n exacting from the
Scotch the vengeance which he might suppose due to those who had set
the example of taking up arms against him. Such was the policy of the
measure which dictated the sending the auxiliary army into England; and
it was avowed in a manifesto explanatory of their reasons for giving
this timely and important aid to the English Parliament. The English
Parliament, they said, had been already friendly to them, and might
be so again; whereas the King, although he had so lately established
religion among them according to their desires, had given them no ground
to confide in his royal declaration, seeing they had found his promises
and actions inconsistent with each other. "Our conscience," they
concluded, "and God, who is greater than our conscience, beareth us
record, that we aim altogether at the glory of God, peace of both
nations, and honour of the King, in suppressing and punishing in a legal
way, those who are the troublers of Israel, the firebrands of hell, the
Korahs, the Balaams, the Doegs, the Rabshakehs, the Hamans, the Tobiahs,
the Sanballats of our time, which done, we are satisfied. Neither
have we begun to use a military expedition to England as a mean for
compassing those our pious ends, until all other means which we could
think upon have failed us: and this alone is left to us, ULTIMUM ET
UNICUM REMEDIUM, the last and only remedy."

Leaving it to casuists to determine whether one contracting party is
justified in breaking a solemn treaty, upon the suspicion that, in
certain future contingencies, it might be infringed by the other, we
shall proceed to mention two other circumstances that had at least equal
influence with the Scottish rulers and nation, with any doubts which
they entertained of the King's good faith.

The first of these was the nature and condition of their army; headed by
a poor and discontented nobility, under whom it was officered chiefly
by Scottish soldiers of fortune, who had served in the German wars until
they had lost almost all distinction of political principle, and even
of country, in the adoption of the mercenary faith, that a soldier's
principal duty was fidelity to the state or sovereign from whom he
received his pay, without respect either to the justice of the quarrel,
or to their own connexion with either of the contending parties. To men
of this stamp, Grotius applies the severe character--NULLUM VITAE GENUS
ET IMPROBIUS, QUAM EORUM, QUI SINE CAUSAE RESPEC