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By design, and because of the substitution clause, the infantry contained large numbers of pressed men. Even husbandmen (small farmers) and agricultural labourers seem to have been spared, so that labourers in non-agricultural trades predominated – men without the status or patrons to protect them from service.16 They were often untrained and poorly armed or even unarmed. Although Charles raised significant sums in loans and contributions from prominent individuals, there was not enough money to make up the lack, since coat and conduct money barely covered the costs of getting soldiers to camp. It was also of dubious legality, raised by the lieutenancy, whose powers in that respect had been left poorly defined by the repeal of legislation in 1605. It had previously been used to get soldiers destined for foreign service to port, and was reimbursed (in theory at least) from parliamentary grants. Neither of these things was relevant to the current case, since this was not a force being raised for foreign service, and no parliament was planned. People were quite capable of making a connection between this and ship money. Many of the nobility were reluctant to serve in arms and the officer corps was inexperienced. England’s arms industry had not had regular business under Elizabeth or the early Stuarts, and it had atrophied during the Caroline peace. As a result ordnance was difficult to find.17 These latter problems reflect the relative lack of active warfare over the previous generation rather than a political weakness: no arms industry could thrive in the absence of a lively market.18

Contemporaries, not least the Covenanter leadership, were not convinced that the English forces were inferior to the Covenanters”, but there is little doubt that the Covenanters enjoyed more support in Scotland than Charles did in England. They were able to draw on the military experience of large numbers of men who had served in the continental wars, and that experience also informed the methods of mobilization, which was further inspired by the preaching of a committed clergy. There were fewer pressed men, and behind the whole effort lay greater enthusiasm for the cause.19

Despite the apparent problems of the English mobilization and the relative success of the Covenanters, the English defeat was by no means assured.20 It is clear though that the English camp at Birks, just south of the border, was an unhappy place – poorly provisioned, of uncertain morale and the rump of a once much more impressive strategy. Reservations were expressed there about whether to proceed, given the weakness of the army. In the event, the English threw in the towel without much of a fight. The Earl of Holland, second in command in the English army, advanced to Kelso, where he was probably fooled by Alexander Leslie into thinking that the Scottish forces were more numerous than they actually were. Holland withdrew, and when the Covenanters advanced to Duns Law on 5 June, the king agreed to negotiate.21

In seeking negotiation Charles was following the advice of the nobility in his camp and the decision probably rested as much on political as military calculation. The weakness of Scottish opposition to the Covenanters, the divided and often lukewarm English response and the threat of calling an English parliament persuaded him to do a deal.22 A Pacification was agreed at Berwick but it seems to have fudged the key issues. In return for the summoning of a General Assembly and parliament the Covenanters agreed to disband, free royalist prisoners and hand back royal castles. However, on the powers of the General Assembly (and hence, by implication, the future of episcopacy) the two sides seem to have had a quite different impression of what had been said. The King issued a declaration denying the legality of the measures taken by the General Assembly in Glasgow the previous year, but promised to deliver on the promises made by Hamilton. For the future,