David Leslie
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- This article is about David Leslie, Lord Newark. For the touring car driver, see David Leslie (racing driver).
David Leslie, Lord Newark (c. 1600-1682) was a cavalry officer and General in the English Civil War and Scottish Civil Wars. The son of the 1st Earl of Lindores, he fought for the Swedish army of Gustavus Adolphus as a professional soldier during the Thirty Years' War. On the outbreak of the Civil Wars in Great Britain, he returned to his native Scotland, to command the armies of the Covenanter Scottish government. Leslie was second in command of the Scottish armies who were sent to fight for the English Parliament from 1644 and had won the day at the critical Battle of Marston Moor, west of York, for a wounded Oliver Cromwell, leading a cavalry charge that defeated the Royalist Cavaliers.
In 1645 Leslie was sent back to Scotland to deal with the Royalists there during the Scottish Civil War. He routed the main Royalist force under James Graham, Marquis of Montrose at the Battle of Philiphaugh and afterwards mopped up the remaining Royalists in Kintyre in the west of Scotland.
In 1647 Dunaverty Castle was a Clan MacDonald stronghold. During the Civil War it was besiged in 1647 by Scottish supporters of Oliver Cromwell who were led by General David Leslie from Clan Leslie. The MacDonalds surrended and then 300 of them were massacred. The castle is nothing more than a ruin now, known as Blood Rock.
David Leslie then laid siege to the Royalist garrison at Kincardine Castle. The Castle was being held by the Chief of Clan MacNab. MacNab found that it would not be possible to maintain defense and during the night, sword in hand at the head of 300 men they cut their way through the beseiging force. All made it through apart from the MacNab chief himself and one other man who were captured and sent to Edinburgh as prisoners of war. The chief was sentenced to death but he escaped and rejoined King Charles and continued to fight. MacNab was later killed at the Battle of Worcester in 1651.
In 1650, after Montrose had made another attempt at a Royalist uprising, he was captured by Neil Macleod of Assynt. Macleod, who fought with Montrose during the siege of Inverness, delivered him up to the Covenanters. See Battle of Carbisdale (1650). General Leslie, who was then at Tain, had sent Major General James Holborne with a troop of horse to fetch Montrose to meet his judges. Whilst Montrose was being led to his death Leslie dispatched five troops of horse, including some from Holborne’s and the John Gordon, 14th Earl of Sutherland's regiments to Dunbeath Castle. The defenders refused to yield, holding out valiantly for some days until their water supply was cut off, forcing them into surrender. They were finally marched under escort to Edinburgh, where Montrose was executed.
By 1650, the Scottish Covenanter government had grown disillusioned with the English Parliament, and instead backed Charles II to impose their political and religious agenda on Great Britain. Leslie accordingly now found himself fighting for the King. When the Parliamentarian army under Oliver Cromwell invaded Scotland in July 1650 Leslie commanded the Scottish forces. By refusing battle, Leslie withstood a siege at Edinburgh and when the English were forced to retreat in August 1650 he pursued them down the east coast, eventually trapping 11,000 English soldiers south of Dunbar with an army of 23,000 Scottish. But a divided Royalist command gave Cromwell the opportunity to inflict a decisive defeat on the Scottish at the Battle of Dunbar on 3 September 1650. Leslie escaped with a tiny remnant of his army.
Leslie led the Royalist army on another invasion of England in 1651, where he was again defeated by Cromwell, at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651. After his capture he was sent to the Tower of London. Released from captivity on the Restoration of Charles II, Leslie was granted the title Baron Newark. David Leslie, 1st Baron Newark, died in 1682.
