Dalrymple, without supplying precise information, records that Claverhouse ‘entered the profession of arms with an opinion he ought to know the services of different nations, and the duties of different ranks,’ that, ‘with this view he went into several foreign services,’ and that ‘when he could not obtain a command,’ he served as a volunteer.

The most trustworthy evidence in support of the statement that Claverhouse served and fought in the armies of France, is that of James Philip of Almerieclose, his standard-bearer at Killiecrankie, who, in later years, devoted a Latin epic to the memory and the praise of the gallant Graham. Referring to his hero, he says, ‘The French camps on the Loire, where Orleans lifts her towers, and on the Seine, where her increased waters lave the city of Paris, have beheld him triumphant over the defeated enemy, stained with the blood-marks of relentless war.’ The passage is, unfortunately, one in which the author has so obviously taken poetical liberty with historical facts, that his words cannot be taken literally. As the editor and translator of the poem points out, ‘there could have been no fighting on the Seine or Loire.’ Whether, on the other hand, it be probable that ‘camps of instruction were there, from which young soldiers were sent to the front,’ is a matter of little moment. Even without such explanation the passage is valuable as evidence. It may be accepted as definitively establishing the fact that it was in France Claverhouse first learnt the art of war.

It has been further conjectured that he may have belonged to the contingent of 6000 English and Scottish troops, which, under the leadership of Monmouth, joined Turenne’s army in 1672. If such were the case, the duration of his service must have been brief. There is evidence to prove that, by the summer of 1674, he had transferred his allegiance to William of Orange, and that he was present at the battle of Seneff, fought in August of that year; and there are grounds for believing that he was directly instrumental in rescuing the Prince from a perilous situation.

Macaulay, it is true, rejects the story as ‘invented’ by some Jacobite many years after both William and Dundee were dead. That, however, appears to have been hastily done, on the erroneous assumption that the account of the alleged incident went no further back than the Memoirs of 1714. They, indeed, do state of Claverhouse, that, ‘at the battle of St Neff, 1674, when the Prince of Orange was dismounted, and in great danger of being taken, he rescued him, and brought him off upon his own horse.’ But this does not constitute the sole authority. In addition to it, there is that of the Memoirs of Lochiel. It is the more valuable that the author bases his own narrative on the Latin epic to which, in the following passage, he refers as one of the sources of his compilation. ‘Besides the assistance I have from the Earl of Balcarres his memoirs of the wars, and the several relations I have had of them from many who were eyewitnesses, I have before me a manuscript copy of an historical Latin poem called “The Grameis,” written in imitation of Lucan’s “Pharsalia,” but unfinished, by Mr Philips of Amryclos, who had the office of standard-bearer during that famous expedition’ in the Highlands. From Philips he not only draws the incident of Seneff, but also gives a rough translation in English verse, of the passage commemorating this ‘vigorous exploit.’ It runs thus:—