Comparatively few fell at the
bridge, but four or five hundred are said to have fallen, "murdered up
and down the fields," says Wodrow, "wherever the soldiers met them,
without mercy." Mercy was not a conspicuous quality of the soldiery of
those days; and the discovery of a huge gallows in the insurgents' camp,
with a cartload of new ropes at the foot, was not likely to stay the
hands of men who knew well enough that had the fortune of war been
different those ropes would have been round their necks without any
mercy. But it is clear that Monmouth was able to save many. When Dalziel
arrived next day in camp and learned how things had gone, he rebuked
the Duke to his face for betraying his command. "Had I come a day
sooner," he said, "these rogues should never have troubled his majesty
or the kingdom any more."[33]
There is no authority for attributing to Claverhouse himself any
particular ferocity. We may be pretty sure that the Covenanting
chroniclers would not have refrained from another fling at their
favourite scapegoat could they have found a stone to their hand; but as
a matter of fact, in no account of the battle is he mentioned, save by
name only, as having been present with his troop in Monmouth's army. The
fiery and vindictive part assigned to him by Scott rests on the
authority of the most amazing tissue of absurdities ever woven out of
the inventive fancy of a ballad-monger.
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