I'm Bruce Fummey, and this is all that's left standing of the east port of Dundee city walls,
but today, I'm going to tell you about the day that the rest of the walls,
and the town of Dundee made their stand against the invading English forces of Oliver Cromwell.
If you're interested in the people, places and events in Scottish history, then click the
subscribe button at the bottom right hand side of the screen. In the meantime, let me tell you a story.
I was asked by The Scottish Cat 32, to talk about the Siege of Dundee. Now I'll be honest, I don't
think that Scottish Cat 32 is either his real name, or his job title. What's more, if I'm honest,
whilst I vaguely knew about the siege, it really wasn't on my radar to do a video about it.
I believe nowadays they say, 'my bad'. You see, my town's the next one further up the River Tay here.
Ehm fae (I'm from) Perth. See, that's how they speak here in Dundee. Ehl hae twa pehs, a bridie, and an ingin ane an aw. (I'll have 2 pies, a bridie and an onion one too)
That's what they say. You'll hear them in the shops, you'll hear them saying that like, not just
the bakeries, like all the shops right. See people will go into PC World to buy a computer, and they'll say
Ehl hae twa pehs, a bridie, and an ingin ane an aw, and then and the guy behind the counter, the sales guy'll say
Eh you want your peh epple, (yes you want your pie apple) as opposed to windaes (windows). The point is that the two towns look suspiciously
along the Tay each other, but today is about a time that Dundee stood up, when Perth didn't.
The story's set during the War of the Three Kingdoms, or what lazy Anglocentred people call,
the English Civil War. Now don't take that the wrong way, some of my best friends are lazy,
and Anglo-centric, but the English had chopped Charles the First's head off, without even
mentioning it to the Scottish Parliament. Scots were furious, and on the 1st of January, 165,1
they crowned Charles's son as Charles the Second at Scone, further up the river there. The kingdom of Scots
was once again at odds, with what was now, the English republic, and before long, Oliver Cromwell
was heading north, with his new model army, that defeated David Leslie and his forces at Dunbar.
Now, a little point in interest here. Some of you might have seen a very old video of mine, where I
explain how Leslie led the godly host of Scottish forces across the English border to join English
parliamentary forces, against Charles the First in the decisive Battle of Marston Moor, essentially
the beginning of the end, of the first English Civil War, and you might be a wee bit confused
by this. Suffice to say, that the War of the Three Kingdoms was a smorgasbord of bits and pieces and
a hot potch patchwork of different religious, constitutional and nationalist loyalties, that
looked a bit like a collage of disparate Picasso paintings. In fact, if Picasso had painted a picture
of the British Isles in his later career, you would have gone, that's exactly what it looks like.
Incidentally, there'll be a link at the end of my video on how the Scots started the conflict of
the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, but for now, what was left of Leslie's Scottish army
was heading south with Charles the Second to try to reach London, whilst Cromwell was otherwise occupied
up here. Now what happened next was the ... ultimately the battle of Worcester, where Cromwell
chased down to get him. It was the end of the War of the Three Kingdoms, and royalist hopes, at least
for a while. As Oliver Cromwell chased Charles's army south to this denouement, he left a guy called
General Monke in Scotland to mop up resistance. At the time, Dundee was a walled town around the
shoreline down there. Now what I'm hoping to do, is to illustrate with some graphics later on, how the
town wall went around three sides, to the east, to the north, and to the west, leaving the Tay estuary
to border on the south side of the town. Now obviously the town was much smaller in those days,
and towards the north of the town, but inside the walls, was what is now the Steeple Churches,
just in front of the Nethergate Shopping Centre, not far from the East Port, where we were earlier.
By August, 1651, Stirling had capitulated, Perth had capitulated, St Andrews was gone,
and the people of Dundee ...
well ...
The man in charge here in Dundee was Robert Lumsden. His family had had estates in Fife.
He'd made his reputation as a mercenary in the Protestant cause during the 30 Years War.
He'd fought as an ally of Cromwell during the English Civil War, and now he was preparing
to defend Dundee against those erstwhile allies. This experienced soldier set his task.
As I said earlier, this is the remaining east gate of the town wall, and Lumsden would have been busy
organising repairs to the wall, and shoring up where needed. Some tenement buildings outside the
town walls were demolished, so there'd be clear lines of sight to fire against invading forces.
Volunteers were arriving from outlying districts, others from the surrounding areas came into the town
for protection. If you were Texan, you'd probably have an image of the Alamo. By late August, Lumsden
probably felt that he'd prepared as well as he could. He also expected support from elsewhere to
relieve the town. You see, the de facto government of Scotland had based themselves at Alyth,
17 miles to the north. What he didn't know was that General Monke had already captured Alyth.
Monke arrived to surround the town with a force of five to seven thousand men,
cavalry, artillery and siege mortars. The people of Dundee would have watched from behind their wall, as
cannon were placed and troops deployed around them, they must have waited and wondered. On the 26th of
August, when all was prepared, a demand for Lumsden to surrender was sent. Lumsden refused, in fact
he suggested that it was Monke, and his English forces who should lay down their weapons. A bitter
siege was inevitable. Now both men knew that the Scots had stored their national gold deposits
behind the town walls for safekeeping. Capturing it would be an incentive for Monke, and more so
for his troops. On the August 29th, the bombardment started. From the heights to the north, and around
the town, and from the ships in the estuary, they pounded the weak points of the walls and gates.
Lumsden would have been going around about from place to place, all around the town, assessing the
damage and trying to encourage his men. As they returned cannon fire, they would have seen the
breaches in the walls appear, and then grow larger, until they were big enough to risk an assault.
It started at four in the morning, on the first of September. Now assaulting a walled town, was a
dangerous, brutal, and bloody business. There would inevitably be death, dismemberment, and mutilation
on both sides. Outnumbered five to one, Lumsden would have been rallying his men to try and make
every effort against the superior forces, pouring into the gaps in the walls. At 11 o'clock, the west
and east ports were breached. There was half an hour of brutal, hand-to-hand combat, after which
Lumsden pulled his men back here to Dundee's main church, and the rise above the town to make
their stand, but the English didn't assault the church, they surrounded it and packed it with wet
straw, which they lit, so as to smoke out the Scots. Choking and gasping for breath, the Scots realised
that it was all over. All that Lumsden had left in his armoury was a white flag of surrender.
Having received assurances from the English, Lumsden had his men led out through the door
here and they put their weapons down. In one report, a General Butler, on the English side
approached Lumsden, the surrendering Scottish commander, and he shot him in the face.
Then they cut off his head and mounted it on a spike. Of course the English troops, who'd
risked themselves in order to breach the town, they were due their reward weren't they?
Was freedom from Catholicism or Episcopalianism, what about the high ideals of a republic, was that
not reward enough? Or a town full of gold and victims now lying open to the biggest,
most hypocritical bank heist since Nakatomi Plaza, Christmas 1988.
Now I'm aware of the anachronism. General Monke gave the order that Cromwell's disciplined, devout,
new model army could have 24 hours of rape, pillage and plunder to their hearts content,
and what was their hearts content? I can give you statistics, I could tell you that ten thousand
pound Scots was the cost of repairing the damage, but what does that mean? I could tell you that the
two hundred thousand gold coins that were looted, were worth twelve billion pounds in today's terms.
Would that move you? I could tell you that some estimate that up to 20 percent of the
population of Dundee were brutally killed, and that might not register, but 20 percent. Imagine
if that was New York, London, Paris, Munich, nobody would be talking about pop music then, would they?
Based on the demographic viewing statistics that YouTube give me for my site, I'll be lucky if 50%
of viewers will get that reference. The other 50% are too young to even know what proper music
is, but I'm hoping that all of you will be thinking that making daft jokes like that
means that I've seriously misjudged the tone of my own video.
Statistics can pass us by unmoved, but imagine somebody bursting into your home,
taking your possessions, think about just one of the women raped, possibly multiple times. What about the
civilian husband, father, brother try to protect her, only to be brutally murdered themselves. Statistics
seem as offensive as an inappropriate joke. This may have been the worst day in Dundee's history.
So what of this religious, regimented, new model army? What was their hearts content? We know that
it wasn't satisfied in 24 hours. Their atrocities continued for weeks. The Battle of Worcester
was fought and lost, and the War of the Three Kingdoms was effectively over before the plunder here was
finished. It's interesting that the War of the Three Kingdoms had effectively been started by
Scots opposing Charles the First, and pretty much its last event, was the devastation of Dundee
here. A town holding out for his son. I suppose you should be careful what you wish for.
Now you can find out how these conflicts all started years before in my video
'Scottish Causes of the English Civil War', and you should see that coming up now here.
In the meantime, tha mi an dochas gum bith lath math leibh. Tiorridh an drasda.