The delay with which Lady Graham found fault may, in its most recent phase at least, have been due to rumours and reports which had reached Menteith, to the effect that Claverhouse had spoken disparagingly of him to the Duke of Lauderdale; for the next letter in the correspondence contains an energetic, almost passionate denial of such conduct. The writer swears before Almighty God, and upon his salvation, that he has never given either a good or a bad character of the Earl to Lauderdale, and that he has not even mentioned his person or affairs to him; he declares himself ready to spend his blood in revenge of so base and cowardly an injury on the ‘infamous liar’ who has traduced him, and to whom he begs his letter may be shown. From Claverhouse’s special insistence on the fact that he had never cast a doubt on the Earl’s capacity for affairs, it may be presumed that this was one of the points with regard to which he was charged with having ‘said things.’ Another letter to the Earl, written on the same day, but as a distinct and more confidential communication, suggests a suspicion that Menteith had been very near committing disastrous blunders in his efforts to urge Claverhouse’s suit. In answer, doubtless, to Lady Isabella’s pointed letter, the Earl had written both to her and to her daughter, and had commissioned the suitor himself to deliver these communications to the ladies. Claverhouse, however, thought it wiser to refrain from doing so, for reasons which he thus explained:—

‘I have not dared to present them (the letters) because that in my Lady’s letter you wished us much joy, and that we might live happy together, which looked as if you thought it a thing as good as done. I am sure my Lady, of the humour I know her to be, would have gone mad that you should think a business that concerned her so nearly, concluded before it was ever proposed to her; and in the daughter’s you was pleased to tell her of my affections to her, and what I have suffered for her; this is very galant and obliging, but I am afraid they would have misconstrued it, and it might do me prejudice; and then in both, my Lord, you were pleased to take pains to show them almost clearly they had nothing to expect of you, and took from them all hopes which they had, by desiring them to require no more but your consent.’

The question of conditions and settlements being thus approached, Claverhouse hastens to affirm his own absolute disinterestedness. ‘I will assure you,’ he writes, ‘I need nothing to persuade me to take that young lady. I would take her in her smock.’ He is not sure, however, of such unselfish and generous treatment from the other side; and he consequently requests the Earl to hold out hopes to them, though without binding himself in any way. ‘When you say you give them your advice to the match,’ he writes, ‘tell them that they will not repent it, and that doing it at your desire, you will do us any kindness you can, and look on us as persons under your protection, and endeavour to see us thrive—which obliges you to nothing, and yet encourages them.’

This plain suggestion of a course which it would tax a casuist’s ingenuity to distinguish from double-dealing and deception, is hardly creditable to Claverhouse under any circumstances. For his sake it may be hoped that the excuse for it lay in the fact that by this time he had really fallen in love, and was, as he said, anxious to win the young lady for her own sake. If such were not the case, there would be an almost repulsive insincerity in his closing appeal, ‘For the love of God write kindly of me to them. By getting me that young lady you make me happy.’

Two months later negotiations were still dragging on—they had now extended, from first to last, through fully three years, from the end of 1678 to the end of 1681. On the 11th of December, Claverhouse again appealed to the Earl to come to some settlement of his affairs, either one way or the other, for, in the meantime, his own age was slipping away, and he was losing other occasions, as he supposed the young lady also was doing. The Grahams, he feared, had gone back to Ireland; and, if it were so, he proposed to invite them to come over to his house in Galloway. But it would be necessary to offer something definite to induce them to do so, for, ‘my Lady Graham was a very cunning woman, and certainly would write back that she would be unwilling to come so far upon uncertainties.’ He therefore further suggested that the Earl should communicate directly with her Ladyship. That ‘they would take it much more kindly, and be far the readier to comply’ was the reason urged for this. But another was hinted. Claverhouse was ashamed to write, not knowing what to say, seeing that after all he had promised on Menteith’s behalf, his Lordship had not yet come to a final decision.

Claverhouse’s letter does not appear to have produced any effect. As late as the beginning of March 1682, matters were still in the same unsettled and unsatisfactory state. The Earl had not yet resolved on any decisive action, and was doubtless endeavouring to make a bargain as favourable as possible to himself, when he received a short but urgent letter from Claverhouse. It asked for an early meeting, and indicated the reason for it in these words: ‘I have had one in Ireland whom I shall bring along with me, and you shall know all. Send nobody to Ireland; but take no new measures till I can see you.’

There are no letters from Claverhouse relative to subsequent negotiations. It appears from other documents, however, that Sir James Graham had come to believe in the existence of a plot between the two suitors, to get the better of both him and the Earl. Everything, he declared, had been contrived by the hand of Claverhouse; and it was his ambitious desire to make himself the head of their ancient family that had brought them all the trouble of my Lord Montrose’s business. There was, he asserted, an agreement that Montrose should use his interest with the Earl for a settlement of his honours and estates upon Claverhouse, who, on his side, had bound himself to make over the estates privately to Montrose. The letter setting all this forth in tones of the bitterest resentment was written from Drogheda in March 1683. Before that, however, Lady Helen had made further matrimonial arrangements impossible. She had married Captain Rawdon, son of Sir George Rawdon, and nephew, as well as heir apparent to the Earl of Conway. And so an Irish gentleman, who was possibly no myth when Montrose wrote about him four years earlier, carried away the lady.

V
MATTERS CIVIL, MILITARY AND MATRIMONIAL

The letters which enable us to trace the course of Claverhouse’s matrimonial negotiations are also the documents upon which we have mainly to depend for our knowledge of his movements during the period immediately subsequent to the ‘circuit’ which he made in the south-western counties after the Battle of Bothwell Bridge. From these we learn that he was in London during the summer of 1680; and a letter from Charles Maitland of Hatton to Queensberry, suggests a probable motive for the journey to town. ‘Claverhouse’s commission as to the rebels’ goods,’ he wrote, ‘is recalled by the Council; so your man will have room for his payment; that ye need not fear.’ This measure, with which, to judge from the tenor of Maitland’s remarks, Queensberry was not improbably connected, appears to have followed upon a charge of misappropriation of public monies, brought against Claverhouse by the Treasurer, and intended to supply an excuse for preventing him from entering into possession of the forfeited estate of Patrick Macdowall of Freugh, bestowed upon him by royal grant in consideration of ‘his good and faithful services.’ It is warrantable to suppose that the immediate object of his journey to London was to appeal from the Council’s decision to the King himself. In any case, there is evidence that he availed himself of his stay in the English capital to bring the matter before his sovereign, and to plead his cause in person. The result may be gathered from a letter addressed by Charles to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, on the 26th of February 1681. ‘As to what you have represented concerning Claverhouse, particularly in reference to the commission granted by you unto him for uplifting and sequestrating not only the rents, duties, and movables belonging to Freugh, but of all the rebels in Wigtownshire who have been in the rebellion, whereof you say he hath made no account yet, we have spoke to him about it, and he doth positively assert, that, while he was in Scotland, he received not one farthing upon that account, and that if anything have since been recovered by those whom in his absence he hath entrusted with the execution of that commission, he believes it to be so inconsiderable as it will not much exceed the charges that must necessarily be laid out in that affair. However, we do expect that he will meet with no worse usage from you, upon that occasion than others to whom you have granted the like commissions.’ The letter also conveyed his Majesty’s ‘express pleasure’ that the Commissioners should remove the stop that was put upon the gift of forfeiture, and should cause the same to be passed in the Exchequer at their very next meeting.