and granted the Scottish Parliament the authority to approve all of the King's councillors in Scotland. After years of rising tensions, in part caused by Charles's defeat in the Bishops' Wars and his need to fund them, the relationship between Charles and his English Parliament also broke down in armed conflict, starting the First English Civil War in 1642. In England, Charles's supporters, the Royalists, were opposed by the combined forces of the Parliamentarians and the Scots, who in 1643 had formed an alliance bound by the Solemn League and Covenant, in which the English Parliament agreed to reform the English church along similar lines to the Scottish Kirk in return for the Scots' military assistance. After four years of war the Royalists were defeated and Charles surrendered to the Scots. After several months of fruitless negotiations the Scots handed Charles over to the English parliamentary forces in exchange for a financial settlement and left England on 3 February 1647. The English army council pressed Charles to accept the Heads of Proposals, a less demanding set of terms which did not require a Presbyterian reformation of the church. Instead he signed an offer known as the Engagement, which had been thrashed out with the Scottish delegation. Charles agreed to confirm the Solemn League and Covenant by act of parliament in both kingdoms and to accept Presbyterianism in England, but only for a trial period of three years, in return for the Scots' assistance in regaining his throne in England. After a protracted political struggle the supporters of the Engagement gained a majority in the Scottish Parliament, by which time war had again broken out in England between Royalists and Parliamentarians. The Scots sent an army under the command of the Duke of Hamilton into England to fight on behalf of the King in July, but it was heavily defeated at Preston by a force led by Oliver Cromwell. The rout of the Engager army led to further political upheaval in Scotland and the faction opposed to the Engagement was able to regain control of the government. Exasperated by the prolonged bloodshed the Parliamentarian army purged the English Parliament and established the Rump Parliament, which had Charles tried for treason against the English people. He was executed on 30 January 1649, and the republican Commonwealth was created. The Scottish Parliament, which had not been consulted prior to the King's execution, declared