Claverhouse.

WHEN We consider how important a part he played at a most momentous period in the history of the British nation, it is curious how little is really known of the man whom posterity has agreed to execrate as Claverhouse or to worship as Dundee. Among all the names that figure prominently in the annals of those unhappy times, we question if there are any of equal prominence concerning which we have less certain knowledge, or whose memory has perhaps suffered more severely from misrepresentation. It is not only that amid the undigested mass of conflicting evidence, distorted by party spirit, and coloured, even in our own time, by the varying hues of political prejudice, we find it almost impossible to pronounce what manner of man he really was, but of even a bare record of facts we are, through a considerable portion of his career, if not altogether ignorant, at least ignorant how much we should believe and how much we should reject. Nor is it easy to determine from whom he has suffered most, from his enemies or from his friends, from the Whigs or from the Tories. The former have drawn him as a devil, "to be boiled in the crimson pool of Bulicame," profane, bloody, and rapacious; with a forehead of brass, and a heart of adamant; destitute of the commonest attributes of humanity, and possessed of but one solitary virtue-the virtue of courage, a virtue shared alike with the lowest and most ruffianly of the brawling troopers he commanded, and with the humblest and most abject of the wretched fanatics he butchered. The latter have drawn him as an angelan angel bearing, indeed, a sword in his hand, and commissioned to slay and spare not, yet so bearing himself that without betraying his commission he not only never slew where it was possible to spare, but sometimes even spared where it had been better to slay.

Among the former the illustrious name of Macaulay is the most conspicuous; among the latter the most energetic and the most injudicious is the author of a 'Life of Dundee' published at Edinburgh in 1859-62.

That Macaulay has done less than justice to the memory of one who, whatever his faults may have been, was at least a gallant soldier and a loyal adherent to an erring and unfortunate master, is clear to all who care to examine the question for themselves. Nor is it less clear that those who have taken it upon themselves to refute Macaulay have erred, some in a greater, some in a less degree, in the

opposite extreme.

That Dundee was not the cold-blooded and profane butcher Macaulay, and writers before Macaulay, have represented him, is certain; that he committed some of the acts laid to his charge is far from certain; that he committed any of them in the brutal and deliberate fashion imputed to him is in the highest degree improbable. But that he was not that pattern of mercy and gentleness his partisans assert him to have been, no reasonable person can doubt. Had he been such he would have been unfit to hold for a single day the important command with which he was entrusted. Desperate evils require desperate remedies, and the evil threatening the English government in Scotland in 1685 was very desperate indeed. If that evil was to be crushed it is certain that only a strong arm and a strong will could have crushed it. We may be sure that the government of James were careful to select the best instruments for their work, and the fact that Claverhouse was one of the instruments selected is a tolerably good proof of his fitness for that work. The Covenanters were not the men to be ruled by kindness, or to be led gently by force of argument from their hill-sides and meetinghouses to submit themselves to a king of whose mercy they had already had a taste, and whose word they had but too good reason to distrust. They had swords and pistols as well as Claverhouse and his troopers, and on occasion could use them as sternly. To the history of the dark and terrible years of suffering which made those men what they were we need not turn. The evil was done before Claverhouse appeared on the scene. The worm had turned before John Brown was shot, or Margaret Wilson drowned. The king of England reaped what the vicegerent of Scotland had sown. would perhaps be too much to say that in ferocity, in bitter and inextinguishable hatred, even to the slaying of their enemies, there was in the last years but little to choose between the persecuted and the persecutors, but it is certain that had not Claverhouse owned an unflinching heart, a sharp sword, and a ready arm, it would have fared ill with him, and not a whit the better with James. The murderers of Archbishop Sharpe would scarcely have stayed their hands, had the captain of the King's Dragoons come in their way, because he had shown mercy to their brethren.

It

They may be lies,

The truth of the matter is that neither side can prove their case. All, or nearly all, the evidence that counsel either for or against the accused can bring forward rests upon tradition. The traditions may be true, but no one can prove them to be true. but no one can prove them to be lies. Some of Macaulay's statements, not unsupported by authority, but by authority such as no impartial historian would have accepted without reserve, can certainly be disproved. On the other hand, many of the counter-statements are

supported by absolutely no authority whatever, and backed by reasoning of much the same value as that on which Lucretia based her good opinion of Proteus. In the appendix to his noble lay on the death of Dundee, the late Professor Aytoun has traversed Macaulay's arguments with much ability, and more moderation than his great opponent was always inclined to display. In some instances he proves the latter's assertions to be contrary to fact; in others he offers very good reasons against accepting them without better authority than is quoted for them, and is often at least able to bring as good arguments against that authority as can be brought in support of it. But in others again he can produce no evidence at all on his side other than his own convictions, founded no less strongly and certainly on political prejudice than were sometimes those of Macaulay himself.

The author of the 'Life of Dundee' has indeed brought to light much new and valuable information, unknown to Macaulay, and, as it would seem, to any other who has dealt with the man and the time. But whenever he departs from the bare highway of fact, whenever he ceases to be a recorder, and assumes the office of the commentator, he is entitled to less consideration. If Macaulay is biassed by party feelings, he is even infuriated by them. There are indeed portions of his work which may almost be compared to the lampoons and pamphlets with which the lower class of Jacobites bespattered the person, the morals, and the government of William. The modern Jacobite is a little more decent in his language, but he is sometimes scarcely less ludicrous in his heat, and sometimes even more weak in his reasoning. Yet his book is stored with much useful information though presented in a cumbrous and ill-arranged form, and the writer deserves the credit of being the first to make this information public property. The Queensberry Archives, containing many of Claverhouse's own letters, and the letters of others associated with him in the conduct of affairs in Scotland, were practically unknown to the world till he received permission to unlock that valuable storehouse. Some most interesting though fragmentary researches into the same period of history by the late Mr. Sharpe of Hoddam, the intimate friend and associate of Sir Walter Scott, are also included in his volumes. His work therefore cannot but be of value to the student of those times; but care must be taken to separate the author's own contributions from the historical documents they do not always serve either to elucidate or adorn.

Such championship would do as little to clear Dundee's fame as to shake Macaulay's credibility, were it not supported by stronger evidence. Such evidence, however, is not wanting, and curiously enough it is supplied by Macaulay himself. Dolus latet in gener

alibus is a maxim of the law-courts, but it is a maxim that will not always hold good. It is undoubtedly the first duty of a historian to be accurate, but accuracy is not gained solely by the citing of authorities. General statements unsupported by authority are often unsatisfactory, but particular statements supported by insufficient authority are in the highest degree dangerous. The historian who commits this indiscretion supplies the materials for his own condemnation. Such an indiscretion Macaulay has in this particular instance committed. He has drawn an indictment against Dundee, as black and damning as any covenanting fanatic of the day could have employed to satisfy the conscience of the most scrupulous of his flock, and he has summoned witnesses to make good the plea. But his principal witness is of doubtful character. He has been examined and cross-examined severely, and he has not stood the test well. In some points he differs not only from the witnesses on the other side, but even from those of his own party. In others he can only prove that too free use has been made of his name. More dangerous testimony there could not be, for from such lips even the truth has a doubtful twang about it. There is so much in his evidence that is palpably false, that it is difficult to believe there can be any part of it that is true. What manner of person this witness was, and for what reasons his testimony is to be regarded with suspicion, we shall presently see. We now purpose briefly to trace Dundee's career through all its troubled and uncertain phases to its premature but brilliant close, and in so doing we shall have something to say about the person whose word posterity has been content to take for their estimate of a brave and able, if misguided, man.

It is of a piece with the mystery which surrounds Dundee that there is no record of his birth. In none of the memoirs of the time is any date mentioned, nor is any register known to exist. But from the report of a curious case in Fountainhall's Decisions of the Court of Session it seems tolerably clear that John Graham of Claverhouse was born in the year 1643, a cadet of the great house of Montrose, and connected, according to some authorities, with the blood royal of Scotland. His father was the grandson of Sir William Graham, the intimate friend of the great Montrose, and his mother was Lady Jean Carnegie, daughter of the Earl of Northesk.

Of the first thirty-three years of his life, and indeed before he was forty-eight that life closed, the record is barren indeed, nor is it, such as it is, in all points to be trusted. It is certain, however, that he was entered at the University of St. Andrews. The register bears witness that on February 13, 1665, John Graham, with his younger brother David, matriculated at St. Leonard's College, where some forty years before Montrose himself had studied. Here it is

probable he remained for three years, the usual time allotted to a course of philosophy, and there is every reason to believe that those years were well and wisely employed. Dr. Munro, principal of the college of Edinburgh, in his reply to the parliamentary commission issued in 1690 for the visitation of universities, colleges, and schools in Scotland, spoke bravely for the old St. Leonard's pupil at a time when it was dangerous to mention the name of Dundee with kindness. It was charged against Munro that he had rejoiced at the news of the victory of Killiecrankie, and he was bidden to answer the charge before the committee, August 29, 1690.

"The Libeller does not think," said the sturdy doctor, "that I rejoiced at the fall of my Lord Dundee ? I assure him of the contrary. For no gentleman, soldier, scholar, or civilised citizen will find fault with me for this. I had an extraordinary value for him, and such of his enemies as retain any generosity will acknowledge he deserved it."

These be "prave ords," and there is yet more pertinent testimony to the young student's abilities and diligence.

ness.

"He had made a considerable progress in the mathematics, especially in those parts of it that related to his military capacity, and there was no part of the belles lettres that he had not studied with great care and exactHe was much master in the epistolary way of writing, for he not only expressed himself with great ease and plainness, but argued well, and had a great art in giving his thoughts in a few words. To sum up his character in two words-he was a good Christian, an indulgent husband, an accomplished gentleman, an honest statesman, and a brave soldier; and as he had few equals among his countrymen in these first qualities, so he had no superior in the last."

This agreeable portrait is taken from an interesting and very curious source, the 'Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel,' printed at Edinburgh for the Abbotsford Club in 1842, and written probably about a century before. The author was John Drummond, of the family of Drummond of Bathaldy, in Stirlingshire, either the grandson or the great-grandson of Sir Ewan. Though without the value of a strictly contemporary work, these memoirs are evidently prepared from such genuine and direct sources that few historical records of that time are worthy of more respect. Macaulay himself has borne testimony to their worth, though nowhere is the character of Dundee presented in so distinct and amiable a light. But it is to be observed that though Macaulay has borrowed largely from their pages, he has borrowed nothing from them to the credit of Dundee. Yet a still more implacable enemy than Macaulay has not withheld a certain measure of praise from the man whom he does not hesitate to brand as "the Hell wicked-witted, bloodthirsty Graham of Claverhouse."