It is very extraordinary, that, in April, 1685, Claverhouse was left out of the new commission of privy council, as being too favourable to the fanatics.  The pretence was his having married into the presbyterian family of lord Dundonald.  An act of council was also past, regulating the payment of quarters, which is stated by Fountainhall to have been done in odium of Claverhouse, and in order to excite complaints against him.  This charge, so inconsistent with the nature and conduct of Claverhouse, seems to have been the fruit of a quarrel betwixt him and the lord high treasurer.  FOUNTAINHALL, Vol.  I. p. 360.

That Claverhouse was most unworthily accused of mitigating the persecution of the Covenanters, will appear from the following simple, but very affecting narrative, extracted from one of the little publications which appeared soon after the Revolution, while the facts were fresh in the memory of the sufferers.  The imitation of the scriptural stile produces, in some passages of these works, an effect not unlike what we feel in reading the beautiful book of Ruth.  It is taken from the life of Mr Alexander Peden,[A] printed about 1720.

“In the beginning of May, 1685, he came to the house of John Brown and Marion Weir, whom he married before he went to Ireland, where he stayed all night; and, in the morning when he took farewell, he came out of the door, saying to himself, “Poor woman, a fearful morning,” twice over.  “A dark misty morning!” The next morning, between five and six hours, the said John Brown having performed the worship of God in his family, was going, with a spade in his hand, to make ready some peat ground:  the mist being very dark, he knew not until cruel and bloody Claverhouse compassed him with three troops of horse, brought him to his house, and there examined him; who, though he was a man of a stammering speech, yet answered him distinctly and solidly; which made Claverhouse to examine those whom he had taken to be his guides through the muirs, if ever they heard him preach?  They answered, “No, no, he was never a preacher.”  He said, “If he has never preached, meikle he has prayed in his time;” he said to John, “Go to your prayers, for you shall immediately die!” When he was praying, Claverhouse interrupted him three times; one time, that he stopt him, he was pleading that the Lord would spare a remnant, and not make a full end in the day of his anger.  Claverhouse said, “I gave you time to pray, and ye are begun to preach;” he turned about upon his knees, and said, “Sir, you know neither the nature of preaching or praying, that calls this preaching.”  Then continued without confusion.  When ended, Claverhouse said, “Take goodnight of your wife and children.”  His wife, standing by with her child in her arms that she had brought forth to him, and another child of his first wife’s, he came to her, and said, “Now, Marion, the day is come, that I told you would come, when I spake first to you of marrying