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and sermons, some of a great length. I remember in one fast day there were six sermons preached without intermission. I was there my self, and not a little weary of so tedious a service a. The king was not allowed so much as to walk abroad on Sundays and if at any time there had been any gayety at court, such as dancing, or playing at cards, he was severely reproved for it. This was managed with so much rigour and so little discretion, that it contributed not a little to beget in him an aversion to all sort of strictness in religion. All that had acted on his father's side were ordered to keep at a great distance from him: and because the common 54 people shewed some affection to the king, the crowds that pressed to see him were also kept off from coming about him. Cromwell was not idle: but seeing the Scots were calling home their king, and knowing that from thence he might expect an invasion into England, he resolved to prevent them, and so marched into Scotland with his army. The Scots brought together a very good army: the king was suffered to come once to see it, but not to stay in it; for they were afraid he might gain too much upon the soldiers: so he was sent away.

The defeat at Dunbar.

The army was indeed one of the best that ever Scotland had brought together: but it was ill commanded for all that had made defection from their cause, or that were thought indifferent as to either side, which they called detestable neutrality, were put out of commission. The preachers thought it an army of saints, and seemed well assured of success. They drew near Cromwell, who being pressed

• Burnet was not then eight years old. S.

by them retired towards Dunbar, where his ships and provisions lay. The Scots followed him, and were posted on a hill about a mile from thence, where there was no attacking them. Cromwell was then in great distress, and looked on himself as undone. There was no marching towards Berwick, the ground was too narrow nor could he come back into the country without being separated from his ships, and starving his army. The least evil seemed to be to kill his horses, and put his army on board, and sail back to Newcastle; which, in the disposition that England was in at that time, would have been all their destruction, for it would have occasioned an universal insurrection for the king. They had not above three days' forage for their horses. So Cromwell called his officers to a day of seeking the Lord, in their style. He loved to talk much of that matter all his life long afterwards he said, he felt such an enlargement of heart in prayer, and such quiet upon it, that he bade all about him take heart, for God had certainly heard them, and would appear for them. After prayer they walked in the earl of Roxburgh's gardens, that lay under the hill: and by prospective glasses they discerned a great motion in the Scotish camp: upon which Cromwell said, God is delivering them into our hands, they are coming down to us. Lesley was in the chief command: but he had a .committee of the states to give him his orders, among whom Waristoun was one. These were weary of lying in the fields, and thought that Lesley made not haste enough to destroy those sectaries; for so they came to call them. He told them, by lying there all was sure; but that by engaging in action with gallant and desperate men, all might be

Disputes

lost yet they still called on him to fall on. Many have thought that all this was treachery, done on 55 design to deliver up our army to Cromwell; some laying it upon Lesley, and others upon my uncle. I am persuaded there was no treachery in it: only Waristoun was too hot, and Lesley was too cold, and yielded too easily to their humours, which he ought not to have done. They were all the night employed in coming down the hill: and in the morning, before they were put in order, Cromwell fell upon them. Two regiments stood their ground, and were almost all killed in their ranks: the rest did run in a most shameful manner: so that both their artillery and baggage were lost, and with these a great many prisoners were taken, some thousands in all. Cromwell upon this advanced to Edenburgh, where he was received without any opposition; and the castle, that might have made a long resistance, did capitulate. So all the southern part of Scotland came under contribution to Cromwell. Stirling was the advanced garrison on the king's side. He himself retired to St. Johnstoun. A parliament was called that sat for some time at Stirling, and for some time at St. Johnstoun, in which a full indemnity was passed, not in the language of a pardon, but of an act of approbation: only all that joined with Cromwell were declared traitors. But now the way of raising a new army was to be thought on.

about the

A question had been proposed both to the comadmitting mittee of states and to the commissioners of the of all per- kirk, whether in this extremity those who had made serve their defection, or had been hitherto too backward in the

sons to

country.

work, might not upon the profession of their re

pentance be received into public trust, and admitted to serve in the defence of their country. To this, answers were distinctly given by two resolutions: the one was, that they ought to be admitted to make profession of their repentance: and the other was, that after such professions made they might be received to defend and serve their country.

Upon this, a great division followed in the kirk: those who adhered to these resolutions were called the public resolutioners: but against these some of those bodies protested, and they, together with those who adhered to them, were called the protestors. On the one hand it was said, that every government might call out all that were under its protection to its defence: this seemed founded on the law of nature and of nations: and if men had been misled, it was a strange cruelty to deny room for repentance: this was contrary to the nature of God, and to the gospel, and was a likely mean to drive them to despair: therefore, after two years' time, it seemed reasonable to allow them to serve according to their birthright in parliament, or in other hereditary offices, or in the army; from all which they had been 56 excluded by an act made in the year 1649, which ranged them in different classes, and was from thence called the act of classes. But the protestors objected against all this, that to take in men of known enmity to the cause was a sort of betraying it, because it was the putting it in their power to betray it; that to admit them into a profession of repentance was a profanation, and a mocking of God: it was visible, they were willing to comply with these terms, though against their conscience, only to get into the army: nor could they expect a

blessing from God on an army so constituted. And as to this particular, they had great advantage; for this mock penitence was indeed a matter of great scandal. When these resolutions were passed with this protestation, a great many of the five western counties, Cliddisdale, Renfrew, Air, Galloway, and Nithisdale, met, and formed an association apart, both against the army of sectaries, and against this new defection in the kirk party. They drew a remonstrance against all the proceedings in the treaty with the king, when, as they said, it was visible by the commission he granted to Montrose that his heart was not sincere: and they were also against the tendering him the covenant, when they had reason to believe he took it not with a resolution to maintain it, since his whole deportment and private conversation shewed a secret enmity to the work of God: and, after an invidious enumeration of many particulars, they imputed the shameful defeat at Dunbar to their prevaricating in these things; and concluded with a desire, that the king might be excluded from any share in the administration of the government, and that his cause might be put out of the state of the quarrel with the army of the sectaries. This was brought to the committee of the states at St. Johnstoun, and was severely inveighed against by sir Thomas Nicholson, the king's advocate or attorney general there, who had been till then a zealous man of their party: but he had lately married my sister, and my father had great influence on him. He prevailed so, that the remonstrance was condemned as divisive, factious, and scandalous but that the people might not be too much moved with these things, a declaration was

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