Claverhouse eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 235 pages of information about Claverhouse.

Claverhouse eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 235 pages of information about Claverhouse.

[8] “The south-west counties of Scotland have seldom corn enough to serve them round the year; and the northern parts producing more than they need, those in the west come in the summer to buy at Leith the stores that come from the north; and from a word ‘whiggam,’ used in driving their horses, all that drove were called the ‘whiggamores,’ and shorter, the ‘whiggs.’  Now in that year, after the news came down of Duke Hamilton’s defeat, the ministers animated the people to rise and march to Edinburgh; and they came up, marching on the head of their parishes, with an unheard-of fury, praying and preaching all the way as they came.  The Marquis of Argyle and his party came and headed them, they being about 6,000.  This was called the Whiggamores’ Inroad:  and even after that all that opposed the Court came in contempt to be called Whiggs:  and from Scotland the word was brought into England, where it is now one of our unhappy terms of distinction.”—­Burnet, i. 58.  See also Scott’s “Tales of a Grandfather,” ch. xii.  Mr. Green, however, thought the word whig might be the same as our whey, implying a taunt against the “sour-milk faces” of the fanatical Ayrshiremen.—­“History of the English People,” iii. 258.

[9] Sharpe’s notes to Kirkton’s “History of the Church of Scotland,” pp. 48-9.  See also Wishart’s “Memoirs of Montrose.”

[10] “The Lauderdale Papers.”  The most important passages in Sharp’s letters will be found in Burton’s history, vii. pp. 129-146.

[11] “Memoirs of Captain John Creichton,” pp. 57-9.

[12] The torture of the thumbkin is said to have been introduced into Scotland by Lord Perth, who had seen it practised in Russia.  But, according to Fountainhall, something very like it had been previously known under the homely name of “Pilliwincks,” or “Pilniewinks.”

[13] “Duke Lauderdale’s party depended so much on this that they began to divide, in their hopes, the confiscated estates among them, so that on Valentine’s Day, instead of drawing mistresses they drew estates.”—­Burnet, ii. 26.

[14] “When the Highlanders went back one would have thought they had been at the sacking of some besieged town, by their baggage and luggage.  They were loaded with spoil.  They carried away a great many horses and no small quantity of goods out of merchants’ shops, whole webs of linen and woollen cloth, some silver plate bearing the names and arms of gentlemen.  You would have seen them with loads of bedclothes, carpets, men and women’s wearing clothes, pots, pans, gridirons, shoes and other furniture whereof they had pillaged the country.”—­Wodrow, ii. 413.

CHAPTER III.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Claverhouse from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.