Scottish Civil War

The Scottish Civil War of 1644–47 was part of wider conflict known as the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which included the Bishops Wars, the English Civil War and Irish Confederate Wars. The war was fought between Scottish Royalists — supporters of Charles I, under James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, and the Covenanters, who had controlled Scotland since 1639 and allied themselves with the English Parliament. The Scottish Royalists, aided by Irish troops, had a rapid series of victories in 1644–45, but were eventually defeated by the Covenanters.

Origins of the War — Wars in Three Kingdoms

The start — Riots set off by Jenny Geddes over the imposition of Charles I's Book of Common Prayer in Presbyterian Scotland. Civil disobedience would soon turn into armed defiance.Scotland had helped to spark this series of civil wars in 1639, when it had risen in revolt against Charles I's religious policies. The National Covenant of Scotland was formed to resist the King's imposition of Anglicanism on Presbyterian Scotland. In practice, the Covenant also represented wider Scottish dissatisfaction with Charles' policies, especially the sidelining of Scotland since the Stuart Kings had also become monarchs of England in 1603. The Covenanters raised a large army from the dependants of their landed class and successfully resisted Charles I's attempt to re-conquer Scotland in the so called Bishops Wars.

The Scottish uprising triggered civil war in Charles' other two Kingdoms, first in Ireland, then in England. Charles and his minister Wentworth were unable to persuade the English Parliament, which itself was unhappy with Charles' civil and religious policies, to pay for an army to put down the Scots. As a result, they had proposed raising an army from Irish Catholics, in return for abolishing discriminatory laws against them. This prospect alarmed Charles' enemies in England and Scotland and the Covenanters threatened to invade Ireland. In response a group of Irish conspirators launched the Irish Rebellion of 1641, which quickly degenerated into a series of massacres of English and Scottish Protestant settlers in Ireland.

This in turn sparked civil war in England, because the Long Parliament did not trust Charles with command of an army to put down the Irish rebellion, fearing that it would also be used against them. The English Civil War broke out in 1642.

The Scottish Covenanters sent an army to Ulster in Ireland in 1642 to protect the Scottish settlers there. In 1643, following the signing of a treaty — The Solemn League and Covenant — with the English Parliament, the bulk of the Covenanters armed forces were sent south to fight on the Parliamentarian side in the English Civil War.

Scottish Royalists

However, some in Scotland continued to side with the King. These were most prominent in the Highlands and north-east of Scotland. There were several factors that inclined people towards Royalism. Among them were religion, culture, clan politics and political allegiance.

The Covenanters were committed to establishing Presbyterianism as the national religion of Scotland, however many people in the northern and Highlands regions were Anglicans or Roman Catholics.

Furthermore, the Highlands was a distinct cultural, political and economic region of Scotland. It was Gaelic in language and customs and at this time was largely outside of the control of the governments of England and Scotland. Some Highland clans preferred the more distant authority of Charles Stuart with the powerful and well organised Lowlands based government of the Covenanters.

However, the largest Highland clan, the Campbells, led by their chief, Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll, did side with the Covenanters. This meant that the Campbell's rivals in the violent world of clan politics, notably the MacDonalds, automatically took the opposing side. It should be said that some of these factors overlap, for instance the MacDonalds were Catholics, sworn enemies of the Campbells and had a strong Gaelic (Irish as well as Highland) identity.

Finally, there were those like James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, who were both Lowlanders and Presbyterians but who saw allegiance to the King as more important than any other religious or political principal.

The Irish Intervention

Montrose had already tried and failed to lead a Royalist uprising by 1644, when he was presented with a ready made Royalist army. The Irish Confederates, who were loosely aligned with the Royalists, agreed in that year to send an expedition to Scotland. From their point of view, this would tie up Scottish Covenanter troops who would otherwise be used in Ireland or England. The Irish sent 1500 men to Scotland under the command of Alasdair MacColla MacDonald, a MacDonald clansman from the Western Isles of Scotland. Shortly after landing, the Irish linked up with Montrose at Blair Atholl and proceeded to raise forces from the MacDonalds and other anti-Campbell Highland clans.

The new Royalist army led by Montrose and MacColla was in some respects very formidable. Its Irish and Highland troops were extremely mobile, marching quickly over long distances - even over the rugged Highland terrain - and were capable of enduring very harsh conditions and poor rations. They did not fight in the conventional pike and musket formations used by most armies at the time, but launched rapid charges, firing their muskets at close range before closing with swords and half-pikes. This tactic swept away the poorly trained Covenanter militias that were sent against them. These locally raised levies frequently ran away when faced with a terrifying Highland charge, resulting in them being slaughtered as they ran.

On the other hand, the clans from the west of Scotland could not be persuaded to fight for long away from their homes - seeing their principal enemy as the Campbells rather than the Covenanters. The Royalists also lacked cavalry, leaving them vulnerable in open country. Finally, although they won a string of victories, the Scottish Royalists were unable to hold territory after they had taken it, retreating again

Triumph and Disaster for the Royalists

Their victory at Inverlochy gave the Royalists control over the western Highlands and attracted other clans and noblemen to their cause. The most important of these were the Gordons, who provided the Royalists with cavalry for the first time. Another Covenanter army under John Urry was hastily assembled and sent against the Royalists but was defeated at Auldearn, near Nairn. Yet another Covenanter levy was crushed by Montrose's men at Alford, and another at Kilsyth when it tried to block the victorious Royalist's advance into the Lowlands. This string of battles showed the dangers of sending half-trained, or even untrained, troops into battle and resulted in giving Montrose temporary control over almost all of Scotland. In late 1645, such prominent towns as Dundee and Glasgow fell to his forces.

However, whereas Montrose wanted to further Royalist objectives by raising troops in the south east of Scotland and marching on England, MacColla showed that his priorities lay with war of the MacDonalds against the Campbells and occupied Argyll. The Gordons also returned home, to defend their own lands in the north-east. Montrose, his forces having split up, was routed by the Covenanters at the battle of Philiphaugh. MacColla retreated to Kintyre, where he held out until the following year.

The Royalist victories in Scotland therefore evaporated almost overnight owing to the disunited nature of their forces.

The End of the Scottish Civil War

The first English Civil War had ended in May 1646, when Charles I surrendered to the Scottish Covenanter army in England. The Scots promptly handed him over to the English Parliament in return for a large cash payment. Experienced Covenanter troops could be brought back to Scotland to mop up the remaining Royalists there. In 1647, Montrose fled for Norway, while MacColla returned to Ireland with his remaining Irish and Highland troops to re-join the Confederates. Those who had fought for Montrose, particularly the Irish, were massacred by the Covenanters whenever they were captured, in reprisal for the atrocities the Royalists had committed in Argyll.

Second Civil War

Ironically, no sooner had the Covenanters defeated the Royalists at home than they were negotiating with Charles I against the English Parliament. The Covenanters could not get their erstwhile allies to agree on a political and religious settlement to the wars, failing to get Presbyterianism established as the official religion in the Three Kingdoms and fearing that the Parliamentarians would threaten Scottish independence. Many Covenanters feared that under Parliament, "our poor country should be made a province of England". A faction of the Covenanters known as "the Engagers," led by the Duke of Hamilton, therefore sent an army to England to try to restore Charles I in 1648. However it was routed by Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army at Preston. Charles was executed by the Rump Parliament in 1649, and Hamilton, who had been captured after Preston, was executed soon after. This left the extreme covenanters, still led by Argyll, as the main force in the Kingdom.

Montrose's defeat and death

In June 1649, Montrose was restored by the exiled Charles II to the now nominal lieutenancy of Scotland. Charles also open negotiations with the Covenanters, now dominated by the radical Presbyterian "Kirk Party" or "Whigs". Because Montrose had very little support in the lowlands, Charles was willing to disavow his most consistent supporter in order to become a king on terms dictated by the Covenanters. In March 1650 Montrose landed in the Orkneys to take the command of a small force, composed mainly of continental mercenaries, which he had sent on before him. Crossing to the mainland, he tried in vain to raise the clans, and on 27 April he was surprised and routed at Carbiesdale in Ross-shire. After wandering for some time he was surrendered by Macleod of Assynt, to whose protection, in ignorance of Macleod's political enmity, he had entrusted himself. He was brought a prisoner to Edinburgh, and on 20 May sentenced to death by the Parliament. He was hanged on the 21st, with Wishart's laudatory biography of him put round his neck. To the last he protested that he was a real Covenanter and a loyal subject.

Third Civil War

In spite of their conflict with the Scottish Royalists, the Covenanters then committed themselves to the cause of Charles II, signing the Treaty of Breda (1650) with him in the hope of securing an independent Presbyterian Scotland free of English Parliamentary interference. Charles landed in Scotland at Garmouth in Moray on June 23 1650 and signed the 1638 Covenant and the 1643 Solemn League immediately after coming ashore.

The threat posed by King Charles II with his new Covenanter allies was considered to be the greatest facing the new English Republic so Oliver Cromwell left some of his lieutenants in Ireland to continue the suppression of the Irish Royalists and crossed the Irish channel to Scotland. He arrived in Scotland on July 22 1650 and proceeded to lay siege to Edinburgh. By the end of August, his army was reduced by disease and running out of supplies, so he was forced to order a retreat towards England. A Scottish Covenanter army under the command of David Leslie had been shadowing his progress, and Leslie was happy to see Cromwell's troops forced to retreat for lack of supplies. However, he was ordered by the Covenanter General Assembly to bring the English to battle. The New Model Army inflicted a crushing defeat on them at the subsequent Battle of Dunbar on September 3. Leslie's army, which had strong ideological ties to the radical Kirk Party, was destroyed, losing over 14,000 men killed, wounded and taken prisoner. Cromwell's army then took Edinburgh and by the end of the year his army had occupied much of southern Scotland.

This military disaster discredited the radical Covenanters known as the Kirk Party and caused the Covenanters and Scottish Royalists to bury their differences (at least temporarily) to try and repel the English parliamentarian invasion of Scotland. The Scottish Parliament passed the Act of Levy in December 1650, requiring every burgh and shire to raise a quota of soldiers. A new round of conscription was undertaken, both in the Highlands and the Lowlands, to form a truly national army named the Army of the Kingdom, that was put under the command of Charles II himself. Although this was actually the largest force put into the field by the Scots during the Wars, it was badly trained and its morale was low as many of its constituent Royalist and Covenanter parts had until recently been killing each other.

In July 1651 Cromwell's forces crossed the Firth of Forth into Fife and defeated the Scots at the Battle of Inverkeithing. The New Model Army advanced towards Perth, which allowed Charles at the head of the Scottish army to move south into England. The Scottish army commanded by Charles II attempted a desperate last ditch invasion of England to outflank Cromwell and spark a Royalist uprising there. Cromwell followed Charles into England leaving George Monck to finish the campaign in Scotland. Meanwhile, Monck took Stirling on the August 14 and Dundee on September 1, reportedly killing up to 2000 of its 12,000 population and destroying every ship in the city's harbour.

The Scottish Army of the Kingdom marched towards the west of England because it was in that area that English Royalist sympathies were strongest. However, although some English Royalists joined the army, they came in far fewer numbers than Charles and his Scottish supporters had hoped. Cromwell finally engaged the new king at Worcester on September 3, 1651, and beat him - in the process all but wiping out his army, killing 3000 and taking 10,000 more prisoners. Many of the Scottish prisoners taken by Cromwell were sold into indentured labour in the West Indies. This defeat marked the real end of the Scottish war effort. Charles escaped to the European continent and with his flight the Coventers hopes for political independence from the Commonwealth of England were dashed.

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