king's instructions,[*] Traquaire, the
commissioner, prorogued them. And on account of these claims, which
might have been foreseen, was the war renewed; with great advantages on
the side of the Covenanters and disadvantages on that of the king.

No sooner had Charles concluded the pacification without conditions
than the necessity of his affairs and his want of money obliged him to
disband his army; and as the soldiers had been held together solely
by mercenary views, it was not possible, without great trouble, and
expense, and loss of time, again to assemble them. The more prudent
Covenanters had concluded, that their pretensions being so contrary to
the interests, and still more to the inclinations, of the king, it was
likely that they should again be obliged to support their cause by arms;
and they were therefore careful, in dismissing their troops, to preserve
nothing but the appearance of a pacific disposition. The officers had
orders to be ready on the first summons: the soldiers were warned not to
think the nation secure from an English invasion: and the religious
zeal which animated all ranks of men, made them immediately fly to their
standards as soon as the trumpet was sounded by their spiritual and
temporal leaders. The credit which in their last expedition they
had acquired, by obliging their sovereign to depart from all his
pretensions, gave courage to every one in undertaking this new
enterprise.[**]

* Rush vol. iii. p. 955.

** Clarendon, vol. i. p. 125. Rush vol. iii. p. 1023.

{1640.} The king, with great difficulty, found means to draw together an
army; but soon discovered that all savings being gone, and great debts
contracted, his revenue would be insufficient to support them. An
English parliament, therefore, formerly so unkind and intractable, must
now, after above eleven years' intermission, after the king had tried
many irregular methods of taxation, after multiplied disgusts given to
the Puritanical party, be summoned to assemble, amidst the must pressing
necessities of the crown.

As the king resolved to try whether this house of commons would be
more compliant than their predecessors, and grant him supply on any
reasonable terms, the time appointed for the meeting of parliament was
late, and very near the time allotted for opening the campaign against
the Scots. After the past experience of their ill humor, and of their
encroaching disposition, he thought that he could not in