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

etreated into the Hills where the lack of provisions and approaching nightfall had
stopped the English army in their tracks. 135
Why could Lilburne’s forces not make quick work in dispatching the Royalist enemy?
The main reason the Royalists were not immediately defeated is that they rarely
engaged the English troops. Like Monck in the previous Scottish campaign,
Lilburne’s attempts to surprise the rebels were usually unsuccessful and he was forced
to accept a war of attrition. 136 The strategy of the Royalists was to avoid outright
confrontation in favour of attacking small parties of the enemy and engaging in
sudden raids. The native Scots had the geographical advantage, being more familiar
with the challenging Scottish territory and able to retreat into the mountains when
necessary. The conflict then took the form of a kind of guerrilla warfare, focussing on
the Highland territory. Such tactics were also useful in enabling the Royalists to
divide their men and, therefore, keep apart feuding Highland leaders.
Moreover, the Scottish community, albeit for the greater part unwilling to commit to
open rebellion, refused to inform the English of the rebels’ movements. In November
1653 Lilburne was complaining of the ‘secrett contrivements and incouragements the
generality of this people affords [the Royalists]’. In another report of the same month
he writes that even victims of the Royalists’ plunder refused to provide intelligence
and that every appearance or victory of the enemy seemed to heighten the spirit of the
Scottish people. 137 This is perhaps the greatest indicator of the feelings of the majority
of native Scots. Encouraged by every Royalist victory, the ordinary people of
Scotland were illustrating their innate hostility to their foreign conquerors.
In Parliament it was feared that a Scottish uprising might spur the English royalists
into action. Although limitations of space render it impossible to discuss royalist
activity outside of Scotland in any depth, it is relevant to give some indication of how
the Glencairn uprising was viewed by English Royalists. Did the supporters of the
King in England actively help their political brethren in the north? Underdown has
135 Firth, C.H. Scotland and the Commonwealth, pp.203, 204 and Willcock, J. A Scots Earl in
Covenanting Times, p.50.
136 Kenyon, J. & Ohlmeyer, J. (ed.) The Civil Wars: A Military History of England, Scotland, and
Ireland 1638-1660 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p.315.
137 Firth, C.H. Scotland and the Commonwealth, pp.271, 273.