We have not lost sight of the chief disputes which had caused the breach between the King and Parliament, concerning which, as the King did not give way, nothing had been decided by all these acts of violence. The positive character of the opposition now coming to light, and the evident usurpation by the oligarchy in Parliament, operated instead to give the King's name once more a footing with the people. The contest hitherto had been waged against the lawfulness and extent of the royal authority: but in the encounter of selfish factions men began to discover that a chief power, supreme but not unlimited, not directly dependent on a change in the majority, and personally comprising all general interests, was politically an advantage. The King had innumerable adherents in the capital: there was not a county in which associations in his favour, as the phrase was, ‘for the liberation of the King and Parliament,’ had not been formed. Though the Royalists also were busy, the movement derived its character chiefly from the fact that the Presbyterians found the turn which affairs had taken, and the predominance of their hated opponents, quite unendurable. The Commissioners of the Scots, who saw themselves no longer admitted to any committees, and their despatches and memorials, as well as the terms of the last treaty of union, unnoticed, were most excited of all. They already noted the intention to exclude their countrymen from Ireland: it was obvious that the victory of the Independents was a defeat for the Presbyterians in general, and especially for the Scots.