"Surely," wrote Cromwell, after the battle had been won, "it's probable the Kirk has done their do. I believe their King will set up upon his own score now, wherein he will find many friends." Charles himself seems to have taken the same view of the situation if it be true that, on receiving the news from Dunbar, he gave thanks to God 'that he was so fairly rid of his enemies'. At all events the key to the history of the next twelve months in Scotland is the attempt to convert a clerical into a national resistance. To Cromwell, an attempt to force England into political conformity with Scotland was as much to be resisted as an attempt to impose on her the Scottish religion. It was the despotic tendencies, not the fervour of that religion, that he disliked. The association of the laity with the clergy in the government of the Church was insufficient for him. His ideal community was one in which every layman was capable of performing spiritual functions. He would not listen to the objection of a colonel who complained that one of his officers 'was a better preacher than fighter'. "Truly," he replied, "I think that he that prays and preaches best, will fight best. I know nothing will give like courage as the knowledge of God in Christ will, and I bless God to see any in this army able and willing to impart the knowledge they have, for the good of others; and I expect it be encouraged by all the chief officers in this army especially; and I hope you will do so. I pray receive Captain Empson lovingly; I dare assure you he is a good man and a good officer. I would we had no worse." Unluckily there was no response amongst the Scottish laymen to such an appeal as this. They were satisfied--if religiously inclined--with the part assigned to them on Kirk Sessions or Presbyteries, and preferred to take their sermons from an ordained minister. Even those Presbyterians who distrusted a malignant King held aloof from the sectarian Englishman. In England, the news of the great victory was enthusiastically received. One hundred and sixty Scottish flags were hung up in Westminster Hall, and Parliament ordered that a medal, known as the 'Dunbar Medal,' the first war medal granted to an English army, should bear Cromwell's likeness on one side. Against this glorifying of himself Cromwell protested in vain, but for all that he could say, his own lineaments were not excluded. His work in Scotland was however far from being accomplished. The victory of Dunbar was in time followed by the surrender of Edinburgh Castle, brought about, it is said, by the treachery of the governor; but it was in vain that the conqueror attempted to win over the extreme Covenanters who held out in the west under Strachan and Ker, and in the end he had to send Lambert against them. Lambert fell upon them at Hamilton and broke their power of resistance.