3 September and completely defeated them, marking the end of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Charles II was one of the few to escape. This demonstration that the English were willing to fight to defend the republic and capable of doing so effectively strengthened the position of the new English government. The defeated Scottish government was dissolved and the kingdom of Scotland was absorbed into the Commonwealth. Following much in-fighting Cromwell ruled as Lord Protector. After his death, further in-fighting resulted in Charles II being crowned King of England on 23 April 1661, twelve years after being crowned by the Scots. This completed the Stuart Restoration. Terminology Some historians have referred to the conflict, which followed the First and Second English Civil Wars, as the Third Civil War. This view has been criticised: John Philipps Kenyon and Jane Ohlmeyer noted that the conflict was not an exclusively English affair, so cannot be considered part of the English Civil War; the historian Austin Woolrych observed that it was almost entirely a conflict between Scottish and English forces, involving very few English soldiers fighting on behalf of the king at the final battle at Worcester, so it was "seriously misleading" to refer to it as a civil war. Although the conflict was certainly a part of the wider Wars of the Three Kingdoms, rather than being a continuation of the English Civil War, it was by this stage a war between Scotland, ruled by the Covenanting government under Charles II, and the English Commonwealth. Background Bishops' Wars and English Civil Wars In 1639, and again in 1640, Charles I, who was king of both Scotland and England in a personal union, went to war with his Scottish subjects in the Bishops' Wars. These had arisen from the Scots' refusal to accept the attempts of Charles I to reform the Scottish Kirk to bring it into line with English religious practices. Charles I was not successful in these endeavours, and the ensuing settlement established the Covenanters' hold on Scottish government, requiring all civil office-holders, parliamentarians and clerics to sign the National Covenant, and giving the Scottish Parliament the authority to approve all the King's councillors in Scotland. After years of rising tensions the relationship between Charles I and his English Parliament broke down, starting the First English Civil War in 1642. In England the supporters of Charles I, the Royalists (Cavaliers), were