Editing Oliver Cromwell (section)

=== Battle of Worcester ===

[[File:Citadel Archway Cromwell Leith.jpg|thumb|upright|Citadel Archway built by Cromwell soldiers in 1656 in [[Leith]], Edinburgh]]

The following year, Charles II and his Scottish allies made an attempt to invade England and capture London while Cromwell was engaged in Scotland. Cromwell followed them south and caught them at [[Worcester, England|Worcester]] on 3 September 1651, and his forces destroyed the last major Scottish Royalist army at the [[Battle of Worcester]]. Charles II [[Escape of Charles II|barely escaped capture]] and fled to exile in France and the Netherlands, where he remained until 1660.{{Sfn|Fraser|1973|pages=385–389}}

To fight the battle, Cromwell organised an envelopment followed by a multi-pronged coordinated attack on Worcester, his forces attacking from three directions with two rivers partitioning them. He switched his reserves from one side of the river Severn to the other and then back again. Cromwell's success at Worcester relied on a degree of manoeuvre that the English parliamentary armies had not been skilled enough to execute at the start of the war, such as at the [[Battle of Turnham Green]].<ref>Encyclopædia Britannica 11th ed., article "Great Rebellion" Sections "4. Battle of Edgehill" and "59. The Crowning Mercy</ref>

In the final stages of the Scottish campaign, Cromwell's men under [[George Monck]] sacked Dundee, killing up to 1,000 men and 140 women and children.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Williams |first1=Mark |title=Constructing the Past: Writing Irish History, 1600–1800 |last2=Forrest |first2=Stephen Paul |date=2010 |publisher=Boydell & Brewer |isbn=978-1843835738 |page=160}}</ref> Scotland was ruled from England during the Commonwealth and was kept under military occupation, with a line of fortifications sealing off the Highlands which had provided manpower for Royalist armies in Scotland. The northwest Highlands was the scene of another pro-Royalist uprising in 1653–1655, which was put down with deployment of 6,000 English troops there.{{Sfn|Kenyon|Ohlmeyer|2000|p=306}} Presbyterianism was allowed to be practised as before, but the Kirk (the Scottish Church) did not have the backing of the civil courts to impose its rulings, as it had previously.<ref>Parker, Geoffrey (2003). ''Empire, War and Faith in Early Modern Europe'', p. 281.</ref>