either in the court, or the country, to know any | then they united themselves by subscribing a thing of Scotland, or what was done there, that covenant, which they pretended, with their usual when the whole nation was solicitous to know confidence, to be no other than had been subwhat passed weekly in Germany and Poland, and scribed in the reign of king James, and that his all other parts of Europe, no man ever inquired majesty himself had subscribed it; by which impowhat was doing in Scotland, nor had that king-sition people of all degrees, supposing it might be dom a place or mention in one page of any gazette, a means to extinguish the present fire, with all so little the world heard or thought of that people; alacrity engaged themselves in it; whereas in and even after the advertisement of this preamble truth, they had inserted a clause never heard of, to rebellion, no mention was made of it at the and quite contrary to the end of that covenant, council-board, but such a dispatch made into whereby they obliged themselves to pursue the exScotland upon it, as expressed the king's dislike tirpation of bishops, and had the impudence to and displeasure, and obliged the lords of the demand the same in express terms of the king, in council there to appear more vigorously in the answer to a very gracious message the king had vindication of his authority, and suppression of sent to them. They published bitter invectives those tumults. But all was too little. That peo- against the bishops and the whole government of ple, after they had once begun, pursued the business the church, which they were not contented to send vigorously, and with all imaginable contempt of only into England to kindle the same fire there, the government; and though in the hubbub of but, with their letters, sent them to all the rethe first day there appeared nobody of name or formed churches, by which they raised so great a reckoning, but the actors were really of the dregs prejudice to the king, that too many of them of the people; yet they discovered by the counte- believed, that the king had a real design to change nance of that day, that few men of rank were religion, and to introduce popery. forward to engage themselves in the quarrel on the behalf of the bishops; whereupon more considerable persons every day appeared against them, and (as heretofore in the case of St. Paul, Acts xiii. 50, the Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women) the women and ladies of the best quality declared themselves of the party, and, with all the reproaches imaginable, made war upon the bishops, as introducers of popery and superstition, against which they avowed themselves to be irreconcilable enemies: and their husbands did not long defer the owning the same spirit; insomuch as within few days the bishops durst not appear in the streets, nor in any courts or houses, but were in danger of their lives; and such of the lords as durst be in their company, or seemed pressed in a short time, when the people's eyes to desire to rescue them from violence, had their "should be opened; and that the removing coaches torn in pieces, and their persons assaulted, "the courts to some other place, and a gracious insomuch as they were glad to send for some of" condescension in the king in offering pardon those great men, who did indeed govern the rabble, though they appeared not in it, who readily came and redeemed them out of their hands: : so that by the time new orders came from England, there was scarce a bishop left in Edinburgh, and not a minister who durst read the liturgy in any church.

All the kingdom flocked to Edinburgh, as in a general cause that concerned their salvation, and resolved themselves into a method of government, erected several tables, in which deputies sat for the nobility, the gentlemen, the clergy, and the burgesses; out of either of which tables a council was elected to conduct their affairs, and a petition drawn up in the names of the nobility, lairds, clergy, and burgesses, to the king, complaining of the introduction of popery, and many other grievances. And if the lords of the council issued out. any order against them, or if the king himself sent a proclamation for their repair to their houses, and for the preservation of the peace, presently some nobleman deputed by the tables published a protestation against those orders and proclamations, with the same confidence, and with as much formality, as if the government were regularly in their hands.

They called a general assembly, whither they summoned the bishops to appear before them, and for not appearing, excommunicated them; and

It is very true, there were very many of the nobility, and persons of principal quality of that nation, and in Edinburgh at that time, who did not appear yet, and concur in this seditious behaviour, or own their being yet of their party; but on the contrary seemed very much to dislike their proceedings: but it is as true, that very few had the courage to do any thing in opposition to them, or to concur in the prosecution of any regal act against them; and did in some respects more advance their designs, than if they had manifestly joined with them. For these men, many of whom were of the council, by all their letters into England, exceedingly undervalued the disorder, as being " very easy to be sup

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"for what was past, would suddenly subdue "them, and every body would return to his duty :" and the city of Edinburgh itself writ an humble letter to the archbishop of Canterbury, excusing the disorders which had been raised by the ignorance and rudeness of the meanest of the people, besought him "to intercede with his majesty for "the suspension of his prejudice to them, till

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they should manifest their duty to him, by in"flicting exemplary punishment upon the chief. "offenders, and causing the liturgy to be re"ceived and submitted to in all their churches;" which they professed they would in a short time bring to pass. So that by this means, and the interposition of all those of that nation who attended upon his majesty in his bedchamber, and in several offices at court, who all undertook to know by their intelligences that all was quiet, or would speedily be so; his majesty (who well knew that they who appeared most active in this confederacy were much inferior to those who did not appear, and who professed great zeal for his service) hardly prevailed with himself to believe that he could receive any disturbance from thence, till he found all his condescensions had raised their insolence, all his offers rejected, and his proclamation of pardon slighted and contemned; and that they were listing men towards the raising an army, under the obligation of their

The earl of Holland was general of the horse; who, besides the obligations he had to the queen, He could now no longer defer the acquainting (who vouchsafed to own a particular trust in him,) his council-board, and the whole kingdom of Eng-was not liable to the least suspicion of want of land, with the indignities he had sustained in Scot- affection and zeal for the king's service. land; which he did by proclamations and declarations at large, setting out the whole proceedings which had been; and in the end of the year 1638 declared his resolution to raise an army to suppress their rebellion, for which he gave present order.

the inquiry he could make by sending out parties, and other advertisements, he could not discover that any of the enemies' forces had been drawn that way, nor indeed that they had any considerable forces together nearer than Edinburgh.

The earl being thus possessed of his post, lost no time in advertising the king of it, and sent him a very particular account of the informations he had received from so many ear and eyewitnesses, who were all at that time in the court, and very fit to be suspected after the publishing of so many falsehoods; and the men had been constant in the same reports, and as confident in reporting the defeat of the earl of Essex, and cutting off his party, as they had been to himself of the Scots' march, and their being masters of Berwick. The joy was not concealed with which his majesty received the news of the earl's being in Berwick, the contrary whereof these men made him apprehend with much perplexity; but they underwent no other reproach for their intelligence, than that their fears had multiplied their sight, and that they had been frighted with other men's relations; which remissness, to call it no worse, was an ill omen of the discipline that was like to be observed.

had been none in the march but soldiers, it is most probable that a noble peace would have quickly ensued, even without fighting: but the progress was more illustrious than the march, and the soldiers were the least part of the army, and least consulted with.

In this pomp the king continued his journey to York, where he had a full court, those noblemen of the northern parts, and many others who overtook not the king till then, joining all in that city; where his majesty found it necessary to stay some days; and there the fruit, that was to be gathered from such a conflux, quickly budded out. Some rules were to be set down for the government of the army; and the court was too numerous to be wholly left to its own license; and the multitude of the Scots in it administered matter of offence and jealousy to people of all conditions, who had too much cause to fear that the king was every day betrayed; the common discourse by all the Scots being either magnifying the good intentions of their countrymen, and that they had all duty for the king, or undervaluing the power and interest of those who discovered themselves against the church.

It was therefore thought fit by the whole body of the council, that a short protestation should be drawn, in which all men should "profess their loyalty and obedience to his majesty, and disclaim and "renounce the having any intelligence, or holding any correspondence with the rebels." No man imagined it possible that any of the English would refuse to make that protestation; and they who thought worst of the Scots did not think they would make any scruple of doing the same, and consequently that there would be no fruit or discovery from that test; but they were deceived. The Scots indeed took it to a man, without grieving their conscience, or reforming their manners. But amongst the English nobility the lord Say, He more intended the pomp of his preparations and the lord Brook, (two popular men, and most than the strength of them, and did still believe, that undevoted to the church, and, in truth, to the the one would save the labour of the other. At the whole government,) positively refused, in the same time that he resolved to raise an army, he king's own presence, to make any such protestacaused inquiry to be made, what obligations lay tion. They said, "If the king suspected their upon his subjects to assist him, both as he went "loyalty, he might proceed against them as he himself in person, and as it was an expedition" thought fit; but that it was against the law to against the Scots; which, in the ancient enmity 'impose any oath or protestation upon them between the two nations, had been provided for by "which were not enjoined by the law; and, in some laws, and in the tenure which many men held "that respect, that they might not betray the comtheir estates by. He found that the kings had usually, when they went to make war in their own persons, called as many of the nobility to attend upon them, as they thought fit.

If the war had been now vigorously pursued, it had been as soon ended as begun; for at this time they had not drawn three thousand men together" in the whole kingdom of Scotland, nor had in truth arms complete for such a number, though they had the possession of all the king's forts and magazines, nor had they ammunition to supply their few firearms; horses they had, and officers they had, which made all their show. But it was the fatal misfortune of the king, which proceeded from the excellency of his nature, and his tenderness of blood, that he deferred so long his resolution of using his arms; and after he had taken that resolution, that it was not prosecuted with more vigour.

And thereupon he summoned most of the nobility of the kingdom, without any consideration of their affections how they stood disposed to that service, to attend upon him by a day appointed, and throughout that expedition; presuming, that the glory of such avisible appearance of the whole nobility would look like such an union in the quarrel, as would at once terrify and reduce the Scots; not considering, that such kind of unitings do naturally produce the greatest confusions, when more and greater men are called together than can be united in affections or interests; and in the necessary differences which arise from thence, they quickly come to know each other so well, as they easily unite in several divisions, though never in any one public interest; and from hence the most dangerous factions have always arose, which have threatened and ruined the peace of nations: and it fell out no better here. If there

mon liberty, they would not submit to it." This administered matter of new dispute in a very unseasonable time; and though there did not then appear more of the same mind, and they two were committed, at least restrained of their liberty; yet this discovered too much the humour and spirit of the court in their daily discourses upon that subject; so that the king thought it best to dismiss those two lords, and require them to return to their houses and if all the rest who were not officers of the army, or of absolute necessity about the king's person, had been likewise dismissed and sent home, the business had been better prosecuted.

Indeed, if the king himself had stayed at London, or, which had been the next best, kept his court and resided at York, and sent the army on their proper errand, and left the matter of the war wholly to them, in all human reason, his enemies had been speedily subdued, and that kingdom reduced to their obedience, which it would not have been easy for them to have shaken off.

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Before the king left York, letters and addresses were sent from the Scots, "lamenting their ill for"tune, that their enemies had so great credit with “the king, as to persuade him to believe, that they were or could be disobedient to him, a thing "that could never enter into their loyal hearts; "that they desired nothing but to be admitted into "the presence of their gracious sovereign, to lay "their grievances at his royal feet, and leave the "determination of them entirely to his own wisdom "and pleasure." And though the humility of the style gained them many friends, who thought it great pity that any blood should be spilt in a contention which his majesty might put an end to by his own word, as soon as he would hear their complaints; yet hitherto the king preserved himself from being wrought upon, and marched with convenient expedition to the very borders of Scotland, and encamped with his army in an open field, called the Berkes, on the further side of Berwick, and lodged in his tent with the army, though every day's march wrought very much upon the constitution if not the courage of the court, and too many wished aloud, "that the business were

courage and military knowledge. As he might very safely have made a halt at Dunce, till his foot and artillery came up to him, so he might securely enough have engaged his body of horse against their whole pitiful army, there being neither tree nor bush to interrupt his charge; but it was thought otherwise; and no question it was generally believed, by the placing and drawing out their front in so conspicuous a place, by the appearance of other troops behind them, and by the shewing great herds of cattle at a distance upon the hills on either side, that their army was very much superior in number. And therefore, as soon as the earl came in view, he dispatched messengers one after another to the king, with an account of what he heard and saw, or believed he saw, and yet thought not fit to stay for an answer; but with the joint consent of all his superior officers (for it was never after pretended that any one officer of name dissuaded it, though they were still ashamed of it) retired towards his foot, to whom he had likewise sent orders not to advance; and so wearied and tired by the length of the march, and more by the heat of the weather, which was intolerable, they returned to the camp where the king was; and the Scots drew a little back to a more convenient post for their residence.

The covenanters, who very well understood the weakness of the court, as well as their own want of strength, were very reasonably exalted with this success, and scattered their letters abroad amongst the noblemen at court, according to the humours of the men to whom they writ; there being upon the matter an unrestrained intercourse between the king's camp and Edinburgh.

brought to a fair treaty." Upon advertisement that a party of the Scots army was upon their march, the earl of Holland was sent with a body of three thousand horse, and two thousand foot, with a fit train of artillery, to meet it, and engage with it; who marched accordingly into Scotland early in a morning as far as a place called Dunce, ten or twelve miles into that kingdom. It was in the beginning of August, when the nights are very short, and, as soon as the sun rises, the days for the most part hotter than is reasonably expected from the climate, and by the testimony of all men that day was the hottest that had been known. When the earl came with his horse to Dunce, he found the Scots drawn up on the side of a hill, where the front could only be in view, and where, he was informed, the general Lesley and the whole army was; and it was very true, they where all there indeed; but it was as true, that all did not exceed the number" of three thousand men, very ill armed, and most country fellows, who were on the sudden got together to make that show: and Lesley had placed them by the advantage of that hill so speciously, that they had the appearance of a good body of men, there being all the semblance of great bodies behind on the other side of the hill; the falsehood of which would have been manifest as soon as they should move from the place where they were, and from whence they were therefore not to stir.

The horse had outmarched the foot, which, by reason of the excessive heat, was not able to use great expedition: besides, there was some error in the orders, and some accidents of the night that had retarded them; so that when the enemy appeared first in view, the foot and the artillery was three or four miles behind.

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They writ three several letters to the three generals, the earl of Arundel, the earl of Essex, and the earl of Holland. That to the earl of Essex was in a dialect more submiss than to the others; they said much to him of "his own fame and reputation, which added to their affliction that he "should be in arms against them; that they had "not the least imagination of entering into a war against England; their only thought and hope was to defend their own rights and liberties, "which were due to them by the laws of the land, "until they might have access to his majesty, to expose their complaints to him, from which they were hindered by the power and greatness of some of their own countrymen;" being desirous the earl should understand that their principal grievance was the interest of the marquis of Hamilton, who, they knew, was not in any degree acceptable to the earl; and therefore desired him "to be "ready to do them good offices to the king, that they might be admitted to his presence.' The earl of Essex, who was a punctual man in point of honour, received this address superciliously enough, sent it to the king without returning any answer, or holding any conference, or performing the least ceremony, with or towards the messengers.

Nothing can be said in the excuse of the counsel The earls of Arundel and Holland gave another of that day, which might have made the king a kind of reception to the letters they received. To glorious king indeed. The earl of Holland was a the former, after many professions of high esteem man of courage, and at that time not at all sus- of his person, they enlarged upon "their great pected to be corrupted in his affections; and "affection to the English nation, and how they though himself had not seen more of the war than "abhorred the thought of a war between the two two or three campaigns in Holland before his com- "nations;" they besought him "to present their ing to the court, he had with him many as good" supplication" (which they enclosed) "to the officers as the war of that age, which was very king, and to procure their deputies admission to his active, had made, and men of unquestionable" majesty." The earl used them with more respect