Vladimir Lenin once said that: “There are decades where
nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” No period exemplifies the spirit of this
phrase more than the end of the English Civil War. Charles’ re-ignition of the terrible
conflict had radicalised the people of Britain against the Crown to
unprecedentedly hostile levels. In the bloody aftermath of the battle of Preston,
more and more Englishmen began to ask themselves a previously unthinkable question: do
we even need a monarch? This desire for complete political reform would trigger a series
of events that would shape the fates of England, Scotland and Ireland forever. Welcome to our
final video on the English Civil War and its later battles at Drogheda and Dunbar: Cromwell’s
greatest crime and his greatest victory.
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wouldn’t be able to do what we love without you! Scotland’s fragile alliance with the king utterly
broke down as news of Hamilton’s defeat at Preston began filtering north. Sensing blood in the
water, anti-engager factions loyal to the ‘Kirk’, or ‘church’, struck out and plunged
Scotland into a civil war of its own. In early September, Stirling and Edinburgh were
taken by Kirk insurrectionists, but it became clear that they didn’t have the military advantage
when the Engagers took Stirling back soon after. However, the threat of Cromwellian intervention on
their border forced an agreement that formalised the anti-engager’s legitimacy. With peace in
Scotland secured, for now, a victorious Cromwell marched into the country and dined with friendly
nobles in Edinburgh1. Meanwhile, in England, momentous events were taking place. The
viciousness and pointlessness of the Second Civil War had widened the rift between parliament’s
moderates, who desired an accommodation with the king, and the radical New Model Army
‘independents’, who now wanted him gone. Charles’ continued refusal to budge on
religious issues during the subsequent negotiations infuriated the radicals even further
throughout the later part of 1648, and this led to a temporary alliance between the extreme Levellers
and the army grandees, led by Henry Ireton. The army officers’ patience finally ran out
on December 1st and they decided to act. Charles was forcibly returned to the mainland and
installed at Hurst Castle, while Fairfax and the main force occupied London the following day.
Acting on Ireton’s orders and without the Lord General’s knowledge, Colonel Thomas Pride marched
on parliament at dawn on the 6th and conducted what has become known as ‘Pride’s Purge’. MPs
who voted for engagement with the king were blocked from entering the commons or arrested,
leaving a pliable Rump Parliament of 156 members. From that point on, the military was in
control of the country, and it set about using its newfound authority to punish Charles
I for his crimes. On the first day of 1649, Ireton’s new puppet parliament decreed the
establishment of a High Court to charge the king. The captive monarch was taken from Hurst to
Windsor and then, a day later, to St James’ Palace in London, which parliament used as the
king’s jail. Before being parted from his son, Charles told the boy that “The corn is in
the ground; we expect the harvest.” He knew exactly what was coming. After a contentious,
week-long trial, the king was declared guilty and condemned to death on January 27th, 1649.
Three days later, at about 2PM, King Charles I of England was executed with a single axe blow to the
neck, prompting a deathly groan from the crowd. To his enemies, Charles I was an incompetent
king and an autocratic tyrant, unprepared for the burden of ruling his realm and unwilling to
concede anything meaningful. But he was also a devout Christian, a loving father and a man who
genuinely thought he was doing the best thing he could for England’s people under the difficult
circumstances of the seventeenth-century. Whichever of these perspectives rang
truer, the king was finally dead. On the same day, the army’s rump parliament passed
an act forbidding automatic succession by the late monarch’s son, the future Charles II, who was an
exile in the Netherlands at the time. Although he was crowned in mid-February by royalist
supporters, this essentially abolished the English monarchy, and with this lack of a king,
the Commonwealth of England effectively began. The death of Charles I and the conclusion of the
struggle for England didn’t mean everyone was at peace. Ireland had been in an intermittent state
of revolt since before the First Civil War broke out, and during the conflict had often been a
source of royalist soldiers. By early 1649, Irish Catholics were in an alliance with the remnant of
Charles’ supporters against the parliamentarians, and it was clear that the situation there needed
dealing with. To do so, the Commonwealth’s newly founded executive body, the Council of State,
appointed the always reliable Thomas Fairfax. Much to their dismay however, the Lord General
was weary of conflict and declined the foreign commission. With little other choice, the Council
instead appointed his deputy - Lieutenant-General Oliver Cromwell, to lead the Irish expedition.
Unfortunately for them, Leveller mutinies within some New Model Army regiments broke out
during the spring and stalled preparations. Led by reformist figures such as John Lilburne,
the radical Levellers had become disillusioned by the lack of political change in England1
post-civil war, and had come to believe that the king’s tyranny had simply been exchanged for the
tyranny of an oligarchic parliament. In what would be Lord General Fairfax’s swan song action as the
army’s commander-in-chief, he and Cromwell rallied loyal forces against the mutineers and crushed
them in a night assault on May 13th near Burford. In the aftermath, many Leveller notables were
executed and the movement as a whole lost most of its political power. With the military’s internal
unrest resolved by early summer, Cromwell at last set off for his campaign in Ireland with 12,000
soldiers and fervent protestant zeal against a people whom he would come to refer to as
‘barbarous wretches’. Most of Cromwell’s fleet set sail on the 14th of August and arrived
unopposed in the port of Dublin a day later. Ireland’s royalist leadership under the Duke
of Ormond believed that bleeding Cromwell dry of blood and money in prolonged sieges was the
best strategy after recent defeats. To that end, much of their manpower was redeployed to
strengthen strategic castles and towns on the invader’s route. One of these
would-be fortresses was Drogheda, a city located on the main road from Dublin to
Belfast. It possessed large medieval walls and, to make attacking it even harder, was bisected
into northern and southern sections by the Boyne river with only a drawbridge to cross between the
two. However Ormond and Sir Arthur Aston - the local commander, didn’t believe Drogheda
would be a primary objective for Cromwell. Therefore, they were not prepared when,
on September 2nd, outriders under an officer called Michael Jones appeared on the
northern bank to cover the western approaches. Some minor skirmishing took place
which didn’t have much of an effect, but this vanguard’s arrival preceded the main
parliamentary army which marched into view on the following day. Immediately taking note of
the city’s geography, Cromwell concentrated his main army force south of the Boyne and left
Jones’ cavalry to split the defenders’ manpower. Things got worse for Irish-royalist defenders
when eight heavy parliamentarian siege cannons arrived by river on the 5th. After being unloaded
slightly downstream, the guns were organised into two batteries with converging fire, targeting
the south and southeastern walls where assault would be less costly. The plan was simple - smash
two adjacent sections of the wall, penetrate the separate but mutually supporting breaches and
capture the Duleek Gate and Boyne drawbridge. Cromwell sent demands for Aston’s surrender, but
the overtures were rejected, so the assault was on. On the 9th, Parliament’s cannons began
a bombardment which continued for two days, all the while Cromwell deployed his men to
be ready for an advance through the breach. Three regiments of infantry were placed at the
eastern wall under Colonel John Hewson, while Cromwell personally led the bulk of his army and
its reserve opposite the southern gate. Drogheda’s centuries-old fortifications held firm against
the cannonade until the 11th, when two holes were blown through both axes of the walls' southeastern
corner. Reacting to the danger, Aston moved his command post to Mill Mount and ordered trenches to
be dug around the breaches as a secondary defence. With the city penetrated, Cromwell raised a white
flag of parley above his command tent to induce Aston to come and submit. When this failed,
he even sent an officer with direct orders. However, believing relief to be close at hand,
the royalist commander rejected for a second time. The Lord General intensified his eight gun
artillery barrage in response, each weapon firing formidable shots ranging from 12 to 30
pounds in weight. It was all too much. By midday, Drogheda’s walls were on the verge of collapse
and many more holes had been made. Cromwell readied his men for the attack. At 5PM, Colonels
Castle and Hewson led their frontline units into the city and initially managed to seize a foothold
beyond the wall. However, a point-blank volley of royalist musketry amidst the rubble-strewn streets
pushed the parliamentarians out again. Among the casualties was Colonel Castle, whose mortal
wounding collapsed the vanguard’s morale. Seeing his troops faltering, Cromwell ordered his reserve
to advance and bolster the attack, personally taking command of a regiment and fighting in
the forward rank. Inspired by their general’s presence, the parliamentarians outflanked and
overwhelmed Drogheda’s outnumbered defenders and forced Aston to send in his cavalry reserve.
Doing so stripped the drawbridge of its defending soldiers and allowed Cromwell’s men to storm the
crucial crossing. Now surrounded and isolated on Mill Mount, Aston and his small group of comrades
allowed themselves to be taken into custody. But the quarter was not to be given on that
day. For a reason which has been a matter of debate ever since, Cromwell’s soldiers began
massacring the captured royalists with shot, club and sword. Aston himself was reportedly
bludgeoned to death with his own wooden leg in the slaughter by men who believed
rumours that he kept gold inside it. With Drogheda south of the Boyne captured,
parliamentarian soldiers fueled by religious zeal and bloodlust swarmed across the undefended
drawbridge and into the northern section. Seemingly having lost control of his army briefly,
Cromwell was unable to reign in his men as they began indiscriminately slaying any enemy soldier
or civilian they came across. In short order, most of the city was under their control, but
a few bastions of resistance still remained. At some point, the Lord General was approached by
a group of officers who asked what should be done about a group of royalist soldiers resisting
inside the bell tower of St Peter’s Church. Cromwell had his men pile up the church’s pews and
set the alight to burn out the defenders. About 40 people perished in the dreadful inferno,
which was visible throughout the city. Overall, almost 3,000 defenders and a
thousand civilians were killed in Drogheda. Debate still rages as to whether the
fervently religious Cromwell condoned Drogheda’s bloody fate due to anti-Catholic
hatred or whether he was simply acting within the bounds of accepted laws
of early-modern wartime conduct. The man himself stated of the act: “It will tend
to prevent the effusion of blood for the future.”A month after the slaughter at Drogheda, Cromwell
captured the crucial port of Wexford and put it to the sword in a similar manner. After this,
the parliamentarians continued campaigning in Ireland throughout winter and into the new
year, stymying any hope the future Charles II had of finding effective support there.
Cromwell himself left his son-in-law to command Ireland and finally departed for England in May
1650, for a new emergency had emerged back home. Since mid-March, the dead king’s heir had been
playing two sides in a deft political game, both hoping to renew the royalist alliance with
Covenanter Scotland, controlled by a Kirk party who had come to believe parliament would never
hold to its oaths, whilst at the same time hedging his bets with their enemies. Even worse than
the failure to impose Presbyterianism was the commonly held fear among the Scots that England’s
kingless New Model Army sought to impose a similar Republicanism on them as well, a prospect which
was completely anathema to the Scottish nobility. All of this led to negotiations between the
Covenanters and Charles the younger, which began in March 1650 at the Dutch city of Breda2. When
talks ground to a halt, the king-in-exile placed a formidable and staunch royalist piece onto his
side of the chessboard: the Marquis of Montrose. Following his defeat at Philiphaugh, Montrose
had skipped between the courts of Europe attempting to gain support, and after Charles I’s
execution immediately offered his services to the late King’s son. Aiming to light a fire under
the Covenanter’s feet, Charles sent Montrose back to Scotland with a mercenary army in April.
Unfortunately for the unreservedly loyal Marquis, he was just a pawn in a merciless political game.
His invasion had its hastening effect on the Breda deliberations, but that didn’t stop his small
army from being decisively defeated on April 27th when it was ambushed at Carbisdale. Only a
few days later, Charles and the Scots signed the Treaty of Breda. In return for a sworn oath to
institute Presbyterianism throughout the British Isles and the disavowal of royalists in Ireland
and Scotland, especially the hated Montrose, Covenanter Scotland would grant Charles
its support in restoring him to the throne. After being captured in the aftermath of
Carbisdale, Montrose was taken to Edinburgh in chains where he was hung, drawn and quartered
at the end of May. The man who was among the dead monarch’s most steadfast allies was
cut off and left out to dry by his son. With the Breda agreement concluded, Charles sailed
from the Netherlands to Scotland, disembarking on June 23rd3. Parliament looked at the situation
in the far north with justified concern. A day later in London, 500 miles to the south,
a special committee appointed by the Council of State convened to decide who would lead
an upcoming preemptive invasion of Scotland. Their initial choice, Thomas Fairfax, declined
the commission in objection to an offensive war. So, having recently returned from Ireland, Oliver
Cromwell was appointed Lord General in his place. Together with around 16,000
veterans and their capable officers, the New Model Army went north and finally
crossed the Scottish border on July 22nd. Rather than facing one of the age’s greatest
generals with an unprepared and undermanned army, Covenanter general David Leslie fortified a line
of forts stretching from Leith to Canongate. Anchored by terrain features on both flanks,
Edinburgh’s defensive shield was a formidable obstacle which the Scottish army could safely
muster behind. Dunbar, a seaport crucial for the invasion’s logistical links, was taken without
significant resistance two days after the border crossing. Cromwell advanced even further along
the Firth, but he was forced to halt at Leith upon encountering Leslie’s defences. After a
short attempt at breaking the line, the Lord General realised it wouldn’t be possible before
supplies ran dry. In terrible weather conditions5, the parliamentary army retreated back towards
the Tweed beginning on July 30th, but was harried by Leslie’s Covenanter cavalry the entire way,
suffering many losses. Slightly battered, Cromwell and his men reached Dunbar again on August 5th.
At about the same time, Charles arrived at Leith. Parliament’s Lord General tried for a second time
to overcome the bulwark of forts by outflanking Edinburgh to the south, but failed again due to an
onset of dysentery and the wet summer weather. On August 31st, Cromwell pulled the attrition-sapped
army back to Dunbar, his strength now only 7,500 infantry and 3,500 cavalry. Perceiving a chance
to cripple the already weakened New Model Army, Leslie sent one of his infantry brigades around
to take the pass at Cockburnspath - beyond Dunbar, cutting Cromwell’s line of supply, reinforcement
and retreat. Meanwhile, the bulk of his army - about 14,000 men, secured the prominent Doon Hill,
overlooking both Dunbar and the Berwick road. Such impregnable high ground would have usually
served as a tactical benefit6, but never-ending wind and rain hammered Leslie’s exposed troops
stationed on the hilltop. That, in addition to a deteriorating supply situation and Cromwell’s
seeming weakness, prompted the Scots to descend Doon Hill at dawn on September 2nd. There, in the
cover on lower ground, they deployed for battle just south of the Broxburn ravine, prompting the
observing Cromwell to declare “God is delivering them into our hands, they are coming down to us.”
Brushing off concerns from some of his less bold officers, Cromwell ordered his exhausted, hungry
army forward, drawing it up in a conventional battle line along the ravine and opposite the
Scots. A minor skirmish between scout units took place near brand hill, but the remaining
daylight was mostly used for redeployment. At some point, Leslie ordered the majority of his
cavalry - about 18 regiments of it, to swap flanks and mass on the Berwick road where the Broxburn
was easier to cross. The unpassable inland flank was now guarded mostly by the Scots infantry.
Night fell with the parliamentary command no less worried than they were before. The army
was exhausted, its supply situation was sketchy at best, and they were trapped in Scotland
with an enemy army between them and home. To decide what the best course of action would be,
Cromwell called a war council in the early hours of September 3rd. Most of the regimental colonels
reiterated a desire to ship the infantry away and break out with cavalry, but Major-General John
Lambert dismissed the prospect, inspirationally arguing for an attack. In his view, Leslie’s
Scots sat in an incredibly vulnerable position. Having descended from Doon Hill’s lofty heights,
their backs were now literally to a wall. With a bit of skill and luck, the Scottish flank
could be turned and they could be smashed against that very wall. Still somewhat nervous,
Cromwell and the other officers consented. Under the cover of darkness, the English began
breaking apart their conventional formation and drawing up in one single column on the
Berwick road, one brigade behind the other. The advance began at 4am with a cannonade
against the half-asleep Scottish left7 and the rapid seizure of crossing points across the
Broxburn by Monck’s infantry vanguard and some supporting cavalry. During a subsequent half
hour lull in the fighting, Leslie’s officers failed to shift their forces to effectively
counter Cromwell’s attack plan and were routed. Lambert crossed the ravine with his first mounted
line not long after and charged at his fellow Major-General Montgomerie’s Scottish horsemen
opposing him. Surprised by the New Model’s vicious dawn assault, Leslie’s beleaguered trooper front
line on the right wing was swept from the field. At about the same time, Monck crossed the Broxburn
with his highly-trained infantry brigade just to Lambert’s right and marched it straight at an
opposing unit of newly-raised Scots recruits led by General Lumsden. It wasn’t even a challenge,
for Monck ploughed through his opposition with ease and broke the unit, injuring and capturing
Lumsden in the process. Despite their relatively swift collapse, Lumsden’s greenhorns had held just
long enough for reinforcements under Campbell of Lawer to come forward. They charged into and
utterly smashed Monck’s tired brigade in brutal sword-point fighting, knocking it totally
out of the battle and shoring up the line. That wasn’t the worst of parliament’s
troubles. While Lambert’s victorious cavalry was still regrouping for another maneuver,
Colonel Strachan’s second line of Scots troopers surged forward and struck, throwing
Lambert back across the Broxburn in retreat. Fortunately for the Major-General, he also had a
second line which he brought forward to reinforce the left wing, charging straight into Strachan’s
men and pinning them down in a head-on fight. While he did so, Cromwell steered his personal
mounted guard and swung around near the coast, careening into the Scottish wing. This was the
final straw that broke the camel’s back. All of the cavalry units on Leslie’s seaward
wing broke, either dying where they stood or routing. Some of them barrelled back down
the road to Cockburnspath, and others wheeled around towards Haddington. However, there was
no pursuit. Discipline had always been one of the Ironsides’ greatest character traits and they
showed it once again at Dunbar when Cromwell and Lambert called an immediate halt. As they had at
Marston Moor and Naseby, the parliamentary horse regrouped in good order.
Now exposed due to their cavalry being blown away, the unengaged
brigades of Leslie’s left-side infantry were totally unprepared when the New Model infantry
pivoted and began rolling up their line against the Doon Hill. Cromwell and Lambert delivered
the coup de grace by riding into the Scots’ rear, destroying Campbell of Lawers’ unit which
fought to the last man. There was nothing left for the Scots to do but run. Those few who
could ran away from the battlefield in the same direction that their mounted comrades
had, but hundreds were slaughtered. Stunningly, up to 6,000 of Leslie’s soldiers were
captured in the disaster at Dunbar. The general himself retreated to Stirling castle with a
few thousand escapees. With Scotland’s army shattered, Edinburgh capitulated to English
parliamentary forces on September the 7th, but the ‘Third Civil War’ in Scotland and England
would continue nonetheless. The final campaign of Britain’s terrible nine-year-long series
of conflicts was fought in September 1651, when Cromwell lured Charles into invading England
from the north. Thoroughly outnumbered and outsmarted by the New Model Army, the prospective
monarch and his Scottish allies were decisively defeated at Worcester a year after Dunbar. Charles
was one of only a small number of royalists to escape the ‘crowning mercy’, as Cromwell called
it, and eventually found his way to Normandy. Although the Civil Wars finally ended with
Charles’ flight to Europe, England was to endure almost another decade of radical politics.
An inept parliament and a draconian Cromwellian dictatorship was to follow before finally, on
May 29th, 1660, Charles returned to rule the kingdom that his father lost, taking the
throne as Charles II in the Restoration. More videos on the history of the
turbulent 17th century in England, Europe and Beyond are on the way. In addition,
we are going to release a full-length video on the English Civil War in the coming months, so if
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