The Glencairn Uprising, 1653-54 Helen Baker Department of ...

and Mull carrying supplies for the Royalists, or worse, still try to obtain possession of
these isles or of Shetland and Orkney. 90
On 31 May a meeting of royalist supporters, including Lord Balcarres and Sir Arthur
Forbes, was reported to have taken place at Killin in Perthshire. This was followed by
similar rendezvous on 3 and 4 June at Rannoch. 91 On 16 June, announcements by
Lord Balcarres and Sir Arthur Forbes took the form of a more formal declaration of
war than Seaforth’s exploits on Lewis the month before. Balcarres wrote to Lilburne
explaining that since the articles of capitulation that he had concluded with the
authorities in 1651 had been broken, he had retired ‘somewhat further out of the way
where he might have some more hope of freedom.’ Two days later, Sir Arthur Forbes
renounced his former surrender to the English. 92
Both Forbes and Balcarres gave the mountainous region of Lochaber as their address.
Moy in Lochaber was to be the location of a meeting of 1 July organised by the Earl
of Glencairn on 13 June. It is important to bear in mind that although it is possible to
pinpoint the formal meetings that took place between leading Royalists, these were
interposed with a number of smaller, less official gatherings. The Royalists were
forced to take part in lengthy and protracted negotiations to foster support and
formulate plans and their best chance of avoiding English confrontation in this period
was to keep on the move. 93
The next event of major significance was the appointment of an acting commander-inchief.
Towards the end of 1652, a messenger from the 9 th Earl of Glencairn, William
Cunningham, had arrived at the court to offer service to Charles. Glencairn was a
Lowlander who was one of the few Royalist Scottish noblemen at the beginning of the
Civil War in 1642 but was later made Lord Justice-General by Parliament. In the early
1640s, he had been a member of the Hamiltonian party of ‘royalist covenanters’ and
89 Willcock, J. A Scots Earl in Covenanting Times, p.41.
90 This fear was valid as Glencairn and Middleton had offered the Dutch ports and fishing stations on
any island of their choosing. Willcock, J. A Scots Earl in Covenanting Times, pp.41-42, Dow, F.D.
Cromwellian Scotland , pp.81, 93 and Firth, C.H. Scotland and the Commonwealth, pp.xlix-l.
91 See Mercurius Politicus pp.2536, 2546. Quoted in Firth, C.H. Scotland and the Commonwealth,
p.144.
92 Firth, C.H. Scotland and the Commonwealth, pp.146-147 and Willcock, J. A Scots Earl in
Covenanting Times, p.43.
93 Dow, F.D. Cromwellian Scotland, p.82.