The second campaign of Charles against the Scots was short and ignominious.  His soldiers, as soon as they saw the enemy, ran away as English soldiers have never run either before or since.  It can scarcely be doubted that their flight was the effect, not of cowardice, but of disaffection.  The four northern counties of England were occupied by the Scotch army and the King retired to York.

The game of tyranny was now up.  Charles had risked and lost his last stake.  It is not easy to retrace the mortifications and humiliations which the tyrant now had to endure, without a feeling of vindictive pleasure.  His army was mutinous; his treasury was empty; his people clamoured for a Parliament; addresses and petitions against the government were presented.  Strafford was for shooting the petitioners by martial law; but the King could not trust the soldiers.  A great council of Peers was called at York; but the King could not trust even the Peers.  He struggled, evaded, hesitated, tried every shift, rather than again face the representatives of his injured people.  At length no shift was left.  He made a truce with the Scots, and summoned a Parliament.

The leaders of the popular party had, after the late dissolution, remained in London for the purpose of organizing a scheme of opposition to the Court.  They now exerted themselves to the utmost.  Hampden, in particular, rode from county to county, exhorting the electors to give their votes to men worthy of their confidence.  The great majority of the returns was on the side of the Opposition.  Hampden was himself chosen member both for Wendover and Buckinghamshire.  He made his election to serve for the county.

On the third of November 1640, a day to be long remembered, met that great Parliament, destined to every extreme of fortune, to empire and to servitude, to glory and to contempt; at one time the sovereign of its sovereign, at another time the servant of its servants.  From the first day of meeting the attendance was great; and the aspect of the members was that of men not disposed to do the work negligently.  The dissolution of the late Parliament had convinced most of them that half measures would no longer suffice.  Clarendon tells us, that “the same men who, six months before, were observed to be of very moderate tempers, and to wish that gentle remedies might be applied, talked now in another dialect both of kings and persons; and said that they must now be of another temper than they were the last Parliament.”  The debt of vengeance was swollen by all the usury which had been accumulating during many years; and payment was made to the full.

This memorable crisis called forth parliamentary abilities such as England had never before seen.  Among the most distinguished members of the House of Commons were Falkland, Hyde, Digby, young Harry Vane, Oliver St. John, Denzil Hollis, Nathaniel Fiennes.  But two men exercised a paramount influence over the legislature and the country, Pym and Hampden; and by the universal consent of friends and enemies, the first place belonged to Hampden.