Selected quad for the lemma: war_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A36378
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The Earle of Dorset his speech for propositions of peace delivered to His Majesty at Oxford, on January 18.
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Dorset, Edward Sackville, Earl of, 1591-1652.
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1643
(1643)
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Wing D1951; ESTC R1546
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2,948
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8
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THE Earle of Dorset HIS SPEECH FOR PROPOSITIONS OF PEACE DELIVERED TO HIS MAJESTY at OXFORD on January 18. London printed in the yeare 1642. A Speech spoken by the Earle of DORSET unto His Majesty at OXFORD concerning the Warre now in ENGLAND Most gracious Soveraigne I Am not altogether unsensible of this businesse wherein I am now called to give my advice I know I shall suffer some disadvantage being an Englishman by Nation and Education and the best bloud that runs in my veines I have extracted thence besides my fortunes have their scituation within these confines What I shall now speak is not meerely ex animo sed ex corde some may haply impute it as proceeding from strength of affection to that place and people from whence I came but I doe protest my zeale to your Majesty shall at this time suspend the agitation of such principals and I will set aside all particular relations and looke upon the question as it is and not as passion and affection may set it forth The question is concerning Wars an unknown subject sweet to those that have not tryed it yet the worst of war is usuall in the close And if the conclusion of the most advantagious war that ever was waged when all reckonings bee cast up the Conquerour hath had little whereof to glory But this is not a warre betweene a King and a stranger but between a Soveraigne and his Subjects a neare relation and they had need to be weighty motives that shall dissolve this knot subjects are easily lost we see the worke is every day but once lost are hardly regained Affections are like to crystall glasses which broken are hardly set together againe But these are not subjects as the kingly Pro speaketh of A people that I know not are subject unto mee but your Majesty may say of them as Adam of Eue that was found out of his rib Flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone or rather as David of his subjects in the day of his Inauguration For my brethren and companions sake for your Majesty being theirs and they yours by a double tye you are not only Rex factus but Rex natus And therefore the union being so straight the motive had need be weighty that shall cause a man to set his owne house a fire and to destroy the worke of his owne hands Now let us consider two things first the necessity of Warre secondly the motives unto it whether they be Tanti and of such moment that a King should hazard the uncertaine chance of warre and the miseries that accompany it rather then to forgo the same For the first it is a good note of Tacitus that Bellona should be ultimum refugium because it is the worst refuge And if we consider of the wisest Kings that ever ware Scepter in the latter times how willing they were to deliver the stroake of warre almost upon any termes If your Majesty consider but the practise of King Lewis the eleventh and Henry the seventh which of England and France in the large List and Catalogue of all their Kings cannot point forth two of more deepe and profound judgement and better versed in the mystery of Government yet what meanes they use or rather did use to divert the course if at any time it did come within their Channell they counted it no dishonour to yeeld to their Subjects demands though sometimes unjust and unreasonable nay themselves to bee the first seekers and propounders of Peace And so by this meanes when the storme was over and things come to be debated upon the great Corpit they were masters of their own ends and their subjects affections and so obtained the victory without striking a stroke These wise Kings considered the end of war was uncertaine and the event various and he that committeth one Errour in the warre especially when the seat of it is in his owne Kingdome seldome times to commit a second wee need not to goe far for instances Richard the second and Edward the second will be fresh presidents for any that shall endevour to buy the experience hereof upon such deare termes as they did It should be in the body Politique as it is in the body naturall Phlebotomies should never be used but when the humours are so predominant that no other course will remove them and that unlesse they be expelled they will occasion desolation But blessed be God there is no such necessity in the case there are some rough humours in the body Politique it cannot be denyed and some it may bee that worke obstruction in some of the lesser pipes of government but when your Vena Basilica and Vena Cava are full of the royall spirits in them have their proper influence and motion without any opposition What is now to be done by force is not fit for every subject some humours are to be expelled by lena â—â—ines when all purgations make them malignant There are three means to be used that have not been tryed any of which are better then the meanes prescribed The first removes the occasion this can bee no impeachment to the Scepter the wisest Kings have had their oversight in government which a wiser day have taught them to recall Your Father reigned gloriously and commanded the affections as wel as the body of the English yet he never sought the obtruding of minimus infimis and yet none more zealous of a Kingly Government then he it is an act of the extreamest folly to hazard the substance for a shadow not worthy to be contended for And if your Majesty were Master of your own desires it would not adde one cubit to your stature Secondly if this like not let time work it forth and by this meanes swallow up the hooke or Induxor the proposall of it left recreets distastefull things works most at first least afterwards by degrees your Majesty may work them to that which for the present they wil rather dye then embrace We see how by degrees the Romans brought a Royall slavery upon the world which if they had at first propounded upon down-right termes had hardly been accomplished If ever Norman William by degrees brought the English to weare the yoke which if he had at the first tendred he either must have missed his ayme or Norman no people to employ so impatient then were the English Nation to heare of a Conqueror and we see it is sometimes costly What if your Majesty should seem to yeeld to the demands of the English now and give the advantage of a faire game cannot your Majesty remove the objects by degrees turne the humours some other way for a more seasonable opportunity to scrue in things by instruments more fit and lesse subject to exception the proposall of the course I hold more certain more safe more secure which knowes no law but devoures all the other And I hold that Kingdome most miserable which is forced to make use of a remedy worse then the disease Thus much for the first there is no necessity of Warre Rebus sic stantibus Secondly these things in agitation are not Tanti of such consequence as should require such a desperate adventure as to hazard a kingdom at a cast Plutarch wisely compared those that know onely to propose the means to such as fish with a golden hooke the losse of which hooke is of more consequence then the fish they can take truly to speake plainly what I think they that advise war in this case know not what it is to get nor greatly care for the losse of a Kingdom so they may play their own games and fish in troubled waters suce counsellours as these were the Bishops of Rosse to the late Queene of Scots and the Bishop of Brookes to that miserable King of Hungary who was the cause and occasion to bring the Turke into Hungary and the French into Scotland both which Nations have cause to wish that they never knew the way thither againe Three Reasons have been given to perswade to war I will not now Answer but leave to him that is better able and instructed to such a purpose whereof considering nulla salus Bello nulla necessitas Belli My Advice to your Majesty is not to use warre but when the end of it is a certaine or probable peace and when there is no way left but that only to obtaine it FINIS