New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1888-01-09
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
RONNIE D(rNDEE.

For more than two hundred years the memorY VA
John Graham Of Claverhousc, Viscount Dundee
has been burdcned by the most sinister charges.
1t may confidently be asserted that during the
whole of that period he has been presented TO tho
Inauguration Of men MS q man whose unquestion-
able ability and gallantry were more than out
weighed by his cruelty aud bloodthlrstlness lie
has been remem bered as the merciless prosecutor
and executioner Of the Scottish COvenanters; "a
the organizer Of ruthless slaughter at Bothweli
Bridge; as the femorseless wretch who drowned
women on the Solway sands, as the sanguinary
commander who took delight IN executing capt.
fal sentences With his own baud, and who upon oc-
casion did not hesitate to butcher his prisoners
without the preteroe of legal inquest into their
guilt. For generations Lowland mothers In Scot
land awed their children when dnruly by threat
ening them with Bloody Claverse." The tales
which during his lifetime obtained currency
among the Wild Western Wings" became the &C
cepted tradition regarding him. And when Macau-
Law reconstructed this hoary legend and vivifed 1t
with the splendor of his genius the sentence upon
him might well have seemed fixed beyond the pos
sibility of reversal.
Yet Mr. Mowbray Morris has undertaken to re-
habilitate the character and clear the memory
of Ciaverhouse, and formidable. nay. hopeless, as
the task NAV well appear to those who rely upon
Macaulay and his authorities. few will close this
modest volume without being convinced that tine
.are for the defence has been powerfully presented
and that in regard to the strongest counts IN the
Indictment of Dundee. Justice will have to enter
nolle proseqai. Mr. Morris has indeed written an
exceedingly interesting and able little biography
of man, half at least. of whose life is wrapped In
almost inpenetra BILE obscurity That he served in
France and the Low Countries before he took ser
vice IN Scotland has been always affirmed, and Mr..
Morris thinks it may be true but certainly no evil
dence can be found that he spent any time In
France. He did apparently fight under the Prince
of Orange, as at q later period he fought against
HIM. He a soldier OF fortune, now
ever, only in restricted sense. In his time
IL was the common practice for young Englishmen
and Scotchmen Of good birth to seek military train
ing on the continent under Condo and Turenne, and
Claverhouse had followed the prevailing custom
He was no Dugald Dalgetty. fighting for his own
hand. Once enlisted on behalf of Grow n and Church.
he remained loyal to the end; so loyal that he re-
fused to yield allegiance to William the Ihird ana
owed his death to that refusal.
1t has always been a cause of perplexity to hsto-
rians taking the traditional view Of him that his
private life Is admitted by his bltterest contempt
rary enemies to have been blameless. In disso-
lutte and incorporate period he was noted for his
personal purity and abstemousness. At ume
when the widest oaths were IN every mouth he
was remarked as carefully avoiding profane Ian
guage In all his private relations he Is repre-
sented as being an upright. vir tuous, estimable
gentleman. His veracity was never impeached,
and his whole surviving correspondence IS charac-
terized bv manly straightforwardness which be-
speaks the soldier puncious in duty and jealous OF
his honor In person he was strikingly handsome
and prepossessing and his appearance when
contrasted with his reputation, offers a strange
paradox. He possessed beauty almost femnine.
with slender form and limbs which. but for his
notorious strength and prowess, might have been
thought delicate. He was rigid discpHnariap.
and had 80 complete control over his temper that
his imperturbable manner exasperated and terrified
the Covenanters brought before him far more than
the passionate outbursts of other military CON-
manders like Dalzlel.
1t Is in Mr.. Mowbray Morrs's brief to show
not only that Claverhouse was less cruel
than he has been represented. but that the
Covenanters we're themselves far more lawless
and criminal than they have been considered. The
men over whom he set in the west of Scotland
were according to Mr.. Morris. but a minority of
minority Long before Claverhouse appeared on the
sene Scotland at large had grown heartily tired OF
religious strife, and was prepared to condemn the
remnant that insisted on holding out, not only
against popery and prelacy but against every form
of worship but that which they themselves had
chosen to adopt. This demand for free
dom of worship was, in fact neither
more nor less than demand that all
the rest of the country should he coerced into
adopting the extravagant doctrines OF these Wild
Western Wings; and the latter showed that they
were prepared to commit any crime-witness the
ASSASSINATION of the Prmate Sharpe-in support.
or supposed support of their cause Inc view taken
by Mr.. Morris is in effect that these COvenanters
m hat of ia Sh
dynamlters of the present day, or the French Com
mupards and Anarchists. They were, he holds,
extremists, possessing no clear ideas incapable OF
defining their wants clamorlng for blood. denounc-
ing every body who differed from them. and being
An short very impracicable subjects and intolera-
BILE neighbors. Grievances enough the Scotch Pres
byterians certainly had. nor could any policy have
been more fatuous, iniquiCous aud brutal than D.
which Lauderdale, as chief factor for the Crown,
sought to rule them. But it was when a pros
pec of relief from these wrongs appeared that the
Covenanters endangered the peace and eniranchlse-
ment of the whole country by their stubborn
irreconclabiity, and they had no right to COM
plain il the measure they meted out was served to
them again.
The C!ayerhouse of " Old Mortality is very
different man from the ClaverhOuse of Mr. Morris s
theory The latter was. indeed, stern. prompt,
swift in action and merciless to rebels taken in
Arms. But he was not without cemency When miti-
eating circumstances appeared. and there is no
proof that he ever personally ordered or even coun
teDanced the expressions and cruelties charged
against him. Mr.. Morris devotes chapter to care
full examination of the specific accusations which
have been handed down. He deals with the case
of John Brown, with that of the WigtOwn Martyrs
snd with those other cases cite1 by Woodrow and
others He succeeds 10 showing that the killing OF
Browr was in all probability military execution.
In strict accordance with law, and justified BY the
fact that Brown was an unrepentant rebel, refusing
TO take the oath which offered him As to the
WigtOwn Martyrs, it is demonstrated clearly that
Claverhouse was in no way concerned in that trag-
edy; and of the three other it is made appar-
emit in all but one that the charge of cruelty and
Aruf alifu Ill NOT lie that one casA-the death