ABSTRACT
In 1639 and 1640 Charles acquired further knowledge of warfare by launching attacks on the Scottish Covenanters whom he regarded as rebels when they repudiated his ecclesiastical policy. The King appointed the Earl of Arundel, the connoisseur of painting and sculpture, to be his commander-in-chief: according to Edward Hyde he was ‘a man who had nothing martial about him but his presence and his looks’. The Earl of Arundel was replaced by the Earl of Northumberland as commander-in-chief, but before the campaign opened he was taken conveniently ill and had to be replaced by Thomas Wentworth Earl of Strafford, who was no soldier and crippled with gout and other illnesses. During the civil wars he treated the first Earl of Lindsey badly and dismissed Lord Wilmot, a capable cavalry officer, on an unjustified charge of treason.
