Viscount Dundee

John Graham of Claverhouse (1648-1689) First Viscount Dundee, aka Bonnie Dundee, aka Bluidy Clavers.

John Graham of Claverhouse was a dashing handsome cavalry officer who rode a black charger named Satan. He was a royalist and an enthusiastic persecutor of Covenanters.

Covenanters were people who had signed the Solemn League and Covenant which declared Presbyterianism as the only acceptable form of Christian worship in Scotland and rejected bishops and other "Papish" devices. When King Charles I was executed in England his son Charles II was declared King of Scots and was offered Scottish support in return for signing the Solemn League and Covenant and guaranteeing the Presbyterian Church in Scotland. When Charles was restored to the English throne in 1660, ten years after signing the Covenant, he reneged on his earlier commitment and tried to force an episcopal church on Scotland. Those who refused the new form of church government were branded outlaws and are generally known as Covenanters.

Attendance at state-sanctioned churches was compulsory and parishioners were fined if they failed to go to church. Covenanting preachers could be executed for preaching and the government deployed troops to break up open-air prayer meetings, which were called conventicles. The Covenanters would post armed lookouts to protect the conventicles from patrolling dragoons and confrontations became inevitable.

In 1679 John Graham of Claverhouse was recalled from military duty in Europe to help lead the government crackdown on the Covenanters. Claverhouse received intelligence that there was a large conventicle taking place on Loudoun Hill in Ayrshire and he set off in pursuit of his quarry. The conventicle was several thousand strong, with whole families in attendance. When the dragoons were spotted, the minister closed his bible and said "ye have the theory - now for the practice." Armed Covenanters formed a host of 1500 men and prepared to resist the dragoons.

The Covenanters, with their swords, pikes and a few firearms formed up behind a ditch at the foot of the hill, with marshy ground before them and to their flanks. The dragoons, outnumbered four-to-one, dismounted as the ground was unsuitable for cavalry, and advanced towards the Covenanters. The Covenanters advanced, singing psalms as they closed in for hand-to-hand fighting with the troops. In the melee which followed, Claverhouse's horse was gashed in the belly and bolted. The dragoons, seeing their commander apparently fleeing, broke and fled after him. The dragoons fled to Glasgow with the Covenanters in hot pursuit. Thus ended the Battle of Drumclog.

Three weeks later the Covenanters were encamped at Bothwell Brig in Lanarkshire and, being Scots, were busy arguing among themselves. The government, meanwhile, gathered an army under the King's illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, to crush the Covenanters. Claverhouse was among the government commanders and was smarting for revenge after his humiliating rout at Drumclog. The government had artillery and raked the ranks of the Covenanters with grapeshot and roundshot, and the Covenanters broke and ran after having stubbornly held the bridge for over 2 hours. Claverhouse pursued the fleeing Covenanters mercilessly and killed indiscriminately. Monmouth tried to restrain the men under his command and said he would not have men killed in cold blood - that was the work of a butcher - but it was to no avail. Claverhouse would have his revenge. 800 Covenanters were killed and a further 1400 taken prisoner.

Claverhouse was given command of the south west of Scotland with extensive powers to root out Covenanters. This is the period of Scottish history known as the Killing Time and no-one was more prominent than Claverhouse. His activities in the south west earned him the nickname Bluidy Clavers (Bloody Claverhouse). Claverhouse even left his own wedding reception to chase Covenanters!

The government passed a law requiring everyone to swear an Abjuration Oath, rejecting the Covenant. Anyone who refused could be legally killed in front of two witnesses. Men and women were shot on the spot for nothing more than carrying a bible. People were summarily executed on the slightest suspicion, including stammering while giving the oath. Despite a reign of terror, the Covenanters were never beaten and, in 1685, Charles died and was succeeded by his Roman Catholic brother James (VII of Scotland, II of England).

The prospect of a Catholic King caused great consternation and rebellion was in the air. In an attempt to forestall a Protestant uprising, James granted freedom of worship to all his subjects. The Killing Time was over.

Protestants saw freedom of religion as nothing more than toleration of Roman Catholics and many were enraged. James was deposed in 1688 and replaced by his Protestant daughter Mary, and her husband William of Orange. There was civil war between the Jacobite supporters of James and his legal heir, Prince James, and the Whig supporters of William and Mary.

Claverhouse, now Viscount Dundee, raised an army in Scotland and marched south in support of the Jacobite cause. The English army defected to William and James fled the country, leaving the Scottish Jacobite army to fend for itself. Claverhouse returned to Scotland with only thirty horsemen.

In 1689, Dundee was a wanted man with a bounty of £20,000 on his head. He raised the Jacobite standard on Dundee Law and raised an army of 2500 Highlanders to fight in the name of the deposed King James VII. A government force under the command of General Mackay was sent to deal with the uprising and the two armies met at the Pass of Killiecrankie near Blair Atholl in Perthshire.

The Jacobites formed up on the high ground to the north of the Pass. Mackay's men, trapped in the Pass quickly formed up into long ranks of infantry on the wings, with artillery in the middle and his cavalry in the rear. Dundee formed his Highlanders into three divisions, with his cavalry in the centre, facing the guns. Just after 8 p.m. Dundee gave the order to charge and his Highlanders fired their muskets before drawing their broadswords and rushing down the hill in a fearsome Highland Charge. Mackay's infantry fired volleys of musket rounds into the onrushing Highlanders, causing terrible casualties, but had no time to fix bayonets before the Highlanders were upon them. It was over in a few minutes. Mackay's men broke and ran down the narrow gorge through which the river Garry flows. One Redcoat by the name of Donald MacBean famously leapt six metres across the gorge to make good his escape! Hundreds of others were not so lucky and were drowned in the Garry's bloody pools. Only 400 of Mackay's men survived, but the Highlanders had suffered terrible losses too. Almost a thousand men died in the charge, and Dundee was struck by a stray musket ball, dying the following day. Without their Bonnie Dundee the Jacobites lost heart and the rebellion ended in failure.

[ANDY-J]

The Stewart monarchs often exhibited a lack of political good sense but James VII was surely the most inept of them all.The English in the seventeenth century hated the French,absolutism,catholicism and standing armies.James was a Francophile who spent his short reign trying to establish himself as an absolute monarch and persuade his subjects to adopt catholicism.He also insisted on maintaining a standing army which,had he been shrewd and courageous could have saved him from being overthrown.He was not deposed by force of arms and he did not formally abdicate.He chose to leave Britain at the first sign of trouble.His army greatly outnumbered William's foreign mercenaries and if he had shown the courage to lead them there is little doubt they would have followed him in spite of his lack of popularity.The prospect of dragging the country into another protracted and bloody civil war would have horrified the English establishment and another regicide would not have been tolerated.Almost certainly they would have viewed support for James as the lesser of two evils and would have supported him on the condition that he compromised on his religious policies.James however in the best Stewart traditions snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.He missed a golden opportunity to secure his realm from outside interference.He lacked sound judgement,political skill and courage.Instead he possessed the stubborness of his father Charles I.Had he shown any character or willingness to compromise the misnamed "glorious revolution" would have been snuffed out and the subsequent decades of slaughter and upheaval in Scotland caused by Jacobitism would never have occured.

[ANDY-J]

One of the methods employed by the authorities in attempting to quell the covenanters was the quartering of highland soldiers on the residents of south-west Scotland.It is estimated that 8000 highland troops were brought south from Stirling to Glasgow and Ayrshire.The highlanders were infamous for their harsh treatment of their hosts and were described by the Ayrshire heritors(parish authorities) as an 'inhumane and barbarous crew of spoilers'.Nine highland soldiers were quartered on William Dickie of Kilmarnock for six weeks.The highlanders maltreated him and his family and one of them stabbed his pregnant wife who died soon after.The minister of Kilmarnock,Rev.Alexander Wedderburn condemned the highlanders in one of his sermons.He was later assaulted by them and subsequently died of his wounds .It is estimated that the total cost in plunder etc. in Ayrshire alone was around £138 000.The highland soldiers were responsible for many killings virtually being mercenaries who balked at nothing.The "highland host",according to Woodrow,'committed the most notorious outrages,wounded and dismembered some persons without the least show of provocation.'



Sources-Love.D.-tales from the killing time(Glasgow 2000).
Wodrow,Rev.Robert.-History of the sufferings of the church of Scotland.(Glasgow 1828-36).

[jacobitedreamer]

Okay Neil,

I do not post this in order to defend or justify anything. I just thought it an interesting example of the "customs" of those times. It is an extract from a chronicle describing the battle of Bothwell bridge and the death of James Grahame, cornet and nephew to Claverhouse - the Covenanters mistook him for Claverhouse himself, be it for the similarity between the two men or for the name "Grahame" embroidered to his neckerchief...

You can find the whole manuscript in the National Library of Scotland, I guess. The author is one Andrew Guild. So here it is, in Latin, copied from my vast collection.

Mons est occiduus, surgit qui celsus in oris,
Nomine Loudunum, fossis puteisque profundis
Quot scatet hic tellus, et aprico gramine tectus:
Huc collecta ait, numeroso milite cincta,
Turba ferox, matres, pueri, innuptaeque puellae,
Quam parat egregia Graemus dispersere turma.
Venit et primo campo discedere cogit;
Post hos et alios, coeno provolvit inerti;
At numerosa cohors, campum dispersa per omnem,
Circumfusa, ruit; turmasque, indagine captas,
Aggreditur; virtus non hic, nec profuit ensis;
Corripuere fugam, viridi sed gramine tectis,
Precipitata perit, fossis, pars ultima, quorum
Cornipedes haesere luto, sessore rejecto:
Tum rabiosa cohors, miseri nescia, stratos
Invadit laceratque viros: Hic signifer, eheu!
Trajectus globulo, Graemus, quo fortior alter,
Inter Scotigenas fuerat, nec justior ullus:
Hunc manibus rapuere feris, faciemque virilem
Foedarunt, lingua, auriculis, manibusque resectis,
Aspera diffuso spargentes saxa cerebro:
Vix dux ispe fuga salvo, namque exta trahebat
Vulnere cardatus sonipes generosus hiante:
Insequitur clamore cohors fanatica, namque
Crudelis semper timidus, si vicerit unquam.
(Bellum Bothuellianum)

A rough tranlation:

There is a mountain called Loudon in the west which rises high with grass and slopes open to the sun and springs rise from deep gullies in that ground. There, surrounded by numerous soldiers, was assembled a fierce mob, mothers, sons and unmarried girls. The noble Grahame (the cornet)resolved to scatter them; he came thinking to divide them from the first field and to harry them away into the uncultivated land. But the numerous forces dispersed through the fields, surrounded and menaced him. Neither his strength nor his sword were to help him, his flight was hindered, he perished on the slopes, shot and stumbling from his horse. Then the furious mob rushed upon him and tore him, alas for the standard bearer. Now the valiant Grahame, before the strongest among the Scots, was torn to pieces: his hands severed, his face, tongue, ears, eyes ripped and scattered amongst the rocks. His leader was forced to flee, his fine horse trailing its entrails from a gaping wound, followed by the yell of the fanatics, cowards cruel on the strength of one victory.


Okay, these words are not mine. I like this piece of text as it shows very clearly the cruelty of ANY warfare and especially the way each side in this conflict paid the deeds of the other.

[jacobitedreamer]

I have received from a good friend a relatively new biography on John Graham of Claverhouse and I think it well worth reading for all those who are interested in real facts rather than political fiction (from whatever side).

It is called "Bonnie Dundee" and was written by Andrew Murray Scott.

It is in fact the only book I know dealing with his childhood, education and family life, which I think is important for understanding the PERSON Dundee.

It contains extracts from Dundee's letters which do throw light upon his character and way of thinking. And it actually takes a huge broom to wipe away propaganda and reveal the true facts, beginning with the black charger which was a "sorrel mare" (as far as I know, the only famous Graham riding a black horse was MONTROSE) and ending up with the "hundreds of people he killed by his own hand" (he got the deeds of Grierson of Lag and many others on his head after he was dead!)- the only proved case was the death of Brown of Priesthill who was killed after a real chase through a moor. Brown's nephew was spared and not killed, as stated by others. Actually, you will see, when reading this book, that "Bluidy Clavers" urged moderation wherever he could.

Now, I do not intend to offend anyone or change anyone's opinion, but I think it is a good book and would like to recommend it.

[Edited by jacobitedreamer on 11th April 2002 at 10:23]