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King Charles I of England, who also ruled Scotland, had attempted to impose a new Anglican-oriented Prayer Book on the Scots. A riot at Edinburgh in 1637 started by Jenny Geddes quickly led to widespread resistance and signing of the National Covenant, and when in November 1638 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland at Glasgow defied Charles’s orders and abolished the office of bishop, the King had to choose between tame submission and immediate war. In 1639 he gathered an English force, and marched towards the border.
But English laymen, though asked to supply the money which Charles needed for the support of his army, deliberately kept it in their pockets, and the contributions of the clergy and of official persons were not sufficient to enable the King to keep his troops long in the field. He therefore thought it best to agree to terms in the "Pacification of Berwick" (18 June 1639), granting the Scots parliamentary and ecclesiatical freedoms.
Misunderstandings broke out as to the interpretation of the peace treaty, and Charles having discovered that the Scots were intriguing with France, fancied that England, in hatred of its ancient foe, would now be ready to rally to his standard. After having ruled alone for eleven years, in April 1640 he once more called a parliament.
The so-called Short Parliament demanded redress of grievances, the abandonment of the royal claim to levy ship money, and a complete change in the ecclesiastical system. Charles thought that it would not be worthwhile even to conquer Scotland on such terms, and dissolved parliament. A fresh war with Scotland followed.
The Scots crossed the River TweedThe River Tweed (156 kilometres or 97 miles long) flows primarily through the Borders region of Scotland. It rises on Tweedsmuir at Tweeds Well. It drains the entire Borders region. Its lower reaches mark the Scots border with England for 27 kilometres ne, and Charles’s army was well pleased to fly before them. In a short time the invaders overran the whole of NorthumberlandFor other places with this name, see Northumberland Northumberland is a county in England, on the border with Scotland. The county's largest boundaries were from the river Humber in the south, to the Forth in the North, as the kingdom of Northumbria under and County DurhamCounty Durham is a county in north-east England. Its county town is Durham. It is a county of contrasts: the remote and sparsely populated dales and moors of the Pennines characterise the interior; while nearer the coast the county is highly urbanised, an. (See Battle of NewburnThe Battle of Newburn took place in 1640 during the Bishops' Wars. Scottish Covenanters planted guns to protect them while fording the river Tyne near Newburn in Northumberland, after which they defeated the English on the Durham side of Newburn at Stella.) Charles had to leave the two counties in Scots hands as a pledge for the payment of Scots expenses when he agreed to peace and signed the Treaty of RiponThe Treaty of Ripon was an agreement signed by Charles I of England and the Scots on October 26 1640 in the aftermath of the Second Bishops' War. The treaty was a major setback for Charles, and its terms were deeply humiliating. The Treaty stipulated that in October 1640; and he also had to summon another parliament to grant him the supplies which he needed to make that payment. An impoverished King and a resurgent Long ParliamentThe Long Parliament is the name of the English Parliament called by Charles I, in 1640, following the Bishops' Wars. It receives its name from the fact that it sat almost continuously during the English Civil War until 1660. The sole reason Charles reasse now drifted towards civil war.
Original text based on http://1911encyclopedia.org