riage, news had reached Dalyell while at the ‘forenoon sermon’ in Glasgow, that a conventicle was being held on Blacklock Moor, and at an extraordinary meeting of the council special measures were taken to deal with the threatened danger. On the afternoon of his wedding-day Claverhouse had therefore to mount and scour the moors in search of the rebels; he returned to his bride at Paisley on the 13th, but again at noon had to take horse, and just before mounting wrote a letter which concludes with a certain touch of humour: ‘I am just taking horse. I shall be revenged some time or other of this unseasonable trouble these dogs give me. They might have let Tuesday pass’ (ib. ii. 398). During his absence to visit his bride, his second in command, Colonel Buchan, had come upon an ambuscade, who after firing upon his troops fled to the hills over boggy ground where the troopers could not follow. Claverhouse spurred hard in pursuit so as to secure, if possible, the passes into Galloway, but never came in sight of the fugitives. ‘We were,’ he writes, ‘through all the moors, mosses, hills, glens, woods, and spread in small parties, and ranged as if we had been at hunting … but could learn nothing of those rogues’ (ii. 403). Some time subsequently several of those suspected were seized; but while a body of troops were conveying sixteen persons to Dumfries, an attack was made at a narrow pass at Enterkin Hill, in which, though some of the prisoners lost their lives, the majority escaped, only two being retained. These audacious manifestations led to a new measure of repression by the privy council, and on 1 Aug. Claverhouse, with Colonel Buchan as his second in command, was sent to act in Ayr and Clydesdale, a special civil commission being joined with his military command. This was followed in October 1684 by the declaration of Renwick and other covenanters of their determination to retaliate by punishing those ‘who make it their work to embrue their hands in our blood,’ according to ‘our power and the degree of their offence’ (Wodrow, iv. 148–9). To meet this manifesto an act was thereupon passed by the council ‘that any person who owns or will not disown the late treasonable declaration on oath, whether they have arms or not, be immediately put to death, this being done in the presence of two witnesses and the person or persons having commission to that effect.’ This enactment inaugurated the period of exceptional severity known in covenanting annals as the ‘killing time.’ The proclamation of Renwick was followed by several outrages, some of which took place in the Galloway district. These latter included the murder of the curate of Carsphairn and the invasion of Kirkcudbright by armed covenanters, ‘who broke open the jail and carried away such persons as would go with them’ (Letter of Dalyell in Napier, ii. 428). Claverhouse hastened from Edinburgh, and was soon on their track. On the 20th news came from him that he had met with a party of those rogues, had killed five, and taken three prisoners, some of whom were of the murderers of the curate of Carsphairn, and that he was to judge and execute the three persons by his justiciary power (ib. ii. 427). Before setting out on this raid Claverhouse, at a meeting of the council, had supported a complaint of some of the soldiers against Colonel Douglas, brother of the Duke of Queensberry. The Duke of York seems so far to have supported Queensberry, and when the scene in the council was described to him wrote that he ‘was sorry Claverhouse was so little master of himself.’ Having rapidly accomplished his purpose in Galloway, Claverhouse by 15 Jan. appeared with the Earl of Balcarres by special commission at the circuit justiciary court of Fife to propose that the oath of abjuration should be taken by all men and women above the age of sixteen (Fountainhall, p. 602). He was now, however, through his quarrel with Queensberry, on bad terms with the council. His ‘high, proud, and peremptory humour’ had given deep offence, and the Scottish statesmen had probably become jealous and afraid of the rapid rise of his fortunes and his influence with the Duke of York. With Queensberry the jealousy was of long standing, although he was both sensible of the merits of Claverhouse as an officer, and had not scrupled to make use of this influence with the Duke of York for his own advancement. To mark the council's disapproval of the attack of Claverhouse on Colonel Douglas, he was despatched instead of Claverhouse to quell a rising in the western shires (ib. p. 623); and not content with administering an indirect rebuke, Queensberry at the same time called him to account for the fines of delinquents in Galloway. ‘He told his brother was gathering them in and craved a time. Queensberry offered him five or six days; he told that was all one considering the distance as to offer him none at all, whereon the treasurer replied, Then you shall have none’ (ib.) In accordance with the same policy, when on 27 March a special commission of lords justices was named for Wigtownshire, although David Graham, sheriff depute and brother of Claverhouse, was one of the commission, they were appointed to ‘concur with Colonel Douglas,’ and not with Claverhouse who was sheriff of the shire. A
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