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"He has you there, I think, my Lord Duke," said one of the Privy Councillors. "Ay, ay," returned the Duke, laughing, "there's no speaking to him since Drumclog but come, bring in the prisoners and do you, Mr Clerk, read the record."
As the skirmish of Drumclog has been of late the subject of some enquiry, the reader may be curious to see Claverhouse's own account of the affair, in a letter to the Earl of Linlithgow, written immediately after the action. This gazette, as it may be called, occurs in the volume called Dundee's Letters, printed by Mr Smythe of Methven, as a contribution to the Bannatyne Club.
"He was then," says the Bishop, "a lively, hopeful young man; but getting into that company, and into their notions, he became a crack-brained enthusiast." Several well-meaning persons have been much scandalized at the manner in which the victors are said to have conducted themselves towards the prisoners at Drumclog.
He came back to me and to the auld place o' refuge that had often received him in his distresses, mair especially before the great day of victory at Drumclog, for I sail ne'er forget how he was bending hither of a' nights in the year on that e'ening after the play when young Milnwood wan the popinjay; but I warned him off for that time."
I said nothing to Robin Brown of what my intent was, but that I was on my way to join the Cameronians, if I knew where they might be found; and he informed me, that after the raid of Airsmoss they had scattered themselves into the South Country, where, as Claverhouse had the chief command, the number of their friends was likely to be daily increased, by the natural issue of his cruelties, and that vindictive exasperation, which was a passion and an affection of his mind for the discomfiture he had met with at Drumclog.
Eben folded a pair of brawny arms across a chest like an oriel window, but Rob always careful for appearances, had his great-grandfather's sword, known in the family as "Drumclog," cocked over his shoulder, and carried his head to the side with so knowing an air that the blade was cold against his right ear. Last of all my grandfather stepped in, while I kept carefully out of sight behind him.
"The fragment of steel that parted from this first gap rested on the skull of the perjured traitor who first introduced Episcopacy into Scotland; this second notch was made in the rib-bone of an impious villain, the boldest and best soldier that upheld the prelatic cause at Drumclog; this third was broken on the steel head-piece of the captain who defended the Chapel of Holyrood when the people rose at the Revolution.
But they, also, had abroad their detachments and advanced guards to collect supplies, and great was the doubt and distress of those who received contrary orders, in the name of the King and in that of the Kirk; the one commanding them to send provisions to victual the Castle of Tillietudlem, and the other enjoining them to forward supplies to the camp of the godly professors of true religion, now in arms for the cause of covenanted reformation, presently pitched at Drumclog, nigh to Loudon-hill.
A good many people from all quarters had joined the Covenanters after the success at Drumclog; but it is thought that their numbers never exceeded 4000. The army which prepared to meet them under the command of the Duke of Monmouth and Buccleuch was said to be 10,000 strong among them were some of the best of the King's troops.
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