Qualla: Siege of Carlisle (1644)

Siege of Carlisle (1644): Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Francis Grose, Public domain. Hunger is a slower weapon than gunpowder. When Alexander Leslie's Covenanter army settled outside Carlisle in October 1644, he made no grand assault, dug no spectacular trenches, and showed no hurry whatsoever. He simply sat. For eight months he tightened a slow noose around the Royalist garrison inside the castle and the city walls, while England's civil war played out elsewhere. By the time the garrison surrendered on 25 June 1645, they had eaten their horses, then their dogs, then the rats that had been eating their grain.

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Image: Francis Grose | Public domain

Siege of Carlisle (1644): A Border Fortress Left Behind

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Neil Boothman from Carlisle, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0. For five hundred years Carlisle Castle had been England's principal stronghold on the Scottish border. When civil war broke out in 1642, the castle's geographic remoteness was a kind of armor in itself: Parliamentarian forces were busy further south, so Carlisle's Royalist garris...

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Image: Neil Boothman from Carlisle, United Kingdom | CC BY 2.0

Siege of Carlisle (1644): The Patience of Alexander Leslie

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit England_location_map.svg: *United_Kingdom_location_map.svg: NordNordWest England_Regions_-_Blank.svg: Ch1902 Northern_Ireland_location_map.svg: NordNordWest Europe_laea_location_map.svg: Alexrk2 derivative work: Spischot (talk) derivative work: Delusion23 (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Leslie reached Carlisle in late October 1644 with 4,000 Covenanters. He did not attack. He set up four small siege works on the four major roads into the city, garrisoned by cavalry: one in the churchyard at Stanwix on the north road with three small cannon, the others little mor...

Read more: Siege of Carlisle (1644) on Qualla

Image: England_location_map.svg: *United_Kingdom_location_map.svg: NordNordWest England_Regions_-_Blank.svg: Ch1902 Northern_Ireland_location_map.svg: NordNordWest Europe_laea_location_map.svg: Alexrk2 derivative work: Spischot (talk) derivative work: Delusion23 (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Siege of Carlisle (1644): The Tightening Ring

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit England_location_map.svg: *United_Kingdom_location_map.svg: NordNordWest England_Regions_-_Blank.svg: Ch1902 Northern_Ireland_location_map.svg: NordNordWest Europe_laea_location_map.svg: Alexrk2 derivative work: Spischot (talk) derivative work: Delusion23 (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. In the spring of 1645 English Parliamentarian forces joined the besiegers, and Leslie finally began to close his fist. He moved his siege works inward, dug new fortifications, and made it harder and harder for the Royalists to slip out for food. The successful sallies dwindled. F...

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Siege of Carlisle (1644): An Honorable Surrender

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit England_location_map.svg: *United_Kingdom_location_map.svg: NordNordWest England_Regions_-_Blank.svg: Ch1902 Northern_Ireland_location_map.svg: NordNordWest Europe_laea_location_map.svg: Alexrk2 derivative work: Spischot (talk) derivative work: Delusion23 (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Leslie's terms were unusually generous. The garrison would march out as free men, colours flying, drums beating, with their firearms and twelve charges of powder each, free to walk all the way back to their king. The people of Carlisle would not be harmed. Their homes would not b...

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