44 
“ Highland Host,” composed of from six to eight thousand 
half-wild men of the north, was let loose on the western 
lowlands to enforce these “ letters.” This “ host ” was 
subsequently replaced by regular troops under the command 
of the notorious John Graham, of Claverhouse, whose name 
became an abomination and a terror for the fiendish cruelties 
he practised in carrying out the orders of the Privy Council. 
He seemed literally to enjoy butchering the people. In 
May, 1679, Archbishop Sharp, formerly a Presbyterian 
minister, who had changed his faith and become a bitter 
persecutor of the people, was murdered near St. Andrews. 
His death seemed to heat the furnace of persecution seven 
times hotter. The government resolved to avenge his death 
by exacting reprisals from the whole body of the Covenanters. 
Attendance at field meetings was declared high treason. 
John Balfour of Burley, one of the people who had assisted 
in putting Sharp to death, and others, seeing there was no 
hope of mercy, fled to the West and gathered round them a 
body of kindred spirits. They soon got together a formidable 
band, and Claverhouse set out to meet and destroy them. 
After a desperate engagement at Drumclog, Claverhouse was 
routed and fled. This was the sole victory of the Covenanters 
on the battlefield. Three months later, though their numbers 
had grown to six or seven thousand, they were defeated by 
the royalist forces under the Duke of Monmouth at Bothwell 
Bridge. No mercy was shown, and over 400 of the Coven- 
anters were killed. Their defeat was perhaps attributable 
partly to dissensions in their own camp. 
From 1680 to 1685 tyranny was absolute. Claverhouse 
and his soldiers were supreme, being empowered to question, 
apprehend, punish, and even kill on the spot any they deemed 
of the fanatical party. The people indeed were in the most 
abject condition, yet the spirit of the Covenanters remained 
unbroken. 
James II. was even more rigorous in his oppressive measures 
than his predecessors had been. The year of his accession 
was known as the " killing time.” 
In February of 1688 James Renwick, the last to suffer 
death in Scotland for the cause of the Covenanters, was 
executed at the Grassmarket, Edinburgh. This closed the 
roll of Scottish martyrs, for the Revolution came and James 
had to fly. With the formal abolition of Prelacy and the 
establishment of Presbyterianism the Scottish Church found 
rest. It is said that upwards of 18,000 endured the extremest 
hardships by imprisonment and exile during these persecutions, 
many suffering death in its cruellest forms. 
