rest who escaped, met and drew up in a field behind the high church, where they stayed until five in the afternoon, it being in the month of May, and from thence marched in a body to the same place where they were in the morning, about a mile off the town. Clavers and his men, expecting they would make a second attack, and discovering by his spies whither they were gone, marched after them; but, upon sight of our forces, the rebels retired with a strong rear guard of horse to Hamilton; whereupon Clavers returned, and quartered that night in Glasgow.
Next morning, the government sent orders to Clavers to leave Glasgow, and march to Stirling, eighteen miles farther; and three days after, he was commanded to bring up his party to Edinburgh. As soon as he quitted Glasgow, the rebels returned, and having stayed in that town eight or ten days, encamped on Hamilton moor, within a mile of Bothwell bridge, where it was said that their numbers were increased to fourteen thousand[1]; although bishop Burnet, in his History of his Own Times, most falsely and partially affirms, that they were not more than four thousand, or thereabout.
The council, finding the rebels daily increasing in their numbers, gave information thereof to the king; whereupon his majesty sent down the duke of Monmouth, with a commission, to be commander in chief, and to take with him four troops of English dragoons, which were quartered on the borders: but
- ↑ The numbers were represented to the king, by the privy council of Scotland, to have been between six and seven thousand. The duke of Buccleugh has a curious delineation of the action at Bothwell bridge; whence the numbers appear to be exaggerated even by the privy council.
