By the concessions which the king had granted to Scotland, it became necessary for him to summon a parliament once in three years; and in June of the subsequent year was fixed the period for the meeting of that assembly. Before that time elapsed, Charles flattered himself that he should be able, by some decisive advantage, to reduce the English parliament to a reasonable submission, and might then expect with security the meeting of a Scottish parliament. Though earnestly solicited by Loudon to summon presently that great council of the nation, he absolutely refused to give authority to men who had already excited such dangerous commotions, and who showed still the same disposition to resist and invade his authority. The commissioners, therefore, not being able to prevail in any of their demands, desired the king’s passport for London, where they purposed to confer with the English parliament;[*] and being likewise denied this request, they returned with extreme dissatisfaction to Edinburgh.
The office of conservators of the peace was newly erected in Scotland, in order to maintain the confederacy between the two kingdoms; and these, instigated by the clergy, were resolved, since they could not obtain the king’s consent, to summon in his name, but by their own authority, a convention of states; and to bereave their sovereign of this article, the only one which remained, of his prerogative. Under color of providing for national peace, endangered by the neighborhood of English armies, was a convention called; an assembly which though it meets with less solemnity, has the same authority as a parliament in raising money and levying forces. Hamilton, and his brother the earl of Laneric, who had been sent into Scotland in order to oppose, these measures, wanted either authority or sincerity; and passively yielded to the torrent. The general assembly of the church met at the same time with the convention; and exercising an authority almost absolute over the whole civil power, made every political consideration yield to their theological zeal and prejudices.
The English parliament was at that time fallen into great distress by the progress of the royal arms; and they gladly sent to Edinburgh commissioners, with ample powers to treat of a nearer union and confederacy with the Scottish nation. The persons employed were the earl of Rutland, Sir William Armyne, Sir Henry Vane the younger, Thomas Hatcher, and Henry Dailey, attended by Marshall and Nye, two clergymen of signal authority.[**]
* Rush. vol. vi. p. 406.
** Whitlocke, p. 73. Rush. vol. vi. p. 466. Clarendon, vol.
iii. p.300
In this negotiation, the man chiefly trusted was Vane, who, in eloquence, address, capacity, as well as in art and dissimulation, was not surpassed by any one even during that age, so famous for active talents. By his persuasion was framed, at Edinburgh, that Solemn League and Covenant, which effaced all former protestations and vows taken in both kingdoms, and long maintained its credit and authority. In this covenant, the subscribers, besides engaging mutually to defend each other against all opponents bound themselves to endeavor, without respect of persons the extirpation of Popery and prelacy, superstition, heresy, schism, and profaneness; to maintain the rights and privileges of parliaments, together with the king’s authority, and to discover and bring to justice all incendiaries and malignants.[*]
* Rush vol. vi. p. 478. Clarendon, vol iii. p. 373.
The subscribers of the covenant vowed also to preserve the reformed religion established in the church of Scotland; but, by the artifice of Vane, no declaration more explicit was made with regard to England and Ireland, than that these kingdoms should be reformed according to the word of God and the example of the purest churches. The Scottish zealots, when prelacy was abjured, deemed this expression quite free from ambiguity, and regarded their own model as the only one which corresponded in any degree to such a description: but that able politician had other views; and while he employed his great talents in overreaching the Presbyterians, and secretly laughed at their simplicity, he had blindly devoted himself to the maintenance of systems still more absurd and more dangerous.
In the English parliament there remained some members who, though they had been induced, either by private ambition or by zeal for civil liberty, to concur with the majority, still retained an attachment to the hierarchy, and to the ancient modes of worship. But in the present danger which threatened their cause, all scruples were laid aside; and the covenant, by whose means alone they could expect to obtain so considerable a reënforcement as the accession of the Scottish nation, was received without opposition. The parliament, therefore, having first subscribed it themselves, ordered it to be received by all who lived under their authority.
Great were the rejoicings among the Scots, that they should be the happy instruments of extending their mode of religion, and dissipating that profound darkness in which the neighboring nations were involved. The general assembly applauded this glorious imitation of the piety displayed by their ancestors who, they said, in three different applications, during the reign of Elizabeth, had endeavored to engage the English, by persuasion, to lay aside the use of the surplice, tippet, and corner-cap.[*] The convention, too, in the height of their zeal, ordered every one to swear to this covenant, under the penalty of confiscation; besides what further punishment it should please the ensuing parliament to inflict on the refusers, as enemies to God, to the king, and to the kingdom. And being determined that the sword should carry conviction to all refractory minds, they prepared themselves, with great vigilance and activity, for their military enterprises. By means of a hundred thousand pounds, which they received from England; by the hopes of good pay and warm quarters; not to mention men’s favorable disposition towards the cause; they soon completed their levies. And having added to their other forces the troops which they had recalled from Ireland, they were ready, about the end of the year, to enter England, under the command of their old general, the earl of Leven, with an army of above twenty thousand men.[**]
* Rush., vol. vi. p 388.
** Clarendon, vol. iii. p 383.