expected that the descent of these plaided barbarians would be the signal for a general insurrection, which would relieve them of their troubles as certainly and much more conveniently than Dalziel’s dragoons and Perth’s thumbkins.  While Highlander and Lowlander were cutting each other’s throats, Lauderdale and his colleagues would have ample leisure to decide on the apportionment of the booty.[13] In this, however, they were disappointed.  No armed resistance was offered.  During the two months these marauders lived at free quarters, without any distinction between friend and foe, on a land which, compared with their own barren moors and mountains, was a paradise flowing with milk and honey, only one life was lost, and that the life of a Highlander.  At length the scandal became too great even for Lauderdale.  Hamilton, who, like his brother before him, had always stood by the Crown, went up to London with several gentlemen of rank to protest against a tyranny which they vowed was that of Turks rather than Christians.  According to one account, the King would not see them:  according to another, he admitted Hamilton to an interview, and, after hearing his protest, owned that many bad things had been done in Scotland, but none, so far as he could see, contrary to his interests.  It was clear, however, that in this matter Lauderdale had gone too far.  The Highlanders were ordered to return to their homes.  They returned accordingly, laden with spoil such as they had never dreamed of, and of the use of a large part of which they were as ignorant as a Red Indian or a negro.[14]

The departure of the Highland host leaves the stage free for Claverhouse.  It was at this crisis he returned to Scotland, and here this summary of one of the most miserable chapters in British history may fitly end.

FOOTNOTES: 

[7] This is, perhaps, the best place to disclaim all intention of scoffing at this great writer and historian.  It is a common impertinence of the day in which I have no wish to join.  It is not, I hope, an impertinence to say that only those who have, for their own purposes, been forced to follow closely in his tracks can have any just idea of the unwearying 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.