Cromwell's Act of Grace, which pardoned the people of Scotland for any crimes committed during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, was proclaimed in Edinburgh.
Cromwell's Act of Grace
Cromwell's Act of Grace, or more formally the Act of Pardon and Grace to the People of Scotland, was an Act of the Parliament of England that declared that the people of Scotland were pardoned for any crimes they might have committed during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. It was proclaimed at the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh on 5 May 1654. General George Monck, the English military governor of Scotland, was present in Edinburgh, having arrived the day before for two proclamations also delivered at the Mercat Cross, the first declaring Oliver Cromwell to be the protector of England, Ireland and Scotland, and that Scotland was united with the Commonwealth of England.
Wars of the Three Kingdoms
The Wars of the Three Kingdoms were a series of conflicts fought between 1639 and 1653 in the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, then separate entities in a personal union under Charles I. They include the 1639 to 1640 Bishops' Wars, the First and Second English Civil Wars, the Irish Confederate Wars, the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland and the Anglo-Scottish War of 1650–1652. They resulted in the execution of Charles I, the abolition of monarchy, and founding of the Commonwealth of England, a unitary state which controlled the British Isles until the Stuart Restoration in 1660.