Battle of Hieton
Who Fought
Commonwealth: 1,000
History & Significance
The Battle of Hieton was fought on the 1 December 1650 between a force of Scottish Remonstrants under Colonel Gilbert Ker and 1,000 English commanded by Major-general John Lambert. The site of the battle was by the Cadzow Burn, near the present day town centre of Hamilton, Scotland. The Scots attacked, surprising the English, but were beaten back and destroyed as a fighting force. The battle was part of the Anglo-Scottish war of 1650–1652.
After the bloodshed of the First and Second English Civil Wars the New Model Army of the victorious Parliamentarians was exasperated by the intransigence of King Charles I. They purged the English Parliament and established the Rump Parliament, which had Charles tried for treason against the English people. Charles was executed on 30 January 1649, and the republican Commonwealth was created. As well as having been king of England Charles had also been, separately, king of Scotland. The Scottish Parliament was not consulted prior to the King's execution. It declared his son, also Charles, King of Britain (not Scotland) and set about rapidly recruiting an army to support the new king, under the command of the experienced general, David Leslie. The leaders of the English Commonwealth felt threatened and despatched the New Model Army, commanded by Oliver Cromwell, on an invasion of Scotland in July 1650, starting the Anglo-Scottish war of 1650–1652.
Cromwell manoeuvred around Edinburgh, attempting to bring the Scots to battle, but he was not able to draw Leslie out. On 31 August Cromwell withdrew to Dunbar. Believing the English army was in a hopeless situation and under pressure to finish it off rapidly, Leslie moved his troops into a position to attack Dunbar. On the night of 2/3 September Cromwell manoeuvred his army so as to be able to launch a concentrated pre-dawn attack against the Scottish right wing. The Scots were decisively defeated. Leslie executed a fighting withdrawal, but some 6,000 Scots, from his army of 12,000, were taken prisoner, and approximately 1,500 killed or wounded.
Following this defeat the Scots, accompanied by King Charles II, established a new defensive line at the strategic choke point of Stirling. Dunbar caused great damage to Leslie's reputation and authority. He attempted to resign as head of the army, but the Scottish government would not permit it, largely because of a lack of any plausible replacement. Several of his officers refused to take orders from him, and left to join a new army being raised by the Western Association. Divisions already present in the Scottish government were widened by the new situation. The more practical blamed the purges for Leslie's defeat, and looked to bring disenchanted Scots back into the army; the more dogmatic thought God had deserted them because the army had not been sufficiently purged of godlessness, and argued that too much faith had been put in a worldly prince who was not sufficiently committed to the cause of the Covenant. These more radical elements issued the divisive Western Remonstrance, which castigated the government for its failure to properly purge the army, and further widened the rifts between the Scots. The Remonstrants, as this group became known, took command of the Western Association army, and attempted to negotiate with the English commander, Cromwell. They urged him to depart Scotland and leave them in control.
The ground they fought on
The site of Battle of Hieton lies on Scottish Coal Measures Group, bedrock that formed in the Moscovian. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone, sandstone, coal, ironstone and ferricrete.
- Scottish Remonstrants: Heavy
- Commonwealth: Slight
Frequently Asked Questions
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- Battle of Hieton · Wikidata
- Battle_of_Hieton · Wikipedia