York, where he had a full court, those noblemen of the northern parts, and many others who overtook not the king till then, joining all in that city; where his majesty found it necessary to stay some days; and there the fruit, that was to be gathered from such a conflux, quickly budded out. Some rules were to be set down for the government of the army; and the court was too numerous to be wholly left to its own license; and the multitude of the Scots in it administered matter of offence and jealousy to people of all conditions, who had too much cause to fear that the king was every day betrayed; the common discourse by all the Scots being either magnifying the good intentions of their countrymen, and that they had all duty for the king, or undervaluing the power and interest of those who discovered themselves against the church.

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It was therefore thought fit by the whole body of the council, that a short protestation should be drawn, in which all men should "profess their loyalty " and obedience to his majesty, and disclaim and renounce the having any intelligence, or holding any correspondence with the rebels." No man imagined it possible that any of the English would refuse to make that protestation; and they who thought worst of the Scots did not think they would make any scruple of doing the same, and consequently that there would be no fruit or discovery from that test; but they were deceived. The Scots indeed took it to a man, without grieving their conscience, or reforming their manners. But amongst the English nobility the lord Say, and the lord Brook, (two popular men, and most undevoted to the church, and, in truth, to the whole government,)

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positively refused, in the king's own presence, to make any such protestation. They said, "If the Iking suspected their loyalty, he might proceed against them as he thought fit; but that it was against the law to impose any oath or protestation upon them which were not enjoined by the law; and, in 'that respect, that they might not betray "the common liberty, they would not submit to it." This administered matter of new dispute in a very unseasonable time; and though there did not then appear more of the same mind, and they two were committed, at least restrained of their liberty; yet this discovered too much the humour and spirit of the court in their daily discourses upon that subject; so that the king thought it best to dismiss those two lords, and require them to return to their houses and if all the rest who were not officers of the army, or of absolute necessity about the king's person, had been likewise dismissed and sent home, the business had been better prosecuted.

Indeed, if the king himself had stayed at London, or, which had been the next best, kept his court and resided at York, and sent the army on their proper errand, and left the matter of the war wholly to them, in all human reason, his enemies had been speedily subdued, and that kingdom reduced to their obedience, which it would not have been easy for them to have shaken off.

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Before the king left York, letters and addresses were sent from the Scots, lamenting their ill for"tune, that their enemies had so great credit with "the king, as to persuade him to believe, that they were or could be disobedient to him, a thing that "could never enter into their loyal hearts; that

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they desired nothing but to be admitted into the "presence of their gracious sovereign, to lay their grievances at his royal feet, and leave the deter“mination of them entirely to his own wisdom and pleasure." And though the humility of the style gained them many friends, who thought it great pity that any blood should be spilt in a contention which his majesty might put an end to by his own word, as soon as he would hear their complaints; yet hitherto the king preserved himself from being wrought upon, and marched with convenient expedition to the very borders of Scotland, and encamped with his army in an open field, called the Berkes, on the further side of Berwick, and lodged in his tent with the army, though every day's march wrought very much upon the constitution if not the courage of the court, and too many wished aloud, "that the business were brought to a fair treaty."

Upon advertisement that a party of the Scots army was upon their march, the earl of Holland was sent with a body of three thousand horse, and two thousand foot, with a fit train of artillery, to meet it, and engage with it; who marched accordingly into Scotland early in a morning as far as a place called Dunce, ten or twelve miles into that kingdom. It was in the beginning of August, when the nights are very short, and, as soon as the sun rises, the days for the most part hotter than is reasonably expected from the climate, and by the testimony of all men that day was the hottest that had been known. When the earl came with his horse to Dunce, he found the Scots drawn up on the side of a hill, where the front could only be in view, and where, he was informed, the general Lesley

and the whole army was; and it was very true, they were all there indeed; but it was as true, that all did not exceed the number of three thousand men, very ill armed, and most country fellows, who were on the sudden got together to make that show: and Lesley had placed them by the advantage of that hill so speciously, that they had the appearance of a good body of men, there being all the semblance of great bodies behind on the other side of the hill; the falsehood of which would have been manifest as soon as they should move from the place where they were, and from whence they were therefore not to stir.

The horse had outmarched the foot, which, by reason of the excessive heat, was not able to use great expedition: besides, there was some error in the orders, and some accidents of the night that had retarded them; so that when the enemy appeared first in view, the foot and the artillery was three or four miles behind.

Nothing can be said in the excuse of the counsel of that day, which might have made the king a glorious king indeed. The earl of Holland was a man of courage, and at that time not at all suspected to be corrupted in his affections; and though himself had not seen more of the war than two or three campaigns in Holland before his coming to the court, he had with him many as good officers as the war of that age, which was very active, had made, and men of unquestionable courage and military knowledge. As he might very safely have made a halt at Dunce, till his foot and artillery came up to him, so he might securely enough have engaged his body of horse against their whole

pitiful army, there being neither tree nor bush to interrupt his charge; but it was thought otherwise; and no question it was generally believed, by the placing and drawing out their front in so conspicuous a place, by the appearance of other troops behind them, and by the shewing great herds of cattle at a distance upon the hills on either side, that their army was very much superior in number. And therefore, as soon as the earl came in view, he despatched messengers one after another to the king, with an account of what he heard and saw, or believed he saw, and yet thought not fit to stay for an answer; but with the joint consent of all his superior officers (for it was never after pretended that any one officer of name dissuaded it, though they were still ashamed of it) retired towards his foot, to whom he had likewise sent orders not to advance; and so wearied and tired by the length of the march, and more by the heat of the weather, which was intolerable, they returned to the camp where the king was; and the Scots drew a little back to a more convenient post for their residence.

The covenanters, who very well understood the weakness of the court, as well as their own want of strength, were very reasonably exalted with this success, and scattered their letters abroad amongst the noblemen at court, according to the humours of the men to whom they writ; there being upon the matter an unrestrained intercourse between the king's camp and Edinburgh.

They writ three several letters to the three generals, the earl of Arundel, the earl of Essex, and the earl of Holland. That to the earl of Essex was in