No sudden blow was struck by the Scots. They had fastened themselves, in proper military fashion, on the north of England, and their presence there was useful; but that was all. It was a great disappointment to Baillie. He had expected that the appearance of his dear countrymen in England would put an end to the mere military "tig-tagging," as he had called it, of Essex and Waller, and quicken immediately the tramp of affairs. His belief all along had been that what was needed in England was an importation of Scottish impetuousness to animate the heavy English, and teach them the northern trick of carrying all things at the double with a hurrah and a yell. It was a sore affliction, therefore, to the good man that, from January 1643-4, on through February, March, April, May, and even June, the 21,000 Scots under Leslie should be in England, and yet be stirring so little. Instead of fighting their way southwards into the heart of the country, they were still squatting in the Northumbrian coal-region, and sticking there, not without some bad behaviour and disorder. Doubtless, it was all right in strategy, and Leslie knew what he was about; but oh, that it could have been otherwise! For of what use a great Scottish victory would have been at that time to the cause of Presbyterianism? Faster, more massively, more resistlessly than all the argumentations of Henderson, Gillespie, and Rutherford, aided by those of the Smectymnuans, with Vines, Palmer, Burges, and the rest of the English Presbyterians, such a victory would have crushed down the contentiousness of the Five Dissenting Brethren, and swept the propositions of complete Scottish Presbytery through the Westminster Assembly. Parliament, receiving these propositions, would have passed them with alacrity; and what could the English nation have done but acquiesce? But, alas! as things were! The Five Dissenting Brethren and the other "thraward wits" in the Assembly could still persevere in their struggle with the Presbyterian majority, debating every proposition that implied a surrender of Congregationalism, and conscious that in so impeding a Presbyterian settlement they were pleasing a growing body of their fellow-countrymen. What, though London was staunchly and all but universally Presbyterian? Throughout the country, and, above all, in the Army, the case was different. The inactivity of the Scots was affording time for the spirit of Independency to spread, and was giving rise to awkward questions. It began actually to be said of the Westminster Assembly, that it "did cry down the truth with votes, and was an Anti- Christian meeting which would erect a Presbytery worse than Bishops." In the Army especially such Anti-Presbyterian sentiments, and questionings of the infallibility of the Scots, had become rife. "The Independents have so managed matters," writes Baillie, April 26, "that of the officers and sojers in Manchester's army, certainly also in the General's