Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/494

480 delighted man gave chase. They desired Rathillet to take the lead, but he declined, saying he had a private quarrel with the primate, and his act might be attributed to revenge, but that he would accompany them, and do nothing to prevent their just punishment of the apostate. Balfour then said "follow me," and they galloped after the carriage at fall speed. When Sharp perceived their approach, he exclaimed to his daughter Isabella, who alone was with him, "The Lord have mercy on me, my dear child, for I am gone!" The desperadoes came on, firing at the carriage, and shouting, "Judas, be taken!" The coachman in vain lashed on his horses. The ruffians overtook them, discharged their pistols into the carriage, wounded the postilion, and cut the traces. Sharp was only slightly wounded, and Russell said, "Judas, come forth!"

The archbishop endeavoured to propitiate them, declaring that he had wronged no man; offered them money, and promised them a pardon. They replied that they bore him no private malice, but that God had imposed a sacred duty upon them, and he must make ready for death, judgment, and eternity. He and his daughter kneeled on the grass imploring mercy. Sharp turned to Hackston of Rathillet, who stood muffling his face with his cloak, but was detected by the primate, who said, "I know you are a gentlemen; you will protect me." "I will never lay a hand upon you," replied Hacksion, and turned away. Guillon, one of the number, felt compassion for the old man, and said, "Spare those gray hairs;" but when Sharp put out his hand towards another of the band, he nearly severed it from the wrist with a blow of his sword. Balfour then cut him down by a blow on the head; but Russell, chancing to hear the afflicted daughter incautiously express a hope that life was not quite extinct, he left plundering the carriage, and cut his head in pieces with his sword. The daughter was wounded in one or two places in endeavouring to defend her father; and the assassins, after taking possession of such arms and papers as they could find, bade the servants convey their dead master and his daughter home, and quietly rode away. The murderers only crossed to the other side of Magus Muir, where the bloody deed had been perpetrate; where at a cottage they spent the remainder of the day in prayer and praising God for the accomplishment of what they deemed this noble work. They then rode their way into the west of Scotland, where they joined Donald Cargill, one of the most noted of the Cameronian preachers, with Spreul, and Robert Hamilton, a young man of good family, and a former pupil of bishop Burnet's, who had been excited by the persecutions of the people to come out and attempt their relief.

The murder of the archbishop only roused the government to more determined rigour, and the persecuted people, grown desperate, threw off all remaining show of obedience in great numbers, and resolved to resist to the death. The more moderate presbyterians lamented and condemned the murder of the primate, but the more enthusiastic looked upon it as a great judgment of God. They resolved to face the soldiery, and they had soon an opportunity, for Graham of Claverhouse, a man who acquired a terrible fame in these persecutions, being stationed at Glasgow, drew out a troop of dragoons and other cavalry, and went in pursuit of them. He encountered them at a place near London Hill, in a boggy ground called Drumclog, where the covenanters, under Hamilton, Balfour, and Cleland, defeated his forces, and put them to flight, killing about thirty of them, including a relative of Claverhouse's. The insurgents under Hamilton, elated with their victory marched after Claverhouse into Glasgow itself, but were repulsed. They went on, however, increasing so fast, that Claverhouse evacuated Glasgow, and marched eastward, leaving all the west of Scotland in their hands, now amounting to five or six thousand.

On the news reaching London, Charles despatched the duke of Monmouth, with a large body of the royal guards, to quell the rebellion. On the 21st of June, as the covenanters lay near the town of Hamilton, they received the intelligence that Monmouth, with his forces joined to those of Claverhouse, was approaching. The insurgents had soon taken to quarrelling amongst themselves, and the more moderate section were now for submitting on favourable terms. Rathillet and the more determined would not hear of any surrender, but marched off and left the waverers, who sent a memorial to Monmouth, declaring that they were ready to leave all their complaints to a free parliament, and free assembly of the church. The duke, who showed much mildness throughout this campaign, replied that he felt greatly for their sufferings, but that they must lay down their arms, and then he would intercede for them with the king. On the receipt of this answer the greatest confusion prevailed; the moderate dare not risk a surrender on such terms, remembering the little mercy they had hitherto received from the government; the more violent, with a fatal want of prudence, now insisting on cashiering their officers, who had shown what they called a leaning towards Erastianism, or, in other words, a disposition to submit to the civil power.

Whilst they were in this divided and unprepared state, Monmouth's army appeared in sight. The covenanters, therefore, compelled to fight or fly, seized on the bridge of Bothwell, which crossed the Clyde betwixt the village of Bothwell and the town of Hamilton. It was narrow, and crossed in the centre by a gateway. Here Rathillet, Balfour, and others posted themselves with about three hundred men to defend this pass. But the army of Momnouth, on the slope of the hill descending from Bothwell to the Clyde, commanded the opposite hill on which the covenanters were posted with his artillery, and under its fire a strong body of troops advanced to force the bridge. Balfour and Rathillet defended their post bravely, but the gate was at length forced, and they were pushed back at the point of the bayonet. They found themselves unsupported by the main body, which, on the artillery playing murderously upon them, had retreated to Hamilton Heath, about a quarter of a mile distant. There they rallied, and repulsed one or two charges, and broke a body of Highlanders; but undisciplined, disunited, and without artillery to cope with that of Monmouth, they were only exposed to unavailing slaughter. They turned and fled. Monmouth commanded a halt, to spare the fugitives. In the words of the famous old ballad:— ""Hand up your hand," then Monmouth said, "Gis quarter to these men for me." But bloody Clavcr'se swore an oath, His kinsmans's death avenged should be;"