wearying patience and acuteness with which he has examined the
confused and so often conflicting records of that time, or of the
incomparable skill with which he has brought them into a clear
continuous narrative. To glean after Macaulay is indeed a barren task.
So far, then, from affecting to cavil at his work, I must acknowledge
that without his help this little book would have been still less. Yet I
do think he has been hard upon Claverhouse. Perhaps the scheme of his
history did not require, or even allow him, to examine the man's
character and circumstances so closely as a biographer must examine
them. It is still more important to remember that the letters discovered
by Napier in the Queensberry Archives were not known to him. Had he seen
them, I am persuaded that he would have found reason to think less
harshly of their writer.

[8] "The south-west counties of Scotland have seldom corn enough to
serve them round the year; and the northern parts producing more than
they need, those in the west come in the summer to buy at Leith the
stores that come from the north; and from a word 'whiggam,' used in
driving their horses, all that drove were called the 'whiggamores,' and
shorter, the 'whiggs.' Now in that year, after the news came down of
Duke Hamilton's defeat, the ministers animated the people to rise and
march to Edinburgh; and they came up, marching on the head of their
parishes, with an unheard-of fury, praying and preaching all the way as
they came. The Marquis of Argyle and his party came and headed them,
they being about 6,000. This was called the Whiggamores' Inroad: and
even after that all that opposed the Court came in contempt to be called
Whiggs: and from Scotland the word was brought into England, where it is
now one of our unhappy terms of distinction."--Burnet, i. 58. See also
Scott's "Tales of a Grandfather," ch. xii. Mr. Green, however, thought
the word _whig_ might be the same as our _whey_, implying a taunt
against the "sour-milk faces" of the fanatical Ayrshiremen.--"History of
the English People," iii. 258.

[9] Sharpe's notes to Kirkton's "History of the Church of Scotland," pp.
48-9. See also Wishart's "Memoirs of Montrose."

[10] "The Lauderdale Papers." The most important passages in Sharp's
letters will be found in Burton's history, vii. pp. 129-146.

[11] "Memoirs of Captain John Creichton," pp. 57-9.

[12] The torture of the thumbkin is said to have been introduced into
Scotland by