Part 35

He was shot and buried in the moss, where his grave is still shown; but his head and hands were conveyed by Creichton to head-quarters. So perished this enthusiast; but he bequeathed his name to a sect from which the 26th Scottish Regiment of the Line still takes its title of _the Cameronians_.

With a barbarity worthy of the Sepoy mutineers his head and hands were exhibited to his aged father, then a prisoner in the gloomy Tolbooth of Edinburgh, and tauntingly he was asked, if he knew to whom they had belonged.

"Oh yes," said the old man, as he wept and kissed the bloody relics; "they are my son's--my dear son's--but good is the will of the Lord!"

After this revolting incident, they were fixed to the Netherbow-porte, the eastern gate of Edinburgh.

Captains Bruce and Creichton had also brought with them from Airsmoss the Laird of Rathillet, who had received many wounds in the skirmish. He was personally questioned by Dalyell, who is said to have threatened to roast him, because his answers to certain queries were brief, sullen, and unsatisfactory. Covenanting writers add, that the general refused to permit Hackston's wounds to be dressed, and ordered him to be chained to the floor of his dungeon till he was conveyed to Edinburgh, where he was executed by prolonged tortures with a barbarity that had never been equalled, even in those days.

Among others seized by Dalyell was John Spreul, an apothecary in Glasgow, whom he brought before the Council, and accused of being concerned in the fight at Bothwell. His leg was put in the iron boot, and at each query the headsman gave the wedges five strokes with a mallet. "Dalyell," says Wodrow, "complained that he did not strike strongly enough; upon which, he (the torturer) offered himself the mallet, saying he struck with all his might." Spreul was afterwards imprisoned on the Bass Rock, where he remained for six years.

Amid the many instances of severity attributed to Dalyell, I must not omit to record one of a different kind.

The most celebrated prisoner taken at Bothwell was Captain John Paton, of Meadowhead, who served under Gustavus Adolphus, and had fought at Kilsythe against Montrose, where he had displayed remarkable bravery and skill in the use of his sword. Dalyell was present when this fine old veteran was examined before the Privy Council. On this occasion a soldier had the rudeness to taunt him with being "a rebel."

"Sir," retorted Paton, "I have done more for the King perhaps than you have done--I fought for him at Worcester."

Some humane impression or soldierly emotion stirred the heart of Dalyell at these words.

"Yes, John, you are right--that is true," said he: and striking the soldier with his cane, added, "I will teach you, sirrah, other manners, than to abuse a prisoner such as this." He then expressed sorrow for Paton's situation, and said he would have set him at liberty had his

## actions not been subject to the control of others; "but," he added, "I

will yet write to the King, and crave at least your life."

"I thank you," replied the unmoved Covenanter; "but you will not be heard."

It is said that he obtained a reprieve for Paton, but was unable to save his life; for though willing to take the test, the Captain was hanged, by sentence of a quorum of the Council, in the Grassmarket, on the 9th May. In August, 1853, a monument to his memory was erected in the churchyard of Ayr.

Undaunted by all that had passed and was still passing around him, in the September of that year, Donald Cargill, one of the most determined preachers of the Covenant, and one who had long escaped the fangs of the Council, held a conventicle in the Torwood, near Stirling, and with all solemnity and bitterness excommunicated the King, the Dukes of York, Monmouth, and Lauderdale, General Dalyell and others, an act of daring which, at such a time, made a deep impression on the Government; but in the following year he paid for his enthusiasm by the forfeit of his life, being captured by General Dalyell, and executed by the authorities.

Tyranny and local misgovernment had now rendered the condition of poor Scotland sad beyond description.

Through the lonely mosses, the pathless moors, and pastoral mountain districts of their native land, the unhappy Covenanters were hunted like beasts of prey, without a refuge or a resting place but such as Heaven accords to wild animals; and wherever found, captivity or death was the penalty. During twenty-eight years of this military persecution, it has been calculated that eighteen thousand persons suffered death in the field, or by the utmost extremities of torture that the Council could inflict; seventeen hundred were banished to the plantations, and two hundred perished on the scaffold alone; seven thousand are said to have fled to foreign countries, and four hundred and ninety-eight were slain in cold blood, or in casual encounters; and all this was done in the name of God, of Religion, and Law!

In September, 1679, there was a stormy debate in the Scottish Privy Council. By an act of indemnity, his Majesty pardoned all who had been at Bothwell Bridge, ministers and lesser barons excepted, provided they appeared before such persons as the Council should appoint, and signed a bond that never again would they rise in arms against the government. It may readily be believed that very few gave this promise; and from the minutes it would appear that Dalyell and Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh, urged that all who had _not_ done so should be proceeded against as rebels. The President and others pled that to proceed to further extremities would be cruel, as more than four thousand persons, many of whom might be sick or ignorant of the King's letter, were involved in the measure proposed, and ultimately Dalyell, and those who adhered to him, agreed that the King should once more be addressed on the subject.

The next entry connected with the General runs thus:--

November 6, 1679. "At Privy Council there is a letter read from his Majesty, nominating Lieutenant-General Dalziel commander-in-chief of all the forces of Scotland, with power to him _to act as he shall think fit_, and only be liable and accountable and judgeable by his Majesty himself; for Dalziel would not accept of it otherways; only he promised and declared, that in difficult exigents he should take the advice of his Majesty's Privy Council." (_Fountainhall_, vol. i.) On the 3rd June, 1680, the Council received a letter from Charles on this subject. It declared that when he gifted forfeitures, he always reserved for his own use the houses standing on the forfeited lands. He also gave Dalyell a Commission of Justiciary, with the advice of nine others, to execute justice on all who were in arms at Bothwell, or failed to take the bond within the period stated, since the 1st of January.

In 1680, the Duke of York and Albany arrived in Edinburgh, to supersede Lauderdale, and took up his residence at Holyrood. Dalyell received him at the head of the troops and a body of armed citizens, consisting of sixty men chosen from the sixteen companies of the Trained Bands which lined the streets. After his arrival, he and his Duchess, Marie d'Este of Modena, so celebrated for her beauty, left nothing undone to ingratiate themselves with the Scottish people, to the end that, if excluded by the Act of Succession from the English throne, they might for themselves secure the ancient crown of Scotland. Everything was studied, done, and adopted to ensure popularity; and one fact is certain, that after the Duke's arrival the persecution of the Covenanters was much less severe than before. By ostentatious pageants, he revived in the nation what it was even then beginning to forget, the memory of its regal independence and the pride of better days; and thus he sought to make his family less abhorred in the hearts of the people. He projected many improvements at Edinburgh. Among others, the plan for building a bridge across the North Loch, and having a new town built upon the northern ridge; and the Holyrood parties, where _tea_ was seen for the first time in Scotland, the balls and masques of the Ladies Anne, afterwards of Denmark, and Mary, afterwards of Orange, were long the theme of aged demoiselles and stately dowagers in Edinburgh, where the beauty and charming suavity of the young princesses, with their natural gaiety, brightened the gloomy towers and tapestried rooms of the ancient palace: and the memory of these things was transmitted by many a mother and grandmother to their little ones, when the last of that old royal race was far away in hopeless exile and obscurity, and the first grass of spring was sprouting on the graves of Culloden.

The Duke of York and his Duchess are said to have been warned of the lofty spirit and haughty punctilio of the old Scottish aristocracy from a speech of General Dalyell.

James had invited this stern and bearded cavalier to dine with them at Holyrood soon after his arrival; but the Duchess Mary, as a daughter of the ducal Prince of Modena, seemed to consider it somewhat derogatory to her rank to sit with a subject at table, and declined to take her place.

"Madam," said the old veteran, "I have dined at a table where _your_ father must have stood at _my_ back."

In this instance it is supposed that he alluded to the board of the Emperor of Germany, whom the Duke of Modena, if summoned, must have attended as an officer of the household. Abashed by the firm retort of this grim old man, the haughty princess at once took her seat, and from thenceforward she and her husband resolved, in their intercourse with the Scottish noblesse, to exercise all the suavity and affability they could command. By various acts of leniency the Duke also sought to win favour.

"General Dalyell," says old Lord Fountainhall in his _Diary_, "having caused to be condemned by court martial a sentinel who had been found sleeping at one of the gates of the Abbey, the Duke caused him to be remitted and forgiven all punishment."

In this year, soon after the Duke's arrival, the services of the General were required to repress a dangerous demonstration among the students of the Edinburgh University. Being deeply imbued with the sentiments of the Covenanters, on Christmas Day, 1680, these young men resolved to manifest publicly their horror of all prelacy, by burning an effigy of the Pope, a ceremony eminently calculated to offend the royal Duke, as a zealous Catholic; and the magistrates, having resolved at all hazards to prevent this impolitic display, immediately communicated with General Dalyell, that he might have the troops in readiness to overawe the city. In furtherance of their daring scheme, the students posted on all the gates and public places of Edinburgh the following curious placard:--

"AN ADVERTISEMENT.

"These are to give notice to all noblemen, gentlemen, and citizens, that we, the students in the Royal College of Edinburgh (to show our detestation and abhorrence of the Romish religion, and our zeal and fervency for the Protestant), do resolve to burn the effigies of _Antichrist, the Pope of Rome_, at the Mercat-cross of Edinburgh, at twelve o'clock in the forenoon--being the festival of our Saviour's nativity. And since we hate tumults as we do superstition, we do hereby, under pain of death, discharge all plunderers, robbers, thieves, whores, and bawds to come within forty paces of our company, and such as shall be found disobedient to these our commands, _sibi caveant_.

"By our special command, Robert Brown, Secretary to all our Theatrical and Extra-Literal Divertisements."

By an oath, the students bound themselves to stand by each other, under a penalty, and employed a carver in wood to make them an effigy of his Holiness, "with clothes, triple crown, keys, and other necessary habiliments."

The Lord Provost, Sir James Dick, reported their intentions to the Duke of York, and threatened that "he would make it a bloody Christmas for them;" while Dalyell marched all the troops from Leith into the Canongate. The Grassmarket, an old quaint street lying to the south of the Castle rock, was filled with troops, whose patrols scoured all the wynds and closes, as the narrow alleys of the ancient city are named. The militia, or trained bands of Edinburgh, occupied the High-street; guards were placed on the College, which stood without the walls, and those at the palace were doubled for additional security to the royal duke and his family.

Undismayed by all these warlike preparations, the students, many of whom were armed with swords and pistols in their belts, mustered in the High School yard, and with loud shouts bore, shoulder high, an effigy of the Holy Father, clad in pontifical robes, with mitre and keys, down the narrow wynd that led from the school to the wynd of the Blackfriars, from whence they boldly issued by an archway into the lower end of the High-street; and there, after reading an accusation and sentence, amid a general cry of _Pareat Papa!_ they set fire to the effigy, which was hollow and filled with gunpowder. To these proceedings the city militia offered no opposition; but, according to the history of this affair, published in Paternoster-row in 1681, "on the first report of what was doing, General Dalyell galloped in with his dragoons through the Netherbow-porte, and was followed by the infantry under the Earl of Mar."

A scuffle ensued. The Earl of Linlithgow, a Catholic peer, with a few of his Foot Guards, dispersed the students sword in hand, and in making a pass at one of them, fell, amid loud laughter, prostrate before the blazing figure, which was burned to the complete satisfaction of all concerned therein. Many students were captured and threatened with torture by the Council; but for his loyalty in this affair, the house of the Lord Provost, an old manor at Priestfield, near Duddingstone, was one night set on fire by ignited powder-balls, and burned to the ground. A proclamation was issued, banishing all students fifteen miles from the capital, and for closing the gates of the university; but the circumstance of a gunpowder barrel, bearing the Edinburgh Castle mark, being found near Priestfield, caused a general suspicion that some officers of the garrison had a hand in the affair. A reward of two hundred merks was offered for each of the leaders in these outrages; but it was to the honour of the students that not one was betrayed by his comrades.

The civil commotions were now of a nature so serious, that the local government forced the magistrates of Edinburgh to _number_ the inhabitants of the city and its suburbs, and to make accurate lists of all men and women between the ages of sixteen and sixty, for the information of the Lords of Council. The name, rank, or profession of persons in lodgings or hostelries, and of all strangers in the city, were to be delivered nightly by the bailies to the captain of the city guard, who, under a penalty of 100_l._ Scots, was to send it to the commander-in-chief, or officer next in command.

On the 15th of November, 1681, Dalyell raised that celebrated dragoon regiment, so well known in military history as the Scots Greys, from the peculiar colour of their horses. They were a corps of horse-grenadiers, and were recruited almost exclusively among the sons of the Cavalier gentry and their tenants.[37] The regiment is now numbered as the 2nd Cavalry of the Line. They wore the old heavy-skirted buff coat; and it is worthy of remark, that the _last time_ such a garment was worn in the British service was by the colonel who commanded them at Minden, seventy-four years after.

Captain Creichton mentions that, when he was lying in his lodgings at Edinburgh, suffering from sword wounds received at Airsmoss, Dalyell was wont to visit him daily, as he went to the Duke's Court at Holyrood, and once "did me the honour," he continues, "to mention me and my services to His Royal Highness, who was desirous to see me. I was admitted to kiss his hand, and ordered to sit down in consequence of my honourable wounds, which would not suffer me to stand without great pain."

About this time the Reverend John Blackadder, a pious and good man, who had long continued preaching in solitary places, revisited his native country, after having been in Holland, and was captured by a party of soldiers, and brought to Edinburgh, where Johnstone, the town major, at once conveyed him, under escort, to the house of Dalyell, in the Canongate. The account of their interview, and of the examination of Blackadder before the inexorable Lords of Council, are graphically detailed in the memoirs of that unfortunate Covenanter.

The Major conducted him down that long and ancient street to where the General lived, near the old palace porch, which has now been demolished. The prisoner was accompanied by his son Thomas, who in after years died a merchant in New England. It chanced that the dreaded Dalyell, whose white vow-beard and lofty bald head impressed with fear and respect all on whom he bent his stern grey eye, opened the door as they approached, being probably about to walk forth.

"I have brought you a prisoner," said Major Johnstone.

"Take him to the guard," replied Dalyell, briefly.

On this the poor minister, whose emotions on finding himself confronted by the scourge of the Covenanters must have been far from enviable, stepped up the stair, and said timidly--

"Sir, may I speak with you a little?"

"You, sir, have spoken too much already," replied Dalyell, in anger, for he never controlled his wrath at the sight of a Covenanter. "I should hang you with my own hands, over that outshot!"

At that moment Dalyell knew not who Blackadder really was; but finding him in a mood so sullen, and aware that the old man's anger was not to be trifled with, the Major took his prisoner away. Instead, however, of consigning him to the common guard-house--for Blackadder was a man alike venerable by his years and character--he gave him a room in the house of Captain Murray, of Philiphaugh, where he remained until he was brought to the dread Council chamber for examination before the Duke of Rothes, then Lord High Chancellor of Scotland; Sir George Mackenzie, of Rosehaugh, King's Advocate; General Dalyell, and Paterson, the last Bishop of Edinburgh.

"Are you a minister?" asked Rothes.

"I am," replied Blackadder.

"Where?"

"At Troqueer, in Galloway."

"How long since?"

"Since 1653."

"Did you excommunicate the King at the Torwood, or were you there at the time?" continued the Chancellor.

"I have not been at the Torwood for these four years."

"But what do you _think_ of it (the excommunication)? Do you _approve_ of it?"

He was asked the usual ensnaring questions (and, like other prisoners, had the instruments of torture on the table before him) as to whether he approved of the execution of Charles I.; if he had preached in the fields and on the hill-sides, and so forth; but his answers proved unsatisfactory, and, after a long examination, he was sent back to Philiphaugh's apartments at Holyrood.

On the morning of the next day he sent his son Thomas to a kinsman named Blackadder, who bore the rank of colonel, and had been Dalyell's comrade in the expedition at Skelko Castle in 1654, and who now exerted himself in his favour, and made such interest with the stern General, that he received the recusant divine with great politeness in the forenoon, when he was again brought before the Council.

"Mr. Blackadder," said he, "of what family are you--the House of Tulliallan?"

"Yes, General, I am the nearest alive now, to represent that family, although it is now ruined and brought so low."

Dalyell was also allied by blood to the family of Tulliallan.

"Are you the son of Sir John Blackadder?" asked Bishop Paterson; but the inflexible Covenanter declined _his_ authority as a spiritual lord, and would not reply even to this trivial question.

In the sequel, he was sent prisoner to the Bass, escorted by three Life Guardsmen, and an officer named Rollock, who threatened to pistol him at Fisher-row, when the people gathered to see him pass. On that dreary rock, which was then the home of many a broken heart, the old man died in his seventieth year, and he now lies in the churchyard of North Berwick.[38]

The publication of a stern and high-toned manifesto against _Charles Stuart_, and all supporters of his authority, together with the secret murder of two gentlemen of the Life Guards, who had been particularly

## active in discovering conventicles, and who were assassinated a few

nights after its appearance in November, 1684, excited great alarm in the minds of the Scottish ministry. An oath, abjuring the principles inculcated by this document, was ordained to be put to all persons above sixteen years of age, and capital punishment was the penalty of all who refused it. Dalyell took measures still more decisive with the parish where the guardsmen were murdered; and he marched a body of troops to Livingstone, where the officers had authority to summon before them the inhabitants of that parish, and of five others adjacent, that they might be interrogated upon the late seditious manifesto.

Those who owned it were instantly to be shot; and those who refused to answer were also to be shot. Officers and soldiers were sent through Edinburgh--particularly to the Calton, where the poorest and most humble class of citizens resided--to enforce the oath of abjuration and ask ensnaring questions, as to whether the rising at Bothwell was a _rebellion_, and the slaying of Archbishop Sharpe a _murder_? "Old women were taken from their wheels, and journeymen and apprentices from the forge, to answer these teazing and captious questions," and the thumbikins were always at hand to freshen their memories.

A document preserved in the General Register House at Edinburgh, signed by Charles II. at Windsor, 16th of June, 1684, and printed by a literary club, affords us a list of the Scottish standing forces, then commanded by Dalyell, and irrespective of the militia which formed the main strength of the country.

Reduced since Bothwell, the Life Guards then consisted of a hundred men; each officer was furnished with two horses; the pay, sterling, of a captain was 1_l._ per diem; of the lieutenants 12_s._; of the cornets 7_s._; of the troopers 2_s._ 6_d._

His Majesty's regiment of Foot Guards, still commanded by Lieut.-General George, Earl of Linlithgow, consisted of ten companies, each consisting of three officers, two sergeants, two drummers, and seventy-three rank and file, making a total strength, staff included, of eight hundred and seven men.

The grenadiers of the Foot Guard were the same in number as the ten preceding companies.

The Earl of Mar's regiment consisted of eleven companies of eighty strong. The pay of a captain of infantry was 8_s._ sterling per diem; the privates received 5_d._

A regiment of horse (armed with sword and pistol), consisting of five troops of fifty men each, including officers and men.

A regiment of dragoons (armed with sword, pistol, and _musket_, for service on horseback or on foot), the _Scots Greys_, consisting of "six companies," also of fifty-nine each, including officers. All troopers received 1_s._ per diem.

The garrison of Edinburgh Castle consisted of 5 officers and 121 soldiers; of Stirling Castle, 3 officers and 47 soldiers; of Dunbarton Castle, 3 officers and 32 soldiers; of the Bass Rock, 1 officer and 28 soldiers.