Appeals to the Civil Power in ecclesiastical matters being against the Presbyterian theory which the parties professed in common, that suggestion had not been taken, notwithstanding the precedent, and the parties had persisted in their war of mutual invective in Scotland, each getting what it could by private dealings with the Council there,--the Resolutioners through Broghill and the Protesters through Monk.

But that could not last for ever; and, in August 1656, strict Presbyterian theory had been so far waived by both parties that both had resolved on direct appeal to his Highness in London.

The Resolutioners had the start.

They had picked out as their fittest single emissary Mr.James Sharp of Crail, then forty-three years of age, already well acquainted with London by his former compulsory stay there, and with the advantage now of intimacy with Broghill.

His Instructions, signed by three of the leading Resolutioners, were ready on the 23rd of August.