The business was put in charge of Robert Hamilton, a man of good birth
and education, but violent and rash, without any capacity for command
and, if some of his own side may be trusted, of no very certain courage.
With him went Thomas Douglas, one of the fire-breathing ministers,
Balfour and Russell and some seventy or eighty armed men. Glasgow had
been originally chosen for the scene of operations; but a day or two
previously a detachment of Claverhouse's troopers had marched into that
city from Falkirk, and the little town of Rutherglen, about two miles to
the west of Glasgow, was chosen instead.

On the afternoon of the 29th Hamilton and his party made their
appearance in Rutherglen. They first extinguished the bonfire that was
blazing in the King's honour; and, having then lit one on their own
account, proceeded solemnly to burn all the Acts of Parliament and Royal
Proclamations that had been issued in Scotland since Charles's return. A
paper was next read, containing a vigorous protest against all
interferences of the English Government with the Presbyterian religion,
and especially those subsequent to the Restoration. This paper, which
was styled the Declaration and Testimony of some of the true
Presbyterian party in Scotland, was then nailed to the market-cross of
the little town, and the party withdrew. All this, be it remembered, was
done within only two miles of the royal forces, some of whom, it is
said, were actually spectators of the whole affair at scarce
musket-shot's distance. It was fortunate for the party that Claverhouse
was not in Glasgow at the time.

He was then in Falkirk, from which place he had, as we have seen,
written to Linlithgow on the very day of the Rutherglen business of a
rumour he had heard of some particular gathering appointed for the
following Sunday, June 1st. Though he did not believe it, he thought it