se's fate,
Let loose the sword, and to the hero's shade
A barbarous hecatomb of victims paid."

The object of Claverhouse's revenge, assigned by Wilson, is grander,
though more remote and less natural, than that in the ballad, which
imputes the severity of the pursuit to his thirst to revenge the death
of his cornet and kinsman, at Drumclog;[A] and to the quarrel betwixt
Claverhouse and Monmouth, it ascribes, with great _naivete_ the bloody
fate of the latter. Local tradition is always apt to trace foreign
events to the domestic causes, which are more immediately in the
narrator's view. There is said to be another song upon this battle, once
very popular, but I have not been able to recover it. This copy is given
from recitation.

[Footnote A: There is some reason to conjecture, that the revenge of the
Cameronians, if successful, would have been little less sanguinary than
that of the royalists. Creichton mentions, that they had erected, in
their camp, a high pair of gallows, and prepared a quantity of halters,
to hang such prisoners as might fall into their hands, and he admires
the forbearance of the king's soldiers, who, when they returned with
their prisoners, brought them to the very spot where the gallows stood,
and guarded them there, without offering to hang a single individual.
Guild, in the _Bellum Bothuellianum_, alludes to the same story, which
is rendered probable by the character of Hamilton, the insurgent
general. GUILD'S _MSS._--CREICHTON'S _Memoirs_, p. 61.]

There were two Gordons of Earlstoun, father and son. They were descended
of an ancient family in the west of Scotland, and their progenitors were
believed to have been favourers of the reformed doctrine, and possessed
of a translation of the Bible, as early as the days of Wickliffe.
William Gordon, the father, was, in 1663, summoned before the privy
council, for keeping conventicles in his house and woods. By another act
of council, he was banished out of Scotland; but the sentence was never
put into execution. In 1667, Earlstoun was turned out of his house,
which was converted into a garrison for the king's soldiers. He was not
in the battle of Bothwell Bridge, but was met, hastening towards it, by
some English dragoons, engaged in the pursuit, already commenced. As
he refused to surrender, he was instantly slain. WILSON'S _History
of Bothwell Rising--Life of Gordon of Earlston, in Scottish
Worthies_--WODROW'S _History,_ Vol. II. The son, A