Did I not mount you on my vigorous steed,
And save your person by his fatal speed?’
Until recently, Philips’ poem existed in manuscript only. That circumstance consequently gives the value of distinct contemporary evidence to another effusion, of which the author cannot be suspected of having drawn from the ‘Grameis’ his allusion, unfortunately only a vague one, to the exploits of Claverhouse whilst serving under the Prince of Orange. Moreover, it was as early as January 1683, that is several years before the occurrence of the leading events celebrated in the ‘Grameis,’ that the anonymous rhymer published ‘The Muse’s New Year’s Gift, and Hansell, to the right honoured Captain John Graham of Claverhouse.’ In that poem the following lines are to be found:—
‘I saw the man who at St Neff did see
His conduct, prowess, martial gallantry:
He wore a white plumach that day; not one
Of Belgians wore a white, but him alone;
And though that day was fatal, yet he fought,
And for his part fair triumphs with him brought.’
Once, at least, during the period of his military service under the Dutch, Claverhouse returned to Scotland. He was in Edinburgh in March 1676. From there he wrote two letters to John Stewart, younger of Garntully, about the purchase of a horse and the gift of a ‘setting dogue.’ By the beginning of the following month he had again left the country; for, in a letter written by his directions after his hurried departure, and dated the 4th of April, the hope is expressed that ‘this day hie is in Holland.’ He was not to continue in the pay of the States-General much longer. The very next year he resigned his commission, and came home to solicit employment in the British Army. To account for this apparently sudden determination, the author of the Memoirs of Lochiel relates a highly dramatic incident, for which, it must be added, there is no authority but his own, and of which the details are not such as to command unhesitating belief. After having given his account of William’s rescue by Claverhouse, at Seneff, the chronicler continues:—