TWO SPEECHES Spoken at the Council-table at OXFORD. The one, by the Right Honourable JOHN Earl of Bristol, in favour of the continuation of the present WAR. The other, by the Right Honourable EDWARD Earl of Dorset, for a speedy Accommodation betwixt His MAJESTY, and his High Court of PARLIAMENT. royal blazon or coat of arms HONI SOIT QVI MAL Y PENSE DIEV ET MON DROIT Printed at Oxford by Leonard Lichfield, And now reprinted at LONDON for john Hanson. 1642. A SPEECH spoken by the Right Honourable JOHN Earl of Bristol, in favour of the Continuation of the present WAR. MY LORDS, I Know you do expect I should deliver my Opinion in the present Affairs, which how much more weighty it is, so much more timorous am I to discover mine Opinion in it, lest some should imagine my Vote to arrogate to itself a Definitive power, and look to pass without any contradiction. But I disclaim all such haughty intentions, and shall plainly, and according to my conscience, give in my true verdict of the affair in agitation, namely, whether it were better for the honour and safety of his Majesty, and the good of his Kingdoms to continue the present war or to aquire and endeavour a sudden peace betwixt his Majesty and his Court of Parliament. 〈…〉 W● 〈◊〉 my Lords the Physicians that ●ough●● to discourse of the 〈…〉 wholesomest remedies our art can invent, labour her sudden cure; But yet we ought to take heed that the cure be not worse than the disease; that while we strive to compose the differences which are but contingent to us, we pull upon ourselves and our families certain and not to be avoided ruins. Charity gins at home, says the Proverb, and in Wisdom we are engaged to provide, that by the purchase of the public peace we do not entail upon our Posterities the cruelest of all wars; The wars which our children and their descendants must have with want and penury, the greatest and most depressing enemy that can manage arms against noble and generous minds: And to that exigent must we betray them for the future, ourselves for the present, if we yield to, or determine of a peace. The Parliament hath declared divers of the greatest and most eminent in nobility amongst us, Delinquents, in the highest nature to the Commonwealth, have proscribed our persons, and adjudged our estates no longer ours, but forfeits to the Commonwealth, and so have taken order for the receiving and securing our revenues into such hands as shall dispose them according to their intentions; and without this condition be ratified, it is most probably imagined they will hardly be drawn to an Accommodation for peace. In what state then will our fortunes stand? In what deplorable condition shall we leave our children? heirs only to their parents loyalties, not to their lands. Incidit in Scyllam, qui vult vitare Charybdim. We shall justly verify that sentence: escaping a quicke-sand, we shall fall upon a rock that will split us, out of one evil into a worse; that condition of peace being incompatible with our existences. But grant that this Article were removed out of the Propositions, as the case stands, my Lords, I cannot (though I love peace, and pray for it with all my heart) see which way his Majesty can condescend to it with his honour. Is it fit for a King to beg peace of his Subjects? for the regal authority, the immediate figure of heaven and the Deity on earth, to descend from its supreme height, and, as it were, to derive its power from a subordinate power derived from its bounty? That were to invert and vitiate the course of nature, to enforce the cause to give place to its effect, the Sun to acknowledge his all-quickning heat and light, emergent from the terrestrial fires, created (as it were) and issuing from his influence. In Spain (where the long time I resided there as Ambassador, afforded me privilege to be well acquainted with the state of that Kingdom) in no age or record can scarcely be found mention of intestine or civil war, till these very years wherein all the world labours with dissensions; the reason is, because they are truly Subjects, and their Sovereign truly a Sovereign. And since the state here will neither be so to the King, nor suffer the King to be so to them; my reason tells me, they should be compelled to it. It is no dishonour for Subjects to condescend to any Propositions to their King, but it is an excessive declension and diminution to his Majesty's royality, to submit himself to his Subjects: Fuisse faelicem miserrimum est. My Opinion therefore is (with all humility to his Majesty) that He neither propound to the Parliament, or receive from them any Conditions for peace, but such as shall absolutely comply with the Regal dignity and Prerogative, (which God and succession hath allowed him) and such as may be no way prejudicial to us or our estates, his Majesty's most faithful servants and Counsellors. We have an Army on foot, a braver the Sun never shone on, an Army, that by force can compel that which fair words cannot effect; and since Emori per virtutem praestat quam per dedecus vivere, let us resolve, always submitting to his Majesty's judgement, to go on cheerfully in these wars, which, though they be rough and churlish parents, will at the last bring forth that mild and gentle offspring peace, and we shall enjoy that with honour and safety, which otherwise with disgrace and detriment we shall be enforced to abandon. The Earl of DORSETS Speech for a speedy Accommodation with the PARLIAMENT. My Lords, THe Earl of Bristol has delivered his opinion, and my turn being next to speak, I shall with the like integrity give your Lordships an account of my intentions in this great and important business; I shall not as young Students do in the Schools, argumentandi gratia, repugn my Lord of Bristols Tenants, but because my conscience tells me they are not Orthodox nor consonant to the disposition of the Commonwealth, which languishing with a tedious sickness must be recovered by gentle and easy medicines, in consideration of its weakness, rather than by violent vomits or any other corroding or compelling physic. Not that I will absolutely labour to refute my Lords opinions, but justly deliver my own, which being contrary to his, may appear an express contradiction of it, which indeed it is not; Peace, and that a sudden one being so necessary betwixt His Majesty and His Parliament, as light is requisite for the production of the day, or heat to cherish from above all inferior bodies. This division betwixt His Majesty and His Parliament, being (as i● by miracle) the Sun should be separated 〈…〉 be divided from his proper Essence, I would 〈…〉 Lords be ready to embrace a peace that should be 〈…〉 ●antagious to Us then the present war, which as the Earl of Bri●●●● says, should destroy our Estates and 〈…〉 The handsomely declares that against Delinquent 〈…〉 conjecture have miscounselled His Majesty, and be the authors of these tumults in the Commonwealth; but this Declaration of theirs, except such crimes can be proved against them is of ho validity; the Parliament will do nothing unjustly, nor condemn the innocent, and certainly innocent men need not fear to appear before any Judges whatsoever. And he who shall for any cause prefer his private good before the public utility, is but an ill son of the Commonwealth: For my particular, in these wars I have suffered as much as any, my Houses have been searched, my Arms taken thence, and my son and heir committed to prison; yet I shall wave these discourtesies, because I know there ●as a necessity they should be so; and as the darling business of the kingdom, the honour and prosperity of the King, study to reconcile all these differences between His Majesty and His Parliament; and so to reconcile them, that they shall no way prejudice His Royal Prerogative, of which, I believe the Parliament being a Loyal defender (knowing the Subject's property dependent on it; for where Sovereign's cannot enjoy their Rights, their Subjects cannot) will never endeavour to be an infringer; so that if doubts and jealousies were taken away by a fair treaty between His Majesty and the Parliament, no doubt a means might be devised to rectify these differences. The honour of the King, the estates of us his followers and Counsellors, the Privileges of Parliament, and property of the Subject, being inviolably preserved in safety: And neither the King stoop in this to his Subjects, nor the Subjects be deprived of their just Liberty by the King. And whereas my Lord of Bristol affirms, that in Spain very few Civil dissensions arise, because the Subjects are truly Subjects, and their Sovereign truly a Sovereign, that is, as I understand it, the Subjects are scarcely removed a degree from slaves, nor the Sovereign from a Tyrant. Here in England the Subjects have by a long and received Liberty granted to their Ancestors from our Kings, made their freedom result into a second nature; and neither is it safe for our Kings to strive to introduce the Spanish Government upon this freeborn Nation, nor just for the people to suffer that Government to be enforced upon them; which I am certain His Majesty's goodness never intended. And whereas my Lord of Bristol intimates the strength and bravery of our Army, as an inducement to the continuation of these wars, which he promises himself will produce a fair and happy peace; in this I am utterly repugnant to his opinion; for grant that we have an Army of gallant and able men, which indeed cannot be denied, yet have we infinite disadvantages on our side, the Parliament having double our number, and surely (though our enemies) persons of as much bravery, nay, and sure to be daily supplied when any of their number fails, a benefit which we cannot boast; they having the most popular part of the kingdom at their devotion; all, or most of the Cities, considerable Towns and Ports, together with the mainest pillar of the kingdom's safety, the Sea, at their command, and the Navy; and which is most material of all, an unexhausted Indies of money to pay their soldiers, out of the liberal contributions of Coin and Plate sent in by people of all conditions, who account the Parliaments Cause their Cause, and so think themselves engaged to part with the uttermost penny of their estates in their defence, whom they esteem the Patriots of their Liberty. These strengths of theirs, and our defects considered, I conclude it necessary for all our safeties, and the good of the afflicted Commonwealth, humbly to beseech His Majesty to take some present order for a treaty of peace betwixt Himself and His High Court of Parliament, who, I believe, are so loyal and obedient to His sacred Majesty, that they will propound nothing that shall be prejudicial to His Royal Prerogative, or repugnant to their fidelity or duty. FINIS.