This pacification seems to me to have laid
the scheme of all the blood and confusion which followed in the Civil
War. For whatever the king and his friends might pretend to do by
talking big, the Scots saw he was to be bullied into anything, and
that when it came to the push the courtiers never cared to bring it to
blows.
I have little or nothing to say as to action in this mock expedition.
The king was persuaded at last to march to Berwick; and, as I have
said already, a party of horse went out to learn news of the Scots,
and as soon as they saw them, ran away from them bravely.
This made the Scots so insolent that, whereas before they lay encamped
behind a river, and never showed themselves, in a sort of modest
deference to their king, which was the pretence of not being
aggressors or invaders, only arming in their own defence, now, having
been invaded by the English troops entering Scotland, they had what
they wanted. And to show it was not fear that retained them before,
but policy, now they came up in parties to our very gates, braving and
facing us every day.
I had, with more curiosity than discretion, put myself as a volunteer
at the head of one of our parties of horse, under my Lord Holland,
when they went out to discover the enemy; they went, they said, to see
what the Scots were a-doing.
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