Qualla: Siege of Inverness (1649)

Siege of Inverness (1649): Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Charles I had been dead barely two weeks when the riders came down from the hills. On 22 February 1649, Colonel Hugh Fraser led a column of Munros, Mackenzies and Urquharts through the gates of Inverness, expelled the garrison of its castle, and then did something that medieval armies almost never did to a captured stronghold - they pulled down the walls themselves. There would be nothing left to defend, and nothing left for the Covenanting government in Edinburgh to use against them. The execution of the king at Whitehall had cracked the Highlands wide open, and the clans loyal to his exiled son were going to write their own terms while the cracks were still warm.

Siege of Inverness (1649): A Kingdom Without a King

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The proclamation reached northern Scotland in early February: Charles II was king, even if his father's head had just rolled in London. For the Highland Royalists - John Munro of Lemlair, Thomas Mackenzie of Pluscarden, Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty - this was not merely news. ...

Siege of Inverness (1649): Tearing Down the Walls

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

What they did next was startling. They expelled the castle garrison - that part was routine. Then they demolished the fortifications. A captured town in the seventeenth century was an asset; you garrisoned it, you taxed it, you held it against the inevitable counter-blow. Instead...

Siege of Inverness (1649): Leslie Rides North

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Edinburgh's response came in the person of General David Leslie, Lord Newark - a hard, professional soldier who had fought Montrose at Philiphaugh and crushed him there. Leslie marched into the Highlands with cold purpose. The clans melted back from Inverness into Ross-shire, cho...

Siege of Inverness (1649): The Reckoning

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

After the swords were sheathed came the dossiers. The Presbytery, sitting as a court for breaches of the National Covenant, called in the gentlemen who had ridden with the rising. Alexander and John Bane of Knockbain. Alexander Bane of Tulloch. Captain Bane of Brahan. Alexander B...