Page:Sketches of the History of the Church of Scotland.djvu/22

 unappeasable. There the Established Clergy were held up to popular obliquy as "dumb dogs," and "Priests of the Synagogue of Satan," and their persons and property were attacked. These proceedings culminated in the murder of the Primate, under circumstances of such shocking atrocity as at length aroused the authorities to more vigorous measures of suppression. I have already adverted to that murder; and how it is defended and gloried in to this day; and how the assassins who suffered for the crime are enrolled among the Martyrs of the Covenant. It is painful to have to state these facts, and to tell that Colonel Graham of Claverhouse, for discharging his duty as a soldier, commissioned to disperse the armed Conventiclers guilty of these atrocities, and to execute military punishment, on those found with arms in their hands, or concealed in their houses,—as in the well-worn case of John Brown of Priesthill, in whose house an underground apartment was discovered, well-stored with arms,—and who stubbornly persisted in disowning the King and his Government, continues to have his name loaded with every species of abuse which the language supplies."

But I hope to be able to show that the gallant Graham is not the "vulgar ruffian,"—for that is a specimen of the language which a titled lecturer recently indulged in,—which it is the pleasure of platform orators to call him. Sir Walter Scott, whose true instincts told him that the hero of Killiecrankie did not deserve the abuse popularly heaped upon him, was among the first to rescue Lord Dundee's character from the misrepresentations and falsehoods of our partisan historians; while his portrait was the only picture that he allowed to grace the walls of his study. But since the date of "Old Mortality," important documents have been brought to light, chiefly by the research of the late Mr Mark Napier, the biographer of Dundee, which, to all impartial minds, have completely re-habilitated his name and character. Even such a cautious writer as Dr. Robert Chambers, one not likely to risk his well earned popularity lightly, is "constrained," he tells us, "as an act of common justice," to speak of Lord Dundee in these terms:—"Colonel Graham of Claverhouse, as Constable of Dundee, represented to the Privy Council that he found several persons in prison there for theft, 'which will,' said he, 'be fittter to be punished otherwise than by death.'" We all know that within the memory of the present generation theft was a capital offence; so merciful, long in advance of the temper of the age, was Graham of Claverhouse. "In compliance with this humane suggestion," Dr. Chambers goes on to say, "he was empowered to restrict the treatment of those criminals to an ordinary punishment, such as whipping, as he shall find cause. It may excite surprise,"