Bonnie Dundee: The man whose victorious death spelled the end for James II

The man whose victorious death spelled the end for James II


John Graham of Claverhouse, 21 July 1648 – 13 April 1689

It is history’s prerogative to name its winners and losers, which in the instance of John Graham of Claverhouse led to his contradictory title of “Bluidy Clavers” by his detractors, as against the “Bonnie Dundee” of his supporters.


Claverhouse died on the Battlefield of Killiecrankie aged 41, a Jacobite military mastermind whose death is said by many to have finally broken the link between the Stuarts and the Scottish throne.

He was born near Dundee and began his military career in France in the service of Louis XIV. He returned home to support the Stuart Kings, first Charles II and then James VII of England, II of Scotland. It was in service to these men that he earned his less salubrious nickname – “Bluidy Clavers” after his persecution of the Covenanters – Presbyterian Scots opposed to interference from the Crown.

His success dealing with the Covenanters brought him to the attention of first Charles then James and led to a swift rise through the ranks. He even attempted to put backbone into the vacillating James II, whose inertia in the face of a rebellion led the way for William and Mary to take the vacant throne.

Once James II had fled to France, Claverhouse continued petitioning for a restitution of Stuart kingship through the Scottish Parliament where his attempts to raise support failed. With political options closed he retreated home to Dundee where he reacted to a public denouncement of him as a traitor by fighting back.

On the 13th April 1689 he gathered an army of Highland Clans and raised the Jacobite standard on Dundee Law. Thus began the first of the Glorious Rebellions. And it might have worked. Andrew Murray Scott, author of Bonnie Dundee: John Graham of Claverhouse believes that: “In 1689 the country was still biddable. They were defending an existing king and it could have gone either way.”

The “either way” was decided at the Battle of Killiecrankie, when the military genius and charisma of Dundee saw the largely Highland forces loyal to James II crush William of Orange’s army. But it was a pyrrhic victory. During the charge, Dundee was mortally wounded when a musket misfired and struck him beneath his armour. The battle was won, but without leadership the forces foundered and failed to capitalise on the victory.

Scott believes that had Dundee survived then the course of history might have changed: “It is not staking too great a claim that with Claverhouse’s death, King James’s cause disintegrated.”

Scott is not the only one who thinks that the death of the general lost the Jacobites their momentum. Even William of Orange, when he heard of the battle several days later declared: “he knew the Lord Dundee so well, that he must have been either killed or mortally wounded, otherwise, before that time, he would have been master of Edinburgh.”

For Scott, the Battle of Killiecrankie not only represented the collapse of the First Jacobite uprising, but foreshadowed the Union of Parliament in 1707and the second unsuccessful Jacobite uprising.

“The dynastic ambitions of the Stuarts,” says Scott, “were dashed not at Culloden … but – paradoxically – in the victory on the slops of Killiecrankie.” Thereafter, he says, the Jacobite cause “became shabby and shoddy”.

This glorious victory but crushing defeat is celebrated still. Each year close to the anniversary, the Battle is recreated by a number of re-enactment societies. But today, the danger comes not from the whisper of a flintlock musket, but from the proximity of the A9, and the reactions of drivers startled by the sudden fleeting image of a Jacobite army in full Highland charge.