The Presbyterian Covenanter movement has defeated the Scottish Royalists, who favor unconditional loyalty to King Charles I, by the time of the second Battle of Stirling, fought on the 12th of September 1648 as part of the War of the Three Kingdoms.

The Covenanters had then split apart, however, over what conditions peace should be made with the King.

The more moderate Engager faction favors peace with the King and alliance against his enemies, the English Parliament, in the English Civil War.

This view is by 1648 predominant in the Scottish Parliament.

A more extreme faction, the "Kirk Party" favors alliance with the Parliamentarians, with an eventual view to imposing Presbyterianism on the Three Kingdoms.

The Earl of Lanark, younger brother of the Duke of Hamilton, had been left to defend Scotland against Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll, a Covenanter who is now in open rebellion against the Scottish parliament, over their royalist sympathies.

The result is an Engager victory, with losses to the Covenanters of two hundred dead and four hundred captured.

Shortly after this battle, the army of the Earl of Lanark and the army of the Marquess of Argyll, which is commanded by David Leslie, make peace and join forces.