Charles had behaved courageously at Naseby when he wished to ride against the troopers following Langdale’s men, and in his reluctance to forsake the field. He had shown courage in the past, and he was to show it again, most notably at Whitehall, London, on the day of his execution, 30 January 1649. In front of a sombre crowd, he calmly knelt down, placed his head upon the block, prayed, signalled with his arms, and awaited the axe.
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DUNBAR 3 September 1650
The execution of Charles I in January 1649 profoundly shocked a considerable number of people in England and elsewhere. The Scots, for instance, were appalled even though most had opposed the king’s religious policies, and they proceeded to recognize his exiled eldest son as Charles II on condition that he accepted the National Covenant.
Charles landed in Scotland in June 1650 and was proclaimed king the following month. Events north of the border caused alarm in ruling circles in England and produced a speedy response—Cromwell was sent to deal with the situation. He entered Scotland on 22 July with 5,000 horse and 10,000 foot of the New Model Army (of which he had just become commander-in-chief), and began marching towards Edinburgh.
The Scottish commander, David Leslie, who had fought alongside Cromwell at Marston Moor, led a stronger army but his men were mainly raw recruits and the quality of the officers was not high: religious zeal rather than military ability had secured many of them their positions.
Leslie avoided giving battle, and so in late August Cromwell withdrew from the vicinity of Edinburgh to Dunbar, for he was short of supplies. By 1 September he only had 11,000 ‘sound men’ left owing to Scottish harassment, desertion and sickness. He began fortifying Dunbar and placed some of the sick on ships of a supporting fleet, which was too small to transport the army home.
On the 1st, Leslie took up a position on Doon Hill a short distances south of Dunbar. The following morning, at the urging of the Committee of the Kirk, he moved to less bleak ground between the hill and the ravine of a burn a short distance to the north. He had at least 22,000 men: cavalry on the wings, foot in the centre.
Cromwell noted that because of the lie of the ground the Scottish left flank would not be able to quickly support the right, and so decided to attack the latter. At about 4.00am on the 3rd the English began crossing the burn near where it joins the sea. The vanguard under Colonel Lambert then clashed with a detachment guarding a position on the Berwick road to the right of the Scottish army. After routing it, Lambert’s brigade was attacked by the Scottish right wing and recoiled somewhat. Then, supported by other units, Lambert’s horse and foot rallied and the Scots were overcome, as were infantry units on the right of Leslie’s centre. The rest of the foot fled rather than make a stand, and many were cut down by English cavalry who rode among them. The victorious troopers then overwhelmed the demoralised Scottish left. By 7.00am the battle was over. 3,000 Scots were slain and 10,000 taken prisoner. English losses are said not to have exceeded 20 men. As Ian Gentles states, at Dunbar ‘Cromwell again demonstrated his ability as a field commander by massing overwhelming force against a single point.’
Leslie retreated to the strategic town of Stirling, while Cromwell proceeded to secure Edinburgh and Glasgow. Then, in February 1651 he fell ill and was unable to continue campaigning for several months, during which his adversaries consolidated their position in and around Stirling and in other ways prepared for renewed conflict: the Worcester campaign was soon to begin.
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WORCESTER 3 September 1651
After Cromwell’s stunning victory at Dunbar, the power of the Covenanting party declined, and before and after his coronation at Scone on 1 January 1651, Charles II raised a new ‘uncovenanted’ army which would not have to act upon the dictates of Presbyterian zealots and in which non-Presbyterians could serve.
In the summer of 1651 Cromwell retook the field, by which time the English army in Scotland was over 21,000 strong, larger than Charles’ force. Cromwell wished to lure the Scots from their strong defensive position in and around Stirling and thus crossed the Firth of Forth at Queensferry, with the bulk of his army, and moved towards Perth whose surrender he received on 2 August. The Royalists reacted the way he hoped. They began marching south in the belief that once across the border they would receive support from Englishmen faithful to Charles. Cromwell set off in pursuit in early August, intending to link up with forces under able subordinates, and eager to destroy the enemy before they got close to London.
On 22 August Charles entered Worcester unopposed at the head of a tired army of 12,000 men demoralised by the unenthusiastic welcome they had received in England, and the desertion of many colleagues en route. However, Charles hoped for support from Wales and the South West.
While the Royalists rested, Cromwell closed in. He arrived outside the city on 28 August at the head of a powerful force soon to number 31,000 men. The River Severn flows through Worcester and is joined a short distance to the south by the Teme flowing from the west. Cromwell deployed the bulk of his army on high ground to the east of the city, whose fortifications had been hurriedly strengthened ‘beyond imagination’ by Charles, and sent 11,000 men to cross the Severn via a bridge captured by Lambert nine miles to the south at Upton.
Cromwell delayed taking the offensive until 3 September, the anniversary of Dunbar. Early that morning the men on the west bank of the Severn (under General Fleetwood), began moving north from Upton. Their advance was slow. They had to haul against the current twenty ‘great boats’ needed to make bridges across the Teme and the Severn. They arrived at the confluence of the rivers at about 1.00pm and the bridges were constructed: one to enable Fleetwood to cross to the north side of the Teme, the other to enable reinforcements to reach him from across the Severn.
Fleetwood sent some of his men about a mile west to force their way across the Teme at Powicke Bridge, but the attempt failed. Meanwhile, Cromwell had joined Fleetwood and was engaged with him in a fierce fight on the north side of the river. After about two hours, enemy resistance collapsed and the Scots fled back into Worcester. Charles then moved against men Cromwell had left east of the Severn, and began driving them back. However, the New Model commander returned and drove his gallant adversary back into Worcester, where fierce street fighting subsequently ensued after sundown. The battle was over by 8.00pm.
Between 2,000 and 3,000 Royalists were killed and many more were taken captive. Parliamentarian losses were put at less than 200 but this is surely too low for Cromwell himself said that the engagement was ‘as stiff a contest for four or five hours as ever I have seen.’ As for Charles, he avoided capture and fled abroad.
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SEDGEMOOR 6 July 1685
On 6 February 1685 Charles II died and was succeeded by his brother, James II. The accession of this staunch Catholic was followed by plotting by people who wished to overthrow him. One such was the Earl of Argyll, a strong Protestant who had fled into exile some years before when James, then Charles’ lieutenant in Scotland, had had him sentenced to death for treason following a dubious trial. Argyll and other opponents of James now encouraged the late king’s exiled illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, to return to England and lead a rising which would synchronize with one the earl was planning to head in Scotland. Against his better judgement, Monmouth agreed.
On 11 June the duke landed at Lyme Regis with a small following, after sailing from Holland a few weeks after Argyll had left for Scotland. Monmouth soon received enthusiastic support from the ordinary people of the West Country. On the 19th he entered Taunton and was proclaimed king. He then tried to secure Bristol but failed, and harassed by government forces, made his way to Norton St Philip near Bath. Here, on the 27th, his rustic army came off best in a clash with a force under Lord Feversham, and then moved south to Frome. While here Monmouth received bad news. Argyll had been captured and executed in Scotland. This, and the fact that few persons of
consequence had joined him, made Monmouth despondent. He thus retired to Bridgewater.
Feversham followed, and on 3 July, reached Somerton. He then proceeded northwest to Westonzoyland where he made his headquarters on the 5th. He had about 2,700 regular soldiers. A report that Feversham was only four miles away soon reached Monmouth. The duke and his lieutenants therefore decided to carry out a night attack. At about 11.00pm the rebel army of over 3,500 men left Bridgewater. At first it moved northeast, but then turned south, skirting Chedzoy—where a government detachment was stationed—moving silently over Sedgemoor toward Westonzoyland. Suddenly, as the rebels approached their target, the silence was shattered by a pistol shot, probably fired by a government sentinel, and Feversham hurriedly prepared for battle. It was about 1.45am.
Unfortunately for the rebels, between them and Westonzoyland was a formidable ditch, the Bussex Rhine, which greatly impeded their advance. About 300 of Monmouth’s cavalry tried to force their way over the uppermost of the ditch’s two crossing places but were repulsed by the enemy. Many of them therefore quit the field, as did the bulk of the rest of Monmouth’s raw cavalry when fired on. This hampered the infantry coming up in support. Nonetheless they proceeded to line up and fire across the ditch, but did little damage. As the infantry exchanged fire, Feversham’s horse made their way over the crossings and moved against the flanks of the rebels. Assailed from the sides, and from the front by the government infantry which proceeded to cross the ditch, the rebels began falling back and then commenced fleeing. Many were cut down as they did so, while many others were captured and executed by Feversham or subsequently received little or no mercy at the hands of Judge Jeffreys.
Monmouth fled the field before the collapse of his army. However, he was soon captured and on 15 July the kind and malleable 36-year-old died bravely on Tower Hill at the hands of a man wielding an axe with singular incompetence.
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SHERIFFMUIR 13 November 1715
‘Argyle, the State’s whole thunder born to wield,
And shake alike the Senate and the Field.’
Alexander Pope
In June 1688 the wife of James II gave birth to a son. This was not welcome news to the majority of the king’s subjects. They were Protestants, whereas James was an ardent Catholic intent on restoring Catholicism to a position of supremacy in Britain. Hitherto, most of his subjects had hoped that his rule would be a temporary aberration and that upon his death the throne would pass to Mary (a Protestant daughter by a previous marriage), who had married William of Orange. But now it seemed certain that the newly born prince would be schooled by his father to perpetuate his policy of Romanization and that the hopes of Protestants would come to nought. Consequently, on 30 June seven ‘persons of quality’ signed an invitation to William of Orange, the champion of Protestantism, asking him to cross from Holland and help overthrow James. He was willing to do so, and landed in Devon in early November at the head of an army.
James found himself deserted by many of those closest to him, including his most able soldier, John Churchill, (the future Duke of Marlborough), and soon fled to France where he was sure of support from Louis XIV, an ardent Catholic and a bitter enemy of William of Orange. James died in France in 1701 and following his death his adherents—the Jacobites—immediately recognised his 13-year-old son as James III of England and VIII of Scotland.
Meanwhile, William and Mary had been reigning jointly in Britain. Mary had died in 1694 and William was to follow her to the grave in 1702, whereupon he was succeeded by his Protestant sister-in-law, Anne, who like his former wife was the offspring of James II’s first marriage.
Who would be Anne’s successor? This was the all important question during, and indeed, before her reign. In 1683 she had married George of Denmark, but although the marriage had been fruitful, death had carried off the youngsters with unfortunate regularity. Hence, according to the Act of Settlement of 1701, in the event of Anne dying without surviving issue the throne was to pass to the Protestant Electress of Hanover, Sophia, (a granddaughter of James I of England) and her descendants.
However, the Jacobites had other ideas. They were determined to place James Stuart on the throne his father had lost. Schemes to bring about such an event thus occurred. Moreover, at a later date, an important member of the government, Viscount Bolingbroke, attempted to build up a Jacobite clique at the centre of affairs but was overtaken by the course of events. The queen died on 1 August 1714 before he had been able to set the stage for a Jacobite restoration and so George of Hanover, the late Sophia’s son, succeeded to the throne as George I.
He was a middle-aged man of little charm who could speak no English, and following his arrival in England on 18 September he made it clear that he had serious doubts about the loyalty of the Tory party (to which Bolingbroke belonged), for he believed it to be pro-Jacobite. Thus he snubbed a number of leading Tories and soon dismissed them from office.
One of the men who fell foul of the king was John Erskine, the Earl of Mar. On 24 September he was dismissed from his position as Secretary of State for Scotland. He subsequently tried to ingratiate himself with the king but did not succeed, and by the summer of 1715 evidently believed it in his best interests to foment a Jacobite rising in Scotland which, in conjunction with risings expected elsewhere, most notably in the southwest of England, would oust the dour and unpopular George.
On 1 August Mar slipped away from the court and, at Gravesend, bordered a collier bound for Newcastle. From Tyneside he continued travelling north by sea until he reached Fife.
Following his arrival in Scotland Mar invited a number of prominent Jacobites to a hunt at Braemar. On 26 August he is said to have made a stirring speech to the assembled notables in which, according to Peter Rae, he denounced the Hanoverian succession and stated his intention of restoring ‘the Chevalier de St George’ (James Stuart), for he had the only ‘undoubted right to the Crown.’ Then, on 6 September, Mar raised the Pretender’s standard at Braemar.
Soon afterwards a party of Jacobites tried to take Edinburgh Castle, which contained a large quantity of arms and ammunition, but failed despite support from a few pro-Jacobite members of the garrison. Nevertheless, the rebels did make progress elsewhere, for on 14 September John Hay secured Perth with a party of horsemen. Mar arrived there on the 28th at the head of a growing army, and received word that James would soon arrive from France and that powerful support could be expected from that quarter.
The man appointed to command the government forces in Scotland was John Campbell, the Duke of Argyll. He arrived in Edinburgh on 14 September after travelling from London and found its loyal inhabitants desperately concerned by events. They were not the only ones in a pessimistic mood. Argyll was likewise far from sanguine for he only had about 1,800 regular soldiers with which to oppose Mar. He thus wrote to London, begging for urgent reinforcement. On 24 September, for instance, he wrote to a senior member of the government, Lord Townshend, and concluded: ‘I must end with insisting on considerable reinforcements, for without it, or a miracle, not only this country will be utterly destroyed but the rest of his Majesty’s dominions put in the extremest danger.’
While awaiting the arrival of more troops at his headquarters at Stirling, Argyll did what he could. For example, he encouraged people in positions of responsibility loyal to the government, such as Glasgow’s magistrates, to enlist men and sent his brother the Earl of Islay west to protect Campbell territory in Argyll and to ensure that members of the Campbell clan, of which the duke was chief, did not join Mar.
Mar likewise had problems. Arms, ammunition, gunpowder and money, were scarce. Moreover, there was little love lost between sections of his army—which was over 6,000 strong by the end of the first week of October—for it contained men from many clans, some of which were traditional enemies, as well as Lowlanders, many of whom viewed Highlanders with disdain and were in turn l
ooked down on by many clansmen. To solve his financial difficulties, Mar resorted to various measures such as sending out parties of men to raise money in the surrounding counties.
Despite his problems, Mar was in a better position than his opponent. Nonetheless he dallied in Perth awaiting the expected French reinforcements and the Pretender. It would have been wiser to have moved against Argyll: a strategy which if pursued vigorously would almost certainly have resulted in the destruction of the government army.
By the second week of October, Mar was aware that a Jacobite rising had just commenced in Northumberland—it did so on the 6th—and that Argyll thus faced the possibility of being attacked from the rear. He therefore decided to send part of his army south under Brigadier Macintosh of Borlum with the intention, it seems, of reinforcing the English rebels.
On the 9th, Borlum left Perth and made his way through Fife. He then crossed the Firth of Forth by boat, and by the morning of the 14th the bulk of his command of about 2,000 men had gathered at Haddington after coming ashore at various places to the east of Edinburgh: the remainder had either been captured by a man-o’-war during the crossing or been driven back.
Hastings to Culloden - Battles in Britain 1066-1746 Page 25
