It would have been hard to find within the civilized world a more miserable and distracted country than Scotland at the date of our history, and the West Country was worst of all. The Covenanters, who were never averse to fighting, had turned upon Claverhouse and his dragoons when they came to disperse a field-meeting at Drumclog, and had soundly beaten the King's Horse. Then, gathering themselves to a head and meeting the royal forces under the Duke of Monmouth at Bothwell Bridge, they had in turn been hopelessly crushed. What remained of their army was scattered by the cavalry, and since that day, with some interludes, Claverhouse had been engaged in the inglorious work of dispersing Presbyterian Conventicles gathered in remote places among the hills, or searching the moss-hags for outlawed preachers.
It was a poor business for one who had seen war on the grand scale under the Prince of Orange, and had fought in battles where eighteen thousand men were left on the field. War was not the name for those operations, they were simply police work of an irksome and degrading kind. There were some who said that Claverhouse gloried in it, and that the inherent cruelty of his nature was gratified in causing obstinate Covenanters, who had not taken the oath, to be shot on the spot, and haling others to prison, where they were treated with extreme barbarity. Others believed that being a man of broad mind and chivalrous temper, he absolutely disapproved of the government policy and loathed the butcher work to which he and his troopers were set.
Upon one way of it he was a bloodthirsty tyrant, and upon the other he was an obedient soldier, but the truth was with neither view. There is no doubt that, like any other ambitious commander, he would much rather have been engaged in a proper campaign, and it may be granted that as a brave man he did not hanker to be the executioner of peasants; but he absolutely approved of the policy of his rulers, and had no scruple in carrying it out. It was the only thing that could be done, and it had better be done thoroughly; the sooner the turbulent and irreconcilable Covenanters were crushed and the country reduced to peace the better for Scotland. And it must be remembered that, though they were only a fraction of the nation, the hillmen were a very resolute and harassing fraction, and kept the western counties in a state of turmoil.
No week passed without some picturesque incident being added to the annals of this lamentable religious war, and whether it was an escape or an arrest, an attack or a defeat, the name of Claverhouse was always in the story. The air was thick with rumors of his doings, and in every cottage enraged Covenanters spoke of his atrocities. No doubt the king had other officers quite as merciless and almost as active, and the names of men like Grierson of Lag and Bruce of Earleshall and that fierce old Muscovite fighter, General Dalziel, were engraved for everlasting reprobation upon the memory of the Scots people. But there was no superstition so mad that it was not credited to Claverhouse, and no act so wicked that it was not believed of him. During the hours of day he ranged the country, a monster thirsting for the blood of innocent men, and the hours of the evening he spent with his associates in orgies worthy of hell. His horse, famous for its fleetness and beauty, was supposed to be an evil spirit, and as for himself, everyone knew that Claverhouse could not be shot except by a silver bullet, because he was under the protection of the devil.