# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cleland, William (1661?-1689)

​CLELAND, WILLIAM (1661?–1689), covenanting colonel and poet, son of Thomas Cleland, gamekeeper to the Marquis of Douglas (Wodrow, History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, i. 524), was born about 1661. From references in his poems county town of Dumfries, and to the rivers Nith and Annan, it has been supposed that he was a native of Dumfriesshire, but the probability is that he was born and brought up near Douglas Castle in Lanarkshire, where the Marquis of Douglas chiefly resided. He was educated at the university of St. Andrews, where he entered St. Salvator's College in 1676, and was matriculated on 2 March 1677 (Records of St. Andrews University quoted in note by T.M'Crie to Memoirs of William Veitch, p. 108). The statement of James Watson in 'Choice Collection of Comic and Serious Scots Songs,' 1706, that Cleland wrote the additional verses to 'Hullo, my fancie' while a student 'in the college of Edinburgh,' must therefore be regarded as an error, although, substituting St. Andrews for Edinburgh, we may accept the statement that he wrote them during his 'last year at college, not then fully eighteen years of age.' Immediately after leaving the university, Cleland attached himself to the covenanters, and was present at Drumclog on 1 June 1679, one version of this encounter attributing to him the arrangements which resulted in the total defeat of Claverhouse's dragoons. He then joined the covenanting army assembled near Hamilton, and acted as one of the captains at Bothwell Bridge. In the proclamation after the battle denouncing the leaders of the insurgents, he and his brother are described as 'James and William Clelands, ​brother-in-law to John Haddoway, merchant in Douglas.' He escaped arrest by going to Holland, and in a manuscript in the Advocates' Library, Quoted by T. M'Crie in 'Memoirs of William Veitch,' is stated to have been sick there in November 1680. There is every probability that while in Holland he studied civil law at Utrecht, for he published there 'Disputatio Juridica de Probationibus' in 1684. He was present at the meeting held at Amsterdam on 17 April 1685 to concert measures for a descent on Scotland under the Earl of Argyll, and arrived there, specially commissioned, some time before the earl landed (Wodrow). After its failure he remained some time under hiding in the wilds of Lanarkshire and Ayrshire, but ultimately escaped again to Holland, and in 1688 arrived in Scotland along with Dr. William Blackadder [q. v.] as one of the agents of the Scottish exiles in connection with the expedition of the Prince of Orange, and conducted negotiations in preparation for the revolution. He is said to have been the author of the plot of the western covenanters, which caused Dundee suddenly to leave Edinburgh during the meeting of the convention of estates in 1689, thus preventing the completion of the plans of the Jacobite leaders for a royalist convention at Stirling. The influence of Cleland among the western covenanters, and his intimacy with James, earl of Angus, son of the Marquis of Douglas, sufficiently account for his appointment to be lieutenant-colonel of the Cameronian regiment (now the 26th) formed by the Earl of Angus from among the minority of the western covenanters after the majority at a great meeting held in the parish church of Douglas had decided that to take service under King William would be 'a sinful association.' In 'Faithful Contendings displayed,' representing the views of the extreme covenanting party, he is referred to as 'though once with us,' yet 'afterwards a great opposer of our testimony, and a reproacher of Mr. James Kenwick and our faithful brethren both at home and abroad.' In little more than a month after it was raised, the regiment, after the death of Dundee at Killiecrankie, was sent to garrison Dunkeld as an outpost preparatory to a second invasion of the highlands. The decision of the Scottish privy council to place a body of raw undisciplined troops in such a critical position met with strong remonstrances from General Mackay; but unjustifiable as the arrangement would have been even in the case of veteran troops, the stern fanaticism of the western peasants was equal to the emergency. In the face of overwhelming danger their confidence and courage never for a moment blenched; and while their defence is worthy to rank among the most heroic achievements in the annals of war, fortune further rewarded it with the glory of complete victory. The implacable hostility existing between the highland Jacobites and the western covenanters doubtless led to the resolution of General Cannon to concentrate all his forces against a mere outpost. On the morning of 26 Aug. 'all the hills around Dunkeld were,' in the picturesque language of Macaulay, 'alive with bonnets and plaids,' and a force of over five thousand Highlanders swarmed round the devoted band cut off from all hope of succour, and without the defence of ramparts or heavy ordnance to ward off the immediate fury of a hostile assault. Fully aware of the critical nature of their position, the regiment had, some time before they were actually attacked, remonstrated with Colonel Cleland on his resolution to hold the town, representing that while the officers had horses to carry them out of danger, the private soldiers must remain and be butchered. In reply to this Cleland ordered all the horses to be brought out that they might be shot; but his words at once made the men ashamed of their apprehensions, and, declining to accept any pledge, they resolved to maintain the town to the last. The desperate conflict raged for over four hours, the Cameronians for the most part taking up their position behind a wall surrounding a mansion belonging to the Marquis of Athole, whence they sallied forth with burning faggots on the end of long poles, and set fire to the houses from which the highlanders maintained their fire. Cleland, while directing his men, was shot through the head and liver, and fell lifeless before he could return to shelter; but his loss only made the determination of the covenanters more desperate, and their unflinching resolution gradually told on the excitement of the highlanders, who, seeming suddenly to recognise that if they did at last gain the victory it would be at too dear a price, relaxed their efforts, and began steadily to retreat. Not only had the Cameronians baffled completely their attack, but by their resolute valour had so discouraged the highland chiefs, that they immediately returned home with their followers, and the Jacobite rising was at an end.
Cleland was the author of 'A Collection of several Poems and Verses composed upon various occasions,' which appeared posthumously in 1697. Of the first piece in the volume, 'Hullo, my fancie, whither wilt thou go?' displaying more ease and grace than most of his other verses, only the last nine of the seventeen stanzas are by Cleland, and were ​written by him at college while in his eighteenth year. The original song had achieved popularity twenty years before the birth of Cleland, and a parody on it, printed about 1640, is among the 'Roxburghe Ballads,' iii. 633. Cleland's ballad was reprinted in James Watson's 'Collection' in 1706, and by Sir Walter Scott in his 'Minstrelsy.' The most important piece in the volume of Cleland is a 'Mock Poem on the Expedition of the Highland Host who came to destroy the Western Shires in Winter 1678,' in which the appearance and manners of the outlandisn array are satirised with considerable keenness and force, but in somewhat doggerel rhyme. There is also a longer and duller 'Mock Poem on the Clergie when they met to consult about taking the Test in the year 1681.' Cleland is erroneously stated by Sir Walter Scott to have been the father of Major William Cleland, commissioner of excise [q. v.]
[Faithful Contending displayed; General Mackay's Memoirs; Memoirs of Sir Kwen Cameron (Abbotsford Club, 1842); Wodrow's Sufferings of the Church of Scotland; Memoirs of William Veitch (1825); Exact Narrative of the Conflict at Dunkeld between the Earl of Angus's Regiment and the Rebels, collected from several Officers of that Regiment who were actors in, or Eye-witnesses of, all that's here narrated in reference to those Actions; Letter of Lieutenant (afterwards Lieutenant-colonel) Blackadder to his brother, dated Dunkeld, 21 Aug. 1689, inserted in Crichton's Life and Diary of Colonel Blackadder; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. ix. 493; Irving's History of Scottish Poetry, 581-5; Histories of Bill Burton and Lord Macaulay.]
T. F. H.