John Graham, Viscount Dundee And Lord Graham of Claverhouse, a Scottish soldier, born near Dundee in 1643, killed at the battle of Killiecrankie, July 17, 1089. Educated at the university of St. Andrews, he served both the French and the Dutch as a soldier of fortune from about 1670 to 1677, when he returned to England. Letters of recommendation from the prince of Orange to Charles II. caused him to be appointed captain of one of the troops of dragoons which the king was sending into the western lowlands to force the Covenanters to comply with the established religion. His own merciless severity was so well seconded by his troopers, that his name is held in lasting execration. Defeated at Drumclog by the exasperated Covenanters, he took a fearful revenge at Both well bridge, and continued his atrocities through the western shires. Ennobled in November, 1688, by James II., he ardently espoused the king's cause against the prince of Orange, attended the parliament convened in Edinburgh to arrange the succession to the crown, and, becoming alarmed for his personal safety, fled from the city with a squadron of horse. Several disaffected clans and a body of Irish joined him.

At the pass of Killiecrankie he routed the troops of William III., and fell by a chance shot in the moment of victory. His qualities as a soldier and a politician, which were conspicuously displayed during the last few months of his life, have diverted attention somewhat from his crimes; and Sir Walter Scott, in his " Old Mortality," has presented a vigorous though highly colored picture of him. One of the latest attempts to relieve his character from the odium which attaches to it was made by Prof. Aytoun in the appendix to his "Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers." See also " Memorials and Letters illustrative of the Life and Times of John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, by Mark Napier" (3 vols., Edinburgh, 1859-'62).