This in fact was the question at issue. He had intended to decide it in his own favour by superiority of arms, and to break down the political and military opposition [A.D. 1638.] in which the Scots had engaged. As he had not succeeded in doing this, while at the same time matters had not gone so far as to compel him to an absolute surrender--for at all events he had achieved one object, and had in the first place secured England against an invasion of the Scots, which had been feared--no final accommodation could be expected. The Scots declared in writing that their wishes were only directed to the maintenance of religion and liberty in accordance with the ecclesiastical and political laws of the country: that they would never desire anything which was not laid down in these; and that they were ready as loyal subjects to obey the King. Charles I replied, that if such were their wishes, they were also his own. A movement towards an approximation now took place, in which however each side reserved to itself its own views as to what the laws really contained. The agreement which was arrived at after some days (June 17), the so-called Pacification of Berwick, arranged that the Scottish army should be disbanded, the English fleet withdrawn from the Frith, the King’s castles with their ammunition restored to him, and that any vessels that had been detained should be returned to the Scots[124]. The King consented that in the following August first a free General Assembly, and immediately afterwards a Parliament also, should be held; that they should henceforward be regularly summoned, and that the one should have the decision of ecclesiastical, the other that of temporal affairs. He did not however consent to acknowledge the last Assembly at Glasgow as legal, from considerations, as was said in the proclamation, which were imposed upon him by the sovereign power which had descended to him from his ancestors. What were these considerations? Even if Charles I allowed everything which he or his father had lately introduced to be swept away, yet he would not permit that any part of it should be declared illegal or papistical. He would not allow the reproach of having ordained anything illegal to fall either on himself or on his father. He [A.D. 1638.] assented to the most important enactments of the Assembly at Glasgow; he assented provisionally even to the abolition of episcopacy; but he held to the view that the Assembly had been illegally summoned, and was illegal: that which might be reaffirmed in a new assembly approved by him, and that only, would he then ratify. In other matters also he clung with similar inflexibility to his conception of the supreme power which must remain in his hands. He was ready to allow periodical ecclesiastical and temporal assemblies to meet. His commissary was to be instructed to proclaim the meeting of such an assembly again within a year; but it appeared to him insufferable that he should be pledged