Violence flared throughout the country as the various factions armed and organised. A mutiny in the Royal Navy in May thrust Vane into attempts to prevent it from spreading, and to regain the support of the mutineers, who had declared for Charles. By mid-July, the army had regained control of most of England, and Cromwell defeated the Scottish army in August at the Battle of Preston. In the tumult, Vane appeared at times to be in opposition to some of the Independent factions, even having a falling out (quickly healed) with Cromwell, and many factions came to distrust him. Despite this he was one of the Parliamentary representatives for negotiations with Charles at Newport in September 1648. He was widely blamed for the failure of those negotiations over his insistence on "an unbounded liberty of conscience".