SIR WALTER SCOTT AND CLATERHOUSE.
[To Too EDITOR OP- THE " SPROTATOIA.1.
SIR,—Having lately visited the battlefield of Killiecmnkie and the grave of Dundee in the nave of the ruined. church of Blair, whither his body was earned from the field on which he met his glorious death in the arms- of victory, I took up Scott's novel of "Old Mortality-" to refresh my-recollection -of the character and exploits of Claverhouse. I find: that Sir Walter has made many en-ors in matters of military detail. He makes Claverhouse Colonel of the regiment of Scottish Lifeguards, and calls his troopers indiscriminately Lifeguardsmen and Dragoons. Now there were two corps. of Regular mounted troops in Scotland at that time, the Scots Lifeguards (horse) and the Scots Dragoons (mounted infantry), both of them organised in independent troops or companies, and quite distinct from each other. Claverhouse in his letter reporting the engagement at Loudon Hill, quoted- in the notes to "Old Mortality," writes : "The greatest body of all made up against my troupe I saved the sta.ndarts, but lost on the place eight or ten men, besides wounded.; but the dragoons lost many mor." Sir Walter Scott makes Yrancis Bothwell a sergeant in the Lifeguards. But there -were no sergeants in the. Lifeguards in those days any more than there are in these ; there were only corporals of horse. Macaulay made the same mistake in ascribing his spirited ballad of- the-battle of Naseby to a sergeant of Ireton's regi- ment of horse. Scott no doubt availed himself of the novelist's license to alter and amend historical facts to snit the interest of his tale and the capacity of his readers. The Scots-Lifeguards did not survive the death of- their leader ; the troops of Soots Dragoons were formed into a regiment which is-still famous as the Scots Greys. The country people about-Killiecrankie relate weird legendi concerning the -battle- and the death of-Dundee which differ widely from the received historical. accounts, and are interesting examples of, the untrustworthiness of local tradition.-1 am, Sir; &c.,
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