Battle of Aberdeen (1644)

Battle of Aberdeen
Part of Wars of the Three Kingdoms
Date 13 September 1644 Location Aberdeen, Scotland Result Royalist Victory
Belligerents
Royalist Irish Highland Scots	Parliamentarian Scots Covenanters
Commanders and leaders
Lord Montrose Alasdair MacColla James Hay Sir Nathaniel Gordon Sir William Rollock	Lord Burleigh Lord Lewis Gordon Forbes of Craigievar Forbes of Boyndlie
Strength
1,500 foot, 44 horse (cavalry)	2,500 foot, 500 horse
Casualties and losses
Light	160
118 civilians killed in sack of Aberdeen by Royalists

Royalist Irish

The Battle of Aberdeen was an engagement in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms which took place between Royalist and Covenanter forces outside the city of Aberdeen on 13 September 1644.

After defeating Lord Elcho's forces at the Battle of Tippermuir, outside Perth, Montrose's forces had captured a large cache of weapons and munitions, but had not captured Perth, and had suffered the desertion of the highland forces under his command, leaving a force of around 1,000 Irish infantry under Alasdair MacColla and 44 horse from the Earl of Newcastle.

Montrose led these men on a rapid advance on Aberdeen, the main Covenanter sea port in Scotland, picking up a force of around 500 highlanders on the way. After a diversion to avoid being forced to take a fortified bridge over the River Dee, they reached Aberdeen on 12 September.

On the morning of the 12 September 1644, the Covenanter force under Lord Burleigh marched out of the town to meet the attackers. The Royalists sent a messenger and drummer under a flag of truce to demand the surrender of the city. Aberdeen's chief citizens and guild leaders received this ultimatum near the present day site of Justice Mill Lane. They rejected this demand. Some Covenanters fired on the Royalist party, killing the drummer. Montrose was so angered by this that he immediately ordered an attack and issued the order not to spare any of the enemy.

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