Scottish Soldiers and Prisoners of War, 1638-1652: The Wars of the Three Kingdoms

The Wars of the Three Kingdoms occurred from 1638 until 1652 between Scotland, England, and Ireland. This book attempts to identify the Scottish soldiers captured in battle and sent in chains to labor in English plantations in America.

The Wars of the Three Kingdoms began in 1638 when King Charles I attempted to impose Anglicanism on a mainly Presbyterian Scotland. Subsequently, King Charles increasingly lost support in England where his policies (e.g., suspending the English Parliament, imposing a ship-tax, and an apparent move toward Roman Catholicism) contributed to the English Civil War in 1642 and an Irish revolt in 1641. Following the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell used the prisoners of war to populate the recently acquired colony of Jamaica, as well as existing colonies like, Barbados, Montserrat, Nevis, and Bermuda. Some Scots prisoners were sent to the Balkans to resist the Turks; others to France and Ireland; and some were shipped to Virginia and New England.