Scotland in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms

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Scotland in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms
Part of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms
Riot sparked by Jenny Geddes over the imposition of Charles I's Book of Common Prayer in Presbyterian Scotland. Civil disobedience soon turned into armed defiance.
Date 1639–52 Location Scotland Result Covenanters defeat Royalists but are themselves defeated by an English Parliamentarian conquest of Scotland in 1650–52.
Belligerents
Royalists Irish Confederation	Covenanters Engagers Kirk Party	English Parliament
Commanders and leaders
Marquis of Montrose Alasdair Mac Colla Maghnus Ó Catháin Charles II	Marquis of Argyll (Kirk Party) Alexander Leslie (Kirk Party) David Leslie Duke of Hamilton (Engagers)	Oliver Cromwell George Monck
Strength
Fluctuating, 2,000–4,000 troops at any one time	Over 30,000 troops, but many based in England and Ireland
Casualties and losses
Total of 28,000 battlefield deaths on both sides, more soldiers die from disease, c. 45,000 civilian deaths, both from disease and deliberate targeting

Between 1639 and 1652, Scotland was involved in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, a series of wars starting with the Bishops' Wars (between Scotland and England), the Irish Rebellion of 1641, the English Civil War (and its extension in Scotland), the Irish Confederate Wars, and finally the subjugation of Ireland and Scotland by the English Roundhead New Model Army.

In Scotland itself, from 1644 to 1645 a Scottish civil war was fought between Scottish Royalists—supporters of Charles I under James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose—and the Covenanters, who had controlled Scotland since 1639 and allied with the English Parliament. The Scottish Royalists, aided by Irish troops, had a rapid series of victories in 1644–45, but were eventually defeated by the Covenanters.

The Covenanters then found themselves at odds with the English Parliament, so they crowned Charles II at Scone and thus stated their intention to place him on the thrones of England and Ireland as well. This led to the Anglo-Scottish War of 1650 to 1652, when Scotland was invaded and occupied by the New Model Army under Oliver Cromwell.