Battle of Philiphaugh

The Battle of Philiphaugh was fought on 13 September, 1645, during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which we Englishmen are inaccurately inclined to call ‘the civil war'. It was fought near Selkirk in the Scottish Borders. The Royalist army led by the Marquis of Montrose was destroyed by the Covenanter (Presbyterian) army of Sir David Leslie.

The battlefield today seems to be occupied by sports fields and other examples of residential paraphernalia. A formal battle memorial proved rather elusive, hidden by trees, for which time did permit a thorough search.

General Leslie was inclined towards mercy for his opponents' camp followers, many of whom were soldiers' wives and children. Some hardline Ministers of the Kirk who were present persuaded him that this kindness was ungodly, so that many prisoners, along with the 300 women and children, were duly slaughtered in cold blood.

Ironically, on 3 September, 1650, the Lord used the mighty Oliver Cromwell to defeat this army and its villainous chaplains, when it was smashed to pieces at Dunbar. I detect a providential judgment of the God here upon those heartless Scottish ministers. For killing the innocent, the Lord brought north a better man to teach some elementary lessons in humility.

And I will come near to you to judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the soothsayers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that wrongfully keep back the hireling’s wages, and vex the widow, and the fatherless, and oppress the stranger, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts. Malachi 3:5

Pure religion and undefiled before God, even the Father, is this, to visit the fatherless, and widows in their adversity, and to keep himself unspotted of the world. James 1:27, 1599 Geneva Bible