When the brief campaign had closed at Bothwell Bridge, and,
worst fortune for him, affairs had resumed their original complexion, he
went back to his old position.
It will be necessary, then, to supply this gap in Claverhouse's
correspondence by a brief review of the state of things from the battle
of Drumclog to the date of his new commission.
The garrison of Glasgow had, as we have seen, joined Linlithgow at
Stirling. There they lay for a day or two till orders were received from
the Council for the whole army, which only numbered about eighteen
hundred men in all, to fall back on Edinburgh. In the capital the
greatest consternation reigned. The first proceeding of the Council was
to proclaim the rising "an open, manifest, and horrid rebellion," and
all the insurgents were summoned to surrender at discretion as
"desperate and incorrigible traitors." Having thus satisfied their
diplomatic consciences they wisely proceeded to more practical measures.
The militia was called out, horse and foot, in all the Lowlands, save in
the disaffected shires. For those north of the Forth the rendezvous was
at Stirling, for those south on the links of Leith. Each man was to
bring provisions with him for ten days. The magistrates were ordered to
remove all the powder and other munitions of war they could find in the
city to the Castle.
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