As early as March 1640, on the receipt of the first intelligence of the warlike designs of Charles I, the Scots had resolved to renew their preparations for war. Lesley and the other commanders were confirmed in their posts: in every county people began to arm. Hostilities again broke out between the castle and the town of Edinburgh: but Ruthven did not allow himself to be overpowered as easily as his predecessor had been. When an attack was made upon him he replied to it by an artillery fire from the walls.

While shots were being exchanged, and men on both sides were falling, the Scottish Parliament reassembled on June 2. Its proceedings could not fail to breathe a similar tone of hostility. It met without the presence of the King or of his commissioner; as men observed with astonishment ‘without sword, sceptre, and crown.’ In place of the commissioner the Parliament established a president of its own, elected from among its members. The session lasted only eight days; but it was said that for six centuries there had been no Parliament more remarkable and more thoroughgoing. Those resolutions were repeated, and even enlarged, which had been adopted in the last session before it was interrupted by adjournment, and to which the King had refused his consent. Though hitherto the clergy had taken a high place in the constitutions of all European kingdoms, even in Northern and German countries in spite of the Reformation, yet in Scotland it was resolved that this order should no longer be represented in Parliament.