"Scotland had been hitherto kept aloof from the English quarrel. ... Up to this time the pride and delicacy of the English patriots withheld them, for obvious reasons, from claiming her assistance. Had it been possible, they would still have desired to engage no distant party in this great domestic struggle; but when the present unexpected crisis arrived ... these considerations were laid aside, and the chief leaders of the Parliament resolved upon an embassy to the North, to bring the Scottish nation into the field. The conduct of this embassy was a matter of the highest difficulty and danger. The Scots were known to be bigoted to their own persuasions of narrow and exclusive church government, while the greatest men of the English Parliament had proclaimed the sacred maxim that every man who worshipped God according to the dictates of his conscience was entitled to the protection of the State. But these men, Vane, Cromwell, Marten and St. John, though the difficulties of the common cause had brought them into the acknowledged position of leaders and directors of affairs, were in a minority in the House of Commons, and the party who were their superiors in numbers were as bigoted to the most exclusive principles of Presbyterianism as the Scots themselves. Denzil Holies stood at the head of this inferior class of patriots. ... The most eminent of the Parliamentary nobility, particularly Northumberland, Essex and Manchester belonged also to this body; while the London clergy, and the metropolis itself, were almost entirely Presbyterian. These things considered, there was indeed great reason to apprehend that this party, backed by the Scots, and supported with a Scottish army, would be strong enough to overpower the advocates of free conscience, and 'set up a tyranny not less to be deplored than that of Laud and his hierarchy, which had proved one of the main occasions of bringing on the war.' Yet, opposing to all this danger only their own high purposes and dauntless courage, the smaller party of more consummate statesmen were the first to propose the embassy to Scotland. ... On the 20th of July, 1643, the commissioners set out from London. They were four; and the man principally confided in among them was Vane [Sir Henry, the younger]. He, indeed, was the individual best qualified to succeed Hampden as a counsellor in the arduous struggle in which the nation was at this time engaged. ... Immediately on his arrival in Edinburgh the negotiation commenced, and what Vane seems to have anticipated at once occurred. The Scots offered their assistance heartily on the sole condition of an adhesion to the Scottish religious system on the part of England. {871} After many long and very warm debates, in which Vane held to one firm policy from the first, a solemn covenant was