End of the War

 
Charles escaped to France, where he was in exile for nine years until the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 .

The Scot’s army was shattered. 2,000 were killed, some 10,000 were taken prisoner, and about 4,000 escaped to try to head north. They were harried all the way to the border, and probably fewer than 100 made it home.

Some 8,000 of these Scottish prisoners were deported to New England, Bermuda and the West Indies to work as indentured labourers. Ironically some of their descendants would eventually become slave owning landlords. Those still held from Dunbar were shipped to work on draining the Fens.

In Scotland itself the aftermath bloody. The town of Dundee was sacked. The country was occupied by 10,000 English troops and a chain of citadels was set up across Scotland. This was the largest scale occupation Scotland had ever experienced.

Scotland and England became one republic under Cromwell. This was a very different kind of Union from the Union of the Crowns established in 1603.

Scotland had lost ten per cent of its adult population, and was in economic ruin, It would take a generation or more for the country to recover.

However, Scotland was represented in Parliament at Westminster for the first time and free trade extended across the republic although Scotland was in too poor a state to benefit.

Free trade ended with the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 and the Scottish Parliament was re-established.

But the experience of the 1650s would have one final effect. It helped produce some of the key factors which led to another kind of Union. The Union of Parliaments in 1707.