Unfortunately for him it came in the form of Drumclog, and the proof had
still to be given.

But it is abundantly clear that no stain was considered to rest either
on his honour or his skill. The only ungenerous reference to his
discomfiture came a few years later in the shape of a growl from old
Dalziel against the folly of splitting the army up into small
detachments at the discretion of rash and incompetent leaders.
Claverhouse was removed from his independent command only because the
circumstances of the moment made it necessary. When it was found
necessary to despatch a regular army against the insurgents (as, for all
their provocation, they must after Drumclog be styled), he took his
proper place in that army as captain of a troop in the Royal Scottish
Life Guards. When the brief campaign had closed at Bothwell Bridge, and,
worst fortune for him, affairs had resumed their original complexion, he
went back to his old position.

It will be necessary, then, to supply this gap in Claverhouse's
correspondence by a brief review of the state of things from the battle
of Drumclog to the date of his new commission.

The garrison of Glasgow had, as we have seen, joined Linlithgow at
Stirling. There they lay for a day or two till orders were received from
the Council for the whole army, which only numbered about eighteen
hundred men in all, to fall back on Edinburgh. In the capital the
greatest consternation reigned. The first proceeding of the Council was
to proclaim the rising "an open, manifest, and horrid rebellion," and
all the insurgents were summoned to surrender at discretion as
"desperate and incorrigible traitors." Having thus satisfied their
diplomatic consciences they wisely proceeded to more practical measures.