This affair, the only one in which Claverhouse was defeated, or the insurgent Cameronians successful, was fought pretty much in the manner mentioned in the text.

The Royalists lost about thirty or forty men.

The commander of the Presbyterian, or rather Convenanting party, was Mr Robert Hamilton, of the honourable House of Preston, brother of Sir William Hamilton, to whose title and estate he afterwards succeeded; but, according to his biographer, Howie of Lochgoin, he never took possession of either, as he could not do so without acknowledging the right of King William (an uncovenanted monarch) to the crown.

Hamilton had been bred by Bishop Burnet, while the latter lived at Glasgow; his brother, Sir Thomas, having married a sister of that historian.

"He was then," says the Bishop, "a lively, hopeful young man; but getting into that company, and into their notions, he became a crack-brained enthusiast." Several well-meaning persons have been much scandalized at the manner in which the victors are said to have conducted themselves towards the prisoners at Drumclog.