ABSTRACT
The failure of the 1648 rising was largely due to the inability of the Scots either to act in unison or to act positively. In the attitude to Charles II in Scotland, there was more or less a three-way split: the old Montrose royalists, the Engagers (residue of Hamilton’s party) and the hard-line Covenanters. The two latter shared a mutual dislike of Montrose. It was unfortunate for Charles II, therefore, that after the events of 1649/50 he was obliged to depend upon the Scots for a military resolution of his pretensions. Initially he looked to risings within England, and to a resurgent Montrose, to achieve his ends, but he looked in vain. On 23 March 1650 Montrose landed on the Orkneys, crossed the Pentland Firth into Sutherland on 12 April and began to raise forces. He took Thurso and Dunbeath Castle, but was repulsed from before Dunrobin and turned back into the Kyle of Sutherland. A force from David Leslie’s covenanting army established at Brechin, moved from its base at Inverness and slaughtered the royalist forces near Carbisdale. Montrose was taken, tried, and hanged in Edinburgh on 21 May.
