It is not certain that Macaulay
believed the Graham who sat in judgment on these women to have been John
Graham of Claverhouse. But it is certain that the effect of his
narrative has been, in the minds of most English-speaking men, to add
this also to the long list of mythical crimes which have blackened the
memory of the hero of Killiecrankie.[53]
But over the other affair there rests no shadow of doubt. That
Claverhouse, and he alone, is responsible for the death of John Brown
stands on the very best authority, for it stands on his own. It is not,
indeed, certain that he shot the man with his own hand. This is Wodrow's
story, and as usual he gives no authority for it. "With some
difficulty," he writes,
"he was allowed to pray, which he did with the greatest
liberty and melting, and withal in such suitable and
scriptural expressions, and in a peculiar judicious style,
he having great measures of the gift as well as the grace of
prayer, that the soldiers were affected and astonished; yea,
which is yet more singular, such convictions were left in
their bosoms that, as my informations bear, not one of them
would shoot him or obey Claverhouse's commands, so that he
was forced to turn executioner himself, and in a fret shot
him with his own hand, before his own door, his wife with a
young infant standing by, and she very near the time of her
delivery of another child.
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