John Howie, an
Ayrshire peasant and a Cameronian of the strictest sect, who was not
born till fourteen years after Wodrow had published his history, has
given Lag a particular place in the Index Expurgatorius of his "Heroes
for the Faith." There we may read how this "prime hero for the promoting
of Satan's kingdom" would, "with the rest of his boon companions and
persecutors, feign themselves devils, and those whom they supposed in
hell, and then whip one another, as a jest upon that place of torment."
Claverhouse, as has been already shown, was himself singularly averse to
all rioting and drunkenness, as well as to profane amusements of every
kind; and, as he was indisputably one of the sternest disciplinarians
who ever took or gave orders, it is unlikely that he would have
countenanced any such unseemly revels in the men under his command, with
whom, moreover, he was in these years thrown into unusually close
personal contact. But, in truth, the story, so far as he is concerned,
is too foolish to need any solemn refutation. It has been only examined
at this length as furnishing a signal instance of the recklessness with
which the misdeeds of others have been fathered on him.[19]
The work Claverhouse now found to do must have been singularly
distasteful to one who had seen war on a great scale under such captains
as William and Conde.
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