The Grahams of Claverhouse were a younger branch of an old and illustrious family which, from the twelfth century onwards, bore an important part in Scottish affairs, and of which several members figured prominently in the history of the nation prior to the time when the fame of the house was raised to its highest point by the ‘Great Marquis,’ the ill-fated Montrose.

The Claverhouse offshoot was connected with the main stock through Sir Robert Graham of Strathcarron, son of Sir William Graham of Kincardine by his second wife, the Princess Mary, daughter of King Robert III. During the early years of the sixteenth century, John Graham of Balargus, third in descent from Sir William, acquired the lands of Claverhouse, in Forfarshire, a few miles north of Dundee. From these his son took the territorial title which, a few generations later, was to become so feared and so hated throughout covenanting Scotland, and which, even at the present day, after the lapse of more than two hundred years, is still a bye-word and a shaking of the head to many.

John Graham, the ‘Bloody Claverhouse’ of Whig denunciators, and the ‘Bonnie Dundee’ of Jacobite apologists, was the son of William Graham of Claverhouse and Lady Magdalene Carnegie, fifth and youngest daughter of John, first Earl of Northesk. On the authority of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe and of Mark Napier, successive writers have stated that the mother of the future Viscount was Lady Jean Carnegie. Sir William Fraser has pointed out, however, that Lady Jean was only his maternal aunt, and that she married, not a Claverhouse, but the Master of Spynie. This mistake as to the name of the mother of Viscount Dundee, adds the author of the ‘History of the Carnegies,’ is the more remarkable that she bore the same Christian name and surname as her cousin, Lady Magdalene Carnegie, first Marchioness of Montrose.

The precise date of Claverhouse’s birth is not known. Biographers, accepting Napier’s computation, almost unanimously assume that it took place about 1643. That is based on an erroneous deduction from a note to a decision of the Court of Session, quoted by Fountainhall under date of the 21st of July 1687. The matter under litigation was a claim put forward by Fotheringham of Powrie to levy fish from the boats passing by Broughty Castle. The Lords decided that his charter gave him sufficient right and title ‘if so be he had possessed forty years by virtue of that title.’ With special reference to one of the three defendants, it was added, ‘as for Clavers, he was