September 3, 1650 · Scotland Theater
September 3, 1650
Cromwell's invasion of Scotland — which had crowned Charles II and threatened to march south — nearly ended in disaster when the Scottish army under David Leslie trapped his forces against the sea at Dunbar. Cromwell seemed caught. Then the Scottish Presbyterian ministers, suspicious of the sinful English, pressured Leslie to descend from his unassailable ridge position to destroy the heretics. Cromwell, watching through the night as the Scots repositioned, exclaimed 'God is delivering them into our hands.' At dawn the New Model Army attacked with devastating effect, routing an army nearly double its size in the space of an hour.
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