Viscount Dundee

by Louis A. Barbé

His kinsman death avenged should be.

Russell, too, states that Graham was killed, and refers to the mutilation of the lifeless body, though he accounts for it in a very remarkable way. The passage is as follows: ‘One Graham, that same morning in Strevan his dog was leaping upon him for meat, and he said he would give him none, but he should fill himself of the Whig’s blood and flesh by night; but instead of that, his dog was seen eating his own thrapple (for he was killed), by several; and particularly James Russell after the pursuit, coming back to his dear friend James Dungel, who was severely wounded, asked at some women and men who it was; they told that it was that Graham, and afterwards they got certain word what he said to his dog in Strevan.’

In the face of such evidence, it is hardly possible to deny the actual fact of Graham’s death. Neither can it be looked upon as probable that his kinsman had no knowledge of it when he wrote his despatch. If, therefore, Claverhouse really did omit to report it amongst the other casualties, his silence is difficult to understand. But, it must be pointed out that the whole question may, after all, resolve itself into one of punctuation. The insertion of a single comma makes three persons of ‘the Cornet, Mr Crafford and Captain Bleith.’ A matter so utterly trifling in itself would not be deserving of notice if some of Claverhouse’s irrational detractors, no less than some of his irrational apologists, had not magnified it out of all proportion.

Throughout the engagement Claverhouse made himself conspicuous by his courage, and was exposed to special danger because of the attention which he attracted. One of the Covenanters, a Strathaven man, was subsequently wont to relate that he had concealed himself behind a hillock and fired eight shots at the leader of the royal troops; and it may be assumed that, in those days, want of skill on the part of the marksman was not considered the cause of his failure. It is also stated by De Foe, that William Cleland, who, in later years distinguished himself as a soldier and rose to be Lieutenant-Colonel of the Cameronian regiment, actually succeeded in catching hold of Claverhouse’s bridle, and that the latter had a narrow escape of being taken prisoner. Thanks to his coolness and presence of mind no less than to his good fortune, he left the field unscathed, but only when the discomfiture of his men had become so complete as to render any effort to rally them wholly hopeless. Like them, he galloped back to Strathaven; and local tradition still points out the spot where he shot down one of the townsmen who endeavoured to stay him in his flight. Some accounts relate that on his road he had to pass the house where the outlawed minister King had been left under guard, when the soldiers set out for Drumclog, and that, as he did so, his prisoner of the morning ironically invited him to remain for the afternoon sermon.

Before the engagement, Hamilton, who had assumed the command of the Covenanters, gave out the word that no quarter should be given. In spite of this, five out of seven men who had been captured, were granted their lives and allowed to depart. ‘This,’ writes a contemporary, ‘greatly grieved Mr Hamilton, when he saw some of Babel’s brats spared, after that the Lord had delivered them into their hands, that they might dash them against the stones.’ When he returned from the pursuit of the routed royalists, a discussion had arisen as to the fate of the two remaining prisoners. Hamilton settled it, in so far at least as one of them was concerned, by killing him on the spot. ‘None could blame me,’ he wrote in a letter of justification published five or six years later, ‘to decide the controversy; and I bless the Lord for it to this day.’

Wodrow gives it as ‘the opinion of not a few,’ that if the ‘country men’ had pushed their success, followed their chase, and gone straight to Glasgow that day, they might easily, with the help of the reinforcements that would have come to them on the road, as soon as their success became known, have driven out the garrison, ‘and very soon made a great appearance.’

Without entering into a futile discussion as to what might have happened, it may be pointed out that the actual circumstances of the case scarcely justify so sanguine a view. When Claverhouse and his troopers rode back to Glasgow, they had no certainty that, in the flush of victory, the Covenanters would not continue the pursuit right up to the city, and endeavour to take the fullest advantage of their success. Indeed, the conduct of the royalist officers rather seems to imply that they recognised the possibility of such a course on the part of the enemy, for they caused half the men to stand to their arms all night. If, therefore, the few horsemen on the Covenanting side, who alone could possibly perform the distance of nearly thirty miles before dusk, even on a long June day, had ventured on an attack, it may be believed that they would have met with a reception calculated to make them regret their rashness.

There is no occasion to assume that any reason but that dictated by common prudence induced the foremost of the pursuers to halt at a considerable distance from Glasgow, in order to await the coming of the unmounted men, with such recruits as they might have been able to gather on the way. Statements differ as to the precise place where the greater number of them determined to stay for the night; but Wodrow is probably accurate in saying that they did not press further forward than Hamilton, and that it was from that town they resumed their march on the morrow.

In the meantime Lord Ross and his officers, Major White and Captain Graham, had not been idle. With carts, timber, and such other materials as could be hastily requisitioned, they erected four barricades in the centre of the city, and posted their men behind them to await the expected onset. At daybreak next morning, Creichton, with six dragoons, was sent out to take up his station at a small house which commanded a view of the two approaches to Glasgow, so that he might at once be able to report which of them the Covenanters decided to take. About ten o’clock he saw them advance to the place which he had been instructed to watch, and there, by a most injudicious manœuvre, divide themselves into two bodies. Of these, one, under Hamilton, marched towards the Gallowgate; whilst the other took a more circuitous road ‘by the Wyndhead and College.’ There may have been a vague intention of taking the military between two fires, but the movements were ill concerted, and resulted in two disjointed attacks, which were both easily repulsed.

As Creichton returned to inform Claverhouse of the enemy’s dispositions, he was followed close to the heels by that detachment which was making for the Gallowgate bridge. When they reached the barricade which had been raised on that side, they were received by Claverhouse and his men with a volley which killed several, and threw the remainder into confusion. The soldiers following up this first advantage, and jumping over the carts that formed the obstruction, then charged the wavering Covenanters, and drove them out of the town. They had time to do this and to return to their original position before those of the ‘country men,’ who had marched round by the north, came down by the High Church and the College. These were allowed to come within pistol shot; and when the soldiers fired into them at such close range, it was with the same effect as before.