The execution of King Charles I on the orders of the English parliament in January 1649 placed England and Scotland on-course for war. Although they had clashed with their king repeatedly, often violently, over the course of his 24-year reign, the Scots had never intended to depose him, much less abolish monarchy itself. Accordingly, they immediately proclaimed Charles’s son, now Charles II, king of Scotland, England and Ireland, and invited him to come to Scotland to take up his inheritance, which he did in the summer of 1650.
The newly-minted English republic could not tolerate this challenge from the north, and so it resolved to invade, subdue and ultimately conquer Scotland. Scottish resistance, hamstrung by rampant factionalism, war-weariness after the civil wars of the 1640s, and interference from a powerful,…
