Some
reason has, I trust, been already shown for at least reconsidering the
popular verdict. But as we are now approaching that period of his life
when, for a time all too short for his own reputation, Claverhouse at
last found free play for those eminent abilities which none have denied
him, it will be well, before passing into this larger field, to be
finally rid of a most tiresome and distasteful duty. The controversial
element is, I fear, inseparable from this part of the subject, but I
shall endeavour to do with as little of it as possible.
Although the significant title of "the Killing Time" seems to have been
occasionally used in Scotland during the subsequent century to cover the
whole period from Lauderdale's administration to the Revolution, yet the
phrase was originally and more properly applied to the years of James's
reign alone. The most notorious of the acts attributed to Claverhouse
were, as a fact, committed within that time; but it will be more
convenient not to adhere too rigidly to chronological sequence, and to
take the charges rather in order of their notoriety and of the
importance of those who have assumed them to be true. Following this
order, the two first on the list will naturally be the death, by
Claverhouse's own hand, of John Brown, and the deaths, by drowning on
the sands of Solway Firth, of the two women, Margaret Maclachlan and
Margaret Wilson--popularly known as the Wigtown Martyrs.
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