The Cavaliers of Fortune; Or, British Heroes in Foreign WarsGrant, James
History
The Cavaliers of Fortune; Or, British Heroes in Foreign Wars
Grant, James
British -- Foreign countries; Great Britain -- History, Military
The gloom of the November night, and a sentiment of chivalry--of pity,
perhaps, for their poor and persecuted countrymen--inspired the Life
Guards to spare the fugitives, the mass of whom escaped and dispersed;
but eighty prisoners--among whom was Neilson, the unfortunate Laird
of Corsack--were taken, and these were next day marched in triumph
through the streets of Edinburgh, while cannon thundered a salute from
the castle, and the bells rang in every steeple; while the streets
resounded with the tramp of the cavalry, who, with standards advanced
and kettle-drums beating, escorted them to prison. "It is recorded
that Andrew Murray, an aged Presbyterian minister, when he beheld the
ferocious Dalyell in his rusted head-piece, buff coat, and long waving
beard, riding at the head of his cavalier squadrons, who, flushed with
victory, surrounded the manacled prisoners with drawn swords and cocked
carbines--and when he heard the shouts of acclamation from the people,
was so overpowered with grief for what he deemed the downfall for ever
of _God's Covenanted Kirk_, that he became ill, and expired."
The dead were buried on the field, and there may yet be seen, within
a small and rude enclosure, which is overshadowed by a few trees,
a monument bearing an inscription to the memory of Crookshanks,
MacCormick, and others who lie where they fell. At the back of the
Pentland Hills runs a rivulet named the Deadman's-grain, from the
circumstance of a wounded Covenanter falling there when pursued by a
cavalier trooper. Drawing a pistol from his holsters, he fired it at
his pursuer underneath his bridle arm, but, missing, shot his own horse
in the flank. The animal fell, and his rider was immediately slain,
where his green grave is yet shown by the side of the mountain burn.
At Easton, in Dunsyre, there was long visible a lonely grave, in which,
according to a tradition transmitted from father to son, there lay a
Covenanter who had expired of wounds received at Rullion Green. It was
opened in 1817, and found to contain the skeleton of a tall man, with
two silver coins dated 1620. On being touched, the bones crumbled to
dust.
Colonel Wallace, on seeing all lost, left the field, accompanied by
Mr. John Welsh, and, favoured by the darkness, took a north-westerly
direction among the hills, and escaped. After long concealment and
enduring many privations, he reached the Continent, and died in penury,
at Rotterdam, in 1678.
It is a strange circumstance that, after the rout of his followers,
many of them were slain by the Lothian peasantry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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