Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 22.djvu/352

 appreciation of Claverhouse's constancy by creating him by royal patent Viscount Dundee and Lord Graham of Claverhouse. At a council of war held on the 24th, James, without striking a blow, broke up his camp and returned to London. Almost immediately afterwards a portion of the Scotch forces deserted to the prince. The Scotch horse and dragoons under Dundee remained faithful, and he marched them to Watford to wait further commands. On the news reaching him of the king's flight from London he ‘burst into tears’ (Creighton, in Works, xii. 72). The news was succeeded by a message from William guaranteeing the safety of his troops provided they remained inactive where they were until further orders (ib.) Dundee, leaving his forces in Watford, went to London, where all the members of the Scotch privy council there held a conference in the house of the Duke of Hamilton (, Memoirs, p. 19). They were in great perplexity, the duke apparently having determined to make terms with William; but on hearing that the king had again returned to Whitehall, he sent for Dundee and ‘desired that all might be forgot’ (ib. p. 20). Dundee and Balcarres alone of the Scottish nobles in London remained faithful to James. They waited on him in his bedroom early on the morning of the 17th, and made a last but fruitless endeavour to induce him to make a final stand. At the request of the king they accompanied him in his morning walk in the Mall. At parting he told them that he was about to sail immediately for France, and added: ‘You, my Lord Balcarres, must manage the civil business, and you, my Lord Dundee, shall have a commission from me to command the troops.’ After the departure of James to France, Dundee employed Bishop Burnet to carry messages to William ‘to know what security he might expect if he should go and live in Scotland without owning the government. The king said if he would live peaceably and at home he would protect him. To this he answered that unless he were forced to it he would live quietly’ (, ed. 1838, p. 537). The precaution had been taken to disband Dundee's own regiment. The Scots Greys and Lord Dumbarton's regiment made an effort to retire northwards, but, their passage being stopped by the breaking down of the bridges and the felling of trees across the highways, they at last laid down their arms and surrendered at discretion. Dundee had taken no part in the mutiny, and he was permitted, along with the Earl of Balcarres, to depart for Scotland, accompanied for his protection by fifty troopers of his own regiment. Even in the old privy council his enemies outnumbered his friends; King James alone had given him almost unwavering support; among the covenanters his name was, in the words of Sir Walter Scott, ‘held in equal abhorrence and rather more terror than that of the devil himself;’ by his own troopers he was idolised, but, with the exception of his small body-guard of fifty, the Scottish soldiers had been retained in England, and when he entered Edinburgh with his small band in the end of February he knew that it was swarming with western covenanters. Already the Duke of Gordon was on terms for the surrender of the castle when Dundee and Balcarres waited on him and persuaded him to abandon his intention ‘until he saw what the convention [of estates] intended to do’ (, Memoirs, p. 23). Dundee and Balcarres resolved to attend the convention, but after the reading of King James's fatally imprudent message, sent without their knowledge, they decided to adjourn to Stirling and hold a convention there in the king's name (ib. p. 26). The day before that fixed for their departure Dundee affirmed that he had received information that a plot had been formed by the western covenanters for his assassination. He brought the matter before the convention, informing them that he could point out the house where the plotters were then met, but they declined to take any steps in the matter till other business was disposed of (ib. p. 29). The account given by the covenanting party of the matter was that Dundee had formed a design to seize certain members of the convention, but was prevented by ‘George Hamilton of Barns, who lodged four hundred armed citizens of Glasgow about the parliament house, that the adverse party found no security of the enterprise’ (, Memoirs, p. 4). Monday, 18 March, was the day fixed for the departure to Stirling, but the Marquis of Atholl craved another day's delay, and this, at a meeting held in Dundee's absence, had been agreed upon. Dundee, on the plea that he did not consider his life any longer safe, declined, notwithstanding the expostulations of Balcarres, to remain another hour, and said that he would go before, but that if any got out of the town he would wait for them (, p. 30). Accompanied by the fifty horse of his own regiment he had brought from England, he rode down the Canongate, and then, turning into the Stirling road, passed close by the foot of the Castle Rock. The Duke of Gordon noticed the cavalcade, and signalled that he desired to speak with Dundee. With some difficulty Dundee clambered halfway up the steep rock, and succeeded in letting him know of the intention to ‘set up the king's stan-