bers were induced to attend the episcopal services in the parish church. The absentees in every church were marked, and ‘severely punished if obstinate’ (ib.) The charge of wanton cruelty preferred by Wodrow against Claverhouse in this campaign cannot, however, be substantiated. On the contrary, he himself condemned the wanton and unsystematic methods that were in operation in other districts, and ‘thought it wisest to pardon the multitude and punish the ringleaders.’ But the systematic character of his severity, and the fact that it was concentrated on ringleaders, produced a greater effect on the popular imagination, and made it seem more terrible. Against ringleaders his vengeance was implacable. ‘I am as sorry,’ he wrote, ‘to see a man die, even a whig, as any of themselves; but when one dies justly for his own faults, and may save a hundred to fall in the like, I have no scruple’ (ib. p. 122). Notwithstanding the terror he had inspired, he clearly recognised that the effect produced was merely temporary, and that all would be to no purpose unless permanent garrisons were established, for which it would be necessary to raise additional troops. The proceedings and proposals of Claverhouse gave great satisfaction to the privy council, and on 15 May he received their ‘thanks for his diligence in executing his commission in Galloway.’ Shortly afterwards he was sent to Ayr and Lanark to arrange for the application of similar methods there. He then paid a visit to Edinburgh, and as he was returning to his district narrowly escaped assassination, the plans of the plotters having only been frustrated by his having been delayed in Edinburgh two days longer than was expected (ib. p. 23; Letter in Napier, ii. 283).
One of the most serious difficulties Claverhouse had to contend with in his district was the connivance of the heritors at covenanting practices. On 5 March 1682, he writes: ‘I find the lairds all following the example of a late great man [Sir James Dalrymple], and still a considerable heritor here among them; which is to live regularly themselves, but have their houses constant haunts of rebels and intercommuned persons, and have their children baptised by the same, and then lay all the blame on their wives’ (Letter, ib. ii. 268). In such circumstances the complaint of Sir John Dalrymple (1648–1707) [q. v.] in August of this year, that Claverhouse was interfering with his rights as bailie of Glenluce in seizing the goods of a proclaimed rebel, was possibly welcomed by Claverhouse as an opportune chance for striking a blow at the influence of that family in Galloway. Legally Dalrymple was probably in the right, for this particular rebel does not seem to have been proclaimed at the instance of Claverhouse, but before the issue of his commission. It was plain, however, that Dalrymple was not so much concerned to obtain the goods himself as to prevent Claverhouse seizing them. Finding his expostulations with Claverhouse vain, Dalrymple now resolved to use his legal rights with the direct purpose of frustrating his action against all covenanters within his bailieship. The action of Claverhouse was restricted to cases in which he was the first attacher, and Dalrymple therefore, at a court held at Glenluce on 15 Aug., proceeded to impose what Claverhouse called ‘mock fines’ on the obnoxious persons within his regality, in order, Claverhouse reported, that he ‘might take them off complainers' hands’ (ib. ii. 291). He was said to have a short time previously gone through the form of fining his own mother, Lady Stair, who, however, with her husband and daughter had now fled beyond Claverhouse's jurisdiction. Dalrymple, confident that his legal position was unassailable, now complained on 20 Aug. to the privy council that Claverhouse had imposed fines on some of his own and his father's tenants whom he had first attached. It was impossible, however, that the council could allow Dalrymple to impede Claverhouse in his work by mere technical objections. While postponing their decision till the matter should be gone into more fully, they on 29 Aug. gave Dalrymple a preliminary reprimand for seeming to compete with the sheriffs commissioned and put in by the council (Fountainhall, Historical Notices, p. 374). On 15 Sept. the father, Sir James Dalrymple, wrote to Queensberry, announcing that Claverhouse had raised a libel to ‘stage’ himself, his wife, and eldest son, and asking him to use his influence with the king that he might have security ‘to live at home and end his days in peace’ (Napier, ii. 293). But both the private representations of the Dalrymples and the endeavours of the son to combine the gentry of the district against Claverhouse were equally vain. On 29 Sept. the council wrote him that they were so well satisfied with his proceedings that they not only gave him hearty thanks, but were ready to concur in anything he might propose (ib. p. 294). On 2 Dec. the Duke of York assured him he ‘need not fear anything Stair can say against him’ (ib. p. 300), and on 29 Dec. he was appointed colonel of a new regiment specially raised in accordance with his own proposal. On the 14th of the month he had retaliated on Dalrymple by presenting against him a special bill of complaint for weakening the hands of the govern-
