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JOHN GRAHAM,
FIRST VISCOUNT OF DUNDEE.
By EDMUND LODGE.
THIS remarkable man, whose name can never be forgotten
while military skill and prowess, and the most
loyal and active fidelity to an almost hopeless cause, shall
challenge recollection, was the eldest son of Sir William
Graham, of Claverhouse, in the County of Forfar, by Jane,
fourth daughter of John Carnegy, first Earl of Northesk.
His family was a scion which branched off from the ancient
stock of the great House of Montrose, early in the fifteenth
century, by the second marriage of William Lord Graham,
of Kincardine, to Mary, second daughter of Robert the
Third, King of Scotland, and had gradually acquired considerable
estates, chiefly by the bounty of the Crown. He received
his education in the University of St. Andrews, which
he left to seek on the Continent the more polished qualifications
of a private gentleman of large fortune, the sphere to
which he seemed to have been destined. In France, however,
the latent fire of his character broke forth; he entered
as a volunteer into the army of Louis the Fourteenth; and
having presently determined to adopt the military profession,
accepted in 1672 a commission of Cornet in the Horse
Guards of William the Third, Prince of Orange, by whom,
in the summer of 1674, he was promoted to be Captain of a
troop, for his signal gallantry at the battle of Seneffe, in
which indeed he saved the life of that Prince by a personal
Scottish regiments in the Dutch service, and, strange to tell,
was refused, on which he threw up his commission, making
the cutting remark, that “the soldier who has not gratitude
cannot be brave,” and returned to England, bringing with
him, however, the warmest recommendations from William
to Charles the Second; and Charles, who had been just then
misadvised to subdue the obstinacy of the Scottish Covenanters
by force of arms, appointed him to lead a body of
horse which had been raised in Scotland for that purpose,
and gave him full powers to act as he might think fit against
them, although under the nominal command of the Duke of
Monmouth. His conduct in the performance of this impolitic
and cruel commission has left a stain on his memory
scarcely to be glossed over by the brilliancy of his subsequent
merits. Bred from his infancy in an enthusiastic veneration
to monarchy, and to the Established Church, his
hatred to the Whigs, as they were then called in Scotland,
was almost a part of his nature; and, under the influence of
a temper which never allowed him to be lukewarm in any
pursuit, his zeal degenerated on this occasion with a frightful
facility into a spirit of persecution. He watched and
dispersed, with the most severe vigilance, the devotional
meetings of those perverse and miserable sectaries, and
forced thousands of them to subscribe, at the point of the
sword, to an oath utterly subversive of the doctrines which
they most cherished. But this was not the worst. On the
1st of July, 1679, having attacked a conventicle on Loudoun
Hill, in Ayrshire, the neighboring peasants rose suddenly on
a detachment of his troops, and, with that almost supernatural
power which a pure thirst of vengeance alone will sometimes
confer on mere physical force, defeated them with
considerable loss. The fancied disgrace annexed to this
check raised Graham's fury to the highest pitch, and he permitted
himself to retaliate on the unarmed Whigs by cruelties
of his march was now uniformly marked by carnage; the
refusal of his test was punished with instant death; and the
practice of these horrible excesses, which was continued for
some months, procured for him the appellation of “Bloody
Claverhouse”; by which he is still occasionally mentioned
in that part of Scotland. He apologized for these horrors
by coldly remarking, that “if terror ended or prevented war,
it was true mercy.”
It may be concluded that this intemperance had the full
approbation of the Crown, for we find that he was appointed
in 1682 Sheriff of the Shire of Wigton; received soon after
a commission of Captain in what was called the Royal Regiment
of Horse; was sworn a Privy-Councillor in Scotland;
and had a grant from the King of the Castle of Dudhope, and
the office of Constable of Dundee. Nor was it less acceptable
— such is the rage of party, especially when excited by religious
discord — to the Scottish Episcopalians, who from that
time seemed to have reposed in him the highest confidence.
James, however, in forming on his accession a new Privy
Council for that country, was prevailed on to omit his name,
on the ground of his having connected himself in marriage
with the fanatical family of Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald,
but that umbrage was soon removed, and in 1686 he was
restored to his seat in the Council, and appointed a Brigadier-General;
in 1688 promoted to the rank of Major-General;
and, on the 12th of November in that year, created by
patent to him, and the heirs male of his body, with remainder,
in default of such issue, to his other heirs male, Viscount
of Dundee, and Baron Graham of Claverhouse, in Scotland.
The gift of these dignities was, in fact, the concluding act of
James's expiring government. Graham, who was then attending
that unhappy Prince in London, used every effort
that good sense and high spirit could suggest, to induce him to
remain in his capital, and await there with dignified firmness
to collect, with that promptitude which was almost peculiar
to him, ten thousand of the King's disbanded troops, and at
their head to annihilate the Dutch forces which William had
brought with him. Perhaps there existed not on the face of
the earth another man so likely to redeem such an engagement;
but James, depressed and irresolute, refused the offer.
Struck, however, with the zeal and bravery, and indeed with
the personal affection, which had dictated it, he intrusted to
Dundee the direction of all his military affairs in Scotland,
whither that nobleman repaired just at the time that James
fled from London.
When he arrived at Edinburgh he found a Convention sitting,
as in London, of the Estates of the country, in which
he took his place. He complained to that assembly that a
design had been formed to assassinate him; required that all
strangers should be removed from the town; and, his request
having been denied, he left Edinburgh at the head of a troop
of horse, which he had hastily formed there of soldiers who
had deserted in England from his own regiment. In the
short interval afforded by the discussion of this matter, he
formed his plans. After a conference with the Duke of
Gordon, who then held the Castle for James, he set out for
Stirling, where he called a Parliament of the friends of that
Prince, and the revolutionists in Scotland saw their influence,
even within a few days, dispelled as it were by magic, in
obedience to his powerful energies. He was, in a manner,
without troops, depending on the affections of those around
him, which he had heated to enthusiasm, when a force sent
by the Convention to seize his person seemed to remind him
that he must have an army. He retired therefore into Lochaber;
summoned a meeting of the chiefs of clans in the
Highlands, and presently found himself at the head of six
thousand of the hardy natives, well armed and accoutred.
He now wrote to James, who, in compliance with French
him to embark with a part of his army for Scotland,
“where,” as he told the king, “there were no regular troops,
except four regiments, which William had lately sent down;
where his presence would fix the wavering, and intimidate
the timid; and where hosts of shepherds would start up warriors
at the first wave of his banner upon their mountains.”
With the candor and plainness of a soldier and a faithful
servant, he besought James to be content with the exercise of
his own religion, and to leave in Ireland the Earl of Melfort,
Secretary of State, between whom and himself some jealousy
existed which might be prejudicial to a service in which they
were alike devotedly sincere, however they might differ as to
the best means of advancing it. James rejected his advice.
“Dundee was furnished,” says Burnet, “with some small
store of arms and ammunition, and had kind promises, encouraging
him, and all that joined with him.”
Left now to his own discretion and his own resources, he
displayed, together with the greatest military qualifications,
and the most exalted generosity and disinterestedness, all the
subtlety of a refined politician. On his arrival at Inverness
he found that a discord had long subsisted between the
people of the town and some neighboring chiefs, on an alleged
debt from the one to the other, and that the two parties,
with their dependants, had assembled in arms to decide the
quarrel. He heard the allegations of the principals on each
side, with an affectation of the exactness of judicial inquiry,
and then, having convened the entire mass of the conflicting
parties in public, reproached them with the most cutting
severity, that they, “who were all equally friends to King
James, should be preparing, at a time when he most needed
their friendship, to draw those daggers against each other
which ought to be plunged only into the breasts of his enemies.”
He then paid from his own purse the debt in dispute;
and the late litigants, charmed by the grandeur of his
his banner. To certain other chiefs, upon whose estates the
Earl of Argyle, who sought to restore his importance by attaching
himself to the revolutionary party, had ancient claims
in law, and to others, who had obtained grants from the
Crown of some of that nobleman's forfeited lands, he represented
the peril in which they would be placed by the success
of William's enterprise on the British throne, and
gained them readily to his beloved cause. He addressed
himself with signal effect to all the powerful men of the
north of Scotland; fomented the angry feelings of those
who thought themselves neglected by the new government;
flattered the vanity of those who, indifferent to the affairs of
either party, sought simply for power and importance; corrupted
several officers of the regiments which were in
preparation to be sent against him; and even managed to
maintain a constant correspondence with some members
of the Privy Council, by whom he was regularly apprised
of the plans contrived from time to time to counteract his
gigantic efforts. Nay, he contrived to detach, as it were in
a moment, from Lord Murray, heir to the Earl of Athol,
a body of a thousand men, raised by that nobleman on his
father's estates; a defection of Highland vassals which had
never till then occurred. “While Murray,” says my author,
“was reviewing them, they quitted their ranks; ran to an
adjoining brook; filled their bonnets with water; drank to
King James's health; and, with pipes playing, marched off
to Lord Dundee.”
So acute and experienced a commander as William could
not be long unconscious of the importance of such an enemy.
He despatched into Scotland, at the head of between five and
six thousand picked troops, General M'Kay, who had long
served him in Holland with the highest military reputation.
In the mean time, James, who had been apprised of this disposition,
sent orders to Dundee not to hazard a battle till
Two months, however, elapsed before it appeared, which
Dundee, burning with impatience, was necessitated to pass
in the mountains, in marches of unexampled rapidity, in
furious partial attacks, and masterly retreats. It has been
well said of him, that “the first messenger of his approach
was generally his own army in fight, and that the first intelligence
of his retreat, brought accounts that he was already
out of his enemy's reach.” The long-expected aid at length
arrived, in the last week of June, 1689, consisting only of
five hundred raw and ill-provided recruits, but he instantly
made ready for action. He advanced to meet M'Kay, who
was preparing to invest the Castle of Blair, in Athol, a
fortress the possession whereof enabled James's army to
maintain a free communication between the northern and
southern Highlands, and determined to attack William's
troops on a small plain at the mouth of the pass of Killicranky,
after they should have marched through that remarkable
defile, on their road to Blair. On the 16th of
July, at noon, M'Kay's army arrived on the plain, and discovered
Dundee in array on the opposite hills. He had
resolved, for reasons abounding with military genius, to
defer his onset till the evening, and M'Kay, by various expedients
vainly tempted him during the day to descend: at
length, half an hour before sunset, his Highlanders rushed
down with the celerity and the fury of lions, and William's
army was in an instant completely routed. Dundee, who
had fought on foot, now mounted his horse, and flew towards
the pass, to cut off their retreat, when, looking back, he found
that he had outstripped his men, and was nearly alone. He
halted, and, wavering his arm in the air, pointed to the pass,
as a signal to them to hasten their march, and to occupy it.
At that moment a ball from a musket aimed at him lodged
in his body, immediately under the arm so raised. He fell
from his horse, and, fainting, was carried off the field; but,
inquired “how things went,” and on being answered “all
was well,” — “Then,” said he, “I am well,” and expired.
William, on hearing of his death, said, “The war in Scotland
is now ended.”
The memory of this heroic partisan has been cherished in
the hearts, and celebrated by the pens, of numbers of his
countrymen. A poet thus pathetically addresses his shade,
and bewails the loss sustained by Scotland in his death: —
Libertas patriæ salva fuisse tuæ.
Te moriente novos accepit Scotia cives,
Accepitque novos te moriente Deos.
Illa tibi superesse negat, tu non potes illi,
Ergo Caledonia, nomen inane, vale!
Tuque vale gentis priscæ fortissime ductor,
Optime Scotorum, atque ultime, Grame, vale!”
military character exquisitely curious and interesting. “In
his marches,” says that author, “his men frequently wanted
bread, salt, and all liquors except water, during several weeks,
yet were ashamed to complain, when they observed that their
commander lived not more delicately than themselves. If
anything good was brought him to eat, he sent it to a faint
or sick soldier. If a soldier was weary, he offered to carry
his arms. He kept those who were with him from sinking
under their fatigues, not so much by exhortation as by preventing
them from attending to their sufferings; for this
reason he walked on foot with the men; now by the side of
one clan, and anon by that of another: he amused them with
jokes; he flattered them with his knowledge of their genealogies;
he animated them by a recital of the deeds of their
ancestors, and of the verses of their bards. It was one of
his maxims that no general should fight with an irregular
army, unless he was acquainted with every man he commanded.
of his discipline was dreadful: the only punishment he inflicted
was death. All other punishments, he said, disgraced
a gentleman, and all who were with him were of that rank;
but that death was a relief from the consciousness of crime.
It is reported of him that having seen a youth fly in his first
action, he pretended he had sent him to the rear on a message.
The youth fled a second time — he brought him to
the front of the army, and saying that `a gentleman's son
ought not to fall by the hands of a common executioner,' shot
him with his own pistol.”
In society he is said to have been as much distinguished
by a delicacy and softness of manners and temper, and by
the most refined politeness, as he was by his sternness in war.
Sir Walter Scott, in his Romance of Old Mortality, in which
facts and fiction are blended with an uncommon felicity,
gives us the following picture of his person and demeanor,
evidently not the work of fancy, and probably in substance
the result of respectable and inveterate tradition: —
“Graham of Claverhouse was rather low of stature, and
slightly, though elegantly, formed; his gesture, language, and
manners, were those of one whose life had been spent among
the noble and the gay. His features exhibited even feminine
regularity. An oval face, a straight and well-formed
nose, dark hazel eyes, a complexion just sufficiently tinged
with brown to save it from the charge of effeminacy, a short
upper lip, curved upwards like that of a Grecian statue, and
slightly shaded by small mustachios of light brown, joined to
a profusion of long curled locks of the same color, which fell
down on each side of his face, contributed to form such a
countenance as limners like to paint, and ladies to look upon.
The severity of his character, as well as the higher attributes
of undaunted and enterprising valor which even his enemies
were compelled to admit, lay concealed under an exterior
which seemed adapted to the court or the saloon rather than
which reigned in his features seemed to inspire his actions
and gestures; and, on the whole, he was generally esteemed,
at first sight, rather qualified to be the votary of pleasure
than of ambition. But under this soft exterior was hidden a
spirit unbounded in daring and in aspiring, yet cautious and
prudent as that of Machiavel himself. Profound in politics,
and imbued, of course, with that disregard for individual
rights which its intrigues usually generate, this leader was
cool in pursuing success, careless of death himself, and ruthless
in inflicting it upon others. Such are the characters
formed in times of civil discord, when the highest qualities,
perverted by party spirit, and inflamed by habitual opposition,
are too often combined with vices and excesses, which
deprive them at once of their merit and of their lustre.”
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