ABSTRACT
On 28 December 1647 Charles rejected Parliament’s latest terms for settlement, the Four Bills. When it became apparent that the King had two days previously concluded an alliance known as the Engagement with a faction of the Scots, the Commons passed a Vote of No Addresses forbidding further negotiations with Charles. The effect on the New Model Army was even more dramatic, the soldiers vowing at a prayer meeting at Windsor Castle on 29 April to bring ‘Charles Stuart, that man of blood’ to account.1
