"In committing himself to Arminianism, Charles destroyed the painstaking labour James had put into making a cosmetic unity between the kingdoms. He committed himself to that interpretation of the English religious settlement which had least in common with the kirk of Scotland... The primum mobile of the British crisis, chronologically and probably logically as well, was the conflict between Charles and the Scottish Covenanters. This was a real clash of ideas as well as of interests. It enshrined visions of the church, and of authority, so far apart that no real compromise was ever likely to be possible between them. It was this conflict which was the vortex into which the other kingdoms were drawn. This is not to say that Charles was faced by a united Scotland: it has been one of the major findings of this book that that was not the case: all kingdoms, like all English counties, and even most English villages, were divided. Yet it was clearly in Scotland that the Calvinist-Presbyterian ideas to which Charles was most deeply allergic had taken the deepest root. It was the Scots who resorted to arms first, and who did so with the least compunction. It was Charles's determination to suppress them when he was physically unable to do so which caused his authority to collapse, and troubled the English waters enough to encourage the Scots to fish in them."