his letters first reported on in the Historical MSS. Commission's third Report, and printed in full in Fraser's ‘Red Book of Menteith.’ Claverhouse's kinsman, the eighth earl of Menteith, having no children, and the earl's cousin, Helen Graham, daughter of Sir James Graham, being the nearest heiress, the proposal was made by Claverhouse that the earl should settle on him the title and estates on condition that he married Helen Graham. In his first letter, undated, but probably written towards the close of 1678, he urges the advisability of Menteith's settling his affairs, instancing the wisdom of Julius Cæsar in adopting Augustus, and thus securing a valuable friend as well as a wise successor. The earl, impressed with the force of Claverhouse's representations, wrote the young lady's father on his behalf, stating that he would ‘never consent to the marriage unless it be Claverhouse.’ The suit was making rapid progress when the young lady's father announced that a rival was in the field, who proved to be the Marquis of Montrose, the titular head of the Grahams. The diplomacy of Claverhouse was thus rendered of no avail. Montrose had, however, his desires fixed solely on the old earl's estates. Having outwitted Claverhouse by securing from Menteith a grant of the estates, he began to cool in his attentions to the young lady, and soon afterwards married Lady Christian Leslie, daughter of the Duke of Rothes. He then told Claverhouse that he might have ‘Sir James's daughter and all,’ but the ‘all’ Claverhouse discovered did not refer to the estates. He had some thoughts of applying to the Duke of York to make Montrose disgorge, but gave up the idea. In any case he had the assurance of the title, and matters had gone so far with him that he expressed his willingness to marry the lady on almost any terms. ‘I will assure you,’ he wrote on 1 Oct. 1681 to Menteith, ‘I need nothing to persuade me to take that young lady. I would take her in her smoak.’ The parents, however, suspected that Montrose and Claverhouse had been acting in collusion, and in any case Claverhouse without the Menteith estates was not regarded as a brilliant match. There was also an old love whom possibly the lady in any case preferred. Towards the close of the year she and her parents crossed over to Ireland, and she was married there to Captain Rawdon, nephew and heir-apparent to Lord Conway.
It was perhaps after making a last effort to obtain the hand of Helen Graham that on 26 Nov. 1681 Claverhouse narrowly escaped drowning in crossing the Firth of Forth from Burntisland to Leith (Tyler, Poem of the Tempest, 1685; Napier, i. 319). There is no further record of his doings till the following January. On the 2nd of that month Queensberry reported to the newly appointed lord president of the court of session, Sir George Gordon of Haddo, that all was peaceable in his district except that ‘in the heads of Galloway some of the rebels meet’ (Gordon Papers, p. 5), and recommended that a competent party be sent with Claverhouse for ‘scouring that part of the country.’ To enable him to do his work more effectually, he was on 30 Jan. appointed hereditary sheriff of Wigtown, in room of Sir Andrew Agnew, and bailie of the regality of Longlands, in room of Viscount Kenmure, both of these having refused to take the recently prescribed ‘test.’ He was also specially empowered to call before him all persons guilty of withdrawing from the public ordinances or attending conventicles (Napier, ii. 252). The same commission also conferred on him the office of sheriff depute and steward depute of the shire of Dumfries and stewartry of Kirkcudbright and Annandale, with a caveat, however, that this latter appointment was not to interfere with the hereditary jurisdictions, and that he was ‘only to proceed and do justice in the cases foresaid when he is the first attacher.’ In carrying out his commission his proposal was ‘to fall to work with all that have been in the rebellion or accessory thereto by giving men, money, or arms, and next resetters, and after that field conventicles.’ He also proposed ‘to threaten much, but forbear execution for a while, lest people should grow desperate’ (Letter in Napier, ii. 261). To meet his ‘great expense’ he asked leave to make use of all movable property against which he could find probation, ‘for the maintenance of prisoners, witnesses, spies,’ &c. (ib.) His first care was to provide magazines of corn and straw in every part of the district, so that he might be free to move with rapidity wherever he pleased, ‘after which he fell in search of the rebels, played them hotly with parties, so that there were several taken, many fled the country, and all were dung from their haunts; and then rifled so their houses, ruined their goods, and imprisoned their servants, that their wives and children were brought to starving, which forced them to have recourse to the safe-conduct,’ &c. (report by Claverhouse to the privy council in Gordon Papers, pp. 107–11). By ‘rebels’ he meant those who had been in arms at Bothwell Bridge; for others a milder course of treatment was adopted. He called the inhabitants of two or three parishes together, and intimated that all who would resolve to conform might expect favour except resetters and ringleaders. By this method large num-
