Part 12

They were stout fighters, too, taking as kindly to their carnal as to their spiritual weapons, and a warfare against them was as ingloriously dangerous as the melancholy skirmishes of our own army with the Indians, who, it would seem, were driven to the war-path by a somewhat similar mode of treatment. There is not the slightest evidence, however, that Claverhouse was averse either to the danger or the cruelty of the work he was given to do. Religious toleration was then an unknown quantity. The Church of England and her Presbyterian neighbor persecuted each other with friendly assiduity, while Rome was more than willing, should an opportunity offer, to lay a chastening hand on both. If there were any new-fangled notions in the air about private judgment and the rights of conscience, Claverhouse was the last man in England to have been a pioneer in such a movement. He was passionately attached to his church, unreservedly loyal to his king, and as indifferent as Hamlet to his own life and the lives of other people. It is strange to hear Mr. Morris excuse him for his share in the death of the lad Hyslop, by urging in his behalf a Pilate-like disinclination to quarrel with a powerful ally, and risk a censure from court. Never was there a man who brooked opposition as impatiently, when he felt that his interests or his principles were at stake; but it is to be feared that the shooting of a Covenanter more or less was hardly, in his eyes, a matter of vital importance. This attitude of unconcern is amply illustrated in the letter written by Claverhouse to Queensberry after the execution of John Brown, “the Christian carrier,” for the sole crime of absenting himself from the public worship of the Episcopalians, says Macaulay; for outlawry and resetting of rebels, hint less impassioned historians. Be this as it may, however, John Brown was shot in the Ploughlands; and his nephew, seeing the soldiers’ muskets leveled next at him, consented, on the promise of being recommended for mercy, to make “an ingenuous confession,” and give evidence against his uncle’s associates. Accordingly, we find Claverhouse detailing these facts to Queensberry, and adding in the most purely neutral spirit,--

“I have acquitted myself when I have told your Grace the case. He [the nephew] has been but a month or two with his halbert; and if your Grace thinks he deserves no mercy, justice will pass on him; for I, having no commission of justiciary myself, have delivered him up to the lieutenant-general, to be disposed of as he pleases.”

Here, at least, is a sufficiently candid exposition of Claverhouse’s habitual temper. He was, in no sense of the word, bloodthirsty. The test oath was not of his contriving; the penalty for its refusal was not of his appointing. He was willing enough to give his prisoner the promised chance for life; but as for any real solicitude in the matter, you might as well expect Hamlet to be solicitous because, by an awkward misapprehension, a foolish and innocent old man has been stabbed like a rat behind the arras.

When Plutarch was asked why he did not oftener select virtuous characters to write about, he intimated that he found the sinners more interesting; and while his judgment is to be deprecated, it can hardly be belied. We revere Marcus Aurelius, but we delight in Cæsar; we admire Sir Robert Peel, but we enjoy Richelieu; we praise Wellington, but we never weary of Napoleon. “Our being,” says Montaigne, “is cemented with sickly qualities; and whoever should divest man of the seeds of those qualities would destroy the fundamental conditions of human life.” It is idle to look to Claverhouse for precisely the virtues which we most esteem in John Howard; but we need not, on that account, turn our eyes reproachfully from one of the most striking and characteristic figures in English history. He was not merely a picturesque feature of his cause, like Rupert of the Rhine, nor a martyr to its fallen hopes, like the Marquis of Montrose; he was its single chance, and, with his death, it died. In versatility and daring, in diplomatic shrewdness and military acumen, he far outranked any soldier of his day. “The charm of an engaging personality,” says a recent critic, “belongs to Montrose, and the pity of his death deepens the romance of his life; but the strong man was Dundee.”

FOOTNOTES:

[14] _Literary Studies_, vol. ii.

Transcriber’s Notes

Page 12: “Marquis de Montmirail” changed to “Marquise de Montmirail” “to the acount” changed to “to the account”

Page 44: “La virtu n’iroit” changed to “La vertu n’iroit”

Page 60: “Jacque Roulet” changed to “Jacques Roulet”