ENGLAND'S WARNING-PIECE: Showing The Nature, Danger, and ill Effects OF CIVILL-WARRE, And of those NATIONS which have been infested with it, described.  
Very necessary for these Times wherein we are in so great fear and imminent danger of Civil Dissension.  
WITH A true Relation of the Miseries and Distractions of Germany, France, Ireland, and Spain.  
Also the sudden Death of the Queen Mother of FRANCE.  
By THOMAS MORTON.  
LONDON, Printed by T. FAUCET, Aug. 5. 1642.   

NEver hath any Kingdom or Country been blest with so flourishing an estate, and such a blessed condition, the security of whose Peace, and the durance of whose happiness, hath always preserved them both from the hostility of a foreign Foe, and the annoyance of an intestine Enemy; nay which is more, let us unfold all the secrets of Antiquity, and I believe it will be very difficult to any one Prince whose Reign (if it were of any considerable number of years) hath proved so fortunate as to be totally free from homebred Conspirators or foreign Enemies. But if ever any State hath enjoyed Peace, security and Liberty, it hath been that of England, if ever any Church hath attained to Uniformity, Sincerity and Truth, it hath been the Church of England, this having been long free from the blindness of Ignorance, the erroneousness of Heresy, and the folly of Superstition, that, from the cruelty of War, the mischief of danger, and the unsufferable irksomeness of Slavery. So that the State being blest in pious Princes and loyal Subjects, the Church in learned Teachers and religious People, they were both in themselves happy and of others admired, so much doth the Unity of a Nation conduce to the tranquillity thereof; But never is the Devil more busy than when he sees how hard his labour is, many ways did that Machiavelli use to untie that Gordian knot, first he tries his skill abroad, and from Spain he brings us Enemies to fright us out of our so long in●oyed Security: But by the indulgent Providence of God and the never-yeelding valour of our Sea Captains, they did once again by sad experience find what mettle the English were made of, and what Noble blood flowed in their full veins; For no sooner had they given Battle, but they were conquered no sooner had they approached our English Coasts but they were all scattered, and brought to the worst of misfortunes to entreat us for Succour, whose Destruction they had before threatened and were come to perform their promise, made in as ill a time as with bad success performed. For in stead of Misery they brought us Happiness, in stead of Poverty the treasure of their own. Spoils, in the place of Ignominy the glorious names of Undaunted Soldiers.  
Since this Plot was defeated the next must be more subtle, and come even from our own bowels, Suis est ipsa viribus rue●, we must be our own Enemy's or else never miserable, then must the State be vexed with unheard of Taxes, and griping Monopolies, and the Church too that it might share in the others miseries with usurping Rulers, and proud Governors, starving the Souls of the flock to pamper their own bodies & leaving out the chief points of Religion while they fasten upon us unnecessity Ceremonies. This had better success than the form r, and for some time to the g iefe of the Subjects did continue, but strait the cause of both diseases being by skilful Physicians looked into, the Cure was found out and prescribed; which Physicians were this present Parliament who have happily begun to remedy those over grown Diseases, and have because some would admit of no other Cure cut them off. But now that Enemy to Peace hath us d the utmost of his skill and by his base Enemies the Malignant Spirits, lest this happy means should proceed, hath set a difference betwixt the King and Parliament, seeking to make that our Misery which was sought out for our Remedy, but the continuance of God's Providence, and the industrious care of this Honourable Parliament, will I hope ere long confound his devices, and be a happy means, whereby we may recover our former Glory, Peace, and Felicity, in the mean time let us confide in their Wisdom, and not rashly go about to gain those Good ends by so bad a Medium as that of Civil war. For we must not expect that the happiness which after it may be enjoyed, which is doubtful, will countervail the Miseries that in the attaining of it we shall certainly endure, that therefore we may the more abhor it, and use all means to prevent it, I shall according to my ability set down the Nature, danger and cause of it, and the means to avoid it.  
How miserable that Nation is which is entangled with any kind of War, we m●y easily see if we look bacl into the former ages, and into the lamentable conditions of those Countries which have been the Stages of that Tragedy: Ancient writers do abundantly testify by their full descriptions, how flourishing, rich, stately, and Victorious that great City of Troy had (before the subversion of it) always been, but by the savage cruelty of a 〈◊〉 war, it was made so miserable, that it was neither great, nor yet a City, but a ruinous heap of stones, an unhappy sign of what it had been, and as saith the Poet, Versa est intinere.—  
To come nearer how great and glorious, how happy and peaceable, how feared and admired have the Jews been, whose Character it once was to be Gods peculiar People; their Territories were as large, their Walls as high, their Palaces as stately as any Nations in the whole Universe, nay their Temple alone (such was the beauty of it, such the riches) would have bought many a whole Kingdom, and yet what miseries did they many years together endure in their long siege for want of Food, for want of water, for want of all things, and all this for the want of this one thing Peace, their Cities and Temples were burned to Ashes, themselves taken Captives, and miserably butchered nay they were scorned of other Nations (to whom they had once been a terror) for that (so poorly were they esteemed) no less than 30 jews were sold for one penny, these were foreign Wars.  
To come nearer yet, to what a lamentable estate is all Germany reduced, what miseries hath it endured? Nay what hath it not endured by foreign and home bred enemies together? Let us consider what civil Wars have wrought in them, and to them must we needs be compared, if amongst us (as amongst them there have) civil dissensions should arise.  
Nay let us come so near as to ourselves, to those at lest which should be as dear unto us as ourselves, our poor distressed brethren in Ireland, whose manifest wrongs and grievous calamities, do cry to Heaven for vengeance against those enemies to peace and Religion the most wicked Papists, of whose cruelty, Idolatry and Antichristian Impiety, what Nation is there that is not sensible? A people so execrably cruel, that they make it a point of Religion and a work meritorious to murder God's people under the name of Heretics, what misery; slavery, tyranny, nay what death, nay what horrid kind of death these men our poor brethren do endure, under these other men (if I may call them by so good a name as men) our and their enemies? some lose their Lands, some their liberties, some both, others with both their lives & estates, and happy is he that with loss of estate can escape, can these men be as they pretend God's people; when by their ungodly, nay unmanly actions they prove themselves not be of more than Turkish cruelty.  
My pen cannot speak in a dialect sad enough the ones misfortune and the others insulting tyranny, these and more than these are the mishaps which befall a Land infected with civil War which of all wars is most dangerous and pernicious, in the other we are made miserable by our enemies in this our friends are our enemies, in that we may be prosperous, in this we must needs be miserable, those are undertaken of necessity, this is begun by treachery pride, cruelty, oppression, and a number more of horrid crimes, and ends in confusion and destruction, all contribute and lend aid against our open enemies, when we are at wars with ourselves who can be safe? or who secure? Victory being here a Misery, and Conquest an Overthrow, he alone thinks himself safe, who seethe none survive to molest him and who is happy but bankrupts, ferlorne & desperate men, and those whose fortunes can be raised no other way, and such men are, as the greatest offenders for the greatest causes of such broils and dissensions, for none but the enemies of the Commonwealth will disturb its peace or seek its ruin, these are the Incendiaries in a Kingdom, these cannot endure that there should be wholesome Laws to punish Delinquents, for then themselves would not escape, but they breed variance, invent Plots, foment Jealousies and all to distract, disturb, and if they could quite overturn the Republic, and with such sugared language and subtle carriage do they infuse their guilded poisons, and sweetened infections into those that cherish them, that for the present they suppose them their greatest friends choicest Counselors who will at last prove themselves their most dangerous enemies, and it is no small point of these men's policy by all ways possible to reader those odious and contemptible to the common people, whose only end it is to settle peace and procure the happiness of the people.  
To the wicked insinuations and mischievous practices of these men must we needs attribute the unhappiness of our present condition & that such may receive condign punishment for their base actions, we should as in our Protestation we are bound to use all lawful means, peace being that which every good Subject doth desire, and these men being the soarest enemies to a well-setled peace; nor is it the mischief alone of Civil war to divide a Land against itself which is misery enough but it is also a sinister cause of introducing foreign enemies a so taking his best occasion by the weakness of his foe to insult over him, and then who knows not that enemies abroad and enemies at home must needs bring a Land to the lowest depth of a most desperate misery, but let us not be so busied in deploring the sad case of it as not to seek a timely remedy for it, for if this be not prevented who amongst us can say he hath a House, Land, a Wife, Children, nay who can safely say he hath a Life, so uncertain and in so great danger will all things hang. Another let to unity, and that a great one too are the unhappy differences betwixt the King and his Parliament, the occasions of which differences have been by many touched, and I wish they had not the misfortune to know them, or we the unhappiness to feel them, for how can the Kingdom subsist if the Pillars by whom it subsisteth are undermined? how can peace flourish when the maintainers of it are not at peace amongst themselves? How can happiness attain to us if the introducers of it are at unhappy variance? O let it then be the desire of all true subjects that these may agree, concord, and be united; that themselves may enjoy again their Peace and Liberties, and happily avoid what is so much feared Civil dissension, for most manifest it is, that a King agreeing with a truly settled Parliament must needs make his Kingdom truly flourish, for they being chosen from all parts of the Kingdom, and by the free Election of the men in those parts must needs be supposed to know what the grievances or wrongs what the troubles or vexations of the whole Land are and none doubteth, but (were there an agreement betwixt the head and these members) hose wrongs would be righted, those troubles would be appeased and those vexations quieted and secured, before this be done it cannot be expected that we should be safe and peaceable and better were it to enjoy peace at hard conditions, then that we should be embroiled with civil distractions, for than would the Laws be cast of, the Magistrates despised, the liberty of Subjects turned into the licentiousness of Rebels, and all things strangely metamorphosed into a confused Chaos, and we all know that the Laws are the sinews and nerves which consolidate and strengthen the Commonalty, they are the authority by which every man challengeth his right and enjoys his own, in them the prosperity of the Subject, being set down, the punishment of offenders prescribed, and all political government established, then by whom were all these made and enacted but by the W sdome and Counsel of Kings and their Parliaments the Magistrates are those (t●at being authorized by those that made them) do give r●se to the Laws, by declaring them and putting them in force, by such the Laws which in themselves are dead being enlivened for they invindicating those that suffer, and punishing those that do wrong and in justice do execute & administer justice, upon which the Laws are founded.  
The liberty of the Subject is not such a licentiousness as will authorise him to do any thing, without fear or care of any ensuing danger but it is that whereby he enjoys that which is properly his own without any molestation or trouble, and this liberty also produceth from the ordaining of good Laws which are by Kings and Parliaments, and the executing them which is by Magistrates, we may then plainly see that the maintenance of the King's honour and estate, the power and privileges of Parliaments, and the liberty and property of the Subjects, are those which make a State political truly peaceable, but when the King's Prerogative is invaded, the just power of Parliaments by every one questioned, the liberty of the Subject misinterpreted, all things turn into a confusion, and strait is fomented a civil War sooner begun then ended, and produced by as bad causes, as itself doth generate disastrous effects.  
Let then the Law proceed duly and justly against those magligannt spirits, whose only aim it is to bring such sad ends to pass, and to poison the Land with the infection of Arbitrary government, that all things may be lawful nothing safe, which how great misery it will bring upon us a very Heathen could tell, who openly professed, That he had rather live in a Land where nothing is, then where all things were common and lawful.  
Nor is it England's unfortunate condition alone to be so near to its ruin and destruction, nor is it only Ireland whose distresses want relief, but both our neighbours France and Spain are violently oppressed with their own greatness. In Spain whole Country's revolt against their King and choose another, thinking themselves too great a Nation to be swayed by one Sceptre, or ruled by one Monarch.  
Castille and Portugal scorning to be less than Kingdoms, by the loss of which great Countries how much the honour and revenue of that King will be impoverished we may easily judge  
In France not only the Kingdom but the life of the King himself was in great danger, by the Stratagems they say of an unnatural Mother and an ambitious Brother, strange that he should be in danger of losing his life by her that first gave it him! and that a Brother should prove a Traitor! but the horridness of this plot was defeated to the destruction of the Conspirators; for no so●ner was it known to be divulged, but it shortened (some say taken away) the life of her, that world have taken away the life of her Son. She within five day's expiring. Such is the deplorable estate of ill success in ill Erterprises, perish all they who desire the Misery & o pugne the Happiness of this Land, and by the goodness of GOD and care of this prudent PARLIAMENT, let their horrid devises perish with themselves.  
FINIS.