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Cromwell passed the Tweed at Berwick on the 22nd of July, with a force of sixteen thousand men. They found the country desolate and deserted, except by a number of women, who on their knees implored mercy, and were set by the officers to bake and brew for the soldiers. That night the beacon fires of Scotland were lighted, and the English army encamped at Mordington, where they lay three days, and then marched to Dunbar, and thence to Musselburgh. They found the Scottish army under Leslie posted between Edinburgh and Leith, and well defended by batteries and entrenchments. Nothing could induce the wary Scottish commander to quit his vantage ground, and the country afforded no supplies to the English army; but their fleet followed them along the coast, and furnished them with provisions.

For a month Cromwell found it impossible to draw the Scottish general out of his strong position. He sometimes marched up close to his lines to tempt him to come to action, but it was in vain, and he did not think it prudent to attack him in his formidable position, which must have cost him an awful number of men even if he carried it.

The weather being very wet he fell back upon Musselburgh, the enemy then making a sally, and harassing his rear, and wounding General Lambert. Cromwell and the Scottish Assembly, as well as Cromwell and General Leslie, who lay in the ground now occupied by the New Town of Edinburgh, had a voluminous correspondence, in which they quoted much Scripture, and each declared himself the favoured or justified of heaven. The Scots reproached Cromwell and his party with breaking the League and Covenant, and Cromwell retorted on them, that though they pretended to covenant and fight against Malignants, they had entered into agreement with the head and centre of the Malignants himself, which he said he could not understand. Cromwell, leaving a force to invest Dunbar, which was said to suffer extreme famine, being cooped by the English both on land and sea, about the 13th of August shifted his camp to the Pentland Hills to the west of Edinburgh, in order to cut off Leslie's supplies.

Whilst lying there the young king himself made a visit to the army at Leith, where he was received by the soldiers with acclamations; but the Assembly of the Kirk was soon scandalised by the drunkenness and profanity which his presence brought into the camp, and set on foot an inquiry, the result of which was that eighty officers, with many of their men, were dismissed that they might not contaminate the rest of the army. They also required Charles to sign a declaration to his subjects in his three kingdoms, informing them that he lamented the troubles which had been brought on the realm by the resistance of his father to the Solemn League and Covenant, and by the idolatry of his mother; that for himself he had subscribed the Covenant with all his heart, and would have no friends or enemies but the friends or enemies of the Covenant; that he repented making a peace with the Papists of Ireland, and now declared it null and void; that he detested all popery, prelacy, idolatry, and heresy; and finally, that he would accord to a free Parliament of England the propositions agreed upon by the Commissioners of the two kingdoms, and would settle the English Church according to the plan organised by the Westminster Assembly of divines.

Never was so flagrant a set of falsehoods forced on a reluctant soul! Charles read the declaration with indignation, and declared that he would sacrifice everything rather than thus cast reproach on his parents and their supporters, who had suffered so much on their behalf, or belie his own sentiments. But he was soon convinced that he must see his cause totally abandoned if he did not comply, and at the end of three days he signed with tears and shame the humiliating document. The exulting Kirk then proclaimed a certain victory from heaven over "a blaspheming general and a sectarian army."

And truly, affairs appeared very likely to come to such a conclusion. Cromwell found it difficult to feed his army; the weather continued stormy and wet, and his soldiers suffered extremely from fevers and other illness from exposure to the weather. Cromwell made a sudden march in the direction of Stirling, as though he intended to cut off that town from communication with the capital. This set Leslie in motion; he hastily sent forward his forces, and the vanguards came to skirmishing, but could not engage in complete battle on account of the boggy ground between them. Cromwell as suddenly retreated, and firing his huts on the Pentlands, withdrew towards Dunbar. This effectually roused the Scots; they knew his distress from sickness and lack of supplies, and they thought he meant now to escape into England. To prevent that, and to make themselves masters of the whole English army, as they now confidently expected, they marched rapidly along the feet of the Lammermuir Hills, and Leslie managed to outstrip him, and hem him in between Dunbar and Doon Hill. A deep ravine called Cockburnspath, or, as Oliver pronounced it, Copper's Path, about forty feet deep and as many wide, with a rivulet running through it, lay between Oliver and the Scottish army, which was posted on Doon Hill. On Oliver's right lay Belhaven Bay, on his left Broxmouth House, at the mouth of a brook, and where there is a path southward. Leslie had secured the passes of Cockburnspath, and imagined that he had Cromwell and his army secure from Sunday night to Tuesday morning, the 3rd of September. But on Monday afternoon, Cromwell observed Leslie moving his right wing down into the plain towards Broxmouth House, evidently intending to secure that pass also; but Cromwell at once espied his advantage. He could attack and cut off this right wing, whilst the main body of Leslie's army, penned between the brook and the hills, could not manœuvre to help it. On observing this, Cromwell exclaimed to Lambert, "The Lord hath delivered us!" and arrangements were made to attack the right wing of Leslie at three o'clock in the morning. Leslie had twenty-three thousand men—Cromwell about half as many; but by a vigorous, unexpected attack on this right wing, after three hours of hard fighting, the Scots were thrown into confusion, and Cromwell exclaimed, "They run! I profess they run!" In fact, the horse of the Scots dashed frantically away over and through their own foot, and there was a wild flight in all directions. Three thousand slain lay on the spot, the Scots army was in wild rout, and as the sun just then rose over St. Abb's Head and the sea, Oliver exclaimed to his soldiers, "Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered!" "The Lord-General," says Hodgson, "made a halt till the horse could gather for the chase, and sang the 117th Psalm." Then the pursuit was made as far as Haddington. Ten thousand prisoners were taken, with all the baggage, artillery, and ammunition of the enemy. A thousand men were slain in the pursuit. By nine o'clock in the morning, David Leslie, the general, was in Edinburgh, old Lord Leven reached it by two, and what a city! The general complained that the preachers had occasioned the disaster; they would not let him rest till he descended from his height to attack the enemy on a disadvantageous ground. The ministers, though all their prophecies of victory were falsified, had yet plenty of other reasons for it. They published a "Short Declaration and Warning," in which they enumerated no less than thirteen causes for this terrible overthrow—the general wickedness of the country, the especial wickedness of the king's house, and the number of Malignants amongst the king's followers, and so forth. Cromwell told them plainly in letters addressed to them, that they had been punished for taking up a family that the Lord had so eminently lifted up His hand against, and for pretending to cry down Malignants, and yet receiving and setting up the head of them all. He advanced to Edinburgh, where he closely blockaded the castle, which was soon compelled to surrender.

As for Charles II., he was rather delighted than otherwise with the defeat of his fanatic friends at Dunbar. He was grown most thoroughly tired of imperious dictation and morose religion, and he took the opportunity to steal away to join Murray, Huntly, Atholl, and the Royalists in the Highlands. On the afternoon of the 4th of October, on pretence of hawking, he rode out of Perth, and dashed away for the braes of Angus. After galloping forty miles he came to a wretched hovel at a place called Clova, where he had nothing but a turf pillow to sleep on. There he was overtaken by Colonel Montgomery—for Argyll had been speedily apprised of his flight—and finding that two regiments of horse were at hand, Charles knew that escape was hopeless, and so he returned. But "the Start," which Charles's elopement was called, had opened the eyes of the Covenanters to the danger of pressing him too far. They now considerably relaxed their vigour towards him, admitted him to their deliberations in Council, and they thus induced him to prevail on Atholl, Middleton, and the Highland forces to disband.