The Scots Covenanters had taken the side of the English Parliament during the English Civil War and had fought a bitter Wars of the Three Kingdoms at home against the Scottish Royalists. However, they were excluded from negotiations by the victorious English Parliament and by 1647, they despaired of achieving their political goals - the establishment of Presbyterianism in the Three Kingdoms and asserting the civil authority of the Scots Parliament and the General Assembly of the Scottish Kirk (Presbyterian Church). They even suspected that the Parliamentarians would annex Scotland and impose their own "Independent" religious settlement. For this reason, one faction of the Covenanters, the Engagers, signed a secret deal with Charles I called the "Engagement". However, they were defeated in an attempted invasion of England and even came to blows with fellow Covenanters who wanted a more forthright deal with the King.