required to assist Parliament in pleading with the Scots. The Scottish
Convention of Estates was then sitting (it had met, by express call, June
22); and the Scottish General Assembly was to meet on the 2nd of August.
Let there be Commissioners from both the English Parliament and the
Westminster Assembly to these two bodies; let the Assembly write letters
to the Scottish Assembly, backing the political application with
religious arguments; let every exertion be made to secure a new alliance
with the Scottish nation! Accordingly, while the Assembly was pursuing
its revision of the Articles, or occupying itself with such incidental
matters as the appointment of ministers to preach before the two Houses,
and the recommendation of a Fast Day extraordinary in London, their
thoughts, like those of Parliament, were chiefly fixed on the issue of
their joint embassy to Edinburgh. [Footnote: Lightfoot's Notes for July
1643; and my MS. chronology of events]

The Scots had foreseen the application. Three courses were before them.
They might remain neutral; they might interfere as "redders," or
mediators between the King and the English Parliament; or they might
openly side with the Parliament and help it in the war. Great efforts had
been made by the King to induce the Scots to the first course. [Footnote:
Burnet's Dukes of Hamilton (ed. 52), pp. 279-298] Five or six of the
Scottish noblemen who were with the King at Oxford had been sent back
among their countrymen to labour for this end. All in vain. It had become
clear to Argyle, Loudoun, Warriston, and the other Scottish leaders, that
neutrality would be ruinous. Things were in this state when the
Commissioners from the English Parliament and the Westminster Assembly
arrived in Edinburgh (Aug. 7). The Scottish Convention of Estates was
then still sitting; and the General Assembly of the Scottish Kirk, with
Alexander Henderson again its Moderator (the third time he had been
raised to this Presidency), was in the middle of its annual fortnight or