The blame of the murder has been the more plausibly thrown upon the whole party, that it was immediately followed by an insurrection. On the 29th of May, which was the king’s birthday, a party of about eighty deliberately marched into the town of Rutherglen, three miles from Glasgow, where they publicly burnt all the acts of parliament against Presbytery. They afterwards extinguished the bonfires, in order to mark their disapprobation of all holidays of human institution, and concluded by fixing upon the Cross a declaration of their sentiments respecting the late proceedings of the government. Having done this, they retired to a mountainous part of the country between Lanarkshire and Ayrshire, where there was to be a grand conventicle on the ensuing Sunday. The government looked upon this proceeding as an act of rebellion, and despatched a military party after the offenders, consisting of three troops of newly levied dragoons, under the command of Captain Graham of Claverhouse, a man of remarkable energy of character, who had recently entered the king’s service in Scotland. On Sunday, Graham came up with the insurgents, at a place near Loudoun Hill, where they were assembled at devotion. They were about forty horse and two hundred foot, under the command of a gentleman named Hamilton, but without the least discipline or acquaintance with military affairs. Graham fired a volley, which they eluded in a great measure by falling upon their faces. He then tried to charge them through a morass, behind which they were placed, but in doing so threw his men into confusion, and exposed himself to the assault of the enemy. They took instant advantage of his distress, attacked the dragoons sword in hand, and soon compelled them to retire. Graham had his horse shot under him, and about twenty of his men were slain, while only one of the insurgents had fallen. A minister and some country-people whom he had brought along with him as prisoners were rescued by the victors. The broken dragoons retreated to Glasgow, which was then garrisoned by about eight hundred troops. The insurgents, flushed with their success, and thinking it safer to go on than to draw back, marched next morning to that city with considerably increased forces. The troops barricaded the streets, so that the country-people could make little impression upon them, while they were greatly exposed in their turn. Eight were slain in this needless encounter; the rest retreated in rather low spirits to Hamilton, where they formed a kind of camp.