THE ISLES AND WILLIAM OF ORANGE. 377 



ham, Viscount Dundee, were stirring. By the Covenanters 

 in the latter part of the reign of Charles II., the two best 

 hated men in Scotland were Graham of Claverhouse and 

 Sir George Mackenzie of Tarbat. The former harried 

 them in the field, and the latter showed no mercy in the 

 Courts. Hence the " bloody Claver'se " and the " bloody 

 Mackenzie" became the bogies of the Convenanting 

 Whigs. Whether they deserved the obloquy which at- 

 tached, and in a modified degree still attaches, to their 

 names, may, conceivably, be a debatable point. That 

 their measures were harsh, vindictive, even cruel, may be 

 fairly granted. But their conception of their duties, how- 

 ever repugnant to modern ideas, if it does not excuse 

 their severities, at least palliates them. It is certain that 

 they were neither the monsters which they are sometimes 

 represented to have been, nor, probably, was Claverhouse 

 the pattern of chivalry which some of his modern apolo- 

 gists would have us believe. The truth here, as in so 

 many other cases, doubtless lies between both extremes. 

 Graham and Mackenzie were both men of marked ability : 

 one was probably the greatest soldier, and the other the 

 greatest lawyer, of the day, in their native country. 

 Mackenzie was a Lord of Session at the age of thirty- 

 one, and successively filled the offices of Lord Justice- 

 General and Clerk-Register of Scotland. He was also a 

 Privy Councillor, and in the reign of Queen Anne was 

 appointed Secretary of State for Scotland. He adopted 

 the judicial title of Lord Tarbat ; was in 1685 made a peer 

 of the realm, with the titles of Viscount of Tarbat, Lord 

 Macleod,* and Castlehaven ; and by Queen Anne was 

 created the first Earl of Cromartie. At the Revolution, 

 Mackenzie went over to the side of William of Orange, 

 and rapidly rose to great influence and authority, crowning 



* The Cromartie family emphasised their descent from the Macleods of 

 Lewis in various ways. In 1688, an unnamed person, but who from 

 internal evidence appears to have been John Mackenzie, son and successor of 

 the first Earl of Cromartie, threatened to bring an action against Seaforth for 

 the recovery of the lands of Lewis, which, he asserted, belonged formerly to 

 one of his predecessors (? Torquil Conanach) by his daughter who was an 

 heiress. (Hist. MSS. Com., Report II., Part II., page 24). 



