reformers. Their views were similar; their object the same. The Scots had, indeed, fought and won; but they held the fruit of their victory by a doubtful tenure, as long as the fate of their "English brethren" depended on the uncertain chances of war. Both policy and religion prompted them to interfere. The triumph of the parliament would secure their own liberties; it might serve to propagate the pure worship of their kirk. This had been foreseen by the Scottish royalists, and Montrose, who by the act against the plotters was debarred from all access to the king, took advantage of the queen's debarkation at Burlington to visit her at York. He pointed out to her the probability of the Scottish Covenanters sending their army to the aid of the parliament, and offered to prevent the danger by levying in Scotland an army of ten thousand royalists. But he was opposed by his enemy the marquess of Hamilton, who deprecated the arming of Scot against Scot, and engaged on his own responsibility to preserve the peace between the Scottish people and their sovereign. His advice, prevailed; the royalists in Scotland were ordered to follow him as their leader; and, to keep him true to the royal interest, the higher title of duke was conferred upon him.[1] If Hamilton was sincere, he had formed a false notion of his own importance. The Scottish leaders, acting as if they were independent of the sovereign, summoned a convention of estates. The estates met[a] in defiance of the king's prohibition; but, to their surprise and mortification, no commissioner had arrived from the English parliament. National jealousy, the known intolerance of the Scottish kirk, the exorbitant [Footnote 1: Clarendon, iv. 624. Guthrie, 127.] [Sidenote a: A.D. 1643. June 22.] claims set up by the Scottish leaders in the late invasion, contributed to deter many from accepting their new offers of assistance;[1] and more than two months were suffered to elapse before the commissioners, Vane, Armyn, Hatcher, and Darley, with Marshall, a Presbyterian, and Nye, an Independent divine, were despatched[a] with full powers to Scotland.[2] Both the convention of the estates and the assembly of the kirk had long waited to receive them; their arrival[b] was celebrated as a day of national triumph; and the letters which they delivered from the English parliament were read with shouts of exultation and tears of joy.[3] In the very outset of the negotiation two important difficulties occurred. The Scots professed a willingness to take up arms, but sought at the same time to assume the character of mediators and umpires, to dictate the terms of reconciliation, and to place themselves in a condition to extort the consent of the opposite parties. From these lofty pretensions they were induced to descend by the obstinacy of Vane and the persuasions of Johnston of Wariston, one of their subtlest statesmen; they submitted to act as the allies of the parliament; but required as an indispensable