FOOTNOTES:[25]"General Macdonald, who has come forward with so muchéclatas commander of a French column, is the descendant of a Mr. Macdonald of Argyleshire. His uncle is Mr. Macdonald of Kinlochmoidart. He preserves his clannish affections, and in the campaign of Pichegreu in Flanders and Holland, having command of a brigade which had to press on a British brigade, where he discovered anamesake, he supplied his countryman during the memorable retreat with every comfort which a camp could afford."—Edinburgh Herald, 10th January, 1799.[26]General Sarrazen saysfifteenthousand (?)[27]Bourienne.[28]Bourienne.[29]"The sabre I recognised at once; only since I had last seen it, the following words had been engraved on the blade:—Sabre worn by the Emperor on the day of the battle of Mount Tabor."—Bourienne, vol. iv.[30]Biographie Universelle, &c.
FOOTNOTES:
[25]"General Macdonald, who has come forward with so muchéclatas commander of a French column, is the descendant of a Mr. Macdonald of Argyleshire. His uncle is Mr. Macdonald of Kinlochmoidart. He preserves his clannish affections, and in the campaign of Pichegreu in Flanders and Holland, having command of a brigade which had to press on a British brigade, where he discovered anamesake, he supplied his countryman during the memorable retreat with every comfort which a camp could afford."—Edinburgh Herald, 10th January, 1799.
[25]"General Macdonald, who has come forward with so muchéclatas commander of a French column, is the descendant of a Mr. Macdonald of Argyleshire. His uncle is Mr. Macdonald of Kinlochmoidart. He preserves his clannish affections, and in the campaign of Pichegreu in Flanders and Holland, having command of a brigade which had to press on a British brigade, where he discovered anamesake, he supplied his countryman during the memorable retreat with every comfort which a camp could afford."—Edinburgh Herald, 10th January, 1799.
[26]General Sarrazen saysfifteenthousand (?)
[26]General Sarrazen saysfifteenthousand (?)
[27]Bourienne.
[27]Bourienne.
[28]Bourienne.
[28]Bourienne.
[29]"The sabre I recognised at once; only since I had last seen it, the following words had been engraved on the blade:—Sabre worn by the Emperor on the day of the battle of Mount Tabor."—Bourienne, vol. iv.
[29]"The sabre I recognised at once; only since I had last seen it, the following words had been engraved on the blade:—Sabre worn by the Emperor on the day of the battle of Mount Tabor."—Bourienne, vol. iv.
[30]Biographie Universelle, &c.
[30]Biographie Universelle, &c.
Thomas Dalyell,
OF BINNS, GENERAL OF THE SCOTTISH ARMY, AND FIRST COLONEL OF THE SCOTS GREY DRAGOONS.
Inmy novel ofThe Scottish CavalierI have endeavoured to portray the character of this celebrated cavalier officer, with all that military sternness and ferocity of disposition which has generally been attributed to him, but chiefly by his enemies, for the poor man seems never to have found a single friend among the many historians of the Covenant. Thus, notwithstanding his unwavering loyalty to the House of Stuart in the days of its declension, by his extreme severity when that House was in the zenith of its power, he became so unpopular in Scotland, that his memory is still execrated there. He is stigmatized as a "persecutor," as theBloody Dalyell, whose spirit is yet averred to haunt the fields where he routed or slew the children of the Covenant—who had sold himself to the devil; one who was shot-proof, and
"Whose form no darkening shadow tracedUpon the sunny wall;"
one who, when he spat, burned a hole in the earth; one in whose military boots water would boil, and whose spectre, habited in a buff coat and morion, wearing that voluminous white beard for which he was so remarkable, still haunts the house in which he was born and the tomb in which he lies.
Descended from an old baronial family, which was afterwards ennobled by the Earldom of Carnwath, and which acquired its estates about the end of the sixteenth century he was the son of Thomas Dalyell, of the Binns,in West Lothian, and of the Honourable Janet Bruce, a daughter of the first Lord Bruce of Kinloss, the eminent minister of James VI.—a peer whose skill in statecraft, in conjunction with the Earl of Mar, was of great service in securing James's peaceful accession to the English throne in 1603.
Thomas Dalyell, the younger, is said to have been born about the year 1599, during the reign of James VI. in Scotland, at his father's house of Binns, in the parish of Abercorn, Linlithgowshire. The ancient name is Dalyell; but thezhas since crept in, by the corruption of the letteryin old Scottish orthography, and hence the pronunciation of it so puzzling to an English tongue.
Dalyell is first heard of as an officer of those auxiliary Scottish troops sent to Ireland by their native Parliament, at the request of Charles I., to protect the Ulster colonists, and assist in repressing the rebellion under Sir Phelim O'Neil and Macguire, when the dreadful massacre of the English took place.
For this service the Parliament of Scotland levied eight battalions of infantry, of whom two thousand five hundred were Highlanders. Arms for three thousand men were offered to the Irish Protestants, and the castles of Craigmore and Carrickfergus, two small strongholds in the north of Ireland, were supplied with all requisite munitions of war from the magazines at Dumbarton.
The colonels of the eight Scottish regiments which mustered in November, 1641, were as follow:—
Archibald, Earl of Argyle, afterwards executed for treason in 1660.
Sir Duncan Campbell, of Auchinbreck, who was afterwards slain at the battle of Inverlochy.
Sir Mungo Campbell, of Lawers. These three had Highland battalions.
Alexander Lord Forbes, who had served the King of Sweden.
William, Earl of Lothian.
Alexander, Earl of Eglinton.
Lord Sinclair.
The Earl of Lindesay.
Major-General Sir David Leslie, of Pitcairly, was to command the whole. Argyle deputed the leading of his regiment to its lieutenant-colonel, James Wallace, of Auchans; Lord Sinclair's was led by his major, Sir James Turner, the celebrated military memorialist, and that of the Lord Lindesay was led by Major Borthwick.
Thomas Dalyell was an officer in these forces, but to which corps he was attached is not clearly known. He was with the first column of those auxiliaries which, under Major-General Munro—an officer who had long served with distinction in Germany, at the head of Lord Reay's Highlanders—embarked on the 2nd of April, 1642, for Ireland. He had with him three thousand infantry, six hundred cavalry, and a train of guns. Landing in the north of Ireland, he took possession of Carrickfergus, and in it placed a garrison under young Dalyell's command.
The second column sailed for Ireland on the 27th of July under Sir David Leslie, the same general who afterwards commanded the Scottish army at the battle of Dunbar, and for his services was raised to the peerage as Lord Newark.
At Carrickfergus Munro shot thirty Irish prisoners who were accused of committing outrages upon the Protestants. Local tradition has swelled this number tothree thousand, and adds that they were thrown over certain rocks named the Gobbins.
On the 28th and 29th of April Munro was joined at Carrickfergus by Lord Conway and Colonel Chichester, with eighteen hundred English infantry, five troops of horse, and two of dragoons; and in May he succeeded in effecting a junction with Sir Henry Tichbourne of Beaulieu, when their united forces mustered only two thousand horse and twelve thousand infantry. At this time the pay of an English colonel was 3l.a week; of a captain, 2l.; of a private, 3s.6d.In 1645 more troops were required in Scotland to oppose the Cavaliers on the one hand, and the Irish on the other; thus, on the 27th of February, the Scottish shires and boroughs mustered a great force, whose pay was 6s.Scots per day.
It is not improbable that Dalyell was at the battle of Benburb, a village of Tyrone, where, in the spring of 1646, General Munro was defeated by the Irish, and forced to retire, with the loss of three thousand four hundred and twenty-three slain; Lord Montgomerie, twenty-one other officers, a hundred and fifty privates, the Scottish artillery, twenty stand of colours, and fifteen hundred baggage and cavalry horses taken. "In vain did Lord Blaney take pike in hand, and stand in the ranks. Though exposed to the play of Munro's guns and musketry, the Irish infantry charged up hill without firing a shot. They met a gallant resistance; but Blaney and his men held their ground long, till the superior vivacity and freshness of the Irish clansmen bore him down."
In 1648 we still find Dalyell, then a colonel, in command at Carrickfergus, when that little fortress was surprised by General Monk, who took possession of it in the name of the English Parliament, and made both Munro and Dalyell prisoners of war. The former he sent to London.
Henry Guthry, Bishop of Dunkeld, in his Memoirs, asserts that the castle was surrendered to Monk treacherously, by the Earl of Glencairn's regiment, which formed the garrison.
Dalyell was so deeply imbued by the Cavalier loyalty of the period, that about this time, on the death of Charles I., to testify his grief, he made a vow never to shave his beard until he had avenged him; and he cultivated this appendage to his stern visage until it attained great length and volume, for it covered his whole breast and descended below his girdle, as we may still see by the portraits of him. At this periodvow beards, as they were named, were not unusual with the more resolute and enthusiastic of the Cavaliers. The comb with which Dalyell was wont to dress his hair is still preserved at Binns, "and it gives a vast idea of the extent of beard and of the majestic character of Dalyell in general, being no less thantwelveinches broad, while the teeth are at least six inches deep."
Dalyell was too enterprising and restless a spirit toremain long a prisoner; for he soon achieved his liberty, and, on returning to Scotland, was appointed major-general, and held that rank in the army, which consisted of eleven regiments of horse and twenty battalions of infantry, with fourteen field pieces, and which was led by Charles II. into England in 1651. At the head of his brigade he fought bravely at the fatal field of Worcester, where, on the defeat of the Scots, he had the misfortune to be again taken prisoner, and, with other officers and captives of rank, was marched, under a sure guard, to London, and committed to the Tower.
Sir Walter Scott, in his history of Scotland, mentions (but I know not on what authority) that he had previously served in the wars of Montrose.
For his loyalty and service in England his estates were declared, by the dominant party in Scotland, to be forfeited, and his name was specially excluded from the general Act of Indemnity. But Dalyell was not to be withheld even by the guards or gates of the Tower of London, for he soon after effected his escape again—howis not recorded; but after lurking somewhere on the Continent, he suddenly made his appearance, in March, 1654, off the northern coast of Scotland, in a small vessel, at a time when the Lowlands were overawed by eighteen of Cromwell's garrisons and by ten thousand regular forces maintained by him, by Argyle, and his adherents.
This was in anticipation of the Restoration, and at a time when the cause of royalty in Britain seemed most desperate. Being joined by a Colonel Blackadder and a slender band of loyalists, he took possession of the castle of Skelko, and, wherever he went, boldly proclaimed the king, and denounced Argyle and Cromwell as rebels and regicides. To stimulate his exertions, he received the following characteristic letter from the young king, Charles II.:—
"Tom Dalyell,"Though I need say nothing to you by this honest bearer, Captain Mewes, who can tell you all I would have said, yet I am willing to give it to you under my own hand,that I am very much pleased to hear how constant you are in your affection to me, and in your endeavours to advance my service. We have all a hard work to do; yet I doubt not God will carry us through it: and you can never fear that I will forget the good part you have acted, which, trust me, shall be rewarded, whenever it shall be in the power of your affectionate friend,"Charles R."[31]"Colen, 30th Dec. 1654."
"Tom Dalyell,
"Though I need say nothing to you by this honest bearer, Captain Mewes, who can tell you all I would have said, yet I am willing to give it to you under my own hand,that I am very much pleased to hear how constant you are in your affection to me, and in your endeavours to advance my service. We have all a hard work to do; yet I doubt not God will carry us through it: and you can never fear that I will forget the good part you have acted, which, trust me, shall be rewarded, whenever it shall be in the power of your affectionate friend,
"Charles R."[31]
"Colen, 30th Dec. 1654."
This attempt of Dalyell's had been made in unison with the Earl of Glencairn's rash but gallant expedition to the Highlands, when Glengarry, Lochiel, Struan, and other chiefs, whose swords were never in the scabbard when Scotland or her king required them, met in the wilds of Lochearn, and made an arrangement to rise in arms and attempt a restoration; but all hope of success soon proved desperate, and they dispersed. Dalyell abandoned the castle he had taken, and retired once more to the Continent, where he obtained from the exiled king a letter or certificate, in which his bravery, loyalty, and faith, were warmly extolled and recommended.
Furnished with this, and having nothing else in the world now but his sword and his stout heart, the penniless cavalier resolved to seek his fortune in foreign wars. Proceeding to Russia, which has ever formed so ample a field for Scottish enterprise and valour, he visited the barbarous court of the czar, and applied for military service.
The sovereign then reigning was Alexis Michailowitch, grandson of the patriarch Fedor Romanoff, who in his fifteenth year had succeeded in 1645 to the title of czar; and is chiefly remarkable as being the father of Peter the Great, who raised the Muscovites from the depths of barbarism to a state of comparative civilization.
The letter of Charles II. at once procured for Dalyell the rank of lieutenant-general in the service of Muscovy; but great obscurity involves his career in that country, for even the wars in which he was engaged were little noted by the rest of Europe.
He was now in his fifty-fifth year.
Alexis invited several other Scots to join his army being anxious to introduce a more regular system of discipline into his ranks; but the most eminent of these were General Drummond, Governor of Smolensko, and the two Gordons,[32]who, under Peter the Great, brought to perfection the standing forces of Russia, which however were so few, that in 1687 they amounted to no more than ten thousand men. An old topographical work, published at the Savoy in London, in 1711, mentions that "the Russians endeavoured to bring their soldiers under better discipline; for which end they made use of a great many Scots and German officers, who instruct them in all the warlike exercises that are practised by other European nations."
At that time—the beginning of the last century—their infantry were armed with a musket, sword, and an axe, which were slung behind; their cavalry were clad in steel morions and cuirasses, and were armed with bows, arrows, iron mouls, sabres, targets, and spears; and in the epoch of Dalyell, their army had a great battle-drum, which was fastened to the backs of four horses abreast, and had eight drummers to beat upon it.
His first active service was against the Poles, with whom Alexis Michailowitch had gone to war in 1653, and from whom he captured Smolensko, which he united to Russia, and Kiow, after committing frightful devastationsin Lithuania. The Russian armies then invaded Livonia, stormed Dorpt, Kokenhausen, and other places, but were obliged to retire from before Riga with severe loss.
Dalyell was now raised to the rank of full general, and commanded against the Tartars, and the Turkish armies of Mohammed IV.—the son of the debauched Sultan Ibrahim—against whom Alexis declared war about this time (1654-5); and in these contests, waged at the head of barbarous hordes against hordes equally barbarous, the wanderer must have acquired much of that unyielding sternness, if not ferocity, which characterized his future proceedings in his own country. In these campaigns quarter was never asked nor given; prisoners were shot, beheaded, impaled, or put to death by slow fires, and by every species of torture that Muscovite brutality, or the most refined cruelty of the Oriental mind could suggest; and in this terrible arena of foreign service was schooled the future commander-in-chief of the Scottish troops—the scourge of the Covenanters—he to whom was given full power to crush and to destroy the men who struggled for freedom of religious opinion, for liberty of conscience, and who, as they phrased it, "drew the sword for an oppressed Kirk and broken Covenant."
After eleven years of service in these wild and snow-covered regions, Dalyell requested permission, by desire of Charles II., to return to Scotland. The king had now been restored; Cromwell was in his grave; the Parliament and great officers of state had once more taken upon them themisgovernment of Scotland, and a wicked war was maintained there against the Presbyterian Church, which Lauderdale and his ministry were leaving nothing undone to subvert and to suppress. The Laird of Binns now requested from the czar a certificate of his faithful service in Russia, and a missive to that effect was passed under the great seal of the empire.
"Part of this document," says Chambers, "was conceived in the following terms:—
"That he formerly came hither to serve our great Czarian Majesty: whilst he was with us, he stood against our enemies and fought valiantly. The military men thatwere under his command, he regulated and disciplined, and himself led them to battle: and he did and performed everything faithfully, as a noble commander. And for his trusty services we were pleased to order the said lieutenant-general to be a general. And now having petitioned us to give him leave to return to his own country,We, the great Sovereign and Czarian Majesty, were pleased to order, that the said noble General, Thomas, the son of Thomas Dalyell, should have leave to go to his own country.
"And by this patent of our Czarian Majesty, we do testify of him, that he is a man of virtue and honour, and of great experience in military affairs. And in case he should be willingagainto serve our Czarian Majesty, he is to let us know of it beforehand, and he shall come into the dominions of our Czarian Majesty, with proper passports. Given at our Court, in the Metropolitan City of Moscow, in the year from the Creation of the World 7173, January 6."[33]
From Russia he was accompanied by his countryman and old fellow-soldier, who had served with him in Ireland, General Drummond, who was also summoned by Charles II. and obeyed the royal behest. In an Act passed by the Scottish Parliament in 1686, granting this officer the lands of Torwoodie, it is stated "that upon a call from his majesty's royal brother, after his restoration, he left a splendid and honourable employment under the Emperor of Russia to give obedience to his native prince, and since his return to this kingdom, he did good and signal service as major-general, in the defeat of the rebels and suppression of the rebellion raised in 1686."
From a passage in Burnet it would seem, that when the nonjuring exiles at Rotterdam and other Covenanters, were preparing to rise in arms in 1665, and when Charles II. found the necessity of raising more troops, he formally summoned Dalyell home.
"Two gallant officers," continues the Bishop, in the "History of his own Times," "that had served him in the wars, and when these were over had gone with his lettersto serve in Muscovy, where one of them, Dalyell, was raised to be a general, and the other was advanced to be a lieutenant-general and Governor of Smolensko, were now, butnot without great difficulty, sent back by the czar."
There can be little doubt that Dalyell returned to Scotland, with a heart boiling with rancour against those who had sold and destroyed the king; and who had brought so many of his brother soldiers—the Scottish Cavaliers of Montrose, of Hamilton and Munro—and so many of his own kinsmen, to the scaffold. With this sentiment may have been a longing for vengeance upon those who had been so long dominant in the land; who had deprived him of his estate and driven him into exile; and all these bitter sentiments were doubtless fostered by the inborn prejudice of class, religion, education, and the foreign service of years. To all these must be attributed many of the fierce and relentless acts which are related of him by the historians of the Covenant. Many of these dark deeds must, however, be doubted; and many accepted with caution.
After the Restoration, the Parliament of Scotland, which was presided over by Lieutenant-General the Earl of Middleton as High Commissioner, proved a very pliant and complying body. They granted to Charles II. a revenue of 40,000l.for life, and rescinded all the acts passed by their wiser predecessors for defining orrestrictingthe royal prerogative. The Solemn League and Covenant was pronounced a treasonable and seditious bond; and they passed other acts, by which the Earl of Lauderdale, Secretary of State for Scotland, gradually prepared a way for the abolition of Presbytery, and the restoration of an Episcopal Hierarchy. Alarmed by these measures, the Scottish Kirk sent James Sharpe, one of their most eminent divines, to expostulate with Charles II.; but Sharpe abandoned his colours, and betrayed their cause by accepting the Archbishopric of St. Andrews, while the Marquis of Argyle, James Guthrie, and Johnstone of Warriston, who had conspired with Cromwell, and directly, or indirectly, abetted the sale and execution of Charles I., were consigned to the headsman. Suchwas the new aspect of affairs, and it made religion and rancour grow side by side in the land.
The rash king next enjoined the Scottish privy council openly to establish Episcopacy, and bishops for the new dioceses were consecrated in England; while Fairfowl, Archbishop of Glasgow, was insane enough to solicit an act of council to eject all recusant ministers, and close their churches until episcopally ordained incumbents could be procured: and by this act,three hundred and fiftyparishes, about a third of those in the kingdom, were declared to be vacant; and this tyranny was attempted after all the wars, battles, and bloodshed in defence of the Covenant—after all the armies levied and lives lost since 1638, and after the king himself had perished in attempting to subvert the rights of the people! Now, the Scots became justly more than ever inflamed against the cruelty and injustice of their own government.
Finding their churches closed, they met in arms on the green hill sides, and in lonely muirs, to hold what were termed field conventicles, where the oppression they endured for conscience sake, the recollection of their present danger, and the memory of their struggles made in years gone by, together with the grandeur of the solemn scenery by which they were surrounded, filled their hearts with a splendid enthusiasm and with a purity of soul, as, with the sword by their sides, they worshipped God in those wild places, which, since the days of the Romans, had been the best stronghold of their forefathers.
As a ballad (which I quote from memory) has it:—
"Oh, sad and dreary was the lot of Scotland's true ones then,A famine-stricken remnant with scarce the guise of men;They burrowed few and lonely mid the chill dark mountain caves,For those who once had sheltered them were in their martyr-graves."A sword had rested on the land! it did not pass away;Long had they watched and waited; but there dawned no brighter day,And many had gone back from them, who owned the truth of old,Because of much iniquity their love was waxen cold."
To crush this growing enthusiasm (which was so greatat times, that an angel was more than once averred to have been seen in mid air, overhanging a conventicle), to suppress these armed religious meetings, and enforce Episcopacy on the people, was now the ungrateful task assigned to Dalyell, to Drummond, and the Scottish standing forces, who were all commanded by officers of high Cavalier principles, and were usually men without much scruple in obeying the orders of the king and council.
Alarmed at the spirit of resistance evinced by the people, and remembering perhaps the fate of his father, Charles II. changed the Scottish ministry. Lauderdale had begun to persuade him that more lenient measures were necessary, and Sharpe, whom the Covenanters received as a Judas, retired from the administration of ecclesiastical affairs; but the change cametoo late, for again the banner which had been displayed so victoriously of old, "for an oppressed Kirk and broken Covenant," was unfurled, and a body of the Presbyterians rose in arms.
Lieutenant-colonel Sir James Turner, author of a little treatise on the art of war, and of his own Memoirs, from which we may learn that he was a fierce and unscrupuloussabreur, was captured with his troops at Ayr, by the Lairds of Corsack and Barscob at the head of a few followers. Another party of soldiers were routed by them at Dalry, and these insurgents began at once their march for Edinburgh, the seat of government, in the autumn of 1666.
They first proposed to put Turner to death; but spared his life on Corsack discovering that his conduct to the people had been much less severe than the writtenorders, which were found on his person, had inculcated.
Dalyell at this crisis commanded the king's troops in the capital. He concentrated all the detachments which were dispersed throughout the adjacent country, and marched westward, by the Glasgow road, to meet these insurgents, whose strength was ever varying, and whose numbers were greatly exaggerated.
"A great many came to the rebels who were calledWhiggs," says Bishop Burnet; "at Lanark, in Clydesdale, they held a solemn fast day, in which, after much praying, they renewed the Covenant and set out their manifesto, in which they denied that they rose against the King, but complained of the oppressions under which they groaned; they desired that Episcopacy might be put down, that the Covenant might be set up, their ministers restored to them; and then they promised that they would be, in all other things,the king's most obedient subjects."
Such were the simple and just demands of these poor people. Dalyell followed them closely from place to place with his cavalry, the flower of which were the high-spirited Scottish Life Guards. He published a proclamation, offering pardon to all who within twenty-four hours returned to their own houses; but he threatened with death all who were taken in arms after that brief period. He found the whole country so completely in the interest of the revolters, that he could obtain no intelligence of their number, intention, or movements, save the rumours brought to head quarters by his own parties and horse-patrols; and thus, whilehewas hovering in the west, by a sudden march, they appeared unexpectedly within four miles of Edinburgh.
Their number had considerably augmented during their march; but few men of any influence or property joined them; as most of the Covenanting gentry had been committed to various castles and prisons, on the plausible pre-text that it was necessary to insure their neutrality in case of a war with the Dutch.
On reaching the vicinity of the Pentland Hills, they numbered about three thousand horse and foot, ill armed and totally undisciplined.
Colonel James Wallace, of Auchans, a descendant of the Wallaces of Dundonald, a brave officer, who had served with distinction in former wars, and been lieutenant-colonel of Argyle's Highland regiment in Ireland—a veteran soldier, who had seen the battles of Benburb, Kilsythe, and Dunbar, when he was lieutenant-colonel of the Scottish Foot Guards[34]—took command of the whole,and, knowing how slender was his force, how destitute of succour, and how desperate in purpose and position, he left nothing undone to ensure a victory, or at least a death that should avenge their defeat and fall.
On reaching the secluded village of Colinton, which lies in a deep and wooded hollow, they learned that in Edinburgh, where they confidently expected a great accession, the citizens, under their provost, Sir Andrew Ramsay, were in arms against them, and had made vigorous preparations for a defence. The barrier gates were shut and fortified by cannon; the gentlemen of the neighbouring shires had been summoned to defend the walls; the College of Justice had formed a corps of cavalry, and all gentlemen in the city who possessed horses were ordered to mount, and appear in arms in the Meal Market, under the young Marquis of Montrose, to await the orders of General Dalyell.
The latter sent Alexander Seton, Viscount Kingston, with a body of the Guards, to the old quarries in Bruntsfield Links, with orders to lie there concealed, as across these links lay the direct road to the quarters of the insurgents, who had many friends in the capital; but, overawed by the active measures of the Cavalier government, they—according to Kirkton—"could only fast and pray for them."
On learning all this, Colonel Wallace marched along the slope of the Pentland Hills, in the hope of being able to effect a retreat towards Biggar. The season was the dreary month of November. Dogged by Dalyell and battered by a storm of wind and rain, the hapless Covenanters had been losing heart, and as their spirit diminished, so did their numbers, which, from three thousand, dwindled down to nine hundred hungry, wet, and famished creatures, "who looked more like dying men than soldiers going to conquer."
Wallace began to see the hopelessness of the cause he had undertaken; but the spirit of the few who adhered to him never flinched.
"We are not unwilling to die for religion and liberty," said these brave fellows; "yea, we would esteem a testimony for the Lord and our country a sufficient reward for all our loss and labour."
They wrote to General Dalyell a long and pathetic letter, setting forth their religious grievances; but no answer was returned to it, save the sound of his trumpets and the clash of the kettle-drums, when, on the afternoon of the 28th of November, his cavalry and infantry—upwards of three thousand strong,—after a fortnight's constant marching, were seen traversing the western slope of the beautiful Pentland range, and, descending, with all their standards displayed, towards Rullion Green, where these nine hundred devoted men, with their swords and Bibles, awaited them. As Dalyell approached, they sang the seventy-fourth and seventy-eighth Psalms.
Wallace drew up his little band in line, with a few of his toil-worn horsemen covering the right flank, which was somewhat exposed. Desperation and religious enthusiasm enhanced their natural bravery, and twice they repulsed the attack of the royal troops; but it was renewed by Dalyell's horse, the finest cavalry in Scotland, being principally cavaliers of the Life Guards, nobly mounted and richly accoutred. Dalyell led them on, and, by a single charge, they bore down horse and foot alike, at sword's point. This was when the dusk was closing on these lofty and heath-clad mountains. Fifty Covenanters were slain, including two eminent Irish divines—Andrew MacCormick and John Crookshanks—who had joined them, and who perished in the front rank.
In this conflict Dalyell and the famous Covenanter, Captain John Paton, of Meadowhead, met hand to hand on horseback, and exchanged several blows before they were separated by the pressure of their soldiers. Paton then discharged his pistols at Dalyell, off whose person the balls were seento recoil. On perceiving this (and knowing him to be shot-proof, according to a superstitious historian), the captain loaded his pistol with asilver coin, a manœuvre observed by Dalyell; he stepped behind a soldier, who fell, pierced by the coin which was supposed to be proof to any spell; but the same legend is related of Claverhouse at Killycrankie. Paton was among thelast who left the field. Dalyell perceived him retiring, and sent three well-mounted troopers in pursuit, and these came to blows with him when he was urging his horse to leap a deep ditch. By a back-handed stroke he clove in two the head and helmet of his first assailant; the other two fell headlong into the ditch, where they lay struggling under their fallen chargers.
"Take my compliments to Dalyell, your master," said Baton, tauntingly, as he rode off; "tell him that I am not going home with him to-night."
John Nesbit, of Hardhill, a tall and powerful Covenanter, fell on the field, covered with wounds, but was found to be alive next day, when he was stripped and about to be interred with the dead. He was a brave man, and had served in foreign wars, for which he was made a captain of Musketeers at Bothwell some years after.
The gloom of the November night, and a sentiment of chivalry—of pity, perhaps, for their poor and persecuted countrymen—inspired the Life Guards to spare the fugitives, the mass of whom escaped and dispersed; but eighty prisoners—among whom was Neilson, the unfortunate Laird of Corsack—were taken, and these were next day marched in triumph through the streets of Edinburgh, while cannon thundered a salute from the castle, and the bells rang in every steeple; while the streets resounded with the tramp of the cavalry, who, with standards advanced and kettle-drums beating, escorted them to prison. "It is recorded that Andrew Murray, an aged Presbyterian minister, when he beheld the ferocious Dalyell in his rusted head-piece, buff coat, and long waving beard, riding at the head of his cavalier squadrons, who, flushed with victory, surrounded the manacled prisoners with drawn swords and cocked carbines—and when he heard the shouts of acclamation from the people, was so overpowered with grief for what he deemed the downfall for ever ofGod's Covenanted Kirk, that he became ill, and expired."
The dead were buried on the field, and there may yet be seen, within a small and rude enclosure, which is overshadowed by a few trees, a monument bearing aninscription to the memory of Crookshanks, MacCormick, and others who lie where they fell. At the back of the Pentland Hills runs a rivulet named the Deadman's-grain, from the circumstance of a wounded Covenanter falling there when pursued by a cavalier trooper. Drawing a pistol from his holsters, he fired it at his pursuer underneath his bridle arm, but, missing, shot his own horse in the flank. The animal fell, and his rider was immediately slain, where his green grave is yet shown by the side of the mountain burn.
At Easton, in Dunsyre, there was long visible a lonely grave, in which, according to a tradition transmitted from father to son, there lay a Covenanter who had expired of wounds received at Rullion Green. It was opened in 1817, and found to contain the skeleton of a tall man, with two silver coins dated 1620. On being touched, the bones crumbled to dust.
Colonel Wallace, on seeing all lost, left the field, accompanied by Mr. John Welsh, and, favoured by the darkness, took a north-westerly direction among the hills, and escaped. After long concealment and enduring many privations, he reached the Continent, and died in penury, at Rotterdam, in 1678.
It is a strange circumstance that, after the rout of his followers, many of them were slain by the Lothian peasantry.
Of the unfortunate prisoners, the servile and barbarous Scottish Privy Council made a severe example. Twenty were executed at Edinburgh, ten being hanged upon the same gibbet at once; seven were executed at Ayr, and many were hanged before their own doors in other parts of the country. The heads of those who perished at Edinburgh were fixed above the city gates, and their right arms and the hands with which they subscribed the Covenant were affixed to the Tolbooths of Lanark and other towns.
When Gordon, of Knockbreck, and his brother were hanged on the same gibbet, they clasped each other in their arms, that together, and at once, they might endure the pangs of death.
Like all Covenanters, the whole of these men maintained, with their dying breath, that they had taken up armsnotagainst the king, but against the insupportable tyranny of the Episcopal prelates. And that these men, and such as these, did not die in vain, the future history of their country has shown, for their last words left an echo that lingers yet in the hearts of the people.
Dalyell was highly complimented by the Council for this victory, and Neilson of Corsack, the most important of his prisoners, was ordered to be tortured in that dark, panelled room under the Parliament Hall, wherein sat the Council, over which the Duke of Rothes presided.
Neilson of Corsack was a country laird, who had been long distinguished for gentleness and amiability of disposition; but rage at the ill-treatment he received from the new clergy alone drove him to despair, and from despair to arms. On his refusal to become an Episcopalian, by the information (or at the instance) of the curate of his parish, he was dragged from his house, fined, and imprisoned, while his delicate wife and little children had been driven as outcasts into the mountains. Soldiers were then quartered on his lands, and his cattle were carried off. This was scarcely such treatment as a Scottish gentleman of the seventeenth century would endure with calmness. Rendered desperate, Corsack took to his sword, and commanded the party which surprised Sir James Turner, whose life he subsequently saved. That officer was not ungrateful for the act, and did all in his power to obtain mercy for him, but in vain. The Council were inexorable, and "Corsack was so cruelly tortured by the iron boots, that his shrieks were sufficient to move the heart of a stone."
Thethumbikinswere the favourite instrument of torture most generally resorted to by the Lords of Council. These were small steel screws which compressed the thumb-joint, or whole hand if necessary, and were an invention brought to Scotland by General Dalyell from the Continent.
Charles II. distinctly, by letter, ordained the Privy Council to substitute banishment for torture and death; but hismissive was concealed, and in his name the workof cruelty still went on, and still unsated by the daily horrors furnished by the result of the conflict at Rullion Green, Generals Dalyell and Drummond were ordered into the Shires of Ayr, Dumfries, and Galloway, to complete the destruction of any Covenanters or recusants who might remain in these districts.
In this year, and most probably for that duty, he raised a regiment of infantry; but it has long ceased to exist, and was probably one of the many Scottish corps disbanded at the peace of Ryswick.
While on this new service the enemies of Dalyell record innumerable instances of cruelty perpetrated by him; and though his temper was hot and his character undoubtedly fierce and resolute, these stories must be accepted under reservation.
"The forces were ordered to lie in the west," says Burnet, "where Dalyell acted the Muscovite too grossly. He threatened tospitmen and toroastthem, and he killed some in cold blood, or rather hot blood, for he was then drunk, when he ordered one to be hanged because he would not tell where his father was, for whom he was in search. When he heard of any who did not go to church, he did not trouble himself to set a fine upon him, but sent as many soldiers as might eat him up in a night. And the clergy were so delighted with it, that they used to speak of that time as the poets do of the golden age. They looked upon the soldiery as their patrons. They were ever in their company, and complying with them in their excesses, and, if they are not much wronged, they rather led them into them, than checked them for them.Dalyellhimself and his officers were so disgusted with them, that they increased the complaints, that had now more credit from them than from those of the country, who were looked on as their enemies. Things of so strange a pitch in vice were told of them, that they seemed scarce credible."
And this severe picture of the Episcopal Clergy is given by a Scottish Bishop, which renders it the more worthy of credence.
It is recorded of Dalyell, that once, when inflamed by passion, he struck a prisoner on the face with the hilt ofhis dagger so severely that blood flowed from the wound but it must be remembered that this person had boldly taunted the fierce old man, as "a Muscovite beast who used to roast men alive!" He established his head-quarters at Lanark for some weeks, and there he imprisoned many Covenanters in a damp dungeon, which was so narrow that, owing to their number, they could neither sit nor lie at length with comfort; and where they were deprived of all accommodation for preserving cleanliness or decency.
While his troops were in this town, a peasant when passing through the streets was seized by a patrol, and brought before him; and because this man either could not, or would not, give such information as would commit some of the prisoners, he was condemned to instant death. He begged one night's reprieve, that he might prepare to die, and make his peace with Heaven; but even this was denied him, and, according to the historians of the Kirk, he was dragged into a neighbouring field, shot dead by a platoon of carbines, stripped and left nude upon the ground.
On another occasion, we are told that he ordered a woman, who had aided the escape of a fugitive, to be cast into a hole filled with toads and reptiles, where she died in great misery.
Such stories seem exceedingly improbable, yet they pass current in Scotland, and are still believed to the present day.
In Dumfries the soldiers were accused of "having tied a man neck and heels to a pole, and turned him like a joint of meat before a great fire." In Kilmarnock, the men of Dalyell's regiment placed an old recusant in a dungeon, which was destitute of vent or chimney, and there tortured him by the smoke of a coal fire. When almost suffocated he was borne forth, amid laughter and derision, to the open air, and permitted to revive. After this he was imprisoned again; and this torture was continued for several nights and days.
At Dalry, Sir William Bannatyne, one of Dalyell's officers, ordered a woman who had been accessory to the escape of her husband, to be tortured by having lighted musket-matches tied between her clenched fingers, acruelty by which she lost one hand entirely, and some days afterwards expired of torture. A farmer, whom this officer was dragooning, and from whom he was extorting money, asked why he was thus fined.
"Because," replied Sir William, with provoking candour, "you have great gear, and I must have part of it."
And on service so barbarous as this, the year 1667 passed away; and the estates of the forfeited Wallace of Auchans and others were bestowed by Parliament upon Dalyell and Drummond, or were retained by the grasping officers of State to enrich themselves. Thus for a time the unhappy Covenanters seemed to be completely crushed. Upon Dalyell was conferred the valuable estate of Mure of Caldwell, who had been accessory to that revolt which terminated at the Pentland hills; but of this property his family were deprived by the Revolution of 1688. Those who made peace with the Government, by interest, bribery, or fines, received protections, of which the following, in my own possession, granted the year before Bothwell, may serve as an example:—
"At Glasgow, the twenty day of March, 1678."For saemeikelas Major Alexander Coult of Garturke, in the parish of Monkland, hath signed the bond appoynted by the Lords of His Maties Privy Councell ffor himself and all such who live under him, ffor their peaceable and orderlie deportment; the Comitty of His Maties Privy Councell do hereby take the said Major Alexander Coult under their special protection and safeguard: and hereby discharge all officers and souldiers to trouble or molest the said Major Alexander Coult, his house, famillie, tenants, cottars or servants, or any belonging to him, in their personal gudes or estate, as they will be answerable at their highest perill, and allows himto have and wear his wearing sword and pistolls. "Glencairne,"Strathmore,Wigtoune,"Airlie,Caithness."
"At Glasgow, the twenty day of March, 1678.
"For saemeikelas Major Alexander Coult of Garturke, in the parish of Monkland, hath signed the bond appoynted by the Lords of His Maties Privy Councell ffor himself and all such who live under him, ffor their peaceable and orderlie deportment; the Comitty of His Maties Privy Councell do hereby take the said Major Alexander Coult under their special protection and safeguard: and hereby discharge all officers and souldiers to trouble or molest the said Major Alexander Coult, his house, famillie, tenants, cottars or servants, or any belonging to him, in their personal gudes or estate, as they will be answerable at their highest perill, and allows himto have and wear his wearing sword and pistolls. "Glencairne,
"Strathmore,Wigtoune,"Airlie,Caithness."
Captain John Creichton, the celebrated cavalier trooper, who served long, both as a private and officer, under Dalyell in Scotland, and whose interesting memoirs werepublished by Dean Swift, has left us the following portrait of his stern leader, and it is so graphic that I may be pardoned quoting it entire.
"He was bred up very hardy from his youth, both in diet and clothing. He never wore boots, nor above one coat, which was close to his body, with close sleeves like those we call jockey coats. He never wore a peruke, nor did he shave his beard since the murder of King Charles the First. In my time his head was bald, which he covered only with a beaver hat, the brim of which was not above three inches broad. His beard was white and bushy, and yet reached down almost to his girdle. He usually went to London once or twice in a year to kiss the King's hand, who had a great esteem for his valor and worth. His unusual dress and figure, when he was in London, never failed to draw after him a great crowd of boys and other young people, who constantly attended at his lodgings, and followed him with huzzas, as he went to court and returned from it. As he was a man of humour, he would always thank them for their civilities when he left them at the door to go to the King, and would let them know exactly at what hour he intended to come out again and return to his lodgings.
"When the King walked in the park attended by some of his courtiers, and Dalziel in his company, the same crowds would always be after him, shewing their admiration at his beard and dress, so that the King could hardly pass on for the crowd, upon which his Majesty bade 'the devil take Dalziel for bringing such a rabble of boys together to have their guts squeezed out,' while they gaped at his long beard and antique habit, requesting him at the same time—as Dalziel used to express it—'to shave and dress like other Christians, and keep the poor bairns out of danger.' All this could never prevail on him to part with his beard; but yet, in compliance to his Majesty, he went once to Court in the very height of the fashion; but as soon as the King and those about him had laughed sufficiently at the strange figure he made, he resumed his usual habit, to the great joy of the boys, who had not discovered him in his fashionable dress."
From this it would appear that Dalyell had been muchof a wag, that he loved to humour children, and enjoyed their fun and amazement at the sight of his huge beard, and by appearing once in the gaudy frippery of a Cavalier, had striven to ridicule the foppery of the Court of Charles II.—three points of character very different from those usually attributed to him.
He was appointed a Privy Councillor, and soon after represented the county of Linlithgow in Parliament, and in 1670 an act of ratification, confirming all his estates and honours, was passed. In this document he is designated "His Majesties right trustie and weel-beloved Generall Thomas Dalyell, of Binns, late Lieutenant-Generall of His Majesties late forces within this ancient kingdome." From this it would appear that promotion, as well as profit, had resulted to him after the affair at Rullion Green and dragooning the Westland Whigs. He represented his native county in the Scottish Parliament from 1678 to 1685.
To assist in the security of Episcopacy in Scotland, and still further to fortify the royal authority and the power of that tyrannical Council, which committed so many atrocities in the king's name, Lauderdale, who was created a duke when at the head of the Scottish affairs, obtained the formation of a militia consisting of two thousand cavalry and sixteen thousand infantry; and as the northern kingdom swarmed with experienced and high-spirited officers all lacking military employment, these troops were soon disciplined and equipped; but the flower of the national troops were the standing forces of the country.
These, at this time, were as follows:—
1. The Royal Life Guards, the regiment of the famous John Grahame of Claverhouse, Viscount of Dundee, were raised after the Restoration, in 1661. The privates were styled,par excellence, gentlemen, and usually appear to have been cadets of good families. The Sieur de la Roche, a French Protestant refugee, who was slain in a tavern brawl at Leith by John Master of Tarbet and an Ensign Mowat, is styled in their indictment, "a gentleman of his Majesty's troop of Guards." Under Claverhouse, this Scottish patrician band served at BothwellBridge, at Drumclog, and in all the unhappy contentions of the period. Mr. Francis Stuart, afterwards a captain of the Guards, grandson of the Earl of Bothwell, was, says Captain Creichton, "a privategentlemanin the Horse Guards, like myself." In this trooper the reader will no doubt recognise the Serjeant Bothwell ofOld Mortality.
"On the 2nd of April, 1661," according to Wodrow, "the King's Life Guard was formed. By their constitution they were to consist of noblemen and gentlemen's sons, and were to be one hundred and twenty in number, under command of the Lord Newburgh. After taking an oath to be loyal to his Majesty, they made a parade through the town of Edinburgh, with carbines at their saddles and swords drawn."
The maimed and old veteran officers, adds Kirkton, in his secret history, "the poor colonels, majors, and captains who expected great promotion (at the Restoration) were preferred to be troopers in the King's troop of Life Guards. This goodly employment obliged them to spend with one another the small remnant of the stock their miseries had left them, but more they could not have after all their hopes and sufferings" (he means) during the days of Cromwell.
In 1674 these Life Guards consisted of four squadrons, and were commanded by the Marquis of Athole.
After the Union, in 1707, this corps was removed to London, and is now represented by the 2nd troop of the 1st Life Guards.[35]
2. The Scottish Foot Guards, raised in November, 1660, were commanded by George, Earl of Linlithgow, and were, as they are still, named Fusiliers, being armed with thefusil, a light French musket; and by the Scottish Privy Council, in their orders to the army in 1667, it was ordained that the field officers of this corps should command in chief, and give orders in field and garrison, to all troops whatsoever. In 1707 these Guards were placed upon the united British establishment; in February, 1712,they were marched to London; in the following year they shared the duties for thefirsttime with the English Guards, and havenever been in Scotland since.[36]
3. The Royal Regiment, known of old as the Scottish Archers in France, was at this time abroad at Tangiers, and did not return until 1682, when it arrived in Rochester, reduced to sixteen companies, and after the battle of Sedgemoor was sent into Holland.
4. The Earl of Mar's regiment, which served at Bothwell Bridge, was remodelled in 1689, and now known as the 21st Fusiliers.
5. The infantry regiment of Dalyell is no longer in existence, but Leven's Scottish regiment is now known as the 25th, or Royal Borderers; Angus's Foot—the regiment of our old friend, Uncle Toby—is numbered as the 26th, or Cameronians; and the regiment of Argyle, infamous as the perpetrators of the Glencoe tragedy, is no longer in the service.
6. The Scottish train of artillery, commanded by the Laird of Lundin in 1687, was disbanded at the Union, when Lord Leven was its general, and the last survivor of it, then an old man, served as a volunteer, with Sir John Cope's army, at Preston Pans. In this corps was a strange rank, named "gentlemen of the cannon," as we may learn from a letter of Viscount Teviot, dated 1699, and printed among Carstare's State Papers.
At the union with England, in 1707, it would seem to have been arranged that Scotland should have the first regiment of infantry, theirs being the oldest, and that England should have the first regiment of Dragoons.
The severity with which Dalyell and Drummond treated the Covenanters with these regular troops drove them frantic.
In February, 1677, the former despatched John Creichton, one of his most active, favourite, and relentlesstroopers, with an ensign and fifty soldiers of the Foot Guards, to seize Adam Stobie, of Luscar, near Culross, in Fife, "a fellow who," as the captain says, "had gone through the west, endeavouring to stir up sedition in the people by his great skill in canting and praying."
After surrounding his house in the night, the unfortunate Covenanter was discovered in concealment under some straw in a lime-kiln, from whence he was at once dragged forth. His daughter, in tears and terror, besought mercy of Creichton, and offered to ransom her father for two hundred dollars; but the trooper knew too well the inflexibility of his general, and, though not always insensible either to the voice of a woman or the offer of a handsome sum, he marched back to Edinburgh, and presented Stobie to Dalyell, together with four other recusants, who had been found in Culross by the Ensign of the Guards.
On the 22nd of February, the General brought his prisoners before the Privy Council, who fined Stobie three thousand marks for keeping conventicles andconversingwith intercommuned persons. After paying this he was to be transported; but he saved their lordships further trouble on his account by breaking from his prison and escaping in the night. After this he joined in the next rising, and is believed to have been slain at Bothwell Bridge, as he was never heard of afterwards.
About this time Francis Stuart, the Earl of Bothwell's grandson, was recommended by Dalyell to Charles II. for a commission, and was appointed Captain of Horse with John Creichton, who had hitherto been with him in the Life Guards, as his lieutenant, and these officers served under Colonel Graham, of Claverhouse, at the battle of Drumclog; for after the murder of Archbishop Sharpe on Magus Muir, the armed field conventicles had increased in every part of the country, and discontent, with sullen desperation, were rapidly moulding the people into a mass that was ready for revolt. Conflicts with the soldiers were of daily occurrence, and many of them were barbarously murdered, in lonely billets and solitary parts of the country, by the more savage or fanatical of the hillmen, as the recusants were named, from their habit of usually lurking in the mountains.
Superstition was not wanting to lend a darker and more terrible hue to the events of the time, as Scotland is peculiarly the land of omens. Atmospheric visions were everywhere visible, if we are to believe such old memorialists as Law and others.
At Kilbryde, near Glasgow, two armies were seen in the sky, firing platoons of musketry at each other; "the fyre and smock were seen, but without noise or crak." On the slope of a lonely hill near Eastwood Muir, the tall apparition of a blood-red spectre was seen to tower suddenly between the terrified beholders and the blue sky, while a dreadful voice exclaimed—
"Woe! Woe unto the land!"
At a conventicle, suppressed in Fife by Adam Masterton of Grange, an officer of the Life Guards, the fugitive women, who observed the conflict from a distance, asserted that they could perceive, to their awe and terror, "the form of a tall man of majestic stature," hovering in mid air "above the people all the while of the soldiers shooting."
In August, 1678, the devil, who seemed always in those days to take a deep interest in Scottish affairs, held a great meeting of witches and warlocks in Lothian, "where," saith the veracious Law, "there was a warlock who formerly had been admitted to the ministry in the Presbyterian times, and who, when the bishops came in, conformed withthem; but being deposed, he now turns under the devil, a preacher of hellish doctrine." In the March of the same year, he adds, a tremendous voice was heard in the ancient and half-ruined Abbey of Paisley, exclaiming—
"Woe, woe, woe! Pray, pray, pray!"
Showers of blood and of Highland bonnets, afforded the crones, elsewhere, ample matter for discussion and wonder.
Amid all this absurdity, while the tyrant Lords of Council tortured and hung peasants and preachers, of ruined honourable and long-descended families, for worshipping God as their hearts desired, and for doing so, in wild and sequestered places, or for refusing to say God save a King, who wasuncovenanted; while Dalyell had every satanic power attributed to him, and the black charger of Claverhouse was believed to be the veritable devil himself, the efforts of some to promote godliness in the land were alike melancholy and amusing; thus people were punished for taking snuff in time of sermon, for carrying water on the Sabbath day, and for a thousand charges equally frivolous.
To repress the conventicles which began to assume a more formidable aspect, from the number of armed men who attended them, additional garrisons were established. Two peers and ten barons, who were obnoxious to Lauderdale, were lawlessly dispossessed of their mansions, which were converted into military stations. In each of these Dalyell placed a company of infantry and ten troopers, who were supplied with everything by provincial assessment or military contribution. Fathers were made responsible for their children; husbands for their wives; magistrates for their citizens; landlords for their tenants; and thus, by a network of military tyranny, it was resolved that at the sword's point, Scotland should become a highly episcopal country. Five hundred marks were offered for the seizure of any one who held a religious meeting; and four thousand pounds sterling was an ordinary price for the head of a good preacher. Others were valued according to their reputation among the people; and under such laws as these the troops of his sacred Majesty King Charles made plenty of prize-money and plunder.
The barbarities to which the people were subjected at last attracted the attention of the English House of Commons, who appointed a committee to inquire into these affairs, and into the Act empowering the Privy Council at Edinburgh to march the Scottish army wheresoever they chose; but there the matter ended. The Government was thenfederal, and any interference might have caused another national rupture.
Roused at last to more open resistance, a body of thesepoor people appealed again to that which of old was ever the Scotsman's best and most ready argument—the sword—and the defeat of Claverhouse's cavalry at Drumclog was deemed a sure omen of great events to come. They established their camp at Hamilton, and unfurled a standard, which is still preserved at Edinburgh. It is blue, crossed by the white saltire of St. Andrew, and is inscribed—
"COVENANTS—RELIGION—KING AND KINGDOMES."
Robert Hamilton, of Preston, a brave but intolerant and injudicious man, assumed the command. He was without experience as a leader, and his followers were destitute of all discipline as soldiers; hence dissensions were of hourly occurrence in the camp.
Alarmed by the tidings of this rising, the end of which no one could then foresee, the King sent his son James, Duke of Monmouth and Buccleugh, to assume command of the Scottish troops, and enforce the restoration of order. The duke brought with him four troops of English horse, commanded by a Major Main, a novelty which did not increase his popularity in Scotland, where English troops had not been seen since Cromwell's time. At the head of ten thousand men, with a fine park of artillery, he marched westward at midsummer, against the insurgents.
"Upon the duke being made commander-in-chief, Dalyell refused to serve under him," says Captain Creichton, "and remained at his lodgings in Edinburgh, till his Grace was superseded, which happened about a fortnight after."
The principal officers in the kingdom attended the duke on this expedition. Among them were the Earl of Linlithgow, with his regiment of Foot Guards; the Earl of Mar, with his regiment of Fusiliers; the Marquis of Montrose, the Earls of Airley and Home, and Graham of Claverhouse, all commanders of horse; while a host of cavalier nobles and gentlemen attended him to serve as he might require.
On the 22nd of June, he found the Covenanters in position at the bridge of Bothwell, where the Clyde is seventy-one yards wide. This picturesque old bridge was twelve feet broad, and one hundred and twenty feet long,with a rise of twenty in the centre, where there was a barrier gate, which was removed in 1826. This gate Preston had barricaded, while flanking the approaches with musketry. To three hundred stout hearts led by Hackston of Rathillet, and the stern John Balfour of Kinloch, otherwise styled of Burley, was confided the keeping of the bridge, and well these brave men kept it too, under a heavy fire of cannon and musketry, to which the flankers of the bridge replied by firing briskly from behind the thickets of alder and hazel trees which clothed the banks of the stream.
Under cover of a cannonade, Lord Livingstone led the assault, at the head of his father's regiment, the Scottish Foot Guards, and despite its barricade of stones and timber, and all the efforts of its desperate defenders, the gate was stormed by the infantry, and the bridge was carried by the clubbed musket and levelled pike, after a fierce contest. Then a body of the Lennox Highlanders, led, say some authorities, by General Dalyell; by their own chief, Macfarlane, say others, raised the war-cry ofLoch sloyand flung themselves, claymore in hand, on the main body of the Covenanters, while Claverhouse with the Life Guards—all burning to avenge their recent defeat at Drumclog—defiled across the bridge at full speed, and forming in squadron on the opposite side, swept all before them, as they might have driven a flock of sheep. Main's English dragoons and the Highlanders are accused of behaving with great barbarity in slaughtering the fugitives. The aged Laird of Earlstone prayed for quarter from Major Main, who ran him through the body and slew him on the spot.
When the charge was over, the gentlemen of the Scottish Life Guards became so exasperated on seeing the Covenanters treated thus by Englishmen, that they fell, sword in hand, upon Main's dragoons, and cut many of them down, "being grieved," as the Rev. John Blackadder has it, "to see Englishmen delighting so much to shed their countrymen's blood."
In the streets of Hamilton the reckless Balfour of Burley made a bold attempt to rally the fugitives; buta musket-ball broke his sword arm, as his troopers reined up their horses in the thoroughfare.
"Withered be the hand that fired the shot—I can fight no longer now!" he exclaimed in bitterness, as the weapon fell from his grasp, and once more the flight was renewed.
Four hundred Covenanters were slain on the field, and twelve hundred were made prisoners; these, on the evening after the battle, were marched to Edinburgh, where they were thrust into the Greyfriars churchyard, like sheep penned in a fold. Some were selected for the scaffold, the rest were banished to the plantations, and of these many perished miserably at sea.
The pursuit was scarcely over and the troops returned to their various colours, when old General Dalyell, on horseback and in fiery haste, lest the fighting should all be over, arrived from Edinburgh, with a new commission appointinghimcommander-in-chief. This document, which he had received by express from London, was dated 22nd June, 1679, the very day of the encounter. It did not, however, entirely supersede the authority of the Duke of Monmouth, who by the Privy Council was styled "Lord General." Dalyell is said to have publicly upbraided the gentle duke with his clemency to the prisoners, and for the tenor of the orders he issued before the battle. These were, to yield quarter to all who asked it, to make as many prisoners as possible, and to spare life.
"Hadmycommission comebeforethe battle," said Dalyell, grimly, "these rogues should never more have troubled the king or country."
He marched the troops to Glasgow, and three days afterwards—the insurrection being deemed at an end—they were dispersed in detachments throughout the Lowlands, most of them being sent to where they were far from welcome—their old quarters.
After the battle, Dalyell captured the Reverend John King, a preacher who had once been chaplain to the exiled Lord Cardross. This gentleman he sent in irons to Edinburgh, escorted by a guard of Main's dragoons, andon their march from Glasgow there occurred a strange accident, which the people believed to be a visitation of Heaven. One of these troopers, at a wayside alehouse, drank, "Confusion to the Covenant!" and being asked "where he was going,"
"I am carrying King to hell," said he, an answer likely enough to be made by a reckless soldier.
"The judgment of Heaven did not linger on this wretch," records the superstitious Wodrow; "he had not proceeded many paces on his journey, when his horse stumbled, his carbine went off and shot him dead."
King perished on the gibbet soon after, and had his head and right hand cut off.
In the winter after the battle, Dalyell quartered himself at Kilmarnock, with one battalion of Linlithgow's Foot Guards, and the horse troops of the Earl of Airlie and Captain Francis Stuart of Bothwell.
"Here," says Captain Creichton, "the general, one day happening to look on while I was exercising the troop of dragoons, asked me when I had done, whether I knew any one of my men who was skilful in praying well in the style and tone of the Covenanters? I immediately thought upon one named James Gibb, who had been born in Ireland, and whom I had made a dragoon. This man I brought to the general, assuring his Excellency 'that if I had raked hell, I could not find his match in mimicking the Covenanters.' Whereupon the general gave him five pounds to buy him a greatcoat and a bonnet, and commanded him to find out the rebels, but be sure to take care of himself among them.
"The dragoon went eight miles off that very night, and got admittance into the house of a notorious rebel, pretending he had come from Ireland out of zeal for the cause, to assist at the fight of Bothwell Bridge, and could not find an opportunity since of returning with safety; and therefore, after bewitching the family with his gifts of praying, he was conveyed in the dusk of the evening by a guide to the house of the next adjoining rebel, and thus in the same manner from one to another, till in a month's time he got through the principal of them in the west,telling the general at his return, that he 'made the old wives, in their devout fits, tear off their biggonets and mutches;' he likewise gave the general a list of their names and places of abode, and into the bargain brought back a good purse of money in his pocket."
"How used you to pray among them?" asked Dalyell.
"It was my custom in my prayers," replied the trooper, "to send the king, the ministers of state, the officers of the army, with all their soldiers and the episcopal clergy, all at one broadside to hell; but particularly our general himself."
"What," exclaimed the general, "did you also sendmeto hell, sir?"
"Yea," replied the unabashed dragoon, "you at the head of them as their leader."
This discreditable abuse of hospitality and breach of faith in the soldier is recorded as a piece of admirable tact and strategy by Creichton, and doubtless Dalyell would make good use of the notes supplied to him.
In the month of July, in the following year, 1680, Dalyell sent Creichton with thirty of Airlie's horse, and fifty of Strachan's dragoons, under Captain Bruce of Earlshall, to capture or kill a hundred and fifty Covenanters, who, since the fight at Bothwell, had been lurking in the wilds of Galloway. These unfortunates, after being tracked from place to place by Bruce and Creichton, made a stand against them at Airsmoss, near Muirkirk, on the 22nd July, and there these desperate men fought as only the homeless and the outlawed, the brave and the foredoomed, can fight; but they were routed, and fourteen of them were taken prisoners. Among these was David Hackston, of Rathillet, who had been present at the murder of the Archbishop of St. Andrews. Sixty were slain, and one of these was Richard Cameron, a preacher, and formerly a schoolmaster at Falkland, for whose capture five thousand marks had long been offered by the government at Edinburgh.