ABSTRACT
The experience of defeat in 1648 did not heal the rifts among the Scots. The basic tensions between royalism and Presbyterianism remained. Chastised and forced to renounce the agreement with Charles I, the Engagers negotiated a treaty with Argyle that ensured the political domination of the Kirk party from September 1648 until the disaster at Dunbar two years later. Prominent Engagers, notably the second duke of Hamilton, recanted their agreement with Charles I and joined Argyle in a newly reformed Covenant ‘party’. The defeat and execution of Montrose by May 1650 and Charles II’s acceptance of the Covenant seemingly restored Scottish unity. Concurrently, the English invasion of July 1650 initially caused a unified Scottish reaction with the formation of a large defensive force and the mobilization of Scottish resources. But the new-found unity proved ephemeral. 1
