Claverhouse | Page 2

Dundee, was John,
son of John Graham of Balargus in the same shire. Graham of Balargus
was the son of another John, who was the second son of Sir Robert
Graham of Fintrey, the eldest son of Robert Graham of Strathcanon,
son and heir of Sir William Graham of Kincardine, by his wife the
Lady Mary Stuart, widow of George first Earl of Angus and daughter
of King Robert the Third--the unhappy king of "The Fair Maid of
Perth." The grandson of John Graham was Sir William Graham of
Claverhouse, the chosen friend of his cousin, the gallant and
unfortunate Marquis of Montrose. By his wife Marion, daughter of
Thomas Fotheringham of Powrie, Sir William had two sons, George
and Walter, of whom the latter was the ancestor of those Grahams of
Duntroon who at a later period assumed the title of Dundee. George left
one son, another Sir William, who married Lady Jean Carnegie,
daughter of the first Earl of Northesk, and by her had four
children--two daughters, Margaret and Anne, and two sons, John and
David. David is, as will be seen, not unrecorded in the annals of his

country; but his name has been completely eclipsed by that of his elder
brother, the "bloody Claver'se" of the Whigs, the "bonnie Dundee" of
the Jacobites, one of the most execrated or one of the most idolised
characters in the history of this kingdom, according to the temper and
the taste of the writers and readers of history.
The register of that year shows that the two brothers matriculated at
Saint Leonard's College in the University of Saint Andrews, on
February 13th, 1665. Before this date all is a blank. Of John's boyish
years history and tradition are equally silent. Long after his death,
indeed, some idle stories became current, as their fashion is, of
prophecies and prodigies in that early time. His nurse is said to have
foretold that a river taking its name from a goose would prove fatal to
him, and to have lamented that her child's career of glory had been
frustrated because he had been checked in the act of devouring a live
toad. This last story sounds much like a popular version of the Grecian
fable of Demophoön, as told in the Homeric hymn to Demeter. But, as
a matter of fact, it was a legend current of the infancy both of the
Regent Morton and of Montrose himself before it was given to
Claverhouse; and possibly of many other youthful members of the
Scottish aristocracy, who happened to make themselves obnoxious to a
class of their countrymen whose piety seems to have added no holy
point to their powers of invective. There is an ingenious fancy, and, at
least, as much reason as is generally displayed in mythological
researches, in the surmise that this particular legend may have owed its
origin to the French connection with Scotland, a connection which
would naturally have found little favour in the eyes of the followers of
John Knox.
Claverhouse seems to have neglected neither the studies nor the
discipline of the University. He has, indeed, in our own time been
denied enough even of the common intellectual culture of his day to
save him from ridicule as a blockhead. But there is no reason for this
contemptuous statement. His own contemporaries, and others, who if
not exactly contemporaries have at least as good right to be heard as a
writer of our own time, have left very different testimony. Burnet, who,
though connected by marriage with Claverhouse and at one time much

in his confidence, was the last of men to praise him unduly, has
vouched both for his abilities and virtues. Dalrymple, who was
certainly no Jacobite, though censured by the Whigs for his indulgence
to James, has described him as from his earliest youth an earnest reader
of the great actions recorded by the poets and historians of antiquity.
More particular testimony still is offered by a writer whose work was
not, indeed, undertaken till nearly fifty years after the battle of
Killiecrankie, but whose pictures of those men and times have all the
freshness and colour of a contemporary. The author of those memoirs
of Lochiel of which Macaulay has made such brilliant use, has credited
Claverhouse with a considerable knowledge of mathematics and
general literature, especially such branches of those studies as were
likely to be of most use to a soldier. Lastly, Doctor Munro, Principal of
the College of Edinburgh, when charged before a Parliamentary
Commission with rejoicing at the news of Killiecrankie, denied at least
that he had rejoiced at the death of the conqueror, for whom he owned
"an extraordinary value," such as, in his own words, "no gentleman,
soldier, scholar, or civilised citizen will find fault with me for."[2]