Baillie, a Church of Scotland minister also opposed to the engagement, further noted that more than half of the barons and half the burgesses supported the engagement, and that in parliament 'none did speak but Argyle and Warriston, sometimes Cassillis and Balmerinoch' ( Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie, 3.35). In addition to Argyll these included John Elphinstone, second Lord Balmerino, Robert Balfour, second Lord Balfour of Burleigh, John Kennedy, sixth earl of Cassillis, Alexander Montgomery, sixth earl of Eglinton, and William Kerr, third earl of Lothian. Robert Baillie identified nine of the fifty-six nobles present as opposed to the engagement. The key figures in this parliamentary opposition were the marquess of Argyll and Sir Archibald Johnston of Wariston. The duke of Hamilton's faction was dominant in the 1648 session of the second triennial parliament (1648–51), opponents of the engagement treaty being then in the minority. If this was not granted peacefully, then a Scottish army would be sent into England to defend the king and his authority, restore him to his government, and preserve religion. If these concessions were accepted by Charles, then Scotland would bring the king to London to secure a personal treaty with the English parliament. The Hamilton faction rejected the confessional confederation outlined in the solemn league and covenant of 1643 in favour of an incorporating union. The treaty also sought to redefine the nature of the existing Anglo-Scottish dynastic union. Furthermore, Charles promised to ratify the proceedings of the first triennial parliament in Scotland (1644–7), and to pay the debts owed to Scotland by the English parliament. Independents, heretics, and schismatics were to be suppressed. Presbyterian church government was to be confirmed, but only for a trial period of three years, before a final settlement involving the king, the English parliament, and an assembly of divines. Charles agreed to confirm the solemn league and covenant in the English parliament, but neither he nor his subjects were obliged to subscribe it. The engagement treaty sought to defend and restore Charles I's authority, the king receiving Scottish military aid in return for concessions. In terms of Scottish parliamentary factionalism this marked a defeat for the radical faction led by Archibald Campbell, first marquis of Argyll, and indicated a wider conservative stance of the Scottish aristocracy towards the defence of the king. The engagement treaty had been signed on 26 December 1647 by Charles I, William Hamilton, first earl of Lanark ( Hamilton's younger brother), John Campbell, first earl of Loudoun, and John Maitland, second earl of Lauderdale in response to the Scottish parliament's decision of 16 January 1647 to hand over the king to the jurisdiction of the English parliament in the aftermath of the first civil war in England, and the king's escape from Hampton Court to Carisbrooke Castle, where he met the Scottish negotiators. The kirk party's origin can be traced to the opposition of the general assembly of the Church of Scotland to the engagement (1648) and to the emergence of a radical, anti-engager minority during the Scottish parliamentary session of 1648.
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