The battle of Dunbar on 3 September 1650, must go down as one of Scotland’s greatest disasters in history. After Charles II had signed the Solemn League and Covenant months before in May, the Scottish Parliament prepared its army to support the king’s cause to enable him to regain his throne. The army, pulled together under the leadership of General David Leslie, was in turmoil. The government sought to weed out of its ranks all of the ’malignants’ – those who had compromised before – and those who were considered sinful or undesirable. The result of this purging meant that the Covenanting army was depleted of many of its most experienced soldiers, and became a largely divided and weakened force of raw recruits. As 80 seasoned officers and 4,000 fighting men left the ranks, it must have been a deep blow to the confidence of the remaining soldiers.
On the day of the battle, Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army of Parliamentarians engaged with the Covenanting army, leading to a decisive victory against the Scottish force. Although both sides were reasonably matched in numbers, Scotland lost 300-500 men in the battle, with about 1,000 being wounded, and 6,000 being taken as prisoners; on the other side, only 20-40 of Cromwell’s army were killed. Scotland was in a state of shock. Some of the pragmatic members of the Scottish Parliament blamed the purging of most of its best soldiers before the battle as the cause of such a humiliating defeat; whereas religious politicians laid the root of the problem at the door of compromise, and of Charles II’s feigned signing of the Covenant document, resulting in God’s judgment.
Within a year, Edinburgh, Stirling, Perth, Alyth, St Andrews and Dundee had fallen. On 3 September 1651, the remaining Scottish army, filled with Highlanders and others who had refused to sign the Covenants, was totally defeated at the battle of Worcester by Cromwell. Scotland was distraught and broken. The church itself was divided between the Protestors, who clung to the belief of the Covenants, and the Resolutioners, who accepted that all and sundry should be called in to defend the nation, irrespective of beliefs. The leaders of the Protestor party, spearheaded by Revd James Guthrie, Revd Patrick Gillespie, the lawyer, Archibald Johnston of Warriston, and Revd Samuel Rutherford, published A Shorte Declaratione and Warninge in September 1650 in response to the disaster at Dunbar. The purpose of this document was to call the nation to repentance, as well as to challenge Charles II to repent from falsely accepting the Covenants in order to obtain the crown. For over eight years though, Scotland would be under the rule of Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth.
‘For the men were greatly humiliated’ (2 Samuel 10:5).
Cromwell’s army at Dunbar, by Andrew Carrick Gow, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons