One of
them, he said, was a lusty black man with one eye, and the other was a
good-like man, and wore a grey hat. The first had on a velvet cap. But
before he (Colonel Buchan) could come near the place, a party of foot,
that he had sent to march on his right, fell accidentally on them. Four
of our soldiers going before to discover, were fired on by seven that
started up out of a glen, and one of ours was wounded. They fired at the
rebels, who, seeing our party of foot making up, and the horse in sight,
took the alarm, and gained the hills, which was all moss." Claverhouse
to the Archbishop of Saint Andrews (Alexander Burnet), Paisley, June
16th, 1684.
[47] Claverhouse to the Archbishop, Paisley, June 16th, 1684.
[48] "Privy Council Register," Edinburgh, September 10th, 1684: Napier,
ii. 410.
CHAPTER VII.[49]
I propose now to examine, with more care than there has yet been
occasion for, those charges of wanton and illegal cruelty which have for
close upon two centuries formed the basis of the popular--I had almost
written the historical--conception of the character of Claverhouse. I
have used the words "illegal cruelty" because Claverhouse is not only
commonly believed to have far surpassed all his contemporaries in his
treatment of the Scottish Covenanters, but to have even gone beyond the
sanction of a law little disposed to be illiberal in such matters.
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