Note 6 — Chapter I

The stories of Claverhouse's conduct at Seneff, and of the quarrel at Loo, are told in the "Life of Lieut.-General Hugh Mackay," by John Mackay of Rockfields, and in the "Memoirs of the Lord Viscount Dundee," published in 1714, and professing to be written by an officer of the army. This little book is remarkable chiefly as being the first recorded attempt at a biography of Dundee. The writer was possibly not an officer, nor personally acquainted with Dundee. But he had certainly contrived to learn a good deal about him and his affairs; and as later research has either corroborated or, at least, made probable, much of his information, it seems to me quite as fair to use it for Dundee, as to use the unsupported testimony of the Covenanters against him. According to his biographer, Mackay himself was Claverhouse's successful rival. According to the earlier writer, the man was David Colyear, afterwards Lord Portmore, and husband of Catherine Sedley, Lady Dorchester, James's favourite and ugliest mistress.