In the end of 1647 the Scots again entered into the long series of negotiations with the king.  When Charles was a prisoner at Newport, and while he was arranging terms with the English, he entered into a secret agreement with commissioners from Scotland.  The “Engagement”, as it was called, embodied the conditions which Charles had refused at Newcastle—­the recognition of Presbytery in Scotland and its establishment in England for three years, the king being allowed toleration for his own form of worship.  The Engagement was by no means unanimously carried in the Scottish Parliament, and its results were disastrous to Charles himself.  It caused the English Parliament to pass the vote of No Addresses, and the second civil war, which it helped to provoke, had a share in bringing about his death.  The Duke of Hamilton led a small army into England, where in August 17th, 1648, it was totally defeated by Cromwell at Preston.  Meanwhile the Hamilton party had lost power in Scotland, and when Cromwell entered Scotland, Argyll, who had opposed the Engagement, willingly agreed to his conditions, and accepted the aid of three English regiments.  In the events of the next six months Scotland had no part nor lot.  The responsibility for the king’s death rests on the English Government alone.

The news of the execution of the king was at once followed by the fall of Argyll and his party.  The Scots had no sympathy with English republicanism, and they were alarmed by the growth of Independency in England.  On February 5th Charles II was proclaimed King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, and the Scots declared themselves ready to defend his cause by blood, if only he would take the Covenant.  This the young king refused to do while he had hopes of success in Ireland.  Meanwhile three of his most loyal friends perished on the scaffold.  The English, who held the Duke of Hamilton as a prisoner, put him to death on March 9th, 1649, and on the 22nd day of the same month the Marquis of Huntly was beheaded at Edinburgh.  On April 27th, Montrose, who had collected a small army and taken the field in the northern Highlands, was defeated at Carbisdale and taken prisoner.  On the 25th May he was hanged in Edinburgh, and with his death the story is deprived of its hero.

The pressure of misfortune finally drove Charles to accept the Scottish offers.  Even while Montrose was fighting his last battle, his young master was negotiating with the Covenanters.  Conferences were held at Breda in the spring of 1650, and Charles landed at the mouth of the river Spey on the 3rd July, having taken the Covenant.  In the middle of the same month Cromwell crossed the Tweed at the head of an English army.  The Scots, under Leven and David Leslie, took up a position near Edinburgh, and, after a month’s fruitless skirmishing, Cromwell had to retire to Dunbar, whither Leslie followed him.  By a clever manoeuvre, Leslie intercepted Cromwell’s retreat on Berwick, while he also seized Doon Hill,