The New Scots, the men of the army the Scottish covenanters sent to Ireland, were the most formidable opponents of the Irish confederates for several crucial years in the 1640s, preventing them conquering all Ireland and destroying the Protestant plantation in Ulster. The greatest challenge to the power of the covenanters in Scotland at a time when they seemed invincible came from a largely Irish army, sent to Scotland by the confederates and commanded by the royalist marquis of Montrose.
Thus the relations of Scotland and Ireland are clearly of great importance in understanding the complex 'War of the Three Kingdoms' and the interactions of the civil wars and revolutions of England, Scotland and Ireland in the mid-seventeenth century. But though historians have studied Anglo-Scottish and Anglo-Irish relations extensively, Scottish-Irish relations have been largely neglected. Scottish Covenanters and Irish Confederates attempts to fill this gap, and in doing so provides the first comprehensive study of the Scottish Army in Ireland.
Contents
- Scotland and Ireland in the Early Seventeenth Century
I. The ulster Scots
II. The First Bishops' War, 1639
III. The Second Bishops' War, 1640
- The Irish Rebellion and Scottish Intervention, 1641-1642
I. Reactions in Scotland and Treaty
II. The Recruiting and Organising of the Army
III. The Attitude of the Irish Rebels to the Scots
- The New Scots in Ireland, 1642-1644
I. The Campaign of 1642
II. The Campaign of 1643
III. Financial and Political Problems, 1642-1644
- The Irish in Scotland, 1644-1647
- The New Scots in Ireland, 1644-1646
I. The Campaign of 1644
II. Financial and Political Problems, 1644-1646
III. The Campaigns of 1645 and 1646: Benburb
- The End of the New Scots
I. The Decline of the Army, 1646-1647
II. The Engagement, 1647-1648
III. The Aftermath, 1648-1650
IV. Scotland and Ireland in the 1650s
- The Relations of Scotland and Ireland