From Battle to Ballad: "Gallant Grahams" of the 17Th Century

Extracted from: Lloyd D. Graham (2020) House GRAHAM: From the Antonine Wall to the Temple of Hymen, Lulu, USA. From battle to ballad: “Gallant Grahams” of the 17th century Historical context The setting for this chapter is the complex and often confusing clash between the Covenanters – the Scottish Presbyterians who opposed the Episcopalian (Anglican) reforms imposed on their Kirk by Charles I in 1637 – and the Royalists, who supported the king. To begin with, the Covenanters raised an army and defeated Charles in the so- called Bishops’ Wars. The ensuing crisis in the royal House of Stuart (Stewart) helped to precipitate the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which included the English Civil War, the Scottish Civil War and Irish Confederate Wars. For the following decade of civil war in Britain, the Covenanters were the de facto government of Scotland. In 1643, military aid from Covenanter forces helped the Parliamentarian side in the English Civil War (“Roundheads”) to achieve victory over the king’s Royalist faction (“Cavaliers”). In turn, this triggered civil war in Scotland as Scottish Royalists – mainly Catholics and Episcopalians – took up arms against the Covenanters to oppose the impending Presbyterian domination of the Scottish religious landscape by an increasingly despotic Kirk. It is in the turmoil of this setting that Sir James Graham of Montrose (Fig. 7.1), the first of the two leaders discussed in the present chapter, plays a key role. Initially a Covenanter himself – he had signed the National Covenant in 1638 – he had effectively switched sides by 1643, becoming a leader of the Scottish Royalists. At the end of the first civil wars, in which Charles I surrendered to the Scots in 1646, the Covenanters’ insistence on dictating the religious future of both Scotland and England eventually led to all-out war with their former allies, the English Parliamentarians; indeed, the Covenanters switched their allegiance to the Royalist cause, and – in 1650 – signed an alliance with Charles II. In the preceding months Montrose, who had advised Charles against striking such a bargain, had been campaigning on the king’s behalf in Scotland, where his defeat by Covenanter forces at Carbisdale led to his capture and execution. In turn, the Covenanter army was completely defeated in 1650-52 by the English Parliamentarian forces led by Oliver Cromwell, an outcome that ended the Covenanters as a civil power. When Charles II was restored as monarch of Scotland in 1660, he turned on the Covenanters and instigated their persecution. In response, rebel ministers began to preach at secret open-air meetings called “conventicles.” In 1666, a small band of poorly-armed Covenanters mounted an insurrection but was defeated south-west of Edinburgh. A force of Highland soldiers was then stationed by Charles in south-west Scotland to subdue Covenanter-led unrest; in due course, it was accused of many atrocities. From 1669, some Presbyterian ministers were “indulged” by Charles’s government, a gesture which 79 Fig. 7.1 “James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, 1612-1650. Royalist.” Portrait of Montrose, attrib- uted to Willem van Honthorst (d. 1666). Oil on canvas.1 80 allowed them to retain their churches without having to submit to Episcopalian authority, but the more hardline Covenanters continued to preach at their illegal conventicles. These meetings were habitually dispersed by squads of government dragoons which, after 1678, included squads led by Sir John Graham of Claverhouse – the second of the two great leaders discussed in the present chapter (Fig. 7.2). A further rebellion broke out in 1679, after the unexpected success of a group of Covenanters – armed with nothing more than farm implements – against government forces led by Claverhouse at the Battle of Drumclog. At Bothwell, near Glasgow, the rebels swelled in number, but a few weeks later they were defeated by the king’s army, led by James Scott, the Duke of Monmouth, at the Battle of Bothwell Brig. In 1680, a small radical faction of Covenanters known as the Cameronians renounced completely their allegiance to Charles and denounced his brother, James, as a papist. This escalation was met with equally harsh reprisals, and the penal laws that originally targeted Catholics (whose provisions included arbitrary arrest, torture and deportation) were redirected toward the Covenanters. Charles’s brother was indeed a Catholic. Upon his accession in 1685, James – now James II of England and James VII of Scotland – displayed religious tolerance, renewing the “indulgence” that allowed the rehabilitation of Presbyterian ministers who had not resorted to violence. His reign, however, was (a) (b) Fig. 7.2 Two engravings of Claverhouse. (a) Miniature painted 1660-1695 by David Paton; public domain.2 (b) Engraving by Burnet Reading, published in 1818 by Thomas Rodd the Elder, London.3 81 short; in 1688, James was deposed by the English Parliamentarian faction with the assistance of William of Orange and his Protestant forces from the Netherlands. The Jacobite Rising of 1689 saw the re-emergence of John Graham of Claverhouse – who had been elevated as Viscount Dundee by James – as a Royalist military leader, this time at the head of the Jacobite faction seeking James’s restoration. His army, which consisted mainly of Highlanders, enjoyed initial success, but its victory over government forces at Killiecrankie came at the cost of Dundee’s life. With their leader gone, the Jacobite force was defeated in August 1689 at Dunkeld by the Cameronian Regiment, who supported William of Orange – now William III of England and William II of Scotland. Under William, Catholicism became permanently disenfranchised in England and Presbyterianism was restored in Scotland, albeit in a more moderate form. The latter development failed to satisfy the hardline Cameronians among the Covenanters and, in due course, the resulting disenchantment led to further breakaway movements from the Church of Scotland. Many Catholics and other supporters of the House of Stuart were understandably alienated by the ousting of James by Parliament, which inter alia violated the principle of “the divine right of kings.” Another Graham who conspired to return the former king to the throne was James, 1st Viscount Preston (d. 1695),4 and Jacobite plots and revolts continued intermittently until 1745. The Scottish Civil War was a bitter episode which exposed the religious divisions between Presbyterians, Episcopalians (Anglicans) and Catholics, the political divisions between Royalists and Covenanters, and the cultural divisions between Highlanders and Lowlanders. Throughout the period of repression, the Covenanters held their convictions with a zeal that was only intensified by the persecution directed toward them. For them, the issue was a matter of religious belief. In contrast, the government viewed the illicit conventicle movement primarily as a breakdown of public order and dealt with it simply as a criminal activity. Nowadays, the 17th-century reality of armed conflict between Presbyterians and Anglicans seems absurd. We need to remember that it is only a few decades since Northern Ireland was the theatre for guerilla warfare between Protestant and Catholic paramilitaries, and that sectarian and other religiously-motivated violence – often with state sponsorship – continues to wreak destruction in the Middle East of our own time. Let us beware, then, of unbridled support for Covenant or king; one faction’s divinely-ordained victory is too often another’s genocide, and civil war too often a convenient mask for ethnic cleansing. The Grahams who are the focus of this chapter were both Lowlanders. Although active in the same historical context, their times did not overlap: Montrose’s exploits spanned the period from 1638 to 1650, and Claverhouse’s that from 1673 to 1689. Claverhouse hailed from Graham of Fintry (Figs. 1.7 & 1.12), a cadet house of Montrose; the sub-branch maintained close links with the main line, with John of Claverhouse’s grandfather acting as tutor to James of Montrose during the latter’s childhood.5 Montrose was a Presbyterian, whereas Claverhouse was an Episcopalian. Although Montrose began as a Covenanter, and Claverhouse married into a prominent Covenanter family, both men are best known as political and military leaders who furthered the Royalist cause, and who 82 therefore directed their energies against the Covenanter movement. For both, the Royalist cause meant the royal House of Stuart. Even their religion took second place to their loyalty to the Stuart kings; after James VII (a Catholic) was deposed, Claverhouse (an Episcopalian) rejected the accession of William of Orange (a fellow Protestant) and led the first Jacobite rising.6 Sir James Graham, Earl and Marquis of Montrose James Graham, the only son of the 4th Earl of Montrose (Figs. 1.7 & 1.17), “was an attractive young man, handsome, graceful, and with keen grey eyes, he was a fine horseman and archer; he was also emotional, serious-minded and proud, unusually capable of arousing both friendship and enmity”7 (Fig. 7.3). Educated at Glasgow and the University of St. Andrews, he had also spent time in France and Italy.8 He became the 5th Earl of Montrose upon his father’s death in 1626,9 and was appointed 1st Marquis of Montrose in 1644.10 In 1638, as a ruling elder of his Kirk, he signed the National Covenant, fighting – and winning – his first battle on behalf of the Covenanters at Bridge of Dee in 1639; he then took part in their invasion of England,

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