writing," at least his letters are plain and to the purpose; and the
letters of a soldier have need to be no more.

It is, of course, unlikely that he could have been, even for those days,
a cultivated man. The studies of youth are but the preparation for the
culture of manhood; and after his three quiet years at Saint Andrews
were done, his leisure for study must have been scant indeed. But all we
know of his character, temperament, and habits of life forbid the
supposition that he wasted that precious time either in idleness or
indulgence. His bitterest enemies have borne witness to his singular
freedom from those vices which his age regarded more as the
characteristics than the failings of a gentleman. The most scurrilous of
the many scurrilous chroniclers of the Covenanters' wrongs has owned in
a characteristic passage that his life was uniformly clean.[3] Gifted by
nature with quick parts, of dauntless ambition and untiring energy both
of mind and body, he was not the man to have let slip in idleness any
chance of fortifying himself for the great struggle of life, or to have
neglected studies which might be useful to him in the future because
they happened to be irksome in the present. It is only, therefore, in
reason to suppose that he managed his time at the University prudently
and well, and this may easily be done without assuming for him any
special intellectual gifts or graces.

But, as a matter of strict fact, from the date of his matriculation to
the year 1672 nothing is really known of Claverhouse or his affairs. It
has, however, been generally assumed that, after the usual residence of
three years at the University, he crossed over into France to study the
art of war under the famous Turenne. As the practice was common then
among young men of good birth and slender fortune, it is not unlikely
that Claverhouse followed it. A large body of English troops was a few