Was Robert Stuart a Scottish POW from the Battle of Worcester?
In January of 1649, the parliamentarian British High Court of Justice declared King Charles I Stuart of Britain guilty of "tyrannical power to rule according to his will, and to overthrow the rights and liberties of the people" (https://www.constitution.org/eng/conpur082.htm). He was beheaded on the 30th of the month. The following year, on June 23, 1650, his 20-year-old son Charles II returned to Scotland from exile with hopes of becoming the next King of Britain.
After defeat to the forces of Oliver Cromwell and the Covenanters at the battle of Dunbar on September 3, 1650, Charles II hoped to raise support for an invasion of England. However, the support didn't materialize, and Charles II and his outnumbered army was soundly defeated at the Battle of Worcester on September 3, 1651.
Charles II eluded capture and escaped to Normandy, but 10,000 Scottish soldiers were captured, and many sold as indentured servants to the Americas. About 272 of them were transported on the ship "John and Sarah" which landed probably in Boston in 1652. A list of these men was made, and among their names was a Robert Stewart (https://scottishprisonersofwar.com/battle-of-worcester-documents/).
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These prisoners were indentured for a period of about seven years, then set free. Since Robert Stewart of Norwalk first appeared in 1659/1660, that would fit well with him having been the Robert Stewart listed as a passenger on the John and Sarah.
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The following researchers have claimed Robert Stewart of Norwalk as being the Scottish POW:
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George Sawin Stewart: I don't know in which book/article he wrote this, but G.T. Edson refers to it in Stewart Clan Magazine, volume 43, No. 9 (Mar 1966), "Among the Scottish soldiers so impounded and bound to serve without pay for a specified number of years, George Sawin Stewart postulated these Stewarts: John, at Lynn and Springfield; Alexander, at Charlestown; James, at Weymouth; Duncan, at Ipswich, Newbury, and Rowley; Daniel, in Barnstable; Hugh, in Reading, Yarmouth, and Chatham; William, in Lynn; Robert, in Norwalk, Connecticut;... "
Edson further states in a footnote on page 24 of volume 1, No. 6 of the SCM (Dec. 1922): "WILLIAM of Lynn and ROBERT of Norwalk, pages 6 and 14, were prisoners from the Battle of Worcester and were brought over on the John and Sarah. -Alice Heckman Stewart, 105 Langdon ave., Watertown, Mass. (Mrs. Stewart possesses the most voluminous collection of Stewart data in the country, compiled by her husband, the late George Sawin Stewart, a genealogist of high rank. - Editor.)
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Reginald Ray Stuart, professor and author of the Stuart Clan Dial, was quoted by his wife, Mrs. Winifred Handley Stuart, as stating, "Robert was ‘deported’ to America by Cromwell presumable because he was too prominent for Cromwell to execute.” Robert Stuart was among the Scotch “prisoners of war from the sad field of Worcester, Sep. 3, 1651, Cromwell’s crowning mercy, sent to Boston, where they arrived May 13, 1652, to be sold, but not to perpetual servitude." (SCM, Volume 46, No. 7, p. 31)
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Everett Stackpole, in an unpublished manuscript in 1922, stated that "ROBERT STUART, Stewart, came in the John and Sara. He married (1) 12 June 1661, Bethia, daughter of Thomas and Rose (Sherwood) Rumble of Stratford, Conn. And settled in Norwalk, Conn."
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