England will sympathise with them in the stress of affairs which compelled them to overstep their borders, and will aid them in the measures which they are taking to obtain their just desires. They promise that in their advance they will exact nothing by force: but should their resources be exhausted they reckon upon the support of the English[185]. This lofty mode of expression, to which a certain amount of truth cannot be denied, accounts for the silence of all opposition, at all events in those circles which had attached themselves to the religious cause for which the Scots contended. In the army moreover there were men serving who did not wish to see the monarchy put down. [A.D. 1640.] In all the churches prayers were offered for the General, who purposed to go to England with his army, and to confer with the King. In the latter half of July, the army mustered at Cheslaw Wood, near Dunse; one half of the Committee of Estates was to accompany it, the other half was to remain behind. It was not intended to take Highlanders across the border. Argyle led his own men into the field against the Ogilvies and the district of Athol, where the opposition was kept up. It was not until August 18 that the army broke up from the place of rendezvous. There may have been somewhat over 20,000 men: with the native leaders of high rank there were associated a number of captains who had gained experience in the German war, and who maintained military discipline. Lesley, who was connected with the former by political sympathies, and with the latter by common service in past time, was again invested with the supreme command. Two days afterwards the Scots crossed the river Tweed, the boundary between the two countries. The cavalry halted in the water, in order to break the force of the stream, while the infantry waded across. Montrose dismounted from his horse, and marched over at the head of his regiment; he was the first of them all to tread on English soil. The Scots did not find any dispositions made to meet them at the border; they advanced into Northumberland without opposition. It was only on arriving at the fords of the Tyne that they came upon a couple of breastworks upon which cannon were planted. They set up a camp, around which hundreds of coal-fires illuminated the horizon; they still however refrained from making any attack.