Scotland: Military History and Notable Events

1296 - 1328 - First War of Scottish Independence (All Facts)

1296 - Battle of Dunbar (All Facts)

• Battle in which John Balliol and his Scottish forces were defeated by King Edward and his English forces during the First War of Scottish Independence

1297 - Battle of Stirling Bridge (All Facts)

• Battle in which William Wallace and his Scottish forces defeated King Edward and his English forces during the First War of Scottish Independence

1314 - Battle of Bannockburn (All Facts)

• Battle in which Robert the Bruce and his Scottish forces defeated King Edward II and his English forces during the First Scottish War of Independence

• Battle which effectively made Scotland independent from England and confirmed Robert the Bruce to be the leader of and wielder of power in Scotland

1332 - 1357 - Second Scottish War of Independence (All Facts)

1513 - Battle of Flodden (All Facts)

• Battle in which James IV of Scotland his forces were defeated by the English during the War of the Holy League during the Italian Wars

• Battle in which James IV of Scotland was killed

1542 - Battle of Solway Moss (All Facts)

• Battle in which English forces defeated Scottish forces during the reign of King Henry VIII

• Battle which was provoked by King Henry VIII of England’s desire to control Scotland

1543 - Treaty of Greenwich (All Facts)

• Peace Treaty proposed by England’s Parliament to Scotland’s Parliament after Scotland’s defeat in the Battle of Solway Moss, which was promptly rejected by Scotland’s Parliament and thus initiated the “Rough Wooing”

1543 - 1551 - Rough Wooing (All Facts)

• Eight-year War between England and Scotland prompted by Scotland’s rejection of the Treaty of Greenwich proposed by England as a result of Scotland’s defeat in the previous Battle of Solway Moss

1544 - Burning of Edinburgh (All Facts)

• Event in which the English invaded Scotland and attacked the namesake city during the Rough Wooing, pillaging it but failing to gain a surrender from the Scottish

1545 - Battle of Ancrum Moor (All Facts)

• Battle in which the Scottish defeated the English during the Rough Wooing

1546 - 1547 - Siege of St. Andrew’s Castle (All Facts)

• Battle in which the French captured Scottish Protestants and imprisoned them as galley slaves afterwards, including John Knox

1547 - Battle of Pinkie (All Facts)

• Battle in which the Duke of Somerset and the English defeated the Scottish during the Rough Wooing

1550 - Treaty of Boulogne (All Facts)

• Peace Treaty which ended the Rough Wooing between England and Scotland

  • After the treaty was signed, English troops withdrew from Scotland

• Peace Treaty in which the English surrendered the namesake French city in exchange for 400K crowns and the release of Protestant Scots including John Knox

  • These Protestant Scottish prisoners were originally captured by the French at the Siege of St. Andrews

1560 - Scottish Reformation Parliament (All Facts)

• Meeting of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh in which 100 lairds heard the Scots Confession, drafted by John Knox

1567 - Battle of Carberry Hill (All Facts)

• Battle in which the Protestant Scottish nobility rebelled against Queen Mary of Scotland for her marriage to James Hepburn, who was known to have murdered her previous husband

• Battle after which Queen Mary of Scotland is discredited for her marriage to James Hepburn due to the murder of her previous husband Henry Stuart, was imprisoned as a result, and forced to abdicate in favor of her one-year-old son to succeed her

1568 - Battle of Langside (All Facts)

• Battle in which the Protestant “King’s men” defeated the Catholic “Queen’s men”

• Battle after which Queen Mary of Scotland escaped captivity and fled to England, where Queen Elizabeth of England imprisoned her

1638 - General Assembly (All Facts)

• General Assembly upon which the Scottish Presbyterian Church abolished the episcopate and defied King Charles of England’s orders to disband

1639 - 1653 - Wars of the Three Kingdoms (All Facts)

• Series of conflicts between England, Scotland, and Ireland including

  • The English Civil War (the First Civil War and Second Civil War and Third Civil War)

  • The Bishops’ War (the First Bishops’ War and the Second Bishops’ War)

  • The Irish Confederate Wars and 1641 Rebellion

  • Oliver Cromwell and England’s conquest of Ireland

1639 - 1640 - Bishops’ Wars (All Facts)

• War in which the Presbyterian Covenanters of Scotland defeated the Anglican King Charles and England

• Revolt in Scotland against King Charles, William Laud, and their religious administration in England for

  • threatening the properties of the Scottish nobility by revoking all grants of crown lands made in the last century

  • ordering the Scottish Archbishop Spottiswood to wear an English surplice for his father’s funeral

  • treating Scottish visitors to his court like uncultured roughs

  • attempting to introduce the English Common Book of Prayer and Church of England practices into Scotland

• Revolt in Scotland that began when the Scottish came together for a meeting and signed their National Covenant, openly defying King Charles of England (and Scotland)

  • The Scottish suspected a plot from King Charles to restore the “popish Anti-Christ,” especially in their detestation of rituals including

    • kneeling when taking communion

    • oral confession

• Conflict in which bishops feared for their lives and fled to England

  • Conflict in which the one bishop who read the Book of Common Prayer in the kirk, the Bishop of Brechin, did so with loaded pistols pointed at his congregation

• War which contributed to the causes of the English Civil War

1639 - Treaty of Berwick (All Facts)

• Treaty which ended the First Bishops’ War between England and Scotland

1640 - Treaty of Ripon (All Facts)

• Treaty which ended the Second Bishops’ War between England and Scotland after the English suffered several humiliating defeats by the Scots

• Treaty in which Scotland kept possession of Northumberland and Durham and were to be paid every day until a new English Parliament could work out final peace terms

  • Treaty which thus forced King Charles to summon Parliament, fulfilling its aforementioned obligation

1648 - Second English Civil War (All Facts)

• War which began

  • when King Charles gained the support of the Engagers, a sect of the Scottish Covenanters, in return for his agreement to introduce Presbyterianism into England, thus strengthening the Cavalier (Royalist) cause

  • with Cavalier (Royalist) uprisings in Wales, Kent, and Essex

1650 - 1652 - Third English Civil War (All Facts)

• War which Oliver Cromwell initiated in order to prevent King Charles II of Scotland from invading England with a Scottish army

• War between the unified English Roundheads and remaining Scottish Cavaliers

• War which saw

  • The Battle of Dunbar

  • Edinburgh Castle submit to Oliver Cromwell

  • The Battle of Worcester

1650 - Battle of Dunbar (All Facts)

• Battle in which Oliver Cromwell and his English Roundhead forces defeated David Leslie and his Scottish Cavalier forces during the Third English Civil War

1651 - Battle of Worcester (All Facts)

• Battle in which Oliver Cromwell and his English Roundhead forces defeated King Charles II of Scotland and his Scottish Cavalier forces during the Third English Civil War

1685 - Argyll’s Rebellion (All Facts)

• Rebellion that failed to overthrow King James II of England / King James VII of Scotland led by Archibald Campbell, the namesake earl

• Rebellion which was the Scottish parallel of the English Monmouth Rebellion

• Rebellion in which Archibald Campbell was executed

1686 - Grand Alliance / League of Augsburg (All Facts)

• Alliance formed between William III of England and Scotland, the Netherlands, the Habsburgs (as the Holy Roman Empire and Spain), and Savoy against King Louis XIV of France and his expansionist policy

1688 - 1697 - Nine Years’ War / War of the Grand Alliance / King William’s War (All Facts)

• War in which the Grand Alliance, led by William III of England, defeated King Louis XIV of France and prevented his expansionist policy, maintaining the balance of power throughout Europe

• War in which King Louis XIV of France began an undeclared war against the Holy Roman Empire while taking advantage of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold’s campaigns against the Ottoman Turks, which he did in order to

  • secure his sister-in-law’s claims of succession in the Palatinate

  • force the appointment of his ally, the Prince of Furstenberg, as Archbishop-Elector of Cologne

  • prevent King William III from ousting King James II of England

• War in which King Louis XIV of France declared war on the Netherlands

• War in which French forces captured the Palatinate, Trier, Mainz, and Cologne and invaded Franconia and Swabia

• War in which King Louis XIV of France

  • had limited resources as the building of Versailles emptied his treasury

  • assumed the Germans would capitulate quickly, but was very wrong

• War in which French forces wreaked havoc on and carried out massacres in the Palatinate

  • War in which French troops carried out atrocities on the direct orders of King Louis XIV

  • War in which French troops burned down towns instead of forcing German states to surrender, hardening their resolve

• War in which France inflicted a defeat on Saxony, a later member of the Grand Alliance

• War in which Jean Bart, the French naval commander, after a desperate struggle with a superior Dutch fleet, recaptured the large flotilla of corn-ships and steered them safely into Dunkirk in order to break the English blockade

• War which caused Europe to hate King Louis XIV and France, especially since he was disrupting the balance of power throughout Europe

• War in which the Grand Alliance / Augsburg League recaptured Mainz and Bonn from France

• War which saw

  • The Siege of Philipsburg

  • The Battle of Fleurus

  • The Battle of Beachy Head

  • The Battle of the Boyne

  • The Battle of Aughrim

  • The (First) Siege of Namur

  • The Battle of Steenkerque

  • The Battle of La Hougue

  • The Battle of Neerwinden

  • The Battle of Lagos

  • The Bombardment of Brussels

  • The (Second) Siege of Namur

• War which ended largely in a stalemate

• War which ended with the Treaty of Ryswick

1689 - (Scottish) Jacobite Uprising (All Facts)

• (Failed) Rebellion against King William III and Queen Mary II of England (and Scotland) to restore King James II of England (King James VII of Scotland) to the Scottish throne

1689 - Battle of Killiecrankie (All Facts)

• Battle in which the Scottish Jacobites were defeated by government forces during the (Scottish) Jacobite Uprising

1692 - Massacre at Glencoe (All Facts)

• Event in which nearly 40 members of the MacDonald Clan were killed for their Jacobite sympathies and delay in taking an oath of allegiance to the new King William III whose orders it was to have them killed

1692 - Battle of Steenkerque (All Facts)

• Battle in which Marshal Luxembourg and his French forces defeated King William III and his English forces during the Nine Years’ War

1693 - Battle of Neerwinden (All Facts)

• Battle in which Marshall Luxembourg and his French forces defeated the Grand Alliance during the Nine Years’ War

1695 - (Second) Siege of Namur (All Facts)

• Battle in which the French were defeated by the Grand Alliance during the Nine Years’ War

• Battle after which King Louis XIV entered into secret negotiations with King William III of Orange