Viscount Dundee

by Louis A. Barbé

In the volume entitled ‘A Cloud of Witnesses for the Royal Prerogatives of Jesus Christ,’ there is a section specially devoted to an enumeration of those ‘who were killed in the open fields, without trial, conviction, or any process of law, by the executioners of the Council’s murdering edict.’ On the authority of ‘A Short Memorial of the Sufferings and Grievances of the Presbyterians in Scotland,’ printed in the year 1690, it is there stated that Claverhouse coming to Galloway, in answer to the Viscount of Kenmure’s letter, with a small party, surprised Robert Stewart, John Grier, Robert Ferguson, and James MacMichael, and instantly shot them dead at the water of Dee. It is added that their corpses having been buried, were, at his command, raised again.

The same incident is reported by De Foe, with the addition of certain details that enhance its atrocity. In his summary of the cold-blooded cruelties perpetrated by the most furious persecutor of the ‘poor people,’ he has the following entry: ‘Four more men who were betray’d to him, being hid in a house at the water of Dee, and were at the time his men came praying together; he caused them to be dragged just to the door, and shot them dead as they came out, without any enquiry whether they were the persons that he came to apprehend; their being found praying to God was, it seems, sufficient testimony of their party and offence; after this, coming to the same place, at two or three days’ distance, and understanding the people of the town had buried the bodies, he caused his men to dig them up again, and commanded that they should lye in the fields: the names of these four were John Grier, Robert Ferguson, Archibald Stewart, and Robert Stewart.’

It will be noticed that the name of Archibald Stewart figures in this list instead of that of James MacMichael. Whether accidental or intentional the substitution is of considerable importance, as the sequel will show.

Without any intention of palliating the conduct of Claverhouse, Wodrow helps to place it in a different light. ‘Let me add,’ he says, ‘that December 18th, Claverhouse when ranging up and down Galloway, with a troop, came to the water of Dee; and at Auchinloy, came upon some of the people, who were lurking and hiding, unexpectedly, and surprised six of them together; for what I can find, they had no arms. According to the instructions lately given by the Council, he shot four of them upon the spot in a very few minutes, Robert Ferguson and James MacMichan from Nithsdale, and Robert Stewart and John Grier, Galloway men; afterwards their friends carried off their bodies to Dalry and buried them. Some accounts before me say that by orders from Claverhouse, a party came and uncovered their graves and coffins, and they continued so open four days till the party went off. And it appears certain, that James MacMichan’s body, after it was buried, was taken up and hung up on a tree. This was strange barbarity and spite. The other two, Robert Smith in Glencairn parish, and Robert Hunter, Claverhouse carried with him to Kirkcudbright, and called an assize, and made a form of judging them, and caused execute them there. They would not permit these two to write anything, not so much as letters to their relations. There were two more in the company who escaped and happy it was for them it was so, for probably they would have gone the same way.’

Wodrow admits that ‘it may be the rescue of some prisoners of Kirkcudbright by some of the wanderers a little before this, was the pretext for all this cruelty.’ But he says no word from which it can be gathered that the party which broke open the Tolbooth of Kirkcudbright could reasonably be suspected of including some of the men who murdered Peirson. He gives no hint of his knowledge that it was whilst pursuing these rioters that Claverhouse came upon the Deeside fugitives; and it almost seems as though, by a slight change of name, he wished to conceal the fact that the James Macmichan, whose body was treated with such ‘strange barbarity and spite,’ was no other than the James Macmichael whom he himself names as the actual murderer of Peirson.

The information which he failed to supply may be got from Fountainhall, who, in his ‘Historical Notices,’ under date of the 20th of December, announces the receipt of letters from Claverhouse, reporting that he had met with a party of the rebels, who had skulked, that he had followed them, killed five, and taken three prisoners, some of whom were the murderers of the minister of Carsphairn, and that he was to judge and execute the three prisoners by his justiciary powers.

Such is the origin and development of one of those ‘atrocities’ to which Claverhouse owes the opprobrious epithet of ‘bloody.’

For an impartial judgment of the extent of Claverhouse’s personal connection with some of the incidents of this particular period, it must be remembered that early in the year Colonel Douglas was appointed on special duty against the ‘Western fanatics.’ In addition to this, on the 27th of March, the judicial powers previously held by Claverhouse were also conferred on Douglas, as Justice in all the southern and western shires. The instructions given him by the Privy Council contained a special clause referring to the treatment of women that might be brought before him or any of the members of his Commission. Only such as had been active in a signal manner in treasonable courses were to be examined; and those if found guilty, were to be drowned.

It was in accordance with this provision that Margaret Maclachlan and Margaret Wilson were condemned to death. Whether the sentence was actually carried out, or whether the account of their drowning on the sands of the Solway Firth given by Wodrow and repeated by Macaulay be wholly apocryphal, as Napier maintained, is a question into which it is not necessary to enter, though the difficulty of believing that so circumstantial a narrative can be a mere Covenanting fiction may readily be admitted. But it is not unimportant to point out that Claverhouse was neither directly nor indirectly concerned either in the trial, the sentence, or the execution, and that, though still nominally a Privy Councillor when Douglas superseded him, he was absent from the meeting at which his rival was appointed Justice, and at which the drowning of women was ordered.

From the command of his own regiment, Claverhouse had not been removed. In the discharge of the duties which this position laid on him, he was brought into immediate connection with another incident which is commonly adduced as illustrative of the atrocities committed during the ‘killing time,’ but of which the real nature, terrible at best, it cannot be denied, is materially affected by the truth or the falseness of the details which have found their way into some accounts of the event. Claverhouse’s report of the occurrence is contained in the following despatch forwarded to Queensberry from Galston on the 3rd of May 1685.