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for six or eight aldermen to attend you in person at the camp, which the other two lords do not like, but hold dangerous in these times; and in case the City should refuse the former, they know not how they can be compelled to it. I am humbly of opinion that both should be done, and if the former be refused, the chief officers of the City are answerable for so high a contempt: if the latter, the aldermen whom you shall summon to attend are finable." 1

Whilst Windebank was suggesting counsels so wild as these, the Queen was trembling lest the two armies should come to The Queen blows. At the suggestion of the adventurous Duchess of Chevreuse, she proposed to hasten to the camp, that she might adjure her husband not to expose his person to the risks of war.2

proposes to visit Berwick.

The contents of Windebank's despatch saved Charles from this embarrassing proof of wifely affection. On the 12th he learned that the Lord Treasurer had scraped together 20,000/ Deficiency for the needs of the army.3 By the 15th he must of supplies. have known that nothing was to be had from the The Scottish City, and on that day he despatched an answer to cepted. the Scots in which he practically accepted their terms. There was still some haggling over details, and it was not till the 5 17th that his answer assumed its final shape. On Signature of the 18th the treaty was signed.

terms ac

June 18.

the Treaty of Berwick.

By this treaty the Scots engaged to disband their troops, to break up the Tables and all unlawful committees, and to restore the royal castles to the King's officers. In return Charles engaged to send back his soldiers to their homes, and to issue a declaration in which he was to assure his subjects that, though he could not ratify the acts of the pretended

The King to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, June 4, S. P. Dom. ccccxxiii. 20. Windebank to the King, June 8, 11, Clarendon S. P. ii. 53, 54.

2 Con to Barberini, June Add. MSS. 15,392, fol. 176.

24

Note by the King, June 12, Clarendon S. P. ii. 54.

• Windebank's letter of the 11th must have reached him by that date. ⚫ Compare the first draft (S. P. Dom. ccccxxiii. 107) with the final treaty, Burnel 141.

1639

THE PACIFICATION.

41

Assembly of Glasgow, he was pleased that all ecclesiastical matters should be determined by Assemblies, and all civil matters by Parliaments and other legal judicatories. On August 6 a free General Assembly was to be held at Edinburgh, and on August 20 a Parliament was to follow. In this Parliament, in addition to other acts, an act of pardon and oblivion was to be passed.1

the North.

The pacification of Berwick came just in time to save from extinction the last remnants of a Royalist party in the North. The war in On the very day on which the treaty was signed, Montrose fell upon Aboyne at the Bridge of Dee close to Aberdeen. Though Aboyne's Highlanders withdrew in terror before the mother of the musket, as they styled Montrose's cannon, the men of Aberdeen and the Royalists of the Northern Lowlands held out firmly, and it was not till the afternoon of the second day that the position was forced. The storming party was led by Middleton, a rude soldier for whom a strange destiny was reserved. He lived to receive an earldom without any special merits of his own, to preside over the execution of Argyle, and over the reverent consignment to Christian burial of the shrivelled remains of the body of Montrose.

Storming of the Bridge of Dee.

Montrose

For the third time the Covenanting army entered Aberdeen. Montrose had brought with him orders to sack the again spares town. He disobeyed the pitiless injunction, and Aberdeen was saved. The arrival of news of the Treaty of Berwick put an end to all further hostilities.

Aberdeen.

As soon as it was known in England that a treaty had been signed, the utmost satisfaction was expressed. It was known

1 Rushworth, iii. 944.

It is generally supposed that Colonel Gun, who had been sent with Aboyne by Hamilton, was a traitor, and helped on the defeat. We have not his defence, and he may have been simply a methodical soldier, unused to Montrose's dashing ways. He had been recommended by Elizabeth for service, which would hardly have been the case unless he bore a good reputation abroad. Hamilton's double-dealing naturally brought sus picions upon him of any kind of villany. See Baille, i. 186; Gordon, ii. 269; Spalding, i. 209.

Satisfaction in England

that the peace had been to a great extent the work of the English nobility,' and few were aware how powerfully the King's financial difficulties had contributed to the result. For Henrietta Maria the mere cessation of danger to her husband was enough, and those who looked in her beaming face could see her happiness there.2

at the news

of the

treaty.

Project of

Scottish army to Germany.

The King's sister Elizabeth had reasons of her own for being equally well satisfied. She fondly hoped that something would at last be done for the Palatinate. So assured sending a were Leslie and the Covenanting leaders that all danger was past, that they offered to provide ten or twelve thousand Scottish soldiers for the service of the Elector Palatine. Charles was merely to furnish ships to transport them to the Continent, and to provide them with provisions till they reached their destination. Immediately on the signature of the treaty, Charles assured Leslie that he would agree to these terms. Before long, however, Leslie came to the conclusion that such conditions were insufficient. He required that Charles should ask the Scottish Parliament to provide pay for the army, and this request Charles refused to make.3

By this time indeed the prospect of a good understanding had already been clouded over. In accepting the King's declaration the Scots had been guided rather by Vagueness of the declara- their wishes than by their intelligence. Two capital points had been entirely passed over. Nothing was said in it either of the constitution of the future Assembly, or

tion.

"Il Conte di Olanda . . . parla. . . con grand' avantaggio delle ragioni che mossero li Scozzesi all' armi in modo che bisogna attribuire le buone conditioni date al loro non tanto all' affetto del kè verso la patria, quanto all' inclinatione della nobiltà Inglese alla causa loro, essendo vero che eccettuato il generale et il Conte di Bristo,

...

quasi tutti gli altri hanno favito alle pretensioni de' Scozzesi vergognosamente." Con to Barberini, July Add. MSS. 15.392, fol. 191.

2 Con to Barberini, July 1, Add. MSS. 15,392, fol. 182.

Elizabeth to Roe, July 2, 11. Cave to Roe, July 11, S. P. Germany. Salvetti's News-Letter, July

5

1639

Ecclesias

FRESH DIFFICULTIES.

43

of the course to be pursued if the Assembly came to resolutions obnoxious to the King. With a man of Charles's character, ever ready to claim all his formal rights, such omissions were likely to lead to serious consequences. The Scots had probably taken it for granted that he was merely seeking a decent veil to cover the reality of his defeat. They asserted that he had used words which implied as much, having assured them that he would not prelimit and forestall his voice, but he had appointed a free Assembly which might judge tical difficul- of ecclesiastical matters, the constitutions whereof he would ratify in the ensuing Parliament.' The accuracy of the paper which contained these words was indeed denied by the King, but it is not probable that the statement contained in it was substantially untruthful. The difficulty vanishes if we suppose that the King regarded the exercise of his veto as a most important part of the legislation of the Assembly, and that his subjects imagined that no such veto was to be heard of. Nor is it at all unlikely that Charles really believed that if the question of Episcopacy were seriously discussed, his views of the matter would gain the upper hand.2

ties.

Political

The ecclesiastical difficulty was dangerous enough. The political difficulty was still more dangerous. With the best possible intentions, the Scottish people could not difficulties. restore that fabric of ancient authority which had crumbled into dust. If Charles was ever to exercise power in Scotland again, he would have to toil painfully at its reconstruction. Either he must throw himself, as the too subtle Hamilton recommended, on the side of a nobility which was certain to have cause enough of discontent under the sway of

1 Peterkin's Records, 230.

• ...

2 Rossingham, who picked up the news floating in the camp, tells us that There was much ado whether there should be bishops, yea or no. The King pressed to have bishops, and the Scotch Commissioners most humbly presented it to His Majesty that the order of bishops was against the law of the land which His Majesty had promised to maintain ; wherefore at last, as I hear, His Majesty was graciously pleased to have that about the bishops to be disputed in their next Assembly.' NewsLetter, June 25, Add. MSS. 11,045, fol. 31 b.

the Presbyterian clergy; or else, as Montrose not long afterwards advised, he must accept the ecclesiastical settlement now proposed as final, in order to win back the goodwill of the nation itself by trying to promote its welfare within the lines of its own conceptions. Charles would hear nothing of either plan. He claimed authority as a right, not as the ripe fruit of helpful labour. He could not understand that resistance to himself had given rise to a new political organisation which could not at once drop out of remembrance for any words which might be inserted in a treaty. He looked for reverence and submission where he should have looked for an opportunity of renewing that bond between himself and his subjects which, through his own fault, had been so unhappily broken.

In spite of Charles's hopefulness, the difficulties in the way of the execution of the Treaty of Berwick were not long in disclosing themselves, and not a few of them were June 24. Hamilton at Owing to his own inconsiderate action. On June 24, Edinburgh. indeed, Hamilton received the keys of Edinburgh Castle, and installed General Ruthven, a stout soldier and a The Castle firm Royalist, as its governor. Yet it was difficult to surrendered. make the policy of surrender intelligible to the Edinburgh citizens. When Hamilton visited the Castle he was followed by four or five hundred persons, who jostled him in an unseemly manner. Scornful cries of "Stand by Jesus Christ!" were raised, and the Lord Commissioner was branded as an enemy of God and his country.'

Charles at
Berwick.

July 1.

Charles was still at Berwick. At first, he intended to preside in person over the Assembly and Parliament which he was about to summon, but before long he saw reason to change his purpose. The first serious offence came from himself. On July 1 a proclamation ordering fresh elections. for an Assembly which was to meet at Edinburgh was read at the Market Cross of that town. It invited all archbishops and bishops to take their places there. As might have been expected, the proclamation was met by a protestation. Once more the two parties stood Burnet, 144. Norgate to Read, June 27, 30, S. P. Dom. ccccxxiv. 77, 96.

Bishops summoned to the Assembly.

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