A History of the British Army, Vol. 1: First Part—to the Close of the Seven Years' WarFortescue, J. W. (John William), Sir
History
A History of the British Army, Vol. 1: First Part—to the Close of the Seven Years' War
Fortescue, J. W. (John William), Sir
Great Britain -- History, Military; Great Britain. Army -- History
At Westminster the joy over the victory of Dunbar was enthusiastic,
and found vent in the grant of a medal[181] and of a gratuity to
every man who had fought in the campaign. This, the first medal
ever issued to an English army, bore, in spite of his protests, the
effigy of Cromwell upon the obverse, no unfitting memorial of the
first founder of our Army of to-day. But the struggle even now was
not yet over. Royalist Scotland had been beaten at Preston, the
Scotland of the Covenant at Dunbar; but Charles Stuart was able,
by unscrupulous lying and shameless hypocrisy, to unite both for a
last effort in his cause, and to gather a new army around that of
David Leslie at Stirling. Accordingly on the 4th of February 1651
Cromwell left his winter-quarters for Stirling, but was compelled
by the severity of the weather to retreat, with no further result
to himself than a dangerous attack of fever and ague, which kept
him on the sick-list until June.
On the 25th of June the English army was concentrated on the
Pentland Hills, and from thence marched once more to Stirling.
Leslie, true to the tactics which had proved so successful in
the previous year, had occupied an impregnable position which
no temptation could induce him to quit. After a fortnight's
manœuvring, therefore, Cromwell decided, like Surrey before
Flodden, to move round Leslie's left flank and to cut off his
supplies from the north. It is plain, from the fact that Monk had
been engaged in operations for the reduction of Inchgarvie and
Burntisland on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth, that
Cromwell's plans for this movement were fully matured.
[Sidenote: July 19-20.]
The first step was to send Lambert across the Firth with four
thousand men to entrench himself at Queensferry. Leslie met this
move by detaching a slightly inferior force against Lambert, which
was utterly and disastrously routed, with a loss of five-sixths of
its numbers. Ten days later Inchgarvie and Burntisland fell into
Cromwell's hands, and, his new base being thus secured, he advanced
quickly into Fife. Meanwhile he sent orders to General Harrison,
whom he had left at Edinburgh with a reserve of three thousand
horse, that he was to move at once to the English border in the
event of Leslie's marching southward. By the 2nd of August he had
received the surrender of Perth, but, even before he could sign the
capitulation, intelligence reached him that the Scots had quitted
Stirling two days before and were pouring down to the border.
Leaving five or six thousand men with Monk to reduce Stirling, he
at once hurried off in pursuit.
[Sidenote: August 4.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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