time to consider of it." Such was the report to the Lords, Wednesday Feb.
7, 1643-4, by the Earls of Rutland and Bolingbroke, who had been
appointed to deal with him and other absent Peers in the matter. "He
shall have time till Friday morning next," was the entry ordered to be
made. On the Friday named there is no mention of the subject in the Lords
Journals; but on Saturday the 10th Lords Rutland and Bolingbroke were
able to report that it was all right. Two days had convinced the Earl
that signing would be best for him. [Footnote: Lords Journals of dates
cited.]

Besides this universal imposition of the Covenant by Parliamentary
ordinance upon all who had hitherto neglected to take it, there was
another immediate effect of the presence of the Scots in England. The two
nations being now in arms for the same cause, the fortunes of each nation
depending largely on the conduct of the other, and the two national
armies indeed having to co-operate strategically, there required to be
some common directing power, intermediate between the English Parliament
in Westminster and the Scottish Estates in Edinburgh, representing both,
and acting for both in all matters of military concern. The Scots, on
their part, had made provision accordingly. Besides appointing a
stationary Committee of the Estates to manage matters from Edinburgh, and
another Committee to be with the Scottish army as a kind of Council to
the Earl of Leven, they had nominated (Jan. 9, 1643-4) a Special
Commission of four persons to go to London with full powers to represent
the views and interests of Scotland in the enterprise in which it was now
conjoined with England. These were--the EARL OF LOUDOUN, High Chancellor
of Scotland; LORD MAITLAND (already in London as Scottish Commissioner to
the Westminster Assembly); SIR ARCHIBALD JOHNSTONE OF WARRISTON (due in
London at any rate as a Commissioner to the Assembly); and MR. ROBERT
BARCLAY, Provost of Irvine in Ayrshire. These Commissioners having