trose, carried Huntly
to Edinburgh. (The evidence is confused. Was Huntly unwilling to go?
Charles (York, April 23, 1639) calls him "feeble and false." Mr Gardiner
says that, in this case, and in this alone, Montrose stooped to a mean
action.) Hamilton merely dawdled and did nothing: Montrose had entered
Aberdeen (June 19), and then came news of negotiations between the king
and the Covenanters.

As Charles approached from the south, Alexander Leslie, a Continental
veteran (very many of the Covenant's officers were Dugald Dalgettys from
the foreign wars), occupied Dunse Law, with a numerous army in great
difficulties as to supplies. "A natural mind might despair," wrote
Waristoun, who "was brought low before God indeed." Leslie was in a
strait; but, on the other side, so was Charles, for a reconnaissance of
Leslie's position was repulsed; the king lacked money and supplies;
neither side was of a high fighting heart; and offers to negotiate came
from the king, informally. The Scots sent in "a supplication," and on
June 18 signed a treaty which was a mere futile truce. There were to be
a new Assembly, and a new Parliament in August and September.

Charles should have fought: if he fell he would fall with honour; and if
he survived defeat "all England behoved to have risen in revenge," says
the Covenanting letter-writer, Baillie, later Principal of Glasgow
University. The Covenanters at this time could not have invaded England,
could not have supported themselves if they did, and were far from being
harmonious among themselves. The defeat of Charles at this moment would
have aroused English pride and united the country. Charles set out from
Berwick for London on July 29, leaving many fresh causes of quarrel
behind him.

Charles supposed that he was merely "giving way for the present" when he
accepted the ratification by the new Assembly of all the Acts of that of
1638. He never had a later chance to recover his ground. The new
Assembly made the Privy Council pass an Act rendering signature of the
Covenant compulsory on all men: "the new freedom is worse than the old
slavery," a looker-on remarked. The Parliament discussed the method of
electing the Lords of the Articles--a method which, in fact, though of
prime importance, had varied and continued to vary in practice. Argyll
protested that the constitutional course was for each Estate to elect its
own members. Montrose was already suspected of being influ