As all things must come to a conclusion, if not to an end—Hamilton's speech, for example, came to no end at all—the oration of the marquis was terminated at last, and for the fourth time the Assembly had begun to choose a moderator, when Hamilton interfered with a "Stop! stop! stop! Before you go any further, remember that I protest against anything you may do that will be prejudicial to the king's prerogative."
At length he was formally asked if he had quite done with his interruptions, and having exhausted all his resources, he was constrained to admit that he had no further remark to make, when the election of a moderator was proceeded with. Alexander Henderson, a minister of Fife,—which might well have been called, in the strong language of Shakespeare, the "ear-piercing Fife," for it was determined to make itself heard,—was chosen to the office, and Hamilton was again on his legs to read a protest, but a general cry of "Down! down! Come! come! we've had enough of that," prevented the marquis from proceeding further in his obstructive policy. The Assembly then chose one Archibald Johnston as clerk, and Hamilton, determined to give the Covenanters one more lesson on the Hamiltonian system, commenced protesting against the last appointment they had made. The marquis was, however, most unceremoniously pooh-poohed, and the Assembly adjourned.
On the next day Hamilton began the old game of entering more protests against the return of lay elders to the Assembly, but he was treated with no more respect than if he had been a lay figure, and was compelled to hold his tongue. Being checked in every attempt to enter a protest on his own account, he insisted on patronising ana adopting a protest of the bishops who denied the jurisdiction of the Assembly, but one of the clerks of session thundering out a declaration that they would go on with the proceedings, Hamilton started up once more, "begging pardon for being so very troublesome, but adding that he really must protest to that." Finding his protestations utterly useless, he thought it better to protest to the whole thing en masse, and he accordingly dissolved the General Assembly on the ensuing day. Henderson, the moderator—so called, on the lucus a non lucendo principle, from his being no moderator at all—declared he was sorry they were going to lose the pleasure of Hamilton's company, but the Assembly, being assembled, had no intention to disperse. The marquis, who had gone about muttering to himself "Oh, you know, this is quite absurd! I'm no use here," made the best of his way to England. He urged Charles to take military measures against the Scotch, but they were very active in making warlike preparations, and had already got up a magazine at Edinburgh—no relation to Blackwood or Tait—which was full of pikes, muskets, halberts, and other striking but very offensive articles. In the meantime the coffers of Charles were standing perfectly empty, nobody in the city would take his paper upon any terms, and indeed he could accept no bills, for there was no Parliament in existence to draw the documents. He called upon the judges, the clergy, and even the humbler servants of the crown, to contribute part of their salaries to his necessities—a process very like borrowing a portion of the wages of one's cook to pay one's butcher.
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The Covenanters had got together a tolerably large number of troops, under General Leslie, and Hamilton was sent with five thousand men to take Leith, but by the time he got into the waters of Leith(e) his soldiers seemed to be oblivious of their duties, for they all deserted him.
Charles now thought it high time to go and see about the Scotch business himself, and he started, per coach, for York, with the Duke of Lennox and the Earl of Holland as inside passengers. He was met at that city by the recorder, as the coach drew up to the inn door, and that functionary, in a fulsome speech, told him he had built his throne on two columns of diamond—the parasite forgetting that the old notion of "diamond cut diamond" might unpleasantly suggest itself. At York Charles enacted an oath of fidelity from the nobles, which was taken by all but Lord Saye and Brook, the former declaring he should be a mere do if he consented to say what he did not mean, and the latter intimating that he was far too deep a Brook to commit himself in the manner that the king required.
On the 29th of April Charles left York and repaired to Durham, where the bishop feasted him famously, giving him Durham mustard every day, as a condiment to the delicious dishes that were prepared for him. He next advanced to Newcastle, where the mayor entertained him sumptuously; but while the king went to dinner he heard that many of his troops were going to desert, and by the time he got to Berwick he was glad to listen to a proposition for a truce, which, after a good deal of trumpeting on both sides, was arranged without a blow—except those conveyed through the trumpet—on either.