While Sir Richard Duller and Sir Alexander Carew lay at Launceston, and employed themselves in executing the parliament's ordinance for the militia, a meeting of the county was assembled at Truro; and after Hopton produced his commission from the earl of Hertford, the king's general, it was agreed to execute the laws, and to expel these invaders of the county.

The train bands were accordingly levied, Launceston taken, and all Cornwall reduced to peace and to obedience under the king.
It had been usual for the royal party, on the commencement of these disorders, to claim on all occasions the strict execution of the laws, which, they knew, were favorable to them; and the parliament, rather than have recourse to the plea of necessity, and avow the transgression of any statute, had also been accustomed to warp the laws, and by forced constructions to interpret them in their own favor.[*] * Clarerdon, vol.iii.p.

130.
But though the king was naturally the gainer by such a method of conducting war, and it was by favor of law that the train, bands were raised in Cornwall, it appeared that those maxims were now prejudicial to the royal party.

These troops could not legally, without their own consent, be carried out of the county; and consequently it was impossible to push into Devonshire the advantage which they had obtained.

The Cornish royalists, therefore, bethought themselves of levying a force which might be more serviceable.