_A._ The King having yielded to all that the Church required, the Scots proceeded in their intended war. Cromwell marched on to Edinburgh, provoking them all he could to battle; which they declining, and provisions growing scarce in the English army, Cromwell retired to Dunbar, despairing of success; and intending by sea or land to get back into England. And such was the condition which this general Cromwell, so much magnified for conduct, had brought his army to, that all his glories had ended in shame and punishment, if fortune and the faults of his enemies had not relieved him. For as he retired, the Scots followed him close all the way till within a mile of Dunbar. There is a ridge of hills, that from beyond Edinburgh goes winding to the sea, and crosses the highway between Dunbar and Berwick, at a village called Copperspeith, where the passage is so difficult, that had the Scots sent timely thither a very few men to guard it, the English could never have gotten home. For the Scots kept the hills, and needed not have fought but upon great advantage, and were almost two to one. Cromwell’s army was at the foot of those hills, on the north side; and there was a great ditch or channel of a torrent between the hills and it; so that he could never have got home by land, nor without utter ruin of the army attempted to ship it; nor have stayed where he was, for want of provisions. Now Cromwell knowing the pass was free, and commanding a good party of horse and foot to possess it, it was necessary for the Scots to let them go, whom they bragged they had impounded, or else to fight; and therefore with the best of their horse they charged the English, and made them at first shrink a little. But the English foot coming on, the Scots were put to flight; and the flight of the horse hindered the foot from engaging; who therefore fled, as did also the rest of their horse. Thus the folly of the Scottish commanders brought all their odds to an even lay between two small and equal parties; wherein fortune gave the victory to the English, who were not many more in number than those that were killed and taken prisoners of the Scots; and the Church lost their cannon, bag and baggage, with 10,000 arms, and almost their whole army. The rest were got together by Lesley to Stirling. _B._ This victory happened well for the King. For had the Scots been victors, the Presbyterians, both here and there, would have domineered again, and the King been in the same condition his father was in at Newcastle, in the hands of the Scottish army. For in pursuit of this victory, the English at last brought the Scots to a pretty good habit of obedience for the King, whensoever he should recover his right.