The dominance of the feudal barons, and relative quiescence of Colinton’s rural existence, was broken in the mid-17th Century by national religious and political turmoil which culminated in the Scottish Civil War. Events came to a head locally in 1650 when 10 companies of Cromwell’s troops (now the Coldstream guards) occupied the village and took revenge on the Royalist barons by plundering and burning estate buildings, and barns and destroying the castle.
Religious disturbance continued after the war and in the 1666 Pentland Rising, it was at Colinton that Covenanter dissidents against the Scottish government turned for home before their defeat at the Battle of Rullion Green (the Covenanter Memorial marks this event).
Conflict brought permanent change to Colinton; in the late 17th century parcels of land had to be sold off – to rich merchants and burgesses of Edinburgh for new country seats – to make up the costs of military action and allow reconstruction.