Solemn League and Covenant

This was acceptable to the majority of the English Long Parliament, as many MPs were Presbyterians, while others preferred allying with the Scots rather than losing the Civil War.

However, not all those on the English Parliamentarian side were happy with this arrangement and some, like John Lilburne, chose to leave the parliamentary armies rather than take the oath prescribed in the Act enforcing the Solemn League and Covenant.

After the Kirk Party seized power from the unsuccessful and therefore discredited Engagers, the new Scottish Covenanter government persuaded the exiled Charles II to agree to the terms of the Solemn League and Covenant in the Treaty of Breda (1650).

However, the defeat of the Royalist and Scottish army at the Battle of Worcester in 1651 ended the relevance of the Solemn League and Covenant as the power of the Presbyterians was broken on both sides of the border.

After the Restoration the English Parliament passed the Sedition Act 1661, which declared that the Solemn League and Covenant was unlawful, was to be abjured by all persons holding public offices, and was to be burnt by the common hangman.