Setting up his headquarters at Dean Castle in Kilmarnock, he
started putting his military experience gained in the civil war and
in Russia and Poland to use. His was a psychological war as much as
a physical one, using strict laws to exact punishments and commit
terrible atrocities on the local populace to break their will to
resist the church and crown as much as to defeat the rebels in
battle. Some examples of his alleged barbarity are women being
thrown into dungeons with wild animals, crushing supposed
Covenanters' lower limbs under a torture device known as 'the
boot', burning a woman's hand with matches until it was so damaged
that she lost it, and shooting entire families without trial.
Dalziel was also responsible for introducing the thumbscrew, a
Russian invention, to the British Isles. His terrible reputation
was so intense that stories about him playing cards with the devil
were widespread. His tyranny in Ayrshire, Dumfries and Galloway and
Lanark, though, rather than destroying the Covenanters, initially
forced them underground, where they practised their religion 'in
wild places', and continued a guerrilla war against the Government
Dragoons. Unable to find the Covenanters and their outlawed
ministers, Dalziel practised his oppression on the population at
large, causing many to join the rebels.
The local people, who mainly came from Ayrshire, Lanark and
Dumfries and Galloway, rose in 1666 after an elderly man was
severely beaten by troops in Kirkcudbrightshire, and marched on
Dumfries, attacking any Dragoons they met on the way. At the Bridge
of Doon they chose professional soldiers from their ranks as their
leaders: Colonel James Wallace of Auchens, Major Learmouth, Captain
Arnott and Captain Paton of Meadowhead. Now well led and organised
they marched to Ayr then Mauchline, gathering recruits until their
numbers swelled to nearly 1500. Although this was a good sized army
for the day, they had to abandon their initial goal of taking
Edinburgh. They had hoped that the people there would rise and join
their cause, but the fervour for rebellion was not as strong there
and news reached the Covenanters that the city planned to defend
itself against the army from the western lowlands with
cannon.
As they turned back towards Galloway, they ran into Dalziel and
his professional troops who had them badly outnumbered at Rullion
Green in Pentland. The Covenanter army put up a prolonged and
inspired fight but were ultimately crushed by Dalziel's dragoons
with many dead, injured or captured, the remaining Covenanters fled
into the hills.
Dalziel had about 30 of the prisoners hanged in the Mercat Cross
in Edinburgh and had others brutally executed at prime locations
throughout the south west of the country as a warning to others. In
Ayr 8 prisoners who were sentenced to hang got a temporary reprieve
when both the official hangman of Ayr and that of Irvine refused to
despatch the men. Cornelius Anderson, one of the condemned, was
then bribed with a pardon to carry out the deed, both for the 7
remaining prisoners at Ayr and for two others in Irvine. Many
others had to be transported overseas into slavery in America and
the West Indies to make space in the overflowing dungeons of
Glasgow, Edinburgh, Ayr, Dumfries and Kilmarnock. One man, who was
the only survivor from a transportation ship which sunk carrying
prisoners from the dungeon at Dean Castle in Kilmarnock to the West
Indies, was pardoned as it was agreed that he had been saved by an
Act of God. Even now, however, visitors to the south west of
Scotland can see martyrs' headstones in kirkyards throughout the
region which bear the mark of the treatment by Charles II of his
own people and once loyal subjects and the terrible retribution
they received at the hands of 'Bloody Tam'.
General Dalziel continued in his role as Commander in Chief of
the King's Forces in Scotland and as the representative for
Linlithgow in the Scottish Parliament after the accession of James
II but died shortly after in 1685. After his death 'Bluddy Tam',
passed into folklore and stories of his boots marching around by
themselves still appear in many collections of stories about 'the
'supernatural' in Scotland. It is also said that if water was
poured into his boots it would boil! His regiment, 'The Scots
Greys' continued after his death and served with distinction in the
Napoleonic Wars with their famous grey horses. They later became
the 'Royal Scots Greys', before amalgamating in 1971 with the 3rd
Carabiniers to form the 'Royal Scots Dragoon Guards'. They most
recently saw action in 2003 when they served in Iraq (now with
Challenger II tanks).