339.
As the Scots concurred with the English in imposing such severe conditions on the king, that, notwithstanding his unfortunate situation, he still refused to accept of them, it is certain that they did not desire his freedom: nor could they ever intend to join lenity and rigor together, in so inconsistent a manner.

Before the settlement of terms, the administration must be possessed entirely by the parliaments of both kingdoms; and how incompatible that scheme with the liberty of the king, is easily imagined.

To carry him a prisoner into Scotland, where few forces could be supported to guard him, was a measure so full of inconvenience and danger, that, even if the English had consented to it, it must have appeared to the Scots themselves altogether uneligible: and how could such a plan be supported in opposition to England, possessed of such numerous and victorious armies, which were, at that time at least seemed to be, in entire union with the parliament?
The only expedient, it is obvious, which the Scots could embrace, if they scrupled wholly to abandon the king, was immediately to return, fully and cordially, to their allegiance; and, uniting themselves with the royalists in both kingdoms, endeavor, by force of arms, to reduce the English parliament to more moderate conditions: but, besides that this measure was full of extreme hazard, what was it but instantly to combine with their old enemies against their old friends; and, in a fit of romantic generosity, overturn what, with so much expense of blood and treasure, they had, during the course of so many years, been so carefully erecting?
But though all these reflections occurred to the Scottish commissioners, they resolved to prolong the dispute, and to keep the king as a pledge for those arrears which they claimed from England, and which they were not likely, in the present disposition of that nation, to obtain by any other expedient.

The sum, by their account, amounted to near two millions: for they had received little regular pay since they had entered England.

And though the contributions which they had levied, as well as the price of their living at free quarters, must be deducted, yet still the sum which they insisted on was very considerable.