[140] _Id._ ii. 250. "It was ever clear in my judgment," says Strafford, "that the business of Scotland, so well laid, so pleasing to God and man, had it been effected, was miserably lost in the execution; yet it could never have so fatally miscarried, if there had not been a failure likewise in this direction, occasioned either by over-great desires to do all quietly without noise, by the state of the business misrepresented, by opportunities and seasons slipped, or by some such like." Laud answers in the same strain: "Indeed, my lord, the business of Scotland, I can be bold to say without vanity, was well laid, and was a great service to the crown as well as to God himself. And that it should so fatally fail in the execution is a great blow as well to the power as honour of the king," etc. He lays the blame in a great degree on Lord Traquair. P. 264. [141] _Clarendon State Papers_, ii. 19. [142] _Id._ ii. 84, and Appendix xxvi. [143] Hume says that Charles had an accumulated treasure of £200,000 at this time. I know not his authority for the particular sum: but Clarendon pretends that "the revenue had been so well improved, and so wisely managed, that there was money in the exchequer proportionable for the undertaking any noble enterprise." This is, at the best, strangely hyperbolical; but, in fact, there was an absolute want of everything. Ship-money would have been a still more crying sin than it was, if the produce had gone beyond the demands of the state; nor was this ever imputed to the court. This is one of Lord Clarendon's capital mistakes; for it leads him to speak of the treaty of Berwick as a measure that might have been avoided, and even, in one place, to ascribe it to the king's excessive lenity and aversion to shedding blood; wherein a herd of superficial writers have followed him. [144] _Clarendon State Papers_, ii. 46, 54. Lest it should seem extraordinary that I sometimes contradict Lord Clarendon on the authority of his own collection of papers, it may be necessary to apprise the reader, that none of these, anterior to the civil war, had come in his possession till he had written this part of his _History_. [145] The grand jury of Northampton presented ship-money as a grievance. But the privy-council wrote to the sheriff, that they would not admit his affected excuses; and if he neglected to execute the writ, a quick and exemplary reparation would be required of him. Rushw. Abr. iii. 93. [146] _Id._ 47. The king writes in the margin of Windebank's letter, informing him of Seymour's refusal: "You must needs make him an example, not only by distress, but, if it be possible, an information in some court, as Mr. Attorney shall advise." [147] _Strafford Letters_, ii. 308. [148] "The king hath so rattled my lord-keeper, that he is now the most pliable man in England, and all thoughts of parliaments are quite out of his pate." Cottington to Strafford, 29th Oct. 1633, vol. i. p. 141.