Viscount Dundee

III

DISPERSING THE CONVENTICLERS

By the end of 1678 Claverhouse was at Moffat, expecting to be joined by one of the newly-levied troops of dragoons – that under Captain Inglis. From that town he forwarded to the Earl of Linlithgow, Commander-in-chief of the King’s forces, the first of a series of despatches which contain a precise and detailed account of his movements at this time. As indicating the spirit in which he had undertaken the duties assigned to him, and the strict and literal obedience to orders that characterised his execution of them, the document is both interesting and valuable. It is dated the 28th of December, and runs as follows: —

‘My Lord, – I came here last night with the troop, and am just going to march for Dumfries, where I resolve to quarter the whole troop. I have not heard anything of the dragoons, though it be now about nine o’clock, and they should have been here last night, according to your Lordship’s orders. I suppose they must have taken some other route. I am informed, since I came, that this country has been very loose. On Tuesday was eight days, and Sunday, there were great field-conventicles just by here, with great contempt of the regular clergy, who complain extremely when I tell them I have no orders to apprehend anybody for past misdemeanours. And besides that, all the particular orders I have being contained in that order of quartering, every place where we quarter must see them, which makes them fear the less. I am informed that the most convenient post for quartering the dragoons will be Moffat, Lochmaben and Annan; whereby the whole country may be kept in awe. Besides that, my Lord, they tell me that the end of the bridge of Dumfries is in Galloway; and that they may hold conventicles at our nose and we not dare to dissipate them, seeing our orders confine us to Dumfries and Annandale. Such an insult as that would not please me; and, on the other hand, I am unwilling to exceed orders, so that I expect from your Lordship orders how to carry in such cases. I send this with one of my troop, who is to attend orders till he be relieved. I will send one every Monday, and the dragoons one every Thursday, so that I will have the happiness to give your Lordship account of our affairs twice a week, and your Lordship occasion to send your commands for us as often. In the meantime, my Lord, I shall be doing, according to the instructions I have, what shall be found most advantageous for the King’s service, and most agreeable to your Lordship. – I am, my Lord, your Lordship’s most humble and obedient servant,

‘My Lord, if your Lordship give me any new orders, I will beg they may be kept as secret as possible; and sent to me so suddenly as the information some of the favourers of the fanatics are to send may be prevented, which will extremely facilitate the executing of them.’

On the 6th of January 1679, Claverhouse, now at Dumfries, again addressed a despatch to the Commander. He appears to have, in the meantime, received an explanation of the Council’s intention, and an intimation that his conscientious regard for the exact terms of his commission did not meet with unqualified approval. This may be gathered from the following paragraph in his letter: —

‘My Lord, since I have seen the Act of Council, the scruple I had about undertaking anything without the bounds of these two shires, is indeed frivolous, but was not so before. For if there had been no such Act, it had not been safe for me to have done anything but what my order warranted; and since I knew it not, it was to me the same thing as if it had not been. And for my ignorance of it, I must acknowledge that till now, in any service I have been in, I never enquired farther in the laws, than the orders of my superior officers.’

In another passage, having to report various incidents of recent occurrence, with respect to some of which it was intended to make formal complaint, he again gives proof of his respect for discipline, and manifests his determination not only to enforce it, but also to compensate those upon whom injury might be inflicted by any breach of it on the part of the men under his command. At the same time, he does not hesitate to make it clearly understood that, whilst ready to answer for his own conduct, he repudiates responsibility for the actions of others. His own words are as follows: —

‘On Saturday night, when I came back here, the sergeant who commands the dragoons in the Castle came to see me; and while he was here, they came and told me there was a horse killed just by, upon the street, by a shot from the Castle. I went immediately and examined the guard, who denied point blank that there had been any shot from thence. I went and heard the Bailie take depositions of men that were looking on, who declared, upon oath, that they saw the shot from the guard-hall, and the horse immediately fall. I caused also search for the bullet in the horse’s head, which was found to be of their calibre. After that I found it so clear, I caused seize upon him who was ordered by the sergeant in his absence to command the guard, and keep him prisoner till he find out the man, – which I suppose will be found himself. His name is James Ramsay, an Angusman, who has formerly been a lieutenant of horse, as I am informed. It is an ugly business, for, besides the wrong the poor man has got in losing his horse, it is extremely against military discipline to fire out of a guard. I have appointed the poor man to be here to-morrow, and bring with him some neighbours to declare the worth of the horse, and have assured him to satisfy him if the Captain, who is to be here to-morrow, refuse to do it. I am sorry to hear of another accident that has befallen the dragoons, which I believe your Lordship knows better than I, seeing they say that there is a complaint made of it to your Lordship or the Council; which is, that they have shot a man in the arm with small shot, and disenabled him of it, who had come this length with a horse to carry baggage for some of my officers; but this being before they came to Moffat, does not concern me.

‘The Stewart-Depute, before good company, told me that several people about Moffat were resolved to make a complaint to the Council against the dragoons for taking free quarters; that if they would but pay their horse-corn and their ale, they should have all the rest free; that there were some of the officers that had, at their own hand, appointed themselves locality above three miles from their quarter. I begged them to forbear till the Captain and I should come there, when they should be redressed in everything. Your Lordship will be pleased not to take any notice of this, till I have informed myself upon the place.

‘This town is full of people that have resetted, and lodged constantly in their houses intercommuned persons and field preachers. There are some that absent themselves for fear; and Captain Inglis tells me there are Bailies have absented themselves there at Annan, and desired from me order to apprehend them; which I refused, for they are not included in all the Act of Council. Mr Cupar, who is here Bailie and Stewart for my Lord Stormont, offered to apprehend Bell that built the meeting-house, if I would concur. I said to him that it would be acceptable, but that the order from the Council did only bear the taking up the names of persons accessory to the building of it.’

The meeting-house referred to was situated in the neighbourhood of Castlemilk, and had been built at the expense of the common purse of the disaffected. It is described as a good large house, about sixty feet in length and between twenty and thirty in breadth, with only one door and with two windows at each side, and one at either end. After its purpose had become known to the authorities, it was fitted up with stakes and with a ‘hek’ and manger, to make it pass for a byre. In spite of this, an order for its destruction was issued by the Privy Council, shortly before Claverhouse’s arrival in the district.

The first duty he was called upon to perform was that of supplying the squad that was to serve as an escort to James Carruthers, the Stewart-Depute, who had been commissioned to carry out the order. The dragoons themselves took no part in the actual demolition; but their presence was necessary, not only to overawe resistance, but also to compel the ‘four score of countrymen, all fanatics,’ whom Carruthers brought with him, to pull down the building. ‘The Stewart-Depute,’ Claverhouse reported, ‘performed his part punctually enough. The walls were thrown down, and timber burnt. So perished the charity of many ladies.’

In subsequent despatches Claverhouse gives the most minute particulars as to the manner in which he has carried out his orders for the apprehension of various persons; and does not spare his comments on the lack of adequate support in the discharge of his arduous and ungrateful duties. A point upon which he lays great stress is the insufficiency of the arrangements made for supplying his men with proper quarters and with forage for their horses. He was obliged, he said, to let the dragoons quarter at large; and he was convinced that this was extremely improper at a time when the Council seemed resolved to proceed vigorously against the disaffected. He thought it strange, too, that they who had the honour to serve the King should have to pay more for hay and straw than would be asked from any stranger. He was determined for his part, that his troop should not suffer from the neglect or indifference of the commissioners appointed to treat with him. Though very unwilling to disoblige any gentleman, if his men ran short, he would go to any of the commissioners’ lands that were near, and requisition what was required, offering the current rates in payment. This, he thought, was a step which he was justified in taking, and he was ready to defend his conduct if called upon to do so.

Another serious ground for complaint was the want of proper information. Good intelligence, he said, was the thing most wanted. The outlawed ministers, men like Welsh of Irongray, were preaching within twenty or thirty miles, yet nothing could be done for want of spies to bring timely and trustworthy information concerning their movements. On the other hand, the conventiclers received regular and speedy knowledge of any expedition intended against them. There was reason to suppose that their informants were sometimes the troopers entrusted with orders. Of the treachery of one of these, who did not deliver till the twentieth a despatch dated the fifteenth, he was so convinced that, had it not been for the man’s influential patrons, he would have turned him out of the troop with infamy, instead of merely putting him under arrest. The result of such insufficient and unsatisfactory service was well exemplified in the case of a number of persons whom he had been instructed to seize in Galloway. He had set out the very night he received his orders, and had covered forty miles of country. Of those for whom search was made, only two were apprehended, and that because they refused to take the same precautions as the rest for their safety. ‘The other two Bailies were fled, and their wives lying above the clothes in the bed, and great candles lighted, waiting for the coming of the party, and told them they knew of their coming, and had as good intelligence as they themselves; and that if the other two were seized on, it was their own faults, that would not contribute for intelligence.’

Claverhouse’s complaints produced but slight effect, though they were repeated until he grew weary of making them. Failing to obtain satisfaction, he bluntly declared that he would never solicit more, but that, if the King’s service suffered in consequence, he would let the blame lie where it should.

About this time, however, an important measure, and one which brought down upon him the jealous displeasure of the Marquis of Queensberry, who resented it as an infringement of his rights, was adopted in Claverhouse’s favour. Even if all the magistrates in the disaffected districts had been men of unimpeachable loyalty to the Government, the necessity for obtaining their co-operation would frequently have hampered and delayed the military authorities. But many of them were soon discovered to be lukewarm partisans at best; whilst not a few, if they did not openly side with the conventiclers, aided and abetted them by a deliberate and studied inactivity. To remedy this, and to give Claverhouse freer hand, he was, in March 1679, appointed sheriff-depute of the shires of Dumfries and Wigtown, and also of the stewartries of Annandale and Kirkcudbright. Andrew Bruce of Earlshall, the lieutenant of his own troop of horse, was given him as a colleague. They were not, however, wholly to supersede the sheriffs previously in office, but only to sit with those judges or to supply them in their absence. Moreover, their powers were limited to putting the laws into execution only against withdrawers from the public ordinances, keepers of conventicles, and such as were guilty of disorderly baptisms and marriages, resetting and communing with fugitives, and intercommuned persons and vagrant preachers.

Claverhouse had not been long in the exercise of his twofold duties before he began to realise that his efforts were far from producing the desired results. Not only were conventicles as numerous as before, but there were also signs which convinced him that passive resistance was not all he would soon have to encounter. In a despatch which he wrote from Dumfries on the 21st of April 1679, he informed the Earl of Linlithgow that Mr Welsh was accustoming both ends of the country to face the King’s force, and certainly intended to break out into an open rebellion. In view of this, he pointed out that the arms of the militia in Dumfriesshire as well as in Wigtownshire and Annandale, were in the hands of the country people, though very disaffected; and that those taken from the stewartry were in the custody of the town of Kirkcudbright, the most irregular place in the kingdom. He consequently suggested that they should be entrusted to his keeping, and also that his own men should be provided with more suitable weapons, those which they had got from the Castle being worth nothing.

A few days later, Lord Ross, writing from Lanark, conveyed a similar warning. He could learn nothing, he said, but of an inclination to rise, although there were none yet actually in arms. This was on the 2nd of May. On the 5th he forwarded another despatch in which he had to report an encounter between a small party of troopers and some peasants of the district. The soldiers had been sent out to apprehend a man who was reported to have in his possession some of the ‘new-fashioned arms,’ that is, halberts which were provided with a cleek, or crooked knife, for the purpose of cutting the dragoons’ bridles, and of which the manufacture was in itself an indication of what was intended. After seizing the young fellow, who did not deny that he had been enlisted as one of those who were to defend the conventicles in arms, the troopers, instead of returning with their prisoner stabled their horses and fell a-drinking. Some of the neighbours, availing themselves of the opportunity, attacked them with forks, and the like, and wounded one of them ‘very desperately ill.’

The next day Claverhouse also forwarded his report from Dumfries. It contained, in addition to an account of his own movements, the following comment on orders which he had just received, and which indicated that the Earl of Linlithgow was also alive to the dangers of the situation: —

‘My Lord, I have received an order yesterday from your Lordship, which I do not know how to go about on a sudden, as your Lordship seems to expect. For I know not what hand to turn to, to find those parties that are in arms. I shall send out to all quarters, and establish spies; and shall endeavour to engage them Sunday next, if it be possible. And if I get them not here, I shall go and visit them in Teviotdale or Carrick; where they say, they dare look honest men in the face.’

On the 3rd of May, a few days before Lord Ross and Claverhouse drew up their respective reports, there had happened an event which was destined to bring matters to an immediate crisis, and which proved the signal for another, and a far more serious rising than that of 1666. James Sharp, Archbishop of St Andrews and Primate of Scotland, was murdered on Magus Muir, by a party of Covenanters.

Of this terrible tragedy, each side has its own account. On the one hand, there is that which is based on the narrative subsequently drawn up by Russell, one of the leading actors in it. According to this version, no premeditation existed on the part of the nine men concerned. They were in search of William Carmichael, the Sheriff-depute of Fifeshire, a man who had made himself obnoxious by the unrelenting severity which he displayed in carrying out the laws against the Covenanters. Having missed him, they were about to separate, when information was brought them that Sharp’s carriage was approaching. Interpreting this into ‘a clear call from God to fall upon him,’ they there and then resolved ‘to execute the justice of God upon him for the innocent blood he had shed.’

But if the Archbishop’s murder was not determined upon until the actual moment when circumstances cast him into the hands of his enemies, Russell’s account shows that it had been discussed a short time prior to its perpetration. He states that, on the 11th of April, a meeting was held to consider what course should be taken with Carmichael to scare him from his cruel courses; that it was decided to fall upon him at St Andrews; and that when ‘some objected, what if he should be in the prelate’s house, what should be done in such a case, all present judged duty to hang both over the post, especially the Bishop, it being by many of the Lord’s people and ministers judged a duty long since, not to suffer such a person to live, who had shed and was shedding so much of the blood of the saints, and knowing that other worthy Christians had used means to get him upon the road before.’ He further represents himself as urging the murder of Sharp, in the course of the hurried consultation held as the primate’s carriage was approaching, on the ground that ‘he had before been at several meetings with several godly men in other places of the kingdom, who not only judged it their duty to take that wretch’s life, and some others, but had essayed it twice before.’

Whilst it would appear from this account that no definite plan had been formed, to be carried out on the 3rd of May, though some of the more desperate of the Covenanters had come to a general understanding not to neglect any favourable opportunity ‘to execute the justice of God’ upon the wretch whom the Lord delivered into their hands, the other version, accepting the official narrative published immediately after the murder, asserts a distinct and premeditated purpose on the part of the assassins. It founds this on the ‘informations’ which were sent from St Andrews to the Privy Council, and which purported to embody the evidence of persons alleged to have been in communication with the men who perpetrated the crime.

In these it was stated that his Grace was waylaid by divers parties and could not escape, whether he went straight to St Andrews or repaired to his house at Scotscraig; that three days before the murder, several of those concerned in it met in Magask, at the house of John Miller, one of the witnesses, where they concerted the business; that the next night they put up with Robert Black, another witness, whose wife was a great instigator of the deed; that at parting, when one of them kissed her, the woman prayed that God might bless and prosper them, adding, ‘if long Leslie’ – the episcopalian minister of Ceres – ‘be with him, lay him on the green also,’ to which the favoured individual whom she more particularly addressed, holding up his hand, answered, ‘this is the hand that shall do it’; and that further, on the morning of the 3rd of May, the nine men followed the coach for a considerable distance, intending to attack it, first on the heath to the south of Ceres, and then at the double dykes of Magask, though owing to various circumstances, duly detailed, they did not get what seemed an available opportunity of doing so until it reached Magus Muir.

Standing thus, the question of premeditation gave rise to a long and acrimonious controversy in which recriminations and invectives were freely bandied, and which, being characterised, on either side, rather by a determination to uphold a preconceived opinion than by a desire to arrive at the plain truth, naturally led to no satisfactory conclusion.