his own despatch, which is singularly literal and straightforward, that
he had no wish, and did not even conceive it necessary, to excuse his
disaster. But here again the estimate helps us little, owing to the
vague use of the terms battalion and squadron. For the same reason we
can but guess at the strength of the royal force. In the writings of the
time Claverhouse's command is indiscriminately styled a regiment and a
troop. It is certain that he was the responsible officer, so that,
whatever its numerical strength, he stood to the body of men he
commanded in the relation that a colonel stands to his regiment. But it
is probable that his regiment, with those commanded by Home and Airlie,
were practically considered as the three troops of the Royal Scottish
Life Guards of whom the young Marquis of Montrose was colonel. From a
royal warrant of 1672, it appears that a troop of dragoons was rated at
eighty men, exclusive of officers, and that a regiment was to consist of
twelve troops. But it is hardly possible that this strength was ever
reached. From a passage in the third chapter of Macaulay's history it
does not seem as if the full complement of a regiment of cavalry can
have much exceeded four hundred men; but, I repeat, the indiscriminate
use of the terms troop and regiment, battalion and squadron, makes all
calculations theoretical and vague.[25] Scott puts the King's forces at
Drumclog at two hundred and fifty men; and, as a detachment had been
left behind in garrison with Ross's men at Glasgow, this is probably not
over the mark, if Macaulay's estimate of a regiment be correct. He also,
in the report Lord Evandale makes to his chief, rates the Covenanters at
near a thousand fighting men, which would probably tally with
Claverhouse's estimate. But, whatever the strength of either side may
have been, it is tolerably certain that the advantage that way was on
the side of the Covenanters.

The description of the fight in "Old Mortality" is an admirable specimen