Battle of Dunbar: Wargaming Scenario for In Deo Veritas

 The following is a wargame scenario which I have created for the In Deo Veritas ruleset published by Helion & Company. It follows in a series of scenarios I have created or modified, Cheriton and Cropredy Bridge.

Battle of Dunbar

September 3rd, 1650

King Charles I was executed on January 30th, 1649 by the orders of the English Parliament. The Scottish Parliament at once declared the King's son, Charles Stuart to be King of Scotland as Charles II. A long series of negotiations followed, which included an abortive Royalist uprising led by Montrose, who was defeated at Carbisdale on April 27th, 1650 and executed the following month. Charles at last agreed to sign the National Covenant, and he was admitted into his northern kingdom. Having abolished the monarchy and disposed of their monarch the year before, the Commonwealth of England was uncomfortable having another Stuart king just across the Tweed. When Lord Fairfax, commander in chief of the New Model Army, refused to attack the Scots preemptively, he resigned and command of the English army fell to Oliver Cromwell, recently returned from his campaigns in Ireland.

As Cromwell led the veteran English army north, David Leslie was busy raising a Scottish army to repel the invasion. The Covenanter army which had successfully campaigned in the north of England 1644-46 had largely been disbanded after the intervention into the 2nd English Civil War, which ended disastrously at Preston in 1648. The Scots could rely on many old soldiers, but the country had been drained and ravaged by war over the past decade, and the army Leslie raised in 1650 was of mixed quality and experience.

Cromwell's invasion began on July 22nd, 1650, crossing the Tweed at Berwick, and he quickly captured the ports of Dunbar and Musselburgh. He attempted to bring the Scottish army to battle, but Leslie remained on the defensive, occupying lines between Edinburgh and Leith. Leslie was harshly criticized for not attacking, but his caution was repaid as the English army began to withdraw southeast, dealing with a major outbreak of disease brought about by the unseasonable climate. Cromwell reached Dunbar on September 1st, his once-victorious veterans reduced to a "poor, shattered, hungry, [and] discouraged army..." They were harassed by the Scots at every step, and found their road south blocked by David Leslie's army, which took up defensive positions around Doon Hill, south of Broxburn. The English navy provided the possibility of resupply and even evacuation by sea, but a letter of Cromwell's details his army's situation:

We are here upon an engagement very difficult. The enemy hath blocked up our way at the pass at Copperspath, through which we cannot get without almost a miracle. He lieth so upon the hills that we know not how to come that way without great difficulty; and our lying here daily consumeth our men who fall sick beyond imagination.

An opportunity arose on September 2nd, when the Scots left their unassailable position on Doon Hill to form up on more level ground. Their foot formed along Spott Burn, and the horse on the flatter land between the sea and the road south to Berwick. The English army took a position largely mirroring the Scots, but Cromwell, long desiring an open battle, decided to hurl the majority of his men against the Scottish right in a dawn assault on September 3rd. 

*CORRECTION*: Broxburn Bridge did not exist, rather there was a well-maintained ford where the road passed over it (see Johnston, pg 83).

Total engaged	Horse	Foot	Guns
English	3,500	7,500	22
Scottish	3,500	9,500	32

Battle begins at 5am.

Army of the Commonwealth of England

Left Wing - Cromwell
Foot - Y		Horse - Z
Pride		Lambert		Lilleburne
Pride	V	Fleetwood	V	Lilleburne	V
Cromwell	V	Lambert	V	Hacker	T
Lambert	V	Whalley	V	Cromwell	V

 

Right Wing – Monck - X
Monck	T
Fairfax	T
Overton	T
Okey DR	V
Field Artillery	T
Field Artillery	T

The English Army moves first.

Objective: Rout the Scottish Army.

Army of the Kingdom of Scotland

This army did not expect to fight so early on the morning of September 3rd, and had begun laying down to get rest when the first elements of Cromwell's army began to move across the fords. For this reason, the Scots army begins the battle with each unit disordered.

Left Wing - Lumsden
Horse - A		Foot - B
Stewart		Pitscottie		Campbell
Stewart	T	Pitscottie	V	Campbell	V
Field Artillery	T	Holborn	T	Preston	T
		Lovat	R	Lumsden	R
		Forbes	R	Douglas	R
		Field Artillery	T	Field Artillery	T

 

Right Wing of Horse – Leslie - C
Montgomery		Strachan
Montgomery	V	Strachan	R
Cassilis	T	Leslie	T
Kirkudbright DR	R	Halket	R

Objective:  Exhaust the English army and hold the road south to Berwick.

Works Cited

Johnston, Arran. 'Essential Agony': The Battle of Dunbar 1650. Warwick: Helion & Company, 2019. 

Lipscombe, Nick. The English Civil War: An Atlas and Concise History of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms 1639-51. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2020.

Stuart, Reid. Crown, Covenant and Cromwell: The Civil Wars in Scotland, 1639-1651. Barnsley: Frontline Books, 2012.

Wanklyn, Malcolm. Reconstructing the New Model Army, Volume 2: Regimental Lists 1649 to 1663. Warwick: Helion & Company, 2016. 

 

Also consulted the regimental wiki of the BCW Project, sadly defunct now but accessed through the Wayback Machine. 

Soli Deo Gloria!