the city, which by this point was short on supplies. Edinburgh Castle held out until December, but since it was cut off from reinforcement and supplies and offered no threat, Cromwell did not assault it and treated its commander with courtesy. The historian Austin Woolrych described the behaviour of the occupying troops as "exemplary" and observed that after a short time many fugitives returned to the city and its economic life returned to something akin to normality. The defeat at Dunbar caused great damage to Leslie's reputation and authority. He attempted to resign as head of the army, but the Scottish government would not permit it, largely because of a lack of any plausible replacement. Several of his officers, however, refused to take orders from him, left Leslie's forces and joined a new army that was being raised by the Western Association. Divisions already present in the Scottish government were widened by the new situation. The more practical faction believed that the purges were to blame for Leslie's defeat and looked to bring the Engagers back into the fold; the more dogmatic thought that God had deserted them because the purges had not gone far enough and argued that too much faith had been put in Charles II who was not sufficiently committed to the cause of the Covenant. These more radical elements issued the divisive Western Remonstrance, which castigated the government for its failure to properly purge the army and further widened the rifts amongst the Scots. The Remonstrants, as this group became known, took command of the Western Association army and attempted to negotiate with Cromwell, urging him to depart Scotland and leave them in control; Cromwell rejected their advances and destroyed their army at the Battle of Hieton (near the centre of modern Hamilton) on 1 December. During December Charles and the Scottish government started to draw together what remained of Leslie's forces, as well as the Engagers who had been purged from it and Highland chiefs who had been excluded by their refusal to sign the Covenant. These competing factions were poorly coordinated and even when Cromwell fell ill in early 1651 and was unable to take to the field, they were unable to take effective action. It was not until the late spring of that year that the Scots were able to piece their army together. English conquest A breakthrough was made when English forces,