03/09/2026
Picture it, the year is 1650, Oliver Cromwell has just arrived with an army in Edinburgh. He is afraid of the Royalist support being shown to the exiled King Charles II after his father's brutal ex*****on and needs to take action quickly to avoid a wider conflict.
His army arrives on 3 September, and after heavy artillery fire, demands the castle governor, Colonel Walter Dundas surrender with the following words;
"Sir, we be now resolved, by God's assistance, to make use of such means as He hath put in our hands towards the reducing of Edinburgh Castle. Let the Lord dispose your resolutions as seemeth good to Him: my sense of duty presseth me, for to prevent the effusion of more blood, to demand the rendering of this place to me upon fit conditions."
The castle would not submit, and only after a prolonged siege would it surrender on Christmas Eve that year. Cromwell is stated to have said;
"It hath pleased God to cause the Castle of Edinburgh to be surrendered into our hands this day. Indeed, the mercy is very great and seasonable. I think, I need say little of the strength of the place, which, if it had not come as it did, would have cost very much blood to have attained, if at all to be attained."
With control of the castle firmly in Cromwell's hands, the site became a Parliamentary fortress. But only 10 years later in 1660 his republic would collapse, and King Charles II would return from exile. The castle was in Stuart hands once more.
