The Scots have watched as England has slipped ever deeper into political quicksand in the weeks and months that followed the conclusion of the Second Bishops' War and the summoning of the Long Parliament.

What Charles gains with one hand he inevitably loses with the other.

It is sometimes argued that the Covenanters wished to recast the whole of Britain in their own Presbyterian image.

It is certainly true that they had been pressing for a full-scale reform in the English church since 1641, though this is not for the reasons usually given.

The Scots are as aware as the king that a political and religious settlement in one part of the realm cannot be maintained in perfect isolation from another.

It is a question, above all, of security.

In the hopes of winning Scottish support, Charles goes to Scotland in the autumn of 1641 where he gives titles to Leslie and Argyll, and accepts all the decisions of the General Assembly of 1638 and of the Scottish Parliament of 1641, including confirming the right of the Parliament to challenge the actions of his ministers.

He has now withdrawn all the causes of the original dispute, but within a year his disputes with the English Parliament will lead to civil war.