Page images
PDF
EPUB

From Blackwood's Magazine.

LORD MACAULAY AND DUNDEE.

FEW celebrated men have suffered more injustice at the hands of posterity than John Grahame of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee. A perverse fate seems to have pursued his memory. Falling upon evil days, and playing an important part in the closing scenes of a dark and tragic period, it is not wonderful that his acts should have been misrepresented, and his character distorted, by contemporary malice and falsehood. But the ill fortune of Claverhouse has pursued him to our own times. Sir Walter Scott once remarked, with perfect truth, "that no character had been so foully traduced as that of the Viscount of Dundee-that, thanks toWodrow, Crookshank, and such chroniclers, he, who was every inch a soldier and a gentleman, still passed among the Scottish vulgar for a ruffian desperado, who rode a goblin horse, was proof against shot, and in league with the devil."

Unhappily it is not among the Scottish vulgar alone that misconception as to the character of Dundee has prevailed. It is indeed only very lately, and principally in | consequence of the reaction produced by the unscrupulous virulence of recent attacks upon his memory, that investigations have been made, which have placed his character in a truer light, and removed the load of obloquy under which it has so long and so unjustly lain. True as Sir Walter Scott's instincts and sympathies were, even he has admitted into his masterly portrait of Claverhouse some touches darker than can be justified by what we now know of his character. This is to be attributed partly to the fact that many circumstances have come to light since Old Mortality was written, and partly to the excellences of Sir Walter Scott's own character, which became, by excess, defects. His acquaintance with the times of which he wrote was profound; his power of reproducing the character he depicted-of evoking not merely the form and lineaments of the dead, but of breathing into that form the very soul by which it had been animated -was unequalled by any but Shakspeare himself; and his mind was far too great, his sympathics too catholic, and his disposition too generous, to permit him to pervert this power to the service of party aims, or the promulgation of his individual opinions and predilections. His fault lay in the opposite direction. His opponents found more than justice at his hands, whilst those with whose opinions and characters he sympathized, sometimes found less. He has adorned Balfour of Burley with a wild heroism far higher than should be awarded to the savage mur*Lockhart's Life of Scott, vol. iv. p. 38.

derer of Archbishop Sharpe, and has dealt out but scant measure of justice to the accomplished and chivalrous Grahame of Clayerhouse.

Lord Macaulay's errors were of a different kind. They proceeded from a too eager partisanship, a too fervid attachment to the creeds and traditions of the party to which he belonged. We have never grudged our share of the tribute universally and justly paid to the eloquence, the power, the varied research, the vast knowledge, which combined to chain the reader by a magical influence to the pages of his History. It stands like that fair cathedral, whose unfinished towers are reflected in the waters of the Rhine, a mighty and a beautiful fragment. We trust that no feebler hand will attempt its completion; and we indulge with pleasurse the belief that future volumes would have redeemed the injustice into which his impetuous temperament, his love of striking and picturesque effects, and sometimes a natural, though dangerous, delight in the exercise of his own powers, have too often betrayed the historian.

There are few occurrences in life that so deeply impress the mind and touch the heart, as when a noble antagonist is struck down in the full vigor of his powers. The eloquent pen which placed in vivid reality before our eyes the defence of Derry and the trial of Warren Hastings, which painted the court of Charles II. with the gayety of Watteau, and the Black Hole of Calcutta with the power of Rembrandt, has dropped from the hand that guided it; the flashing eye which heralded the impetuous words to which we have often listened with delight is dim; and the stores of that marvellous memory, where priceless jewels and worthless trifles were alike treasured up, will never more be poured out in prodigal generosity for our instruction and delight.

Justice to the mighty dead with whose ashes his own are now mingled, has, however, frequently compelled us to point out what have appeared to us to be the errors, the mistakes, and the faults of Lord Macaulay's History.

The conqueror of Blenheim, the founder of Pennsylvania, the hero of Killiecrankie, and the victim of Glencoe stand now no further from us than he whom we have so lately lost. The narrow line over which we may be as suddenly summoned, is all that separates us. Silent shadows, they demand equal justice. But we enter upon our present task with mournful feelings, and we trust that we shall keep carefully in view, that in writing of the dead it is the duty no less of the critic than of the historian to keep ever in mind that he is dealing with those who cannot reply.

Lord Macaulay's portrait of Claverhouse is dashed in with the boldest handling, and in the darkest colors. Every lineament is that of a fiend. Courage the courage of a demon fearing neither God nor man-is the only virtue, if indeed such courage can be called a virtue, he allows him. A few lines suffice for the sketch:

Yet we never heard that the venerable exchancellor felt his dignity compromised, or that Sir Robert Peel ever considered whether there might not be three courses open to him, any one of which he might select to punish the audacious poet. Nor, we conceive, would Lord Macaulay have denounced him as "wicked and profane."

"Pre-eminent among the bands which opTo descend from kings and statesmen to pressed and wasted these unhappy districts," mortal men and miscreants," we remember were the dragoons commanded by John Grahame of Claverhouse. The story ran that these wicked men used in their revels to play at the torments of hell, and to call each other by the names of devils and damned souls. The chief of this Tophet, a soldier of distinguished courage and professional skill, but repacious and profane, of violent temper and of obdurate heart, has left a name which, wherever the Scottish race is settled on the face of the globe, is mentioned with a peculiar energy of hatred. To recapitulate all the crimes by which this man, and men like him, goaded the peasantry of the Western Lowlands into madness, would be an

endless task."

Yet the

when the "Olympic Devils" was the most
popular of all amusements. It was in our
younger days, when, in that pleasant little
theatre behind the Strand Church, men, and
women too, who, we trust, were not of any
extreme wickedness, used to "play at the
torments of hell," and certainly to call each
other by very diabolical names.
chief of that Tophet in Wych Street, an ac-
tress of distinguished beauty and profes-
sional skill, was, we trust, neither rapacious
nor profane, and certainly not of violent
temper nor obdurate heart, and has left a
name which, wherever the English race is
settled on the face of the globe, is mentioned
with a peculiar energy of any thing but hatred.

We confess that we are at a loss to understand the extreme horror with which the satanic sports of the soldiery seem to have To come to more important matters. inspired Lord Macaulay. One would not When Lord Macaulay asserts that Claverexpect the amusements of troopers to be of house was one of those whose conduct the most refined description, but it is going "goaded the peasantry of the Western Lowrather too far to conclude that a dragoon lands into madness," he shows an utter dismust necessarily be "wild, wicked, and hard- regard both of facts and dates. There is hearted," because he hits a comrade across probably but one opinion now as to the inthe shoulder in sport, and calls him Beel- sanity of the attempt to force Episcopacy zebub. Sportive allusions to the prince of upon Scotland. But Prelacy was restored darkness and his imps do not necessarily in May, 1662;* the ministers were ejected in imply allegiance to his power. King George the month of November in the same year.† III. was certainly a pious prince, yet "the The Court of Ecclesiastical Commission comstory runs,' as Lord Macaulay would say, menced its proceedings in 1664. The milthat when Lord Erskine presented the corps itary oppressions raged in 1665.§ The inof volunteers belonging to the Inns of Court surrection which terminated in the defeat to his majesty, the king exclaimed, "What! of Pentland took place the following year. what! all lawyers? Call them the Devil's Then followed countless executions, civil and Own-the Devil's Own." And "the Devil's military. The boot and the gibbet were in Own" they were called from that day for- constant employment. In 1668 the life of ward; their learned and gallant successors, Sharpe was attempted by Mitchell. In 1670, who drill in Lincoln's-Inn Garden and King's rigorous laws were passed against conventiBench Walks still rejoicing in the same in- cles; at the same time, the tyranny and insofernal designation, and being rather proud of lence of Lauderdale excited universal hatred it. We remember a jeu d'esprit, currently and disgust. In 1676 the proceedings of ascribed to an eminent Whig pen, which ran the government became even more severe. the circuit of the papers some twenty years" Letters of intercommuning," as they were ago, in which every eminent member of the Tory party was adorned with his particular diabolical cognomen. We quote from memory, but we have a very distinct recollection of the following lines as a part of the catalogue:

"Devils of wit and devils of daring;
Mephistopheles Lyndhurst and Mammon
ing;

Devils of wealth and devils of zeal,
Belial Croker and Beelzebub Peel."

called, were issued, denouncing the severest penalties against all who should afford meat, drink, or shelter to an outlaw. The fieldpreachers were hunted down by the soldiery, but their hearers rallied round them, and contests, frequently bloody and often of doubtful issue, occurred. The Bass was conBar-verted into a prison, the dungeons of which were crowded with captive ministers, and the Laing, ii. 21, 1st edit., vol. iv. of 2d edit.

† Ibid. 27. Ibid. ii. 34. § Ibid. || Ibid. ii. 68.

THIRD SERIES. LIVING AGE.

545

Highland host was called in to ravage the unhappy Western Lowlands at the latter end

of 1677.*

In the case of Andrew Hislop, Lord Macaulay says that the Laird of Westerhall having discovered that one of the proscribed Covenanters had found shelter in the house "pulled down the house of the poor woman, carried away her furniture, and, leaving her and her younger children to wander in the fields, dragged her son Andrew, who was still a lad, before Claverhouse, who happened to be marching through that part of the country."

These were the outrages by which the country was "goaded into madness." But of a respectable widow, and had died there, Claverhouse had not, nor could he have, any part or share whatever in them. He was absent from the country during the whole of the time during which they were committed, and did not return to Scotland until the early part of the year 1678. The first mention of him that occurs in Wodrow is in May, 1679, immediately before the skirmish of Drumclog. Lord Macaulay had Wodrow before him-he refers to him as his sole quthority for this passage; yet it is upon Wodrow's pages that the dates and facts are to be found which contradict his deliberate and often-repeated assertion.

For this Lord Macaulay cites Wodrow, but Wodrow's story is exactly the reverse. It was not Westerhall that brought Hislop a prisoner before Claverhouse, but Claverhouse that brought him before Westerhall, who, it is evident from the whole narrative, at that time possessed an authority superior to that Lord Macaulay selects five instances of of Claverhouse. Wodrow, after narrating the crimes "by which the peasantry of the the barbarous expulsion of the widow and Western Lowlands were goaded into mad- her children, Andrew-inclusive, by Westerness." An ordinary reader would certainly hall, proceeds thus:-"When they were infer from his language that Claverhouse thus forced to wander, Claverhouse falls upon was concerned in all these instances, and Andrew Hislop in the fields, May 10, and would be somewhat surprised, after perusing seized him, without any design, as appeared, Lord Macaulay's narrative, to find, on turn- to murder him, bringing him prisoner with ing to his authority, that in three out of the him to Eskdale unto Westerraw that night.”↑ five cases Claverhouse had no share what- Wodrow adds: "Claverhouse in this inever, and that in a fourth he acted the part stance was very backward, perhaps not wantof an intercessor for mercy, and exerted him- ing his own reflections upon John Brown's self in vain to save the life of the victim. murder the first of this month, as we have In the most cruel of all-that of Margaret heard, and pressed the delay of the execu Maclachlan and Margaret Wilson-we find, tion. But Westerraw urged till the other on referring to Wodrow, that a Colonel yielded, saying, "The blood of this poor Graham was concerned, but it was Colonel man be upon you, Westerraw; I am free of David Graham, the sheriff of Wigtownshire, it."‡ not Colonel John Grahame of Claverhouse.‡ This is the story as told by the bitterest Lord Macaulay might as well have con- enemy of Claverhouse. It is impossible for founded David Hume with Joseph Hume, any one who looks at it with the slightest or, as he did upon another occasion, Patrick candor, or desire to discern the truth, not to Graham of the Town Guard with the hero perceive that the influence of Claverhouse of Killiecrankie, or George Penne with the (was exercised on the side of humanity and founder of Pennsylvania. Even in this case, mercy. Why does Lord Macaulay, whose cruel and atrocious as it was, Lord Macaulay narrative so frequently, without any authormisquotes his authorities. He asserts that ity whatever, assumes the dramatic form, in these unhappy women "suffered death for this instance suppress the words of Clavertheir religion.' Wodrow and Crookshank, house, graphically recorded both by Wodrow on the contrary, distinctly state that they and Crookshank, "The blood of this poor were indicted and convicted for being in man be upon you, Westerraw; I am free of open rebellion at Bothwell Bridge and Aird's it?" Moss. Lord Macaulay also omits to mention what is stated by the historians he refers to, namely, that upon the case being brought to the notice of the Council, the prisoners were respited, and a pardon recommended, but that the execution was hurried on by the brutality of Major Windram and the Laird .of Lagg.§

[ocr errors]

* Wodrow, i. 480, fol.

† Nopier, Memoirs of Dundee, 185.
Wodrow, ii. 505; Crookshank, ii. 386.
Ibid.

We now come to the only authority (except vulgar tradition) that Lord Macaulay has given for his character of Claverhouse. It is the often repeated story of "John Brown, the Christian Carrier." Immediately upon the appearance of the first volume of Lord Macaulay's History, Professor Aytoun challenged the correctness of his picture of Claverhouse, and in a note to his noble and spirit-stirring "Burial-March of Dundee," Macaulay, ii. 76, ed. 1858. † Wodrow, ii. 507.

Ibid.

to have been too gross and palpable an im-
probability for Lord Macaulay, who repre-
sents them as merely moved by the natural
feeling of compassion for the unhappy wife

told by Wodrow. Again, Lord Macaulay
asserts that Claverhouse shot John Brown
dead in a fit of passion, excited by his loud
and fervent prayers. This is Lord Macau-
lay, "pur et simple." Wodrow's statement
is very different. He asserts that "not one
of the soldiers would shoot him, or obey
Claverhouse's commands, so that he was
forced to turn executioner himself, and in a
Wod-
fret shot him with his own hand."*
row asserts positively the refusal of the sol-
diers, and attributes the act of Claverhouse
to that refusal. Lord Macaulay confines his
statement to a natural reluctance on the part
of the soldiers, and attributes the act of
Claverhouse to a sudden gust of brutal and
furious passion. It is painful to observe,
and difficult to believe, the extent to which
Lord Macaulay has considered himself en-
titled to garble, alter, and pervert the au-
thorities he quotes; and it is strange that
he should have adopted, upon the sole au-
thority of Wodrow, a story which he yet ap-
pears to have felt to be so grossly improba-
ble, that he could not produce it until he had
pruned down some of its most extravagant
features.

exposed, by means of the most accurate reasoning and the most conclusive evidence, the errors into which the historian had fallen. It is much to be regretted that Lord Macaulay, who availed himself of the corrections more probable, certainly, but not the tale of the Professor upon some minor points, did not exercise the same discretion on this more important matter. The picture of Claverhouse, and the story of John Brown, have reappeared unaltered in each successive edition that has issued from the press. We quote from the one published in 1858:"John Brown, a poor carrier of Lanarkshire, was, for his singular piety, commonly called the Christian carrier. Many years later, when Scot land enjoyed rest, prosperity, and religious freedom, old men, who remembered the evil days, described him as one versed in divine things, blameless in life, and so peaceable that the tyrants could find no offence in him, except that he absented himself from the public worship of the Episcopalians. On the first of May he was cutting turf, when he was seized by Claverhouse's dragoons, rapidly examined, convicted of nonconformity, and sentenced to death. It is said that, even among the soldiers, it was not casy to find an executioner. For the wife of the poor man was present; she led one little child by the hand it was easy to see that she was about to give birth to another; and even those wild and hard-hearted men, who nicknamed one another Beelzebub and Apollyon, shrank from the great wickedness of butchering her husband before her face. The prisoner, meanwhile, raised above Wodrow's narrative first appeared in 1721 himself by the near prospect of eternity, prayed loud and fervently, as one inspired, till Claver-thirty-six years after the event is supposed house, in a fury, shot him dead. It was reported to have taken place, and thirty-three after Professor Aytoun justly by credible witnesses that the widow cried out in the Revolution. her agony, Well, sir, well, the day of reckoning will come;' and that the murderer replied, To man I can answer for what I have done, and as for God, I will take him into mine own hand.' Yet it was rumored that even on his seared conscience and adamantine heart the dying ejaculations of his victim made an impres

[ocr errors]

sion which was never effaced."*

This story of John Brown affords a curious example of the mode in which calumnies are propagated and grow; and at the risk of some repetition of what has already been so well done by Professor Aytoun, we shall proceed to trace the falsehood to its

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

remarks that

"These dates are of the utmost importance in considering a matter of this kind. The Episcopalian party which adhered to the cause of King James was driven from power at the Revolution, and the Episcopal Church proscribed. No mercy was shown to opponents in the literary war which followed. Every species of invective and vituperation was lavished upon the supporters of the fallen dynasty. Yet for thirty-three years after the Revolution, the details of this atrocious murder were never revealed to the public."†

Wodrow gives no authority whatever for his narrative. But there is another historian, Patrick Walker the packman, who, two years after the appearance of Wodrow's History, namely, in 1724, gave a very different, and in many respects a contradictory, account of the same transaction.

Professor Aytoun, with rather an excess of candor, says that "Mr. Macaulay may not have known that such testimony ever existed, for even the most painstaking historian is sure to pass over some material in so wide a field." True, but Lord Macaulay *Wodrow, B. iii., ch. ix.

† Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, App. p. 334.

*

can hardly be supposed to have been un- comrades, returning from a nightly meeting aware of the existence of a story which Sir armed with firearms, were pursued by one Walter Scott has twice repeated at full Francis Garden, a trooper in Lord Airley's length; first in the notes to the Minstrelsy regiment, alone, and armed only with his of the Scottish Border; and, secondly, in sword. How he intended to capture his the Tales of a Grandfather,† in both cases prisoners, unless after the Irish fashion of citing Walker's Life of Peden as his author-"surrounding" them, does not very clearly ity. But besides this there is other evidence appear. The result, however, was, that of the falsehood of Wodrow, which it is dif- Walker shot him through the head. Writficult to account for Lord Macaulay having ing more than thirty years after the event, overlooked. and when, according to Lord Macaulay, "Scotland enjoyed rest, prosperity, and religious freedom," he says "When I saw his blood run, I wished that all the blood of the

In 1749 the Rev. William Crookshank published his History of the State and Sufferings of the Church of Scotland. In the preface he says

I

"When I first engaged in this undertaking, only intended to abridge Mr. Wodrow's History; but by the advice of friends I was induced to use other helps for making the history of this persecuting period more clear and full. Accordingly, when I mention any thing not to be found in Wodrow, I generally tell my author, or quote him in the margin; so that though there is nothing I thought material in that author which I have omitted, yet the reader will find many things of consequence in the following work which the

other takes no notice of."

Lord's stated and avowed enemies in Scot

:

land had been in his veins having such a clear call and opportunity, I would have rejoiced to have seen it all gone out with a gush.”

We may therefore feel well assured that nothing which could be told against such a "stated and avowed enemy of the Lord" as Claverhouse, would be omitted by Walker; and it should at least throw a doubt on the veracity of Wodrow, when we find so zealous a Covenanter denouncing his History as a collection of "lies and groundless stories."

When Crookshank arrives at that part of Walker's Life of Pedan first appeared in his History which relates to John Brown, he 1724, three years after the publication of abandons Wodrow altogether, and adopts Wodrow's History. It is still widely circuWalker's narrative, citing him in the margin lated and extremely popular amongst the as his authority. Here, then, we find Wod- peasants of Scotland, and has been frequently row contradicted by the contemporary au- reprinted up to the present time in the form thority of Walker; Crookshank, the disciple of a chap-book. That even this account, and follower of Wodrow, confirming that though more trustworthy than that of Wodcontradiction, and feeling himself obliged to row, is not to be received with implicit condiscard his master's story; Sir Walter Scott fidence, will, we think, be admitted, when it casting the weight of his authority into the is observed that the story is first revealed in same scale; and yet Lord Macaulay, with a miraculous manner to the inspired Mr. all this evidence before him, added to the Peden, or as he commonly calls himself, gross improbability of the tale itself, repro-"Old Sandy." On the morning of John duces Wodrow's story in edition after edi- Brown's death, Peden was at a house about tion, with certain alterations purely his own, ten or eleven miles distant. and calls it history.

Walker hated Claverhouse with a hatred "Betwixt seven and eight he desired to call fully as bitter as that of Wodrow; he can- in the family that he might pray among them. not, therefore, be suspected of having sup- He said 'Lord when wilt thou avenge Brown's pressed or softened down any circumstance blood? Oh, let Brown's blood be precious in that could tell against him, or enhance the thy sight, and hasten the day when thou'lt avenge tragic nature of the scene. He states that it with Cameron's, Cargill's, and many other of he derived part, at least, of his account from our martyr's names. And oh for that day when the widow of the murdered man; the testi- ended, John Muirhead inquired what he meant the Lord would avenge all their bloods!' When mony he relies upon is therefore that most by Brown's blood? He said twice over, 'What hostile to Claverhouse. Walker was a con- do I mean? Claverhouse has been at the Prestemporary of Wodrow, though many years hill this morning, and has cruelly murdered older, and had borne a part in the troubled John Brown. His corpse is lying at the end of times to which the History of the latter re- his house, and his poor wife sitting weeping by lates. In 1682 he shot a dragoon who attempted to capture him. According to Walker's own account, he and two of his

*Note to the "Battle of Bothwell Brig." History of Scotland, chap. lii. Crookshank, Preface, xix.

his corpse, and not a soul to speak comfortably to her. This morning, after the sun-rising, I saw a strange apparition in the firmament, the appearance of a very bright, clear, shining star fall from heaven to earth; and, indeed, there is * Life of Peden.

« PreviousContinue »