nd James, who bestowed upon him the command of a troop
of horse: and then he began the spoiling and killing the people of God;
wherein he was alway successful, except at Drumclog. One of his exploits
was at Bewly-bog, where the writer of his memoirs says, he killed 75 and
took many prisoners. After Bothwel, had Monmouth granted it, he would
have killed the prisoners, burnt Glasgow, Hamilton and Strathaven, and
plundered the western shires. To enumerate all the cruelties, bloodshed
and oppression committed by him, while he ranged up and down the country
for ten years space, were a talk here too tedious: in which time it is
said, he killed near 100 persons in cold blood. In Galloway, he and his
party ravished a woman before her husband's eyes, took a young boy, tied
his two thumbs with a cord, and hung him to the balk or roof of the
house. Another they took and twisted a small cord about his head with
their pistols to the scull. In 1682, he pursued and shot one W. Graham
when escaping from his mother's house. In 1683, he shot four men on the
water of Dee, and carried two to Dumfries, and hanged them there. In
1685, he caused shoot one in Carrick, and in the same year most cruelly
shot John Brown at his own door in Moor-kirk, and a little after shot A.
Hyslop in Annandale. These and such services procured him a higher title
of honour: he was created Viscount Dundee, and made privy counsellor. In
York's reign, his conduct was much of a piece, running up and down the
country, making people swear they would never lift arms against king
James. He was alway staunch to popery, and when the convention met at
Edinburgh, he went off with some horse to the north, and raised the
clanships for James's interest; where he shifted from place to place
till June 13, 1689, that he came to a pitched engagement with Gen.
Mackay on the braes of Gillicrankie on the water of Trumble. The battle
was very bloody, and by Mackey's third fire Claverhouse fell, of whom
historians give little account; but it has been said for certain, that
his own waiting man taking a resolution to rid this world of this
truculent bloody monster; and knowing he had proof of lead[281], shot
him with a silver button he had before taken off his own coat for that
purpose. However he fell, and with him popery and king James's interest
in Scotland. _Behold thou art taken in thy mischief, because thou art a
bloody man_--_Claverhouse's memoirs_, _History of the Sufferers_,
_Defo