King Charles, despite his problems in raising funds, gathers a poorly trained English force of around twenty thousand men in the early summer of 1639 and marches towards the border.

He is confronted at Berwick-upon-Tweed by a better organized force led by Leslie.

As neither side wants to fight, a settlement with no settlement, "the Pacification of Berwick", is reached in June under which the Covenanters agree to withdraw the decisions of the 'illegal' Glasgow Assembly and the king agrees that all disputed questions should be referred to another General Assembly that would meet in Edinburgh or to the Parliament of Scotland.

It is obvious to both sides that Edinburgh will simply confirm all the decisions taken at Glasgow.

Charles, however, does have one small success while at Berwick: he has won over Montrose, hitherto a leading Covenanter.

This is not entirely due to the royal charm.

At the time of the Glasgow Assembly Lord Lorne, now the eighth Earl of Argyll, had abandoned his place on the royal council and joined the Covenanter rebels.

As the leading Scot of his generation he had quickly acquired a commanding role, thus displacing men like Montrose.

Personal rivalry, as well as political hostility, are to lead to the first serious fracture in the whole movement.