Third English Civil War - English Invasion of Scotland

English Invasion of Scotland

This important step had been resolved upon as soon as it was clear that Charles II would come to terms with the Covenanters. From this point the Third Civil War became a war of England against Scotland. Here at least the English Independents carried the whole of England with them. Few Englishman cared to accept a settlement at the hands of a victorious foreign army, and on 28 June 1650, five days after Charles II had sworn to the Covenant, the newly appointed Lord-General Oliver Cromwell was on his way to the Border to take command of the English army. About the same time a new militia act was passed that was destined to give full and decisive effect to the national spirit of England in the great final campaign of the war.

Meanwhile the motto frappez fort, frappez vite was carried out at once by the regular forces. On 19 July, Cromwell made the final arrangements at Berwick-on-Tweed. Major-General Thomas Harrison, a gallant soldier and an extreme English Independent, a Fifth Monarchist, was to command the regular and auxiliary forces left in England, and to secure the Commonwealth against Royalists and Presbyterians. Cromwell took with him Lieutenant-General Charles Fleetwood and Major-General John Lambert, and his forces numbered about 10,000 foot and 5,000 horse. His opponent David Leslie (his comrade of Marston Moor) had a much larger force, but its degree of training was inferior, it was more than tainted by the political dissensions of the people at large, and it was, in great part at any rate, raised by forced enlistment. On 22 July, Cromwell crossed the river Tweed. He marched on Edinburgh by the sea coast, through Dunbar, Haddington and Musselburgh, living almost entirely on supplies landed by the fleet which accompanied him, for the country itself was incapable of supporting even a small army, and on 29 July, he found Leslie's army drawn up and entrenched in a position extending from Leith to Edinburgh.