God's Fury, England's Fire_ A New History of the English Civil Wars - Michael J. Braddick [26]
The political situation was now pretty intractable since bullying would not work and Charles would not make concessions, fearing the larger implications of accepting this lay influence over the direction of his church. Even given the intractability of the problem, however, it is difficult to fathom Charles’s tactics: he had made almost no effort to court moderate opinion in Scotland and nor was he careful to win the support of his English subjects. Although he was preparing to use English military and financial resources to resolve this problem he did not formally raise the issue with his English Privy Council until 1 July. This was the correct position in constitutional terms, since the two kingdoms shared a king but not their other governing institutions: Scottish affairs were for the Scottish Privy Council, and there was no formal body with responsibility for British affairs. But the consensus of most modern commentators is that this was stiff-necked as much as it was principled.87 In any case, it clearly left Hamilton with little more room for manoeuvre than had been enjoyed by the reviled Traquair. There is certainly little doubt that Hamilton, on behalf of the King, was seeking to buy time rather than to resolve the conflict.
On 9 September 1638 Charles withdrew the Prayer Book and affirmed the Negative Confession of 1581. These measures would have had more effect had they not come after failed attempts to face down opposition: a temporary suspension in August 1637 would almost certainly have been a more effective response, politically. It seems clear, though, that Charles had already decided on English military intervention. On 21 September, when further conciliatory measures were unveiled at a meeting of the Scottish Privy Council, Charles mentioned in a letter to Hamilton that cannon were being sent north to Hull.88 Nonetheless the concessions were significant: a General Assembly was summoned to meet in Glasgow and, in a shrewd manoeuvre, the ‘King’s Covenant’ was launched as an alternative to the National Covenant. This was based on proclamations affirming the 1581 confession and an anti-Catholic band of 1589. Its potential for cutting the ground from under the feet of the Covenanters was immediately appreciated by some of them, and wrangling followed as to whether it was inherently anti-episcopal (as some Covenanters liked to claim) and whether subsequent measures had been compatible with the 1581 confession. Although it did not succeed, it went further towards disrupting the Covenanters” solidarity than any other measure promoted by Charles.89
When the General Assembly met, the Covenanters were once again successful in mobilizing crowds: there was such a huge press of people around Glasgow Cathedral on the morning of the first meeting that members of the assembly had trouble taking up their places. A week of procedural wrangling was resolved in their favour too and Hamilton, recognizing defeat, walked out of the assembly. Unfortunately his dramatic exit was marred by the fact that the door had been locked behind him and he had to break his way out. The assembly continued to sit and to pass radical measures, all of which were dismissed by the King, who denied the legal powers of the assembly once his commissioner had dissolved it.90
Charles now planned military action for February or March 1639 using, in part, English money and men, but he did not plan to call an English parliament. The campaign against the Covenanters in 1639 therefore went ahead using prerogative powers. But Charles also intended to draw upon the military resources of his other (largely Catholic) kingdom, Ireland. The prospect of a papistical army being used to put down calls for further reformation was clearly an alarming one. In both respects – the reliance