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accounted light indeed, seeing that with the great victory at Worcester ended all the hopes and attempts of the royal party" (" British Military Commanders," Vol. I.).

Ludlow and Whitelock say his loss was Quartermaster-General Mosely, Captain Jones, and 100 privates killed; two captains and 300 privates wounded that of the Scots there were taken 600 officers and 10,000 privates, the king's standard, 158 other colours, all the artillery, ammunition, and baggage. Of the Scots of all ranks more than 3,000 were slain. The captured nobles were ordered to be detained for life in the Tower. The common soldiers who survived their wounds, and the feverish horrors of the overcrowded prisons, were transported to the plantations, and sold as slaves to the Dutch and American planters ("Cromwelliana," &c.).

After many escapes and disguises, and once hiding for a long September day among the branches of an oak, through the green leaves of which he saw Oliver's buff-coated troopers searching for him, the young king ultimately embarked

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for France at Brighton, in a vessel which the commander is said to have brought up the Thames after the Restoration, and anchored opposite Whitechapel.

Intercepted in his retreat through Newport in Cheshire, at the head of a slender squadron of cavalry, Sir David Leslie was captured by Lilburn's regiment of horse, and committed to the Tower, where he remained with many others till 1660, and was fined £4,000 by Cromwell's Act of Grace. For his sufferings in the Royal cause he was created a peer of Scotland by the title of Lord Newark, and died in 1682, leaving a son and six daughters; but the title is now extinct.

From the day of Worcester, Cromwell advanced steadily to the supreme power by overcoming those factions by which the Royalists and Anti-royalists were divided, till at last he dissolved the Long Parliament, and took the government entirely into his own hands, yet with all his ability he could not succeed in forcing his troops into the expression of a desire that he should mount the triple throne his daring and his artifices had rendered vacant

CHAPTER XLVIII.

THE SACK OF DUNDEE, 1651.

THREE days before Cromwell achieved his "crowning mercy" over the Royalist Scots at Worcester, Monk captured the busy and industrious town of Dundee, amid a scene of bloodshed and horror never witnessed before on British soil.

He had been left with only 7,000 men, in addition to his own regiment, to occupy the Lowlands of Scotland, and the extreme smallness of this force is a proof that the Scots, like the English, were weary of the war, and that but for this sentiment, and the collusion of the powerful Argyle, the artful Warriston, and others, with Cromwell, his troops must inevitably have been cut off. Moreover, the Highlanders were somewhat indifferent, and many prefered the English to their own countrymen.

On the 11th of August, Monk's batteries opened against Stirling Castle; thirty of the garrison were killed, while the loss on his side was only one artillery-man. On the 14th he wrote to Cromwell "that the guns had been playing on Stirling Castle, and the enemy had craved leave to capitulate." The garrison was entirely composed

of Highlanders, who were unable to handle the guns with which the batteries were mounted, and who, moreover, were terrified by the explosion of shells, missiles with which they were as yet totally unacquainted. A mutiny against their officers was the result, and a forced capitulation. They marched out 300 strong, with their drums beating; and permission to go where they pleased.

Mr. William Clarke, Monk's secretary (who was knighted after the Restoration, and became the first Secretary at War), in a letter to Lenthall, the Speaker, states that there were in the castle 40 pieces of cannon, twelve months' provision for 500 men, 5,000 new muskets and pikes, a vast quantity powder, claret, and strong water, the throne and clothes of state, the Earl of Mar's coronet, gold stirrups, and robes, the king's sword, and other furniture, and, more than all, the records of Scotland. The latter were sent to England in eighty casks, and were afterwards most unfortunately lost at sea.

On the 27th of August it was ordered that the Regalia of Scotland should "be brought to

England, and placed in the Tower of London" with that courage and good judgment which he

(Journals of the House). Doubtless, the intention was to have them destroyed, as those of England had been; but loyal hands secured them even from Cromwell, and they are now deposited in the castle of Edinburgh.

Immediately on the reduction of Stirling, Monk marched towards Dundee, which was expected to make a vigorous resistance. He left in Stirling Colonel Read's regiment, and took with him nine companies of his own regiment, nine of Colonel Ashfield's, five troops of Colonel Berry's, Colonel Grosvenor's and Colonel O'Key's regiments; two troops of Morgan's dragoons, nine battering guns, and one mortar.

On the night of the 21st of August, he halted at Dunblane. On the 25th he was at Blackford, midway between Stirling and Perth, and next day he encamped within two miles of the last-named city. In swimming his cavalry across the Tay, some were drowned; but he advanced into Angus with 4,000 horse and foot, according to Ludlow, and was joined by Alured's horse and some more dragoons.

Having heard that old FieldMarshal Leslie, now better known as Earl of Leven, and some other members of the Scottish Parliament, were meeting at Alyth, to concert measures for the protection of Dundee, he suddenly dispatched Colonel Alured, with 500 horse and two troops of dragoons, to take them prisoners: so the colonel seized the Earls of Leven, Marischal, and Crawford, and Lord Ogilvie; the Lairds of Humbie, Colinton, Cockburn, Fotheringhame, and others, who were all sent prisoners of war into England. Among them were two officers and seventy

soldiers.

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"It is certain that Monk possessed in a remarkable degree that power of securing the attachment of the soldiers which is the attri bute of all great commanders. Carte, in his "Life of Ormond," calls Monk the most beloved by the soldiers of any officer in the army; and Lord Byron, his commanding officer in the action near Nantwich, in 1644, describes his arrival as adding great alacrity to the soldiers; and again, when he mentions the rout of his old regiment, adds "though they had their beloved Colonel Monk at the head of them." In fact, as Price, his chaplain, says of him, "the soldiers did generally love him; and it was to their general affection and confidence that he owed that control which he afterwards exercised over his army under the most critical circumstances, and without which he must then have failed."

Dundee at this time was walled, and a place of considerable strength. So secure was it considered, that during Cromwell's invasion many of the citizens of Edinburgh and of other towns had sent there their most valuable effects for security, under a special guard of the citizens of the capital; and many nobles and persons of the highest rank in Scotland had repaired to it as a place of strength.

PIKEMAN OF THE, CROMWELLIAN PERIOD

(TOWER).

On the 26th of August, Monk next appeared before Dundee, and it is difficult to reconcile the barbarity of his conduct there with the general bearing of the Cromwellian troops in Scotland, and

Among these were the Earls of Buchan, Tweeddale and Buccleuch; Viscount Newburgh (who had not accompanied his regiment into England); the Lords Balcarris, Elibank, and Ramsay; the Master of Burleigh, fifteen knights, eleven gentlemen of estate, and a number of Edinburgh mer chants, writers, and advocates.

The governor was Major Sir Robert Lumsden, of

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Bewhannie, and his garrison, composed chiefly of the burghers and fugitives, was very strong-some accounts make it 10,000 or 11,000 in arms, an exaggeration probably; but Dr. Gumble, then Monk's chaplain, and afterwards his biographer, admits that it was much more numerous than the investing force. Among the troops in Dundee were two battalions of the regiment of Alexander Sutherland, Lord Duffus. These circumstances quite justified the reply which was sent by the governor, and which Monk, as an excuse for his future barbarity, chose to call arrogant, on his demanding the surrender of the town. It was couched in these words; and might have been otherwise, had Lumsden known that three days later the rout of Worcester was to ensue :

"SIR, We have received yours. For answer thereunto, we by these acquaint you that we are commanded by the King's Majesty to desire you and all officers and ships that are at present in arms against the King's authority, to lay down your arms, and to come in and join with His Majesty's forces in the kingdom, and to conform and give obedience to His Majesty's declaration sent you herewith, which, if you will obey, we shall continue, sir, your faithful friend in the old manner,

"ROBERT LUMSDEN."

All the nobles and gentlemen in Dundee were now serving with the townsmen, and took their turns of duty, in buff coat, cuirass, and morion, with pike and musket, on the walls, on which there were at first some forty pieces of ordnance. These were chiefly worked by a body of Scottish merchant-seamen, from the ships in the Tay, under Captain George Ponton, a gallant skipper of the Queen's Ferry.

On the afternoon of Sunday, the 31st of August, before even Alured had come in with his cavalry and the prisoners from Alyth, Monk, having got his guns into position, began to cannonade the town; and among the first who fell was Captain Ponton. An exchange of shot and shell continued till ten next morning, when terms of surrender were twice offered by him, and twice refused by Lumsden and Lord Duffus, who, being ignorant of Lord Leven's capture, hourly expected his appearance at the head of troops to raise the siege.

During the whole night the English cannon had continued to fire on one point, where the old spire of St. Clement indicated in the starlight a line whereby to breach the northern wall.

The breach being declared practicable on the 1st of September, Monk ordered a general assault, at push of pike, promising his soldiers, as a stimu

lant, the pillage of the town without licence for twenty-four hours.

Dr. Gumble informs us that Monk obtained very good intelligence of all that passed within the town, by means of an artful boy, who used to get over the works in sight of the sentinels and townspeople, as he pretended, "in order to enjoy, with the children of the town, the amusements of their age," his size and years rendering him beyond suspicion. Among other things, he informed Monk that at nine in the morning all the strangers and soldiers were in habit of taking large morning draughts, and that before twelve they were well drenched in their cups. This information was probably correct, for it seems to have been the constant practice of the male inhabitants of the place of all ranks, until late in the last century, to breakfast in alehouses ("History of Dundee," 1847). Of this circumstance, Gumble reports, Monk did not fail to take advantage, and gave orders for the assault at the usual wassail hour; and this statement, that many of the inhabitants were intoxicated, and “did no dewtey in their ain defence," is corroborated by Sir James Balfour.

The English infantry advanced with great ardour. The stormers were composed of the fierce and fanatical regiments of Monk and Ashfield-the pikes in front, the musketeers in the rear, to fire between the files; the dragoons closing up for service in the streets, the moment an entrance was effected. While the breach in the north wall was attacked by them, another force assailed the Wellgate Port, and after the gate had been broken down by 150 English seamen, armed with sledgehammers and axes, the town was entered at two points. The forlorn hope was led by Captain Hart, of Monk's regiment. Six English officers and twenty privates were killed in the northern breach. Colonel O'Key thus describes the assault:

"It was resolved to storm the place. Our two regiments of foot were very weak, by reason of sickness, and we ordered that 650 horse should fall on with sword and pistol, 250 on foot and 250 on horseback to second them, all the seven troops of dragoons, and 150 seamen. Our guns began to batter at five o'clock in the morning, and at ten we fell on with such courage and spirit in our men that I never saw more in no place in all my life. The whole body of horse, that was to stand as a reserve at some distance, as soon as our forces fell on gave a shout and came up to the works, and kept under the cannons' mouth."

Many of the troopers, he adds, got into the town as soon as the infantry. For a quarter of an

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hour the breach was defended, and O'Key admits that most of the defenders died at their posts. Captain Hart was wounded, and Ensign Francis Norris (also of Monk's regiment) was wounded mortally ("Commons Journal," 1651).

Sir Robert Lumsden fought bravely; and among those who fell by his side were Sir John Leslie, of Newton, Captain Fergusson, Bailies Brown and Davidson, two ministers of Dundee, and twentytwo gentlemen of Edinburgh, who served as volun

teers.

The explosion of a magazine by a live shell, causing a panic in rear of those defending the breach, assisted the entrance of the stormers, and when the cavalry broke in there ensued in the quaint and narrow streets of Dundee a dreadful scene of shameful and pitiless butchery. Declaring that he would die rather than surrender to rebels, Sir Robert Lumsden, with a small band of brave Cavaliers, retired to the great church of St. Mary, which was built by David, Earl of Huntingdon, the Royal Crusader, while, according to O'Key, most of the people fled for shelter to their houses. When Monk's musketeers stormed the church, Lumsden and his friends retired into the grand old spire, which they defended, one account says, for three days, with sword and pistol, from story to story, till they were driven to its summit. Then the veteran governor surrendered his sword to Colonel Ashfield, on the promise "of quarter for himself and ten surviving friends, who were all wounded." The promise was given; but the moment they were disarmed they were all cruelly murdered and decapitated, and the grey head of Lumsden was spiked on the northern buttress of the steeple. Ludlow admits that, besides the governor, 600 were "killed in cold blood;" but the slaughter far exceeded his modest admission.

On finding themselves surrounded, as the stormers poured in by the breach and Wellgate Port, the two battalions of Lord Duffus's regiment laid down their arms in front of the townhouse at the old Yarn Market, capitulating as prisoners of war; but a merciless fire of musketry was poured upon them from every point, and every officer and man was shot down. Not one was permitted to escape.

A similar slaughter of another force took place in the Fish Market. Every house was broken open and pillaged. Lust, rapacity, and cruelty reigned supreme.; and the barbarity of the Croats at Magdeburg, and of the English at Drogheda, was now repeated in Dundee. Upwards of 200 women, most of whom were first outraged, were murdered; 1,300 men, and an unknown number

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of children perished. Blood was dripping from the stairs of the houses, and it ran ankle-deep in the gutters of the market-place.

For three days this scene of carnage and crime lasted. Nor did it close till the 6th of September, when Monk is said to have seen a starving infant sucking at the gashed breast of its mother, as she lay dead in the street called the Thorter Row. Close by that place, when the pavement was relaid in 1810, there were found the skeletons of a woman and child, supposed to be the remains of those who at last excited the lingering or dormant pity of Monk.

In corroboration of the massacre of those days, when the Nether Gate was widened, about 1810, vast quantities of human bones were found in a more or less perfect state of preservation; and all these bore signs of hasty and coffinless interment in shallow holes. In one pit 200 skulls were found, in July, 1851.

The head of Sir Robert Lumsden remained long on the steeple, until the fall of the stone on which it was fixed by Monk's order. His widow, "the Lady Bewhannie," died seven months after the horrors of Dundee, at her own house in Fifeshire.

The plunder obtained by the English in Dundee was very great, especially for that age. A contemporary diarist asserts that they got £200,000 sterling in bullion, silver plate, jewels, rings, watches, and "other precious things belonging to the town of Edinburgh." Balfour says two millions and a half, by which he probably means Scots money. "It was the richest town I ever saw in Scotland or England for the size of it," wrote Colonel O'Key; "and some of our soldiers got £500 apiece." "Some of my men," says Whitelock, another Parliamentarian, “have gotten £500, some £300, others £200 and £100 apiece, and none of them but are well paid for their service." Some 800 prisoners were taken, and stripped to their shirts.

There were taken 40 great guns, a vast store of arms and amunition, with 100 ships in the harbour. Sixty of the greatest tonnage were laden with all that Monk's troops deemed valuable, "the best plunder of any gotten in the wars throughout the three nations," and sent away for England. "But see," says Gumble, who strongly censures the infamous conduct of his countrymen, "the just judgement of God!"

A storm arose, the sixty ships were dashed against each other, and all perished on the bar, where the deep shifting sands of the Tay swallowed them up, and there they lie with the spoil to the present hour.

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