The English Civil War | The Bishop's War I & II (1639—1640)

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The original plan for Charles soon became undone. In February 1639 the Covenanters struck first by taking the castled town of Inverness, securing the munitions stored there. A few days later, Huntly responded by moving his horsemen on a Covenanters’ meeting at Turriff but withdrew when it was clear that his outnumbered opponents were up for a fight. The Covenanters Alexander Leslie and James Graham, the Fifth Earl of Montrose, combined their north-eastern forces and captured Aberdeen. They entered Aberdeen in March unopposed and captured Huntly in the process. The same month Covenanter forces captured the castles at Dunglass and Tantallon, but it was the capture a few days later of Edinburgh Castle that caused serious disruption to Charles’s plan. Hamilton’s amphibious force would now have to divert to the Firth of Forth.
Hamilton anchored off Leith on 1st of May. He waited for the King’s army to approach from the south before disembarking. Charles arrived at York on 30th of March and was disappointed both in the size and the quality of the troops. Charles also received news that Antrim’s force of 10,000 was destined never to leave Ireland due to clan politics. Charles ordered Thomas Wentworth to replace Antrim and come over with a force from the Irish army. Wentworth however was not ready to mobilize and pleaded with the King to wait. But Charles arrived on the 30th of May with his army at Birks, 3 miles west of Berwick. It was the first army he had ever commanded in the field. 
Leslie had begun concentrating forces protecting the Scottish borders as early as April. The Covenanters were ordered not to advance closer than 10 miles of the border but on 25th of April some of the English troops entered Scotland and read out the King’s proclamation at Duns. The Covenanters promptly moved forces further south. One such group was stationed in Kelso and on the 3rd of June, Charles sent just over 3,000 men to drive them out. The English force quickly found themselves outnumbered and in danger of being cut off so retreated back to Birks. Leslie then moved nearly 20,000 men to Duns on 5th of June. In a major intelligence blunder by the English, the Covenanter army were able to move within striking distance unnoticed and unreported by the English. The Covenanters could actually see the king’s pavilion before Charles was aware they were there. “Have not I good intelligence”, lamented the King, “that the rebels can march with their army and encamp within sight of mine, and I not have a word of it till the Body of their Army give the alarm?” This resulted in a humiliating retreat witnessed and mocked by the entire Scottish army. Charles lost his nerve and wasted little time in agreeing to a treaty negotiated by the Scots. He and the Covenanter nobles signed the Treaty of Berwick on 18th of June. The two armies disbanded, work was halted on all fortifications, all castles belonging to the King would be restored and all Royalist prisoners freed.
In July, agreements between the King and the Covenanters did not progress. In the end Charles decided not to attend the assembly in Edinburgh but decided to send a representative. By November Charles pushed to have the Scottish Parliament discontinued for 6 months until June 1640. Despite his earlier military rebuke, he was determined to bring the matter to a close by force. Turning once again to his Lord Deputy in Ireland, Thomas Wentworth was summoned back to England—while still holding the reins in Ireland—to become the King’s closest advisor in matters of war. In January he was created the Earl of Strafford. Strafford embraced his new appointment and did everything he could to squeeze funds from Parliament in order to raise the war effort.
Under the King’s authority Strafford left for Ireland to raise an army of 8,000 foot and 1,000 horse in March 1640. With debts incurred from the first Bishops’ War and with the payment of Ship Money ceased, Charles begrudgingly recalled Parliament for the first time in 11 years. They met on 13 April 1640 and agreed to vote huge sums for the war effort—but first their own grievances were to be addressed. Despite his desperation for funds, Charles could not meld with Parliament’s approach to government. After just three weeks he dissolved the ‘Short Parliament’. Charles attempted to secure funds from Spain, and after that failed, agreed to allow his Queen to approach the Vatican’s emissary on the possibility of a loan from the pope. To worsen matters, wholesale desertion began among the newly levied troops. The militiamen became disorderly and in some cases whole units mutinied and even murdered their Catholic officers.