Dundee, John Graham of Claverhouse, 1st Viscount, British And Irish History, Biographies

Related Category: British And Irish History, Biographies

Dundee, John Graham of Claverhouse, 1st Viscount[klav´urus, dundE´] Pronunciation Key, 1649?–1689, Scottish soldier, known as Bonnie Dundee. After service abroad under William of Orange (later William III of England), he returned (1678) to Scotland to help in the suppression of the Covenanters, a task to which he devoted himself for 10 years. He was second in command of the Scottish force vainly sent to help James II repel William of Orange in 1688, and James made him Viscount Dundee. After James's flight, Dundee raised forces in Scotland to help restore him, but was killed in his hour of victory at Killiecrankie. Loathed by the Covenanters and venerated by the Jacobites, Dundee has been immortalized in ballads and novels, especially in Sir Walter Scott's song usually called Bonnie Dundee and in Scott's Old Mortality.

See his memorials and letters (ed. by M. Napier, 1859–62); biographies by C. S. Terry (1905) and A. N. and H. A. N. Taylor (1939).