on the sands of the Solway Firth given by Wodrow and repeated by Macaulay be wholly apocryphal, as Napier maintained, is a question into which it is not necessary to enter, though the difficulty of believing that so circumstantial a narrative can be a mere Covenanting fiction may readily be admitted. But it is not unimportant to point out that Claverhouse was neither directly nor indirectly concerned either in the trial, the sentence, or the execution, and that, though still nominally a Privy Councillor when Douglas superseded him, he was absent from the meeting at which his rival was appointed Justice, and at which the drowning of women was ordered.

From the command of his own regiment, Claverhouse had not been removed. In the discharge of the duties which this position laid on him, he was brought into immediate connection with another incident which is commonly adduced as illustrative of the atrocities committed during the ‘killing time,’ but of which the real nature, terrible at best, it cannot be denied, is materially affected by the truth or the falseness of the details which have found their way into some accounts of the event. Claverhouse’s report of the occurrence is contained in the following despatch forwarded to Queensberry from Galston on the 3rd of May 1685.

‘On Friday last, amongst the hills betwixt Douglas and the Ploughlands, we pursued two fellows a great way through the mosses, and in the end seized them. They had no arms about them, and denied they had any. But, being asked if they would take the abjuration, the eldest of the two, called John Brown, refused it. Nor would he swear not to rise in arms against the King, but said he knew no king. Upon which, and there being found bullets and match in his house, and treasonable papers, I caused shoot him dead; which he suffered very unconcernedly.

‘The other, a young fellow and his nephew, called John Brownen offered to take the oath; but would not swear that he had not been at Newmills in arms, at rescuing of the prisoners. So I did not know what to do with him. I was convinced that he was guilty, but saw not how to proceed against him. Wherefore, after he had said his prayers, and carbines presented to shoot him, I offered to him that if he would make an ingenuous confession, and make a discovery that might be of any importance for the King’s service, I should delay putting him to death, and plead for him. Upon which he confessed that he was at that attack at Newmills, and that he had come straight to this house of his uncle’s, on Sunday morning.

‘In the time he was making this confession, the soldiers found out a house in a hill, under ground, that could hold a dozen of men, and there were swords and pistols in it; and this fellow declared that they belonged to his uncle, and that he had lurked in that place ever since Bothwell, where he was in arms. He confessed that he had a halbert, and told who gave it him about a month ago, and we have the fellow prisoner. He gave an account of the names of the most part who were there. They were not above sixty, and they were all Galston and Newmills men, save a few out of Straven parish. He gave also an account of a conventicle kept by Renwick at the back of Cairntable, where there were thirteen score of men in arms, mustered and exercised, of which number he was with his halbert. He tells us of another conventicle, about three months ago, kept near Loudon hill; and gives account of the persons who were at both, and what children were baptized; particularly that at Cairntable, which was about the time that Lieutenants Murray and Creichton let them escape. He also gives account of those who gave any assistance to his uncle; and we have seized thereupon the goodman of the upmost Ploughlands; and another tenant, about a mile below that, is fled upon it.

‘I doubt not, if we had time to stay, good use might be made of his confession. I have acquitted myself, when I have told your Grace the case. He has been a month or two with his halbert; and if your Grace thinks he deserves no mercy, justice will pass on him. For I, having no commission of Justiciary myself, have delivered him up to the Lieutenant-General, to be disposed of as he pleases.’

Such a report is not that of a man anxious to urge excuses for an action which he felt in his conscience to be unjustifiable. Nor can there be any doubt that, from his point of view, Claverhouse had done nothing but what a soldier’s duty required of him. Immediately after the proclamation of Renwick’s manifesto, and the subsequent murder of the two guardsmen at Swyne Abbey, it had been enacted that ‘Any person who owns or will not disown the late treasonable declaration on oath, whether they have arms or not, be immediately put to death, this being always done in the presence of two witnesses, and the person or persons having commission to that effect.’

Such was the law; and the blind obedience to orders which Claverhouse looked upon as a part of his duty as a soldier, on which he prided himself, and which, as has been seen, he declared in so many words to be his one guiding principle, left him no option as to enforcing it in the case of John Brown. With respect to the nephew, on the other hand, the same spirit of strict discipline forbade him to inflict summary punishment, not because he thought him less guilty than the uncle, but because he had complied with the letter of the law. If further action were to be taken in the case, it would have to be by those who possessed that power of justiciary of which he had been deprived.

This John Brown who was executed in due form of martial law is the ‘Christian Carrier’ whom Wodrow accuses Claverhouse of having killed with his own hand. After representing Brown as a man of ‘shining piety,’ who ‘was no way obnoxious to the Government, except for not hearing the Episcopal minister,’ and after stating that he was apprehended whilst ‘at his work, near his own house in Priestfield, casting peats,’ the historian continues: ‘Claverhouse was coming from Lesmahagow, with three troops of dragoons: whether he had got any information of John’s piety and nonconformity, I cannot tell, but he caused bring him up to his own door, from the place where he was. I do not find they were at much trouble with interrogatories and questions; we see them now almost wearied of that leisurely way of doing business, neither do any of my informations bear that the abjuration oath was offered him. With some difficulty he was allowed to pray, which he did with the greatest liberty and melting, and withal, in such suitable and scriptural expressions, and in a peculiar judicious style, he having great measures of the gift, as well as the grace of prayer, that the soldiers were affected and astonished; yea, which is yet more singular, such convictions were left in their bosoms, that, as my informations bear, not one of them would shoot him, or obey Claverhouse’s commands, so that he was forced to turn executioner himself, and in a fret shot him with his own hand, before his own door, his wife with a young infant standing by, and she very near the time of her delivery of another child. When tears and entreaties could not prevail, and Claverhouse had shot him dead, I am credibly informed the widow said to him, “Well, sir, you must give an account of what you have done.” Claverhouse answered, “To men I can be answerable, and as for God, I’ll take Him into mine own hand.” I am well informed that Claverhouse himself frequently acknowledged afterwards that John Brown’s prayer left such impressions upon his spirit that he could never get altogether worn off, when he gave himself liberty to think of it.’

A comparison of the two accounts might suffice to establish their respective credibility. But another test is available. There is a third version of the death of John Brown. It is given by Patrick Walker, a pedlar and Covenanting martyrologist, who implies that he himself got it from Brown’s widow, ‘sitting upon her husband’s gravestone.’ Apart from minor discrepancies between his narrative and that of Wodrow, there are at least three important points with regard to which it directly confirms Claverhouse’s report. It not only asserts that the carrier, when brought to his house, was examined by his captor, but it also adds that though a man of a stammering speech, he yet answered distinctly and solidly. In contradiction of the statement that ‘with some difficulty he was allowed to pray,’ it represents Claverhouse as saying to him, ‘Go to your prayers, for you shall immediately die.’ Most important of all, however, it affirms distinctly and circumstantially that ‘Claverhouse ordered six soldiers to shoot him,’ and that ‘the most part of the bullets came upon his head, which scattered his brains upon the ground.’

Within a week after the shooting of John Brown, there occurred another execution, the responsibility for which has been laid on Claverhouse by several of the writers who chronicle the sufferings of the Covenanters at this time The first of them is Alexander Shields. ‘The said Claverhouse,’ he says, ‘together with the Earl of Dumbarton and Lieutenant-General Douglas, caused Peter Gillies, John Bryce, Thomas Young (who was taken by the Laird of Lee), William Fiddisone, and John Buiening to be put to death upon a gibbet, without legal trial or sentence, suffering them neither to have a Bible nor to pray before they died.’ De Foe, whilst deepening the atrocity of the deed, allows no one to share the guilt of it with Claverhouse. According to him, somebody had maliciously told Graham that five men who lay in ‘several prisons,’ to which they had been committed by ‘other persecutors,’ were ‘of the Whigs that used the field meetings; upon which, without any oath made of the fact, or any examination of the men, without any trial or other sentence than his own command, his bloody soldiers fetched them all to Mauchline, a village where his headquarters were, and hanged them immediately, not suffering them to enter into any house at their coming, nor at the entreaty of the poor men would permit one to lend them a Bible, who it seems offered it, nor allow them a moment to pray to God.’

The case of two of these men, that of Peter Gillies and John Bryce has been cited by Macaulay as one of the instances of the crimes by which Claverhouse and men like him, goaded the peasantry of the Western Lowlands into madness. His account, based on that given by Wodrow, refutes the statement made by De Foe as to the absence of all legal formality. He admits that the two artisans were tried by a military tribunal consisting of fifteen men; and thus sets aside what both Shields and De Foe put forward as the crowning atrocity of the deed. But, on the other hand, by mentioning the execution amongst other alleged instances of Claverhouse’s cruelty, he leaves the reader under the impression that it was he and his dragoons who acted as judge and jury. Now Wodrow distinctly states that, on being taken to Mauchline, Gillies and Bryce, ‘with some others, were examined by Lieutenant-General Drummond,’ and that ‘an assize was called of fifteen of the soldiers,’ with Drummond himself as ‘Commissioner of Justiciary.’ Claverhouse’s name does not once occur in Wodrow’s detailed account of the incident, and evidence to connect him directly and personally with the trial or execution is consequently wanting.

The last instance drawn from ‘the history of a single fortnight,’ of that lamentable month of May 1685, is the summary execution of Andrew Hislop, in Eskdale Muir. There are two accounts of it. One of them is to be found in ‘The Cloud of Witnesses.’ The other is given by Wodrow. About Hislop himself, the latter tells us that he was but a youth, and lived with his mother, to whom one of the ‘suffering people’ had come for shelter, and in whose house he had died. For her charity towards the proscribed Covenanter, and for affording his body burial, the poor widow brought down upon herself the vengeance of the Laird of Westerhall, who though ‘once a Covenanter, a great professor and zealot for the presbyterian establishment,’ had become a violent persecutor of his former brethren, ‘as all apostates generally are.’ To signalise his loyalty, Westerhall pulled down the woman’s cottage, carried off everything that was portable, and drove her with her children into the fields. Her eldest son Andrew, however, was reserved for a worse fate, as to the actual circumstances of which there are conflicting narratives. That contained in the book commonly known as ‘The Cloud of Witnesses’ states that Westerhall delivered him up to Claverhouse, ‘and never rested until he got him shot by Claverhouse’s troops.’ Wodrow, though he was acquainted with this account, and actually refers to it, so far departs from it as to make Claverhouse the lad’s captor. ‘Claverhouse,’ he says, ‘falls upon Andrew Hislop in the fields, May 10th, and seizes him, without any design, as appeared, to murder him, bringing him prisoner with him to Eskdale, unto Westerhall that night.’

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:—

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.