Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 22.djvu/345

 verhouse's only crumb of comfort was that he had saved the standards. He had to ‘make the best retreat the confusion’ of his troops ‘would suffer,’ and after mounting a fresh horse did not call a halt till he reached Lord Ross at Glasgow (see his own letter in, ii. 221–3). The sight of the panic-stricken troopers attracted the notice of the townsfolk of Strathaven, who rushed out of their houses, and attempted to attack the straggling throng, but Claverhouse made the fugitives pluck up sufficient courage ‘to fall to them and make them run.’ ‘This,’ he sententiously concludes, ‘may be counted the beginning of the rebellion in my opinion’ (ib.). The covenanters followed the fugitives somewhat leisurely, and halted for the night some distance from Glasgow. With the aid of the fresh troops of Ross, Claverhouse resolved meanwhile to hold the town. The troops were ordered to stand to their arms all night, a portion of them also being busily employed in barricading the streets. At sunrise Captain Creighton was sent out with six dragoons to discover which way the covenanters proposed to enter the town. He watched them till they divided, the one portion intending to cross the Gallowgate bridge, and the rest advancing by the high church and college. The Gallowgate portion did not give sufficient time for their comrades by the High Street to co-operate with them. ‘The broad street,’ Creighton narrates, ‘was immediately full of them, but advancing to the barricades before their fellows who followed the other road could arrive to their assistance, were valiantly received by Clavers*** and his men, who chased them out of the town; but were quickly forced to return to receive the other party, which by that time was marching down by the high church and college; but when they came within pistol-shot were likewise fired upon and driven out of the town’ (‘Memoirs’ in, Works, xii. 33). More than this Claverhouse did not venture to do. This indirect confession of impotence braced up the courage of many hesitating supporters of the covenant, and in a few days the number of the insurgents totalled five or six thousand. They were, however, unfortunate in their selection of Sir Robert Hamilton as a leader; they were divided by petty jealousies and doctrinal dissensions; they were at a loss as to the policy they should adopt, and allowed the golden opportunity of winning a substantial victory to pass. The conduct of Claverhouse received no censure from the council; but on news reaching them of the disaster he was directed to return to the main body under Linlithgow at Stirling, his independent command thus coming to a close. Memories of the former ‘whigamore raid’ seized the imaginations of the council in Edinburgh, and something resembling a panic ensued among those in authority. Linlithgow was ordered to fall back on Edinburgh, and a post was sent in all haste to London for a reinforcement of English soldiers. With the English troops the Duke of Monmouth was sent to assume the chief command.

At the battle of Bothwell Bridge on 22 June Claverhouse was present with his troop of horse guards, and although the regiment was nominally under the command of the Marquis of Montrose, his duties were not improbably delegated to Claverhouse. Monmouth, as soon as he was assured of victory, ‘stopped the execution his men were making.’ The statement of Wodrow that Claverhouse was one of those who urged Monmouth to terrify the western districts by severe punishment (iii. 112) has been called in question; but as a matter of fact this was the policy which Claverhouse himself actually adopted. Reinforced by a detachment of English troops he immediately after the battle made a progress through Ayr, Dumfriesshire, and Galloway, plundering without scruple the farms of those who were supposed to have been in arms. Moreover he and Linlithgow were on 25 July sent by the council to London to procure the abandonment of the mild policy inaugurated by Monmouth. After the appointment on 6 Nov. of Thomas Dalyell [q. v.] as sole commander-in-chief, a régime of unrelenting severity succeeded. This led to the publication on 22 June 1680 by the followers of Richard Cameron [q. v.] of the Sanquhar declaration, in which they ‘disowned Charles Stewart’ as having forfeited the crown by his ‘perjury and breach of the covenant.’ A month afterwards the Cameronians, to the number of seventy, under the command of Hackston of Rathillet, were surprised and routed at Airds Moss by a detachment of Claverhouse's troops, Cameron himself being killed, and Hackston taken prisoner.

In February 1680 Claverhouse received a grant of the forfeited lands of Macdougal of Freuch in Galloway, but the execution was stayed by the exchequer on the ground that Claverhouse had made no proper account of the rents, duties, and movables he had sequestrated in Wigtownshire. Claverhouse, who was then in London, thereupon complained to the king, asserting that while in Scotland he had received not one farthing from sequestrations, and the commission were commanded to remove the stop they had put upon the grant (, ii. 238).

A partial glimpse of Claverhouse's private life at this period is afforded us by a series of