victory in the war. And for this cause, notwithstanding that they saw that the Parliament was firmly resolved to take all kingly power whatsoever out of his hands, yet their counsel to the King was upon all occasions, to offer propositions to them of treaty and accommodation, and to make and publish declarations; which any man might easily have foreseen would be fruitless; and not only so, but also of great disadvantage to those actions by which the King was to recover his crown and preserve his life. For it took away the courage of the best and forwardest of his soldiers, that looked for great benefit by their service out of the estates of the rebels, in case they could subdue them; but none at all, if the business should be ended by a treaty.
B. And they had reason: for a civil war never ends by treaty, without the sacrifice of those who were on both sides the sharpest. You know well enough how things passed at the reconciliation of Augustus and Antonius in Rome. But I thought, that after they once began to levy soldiers one against another, that they would not any more have returned of either side to declarations, or other paper war, which, if it could have done any good, had done it long before this.
A. But seeing the Parliament continued writing, and set forth their declarations to the people against the lawfulness of the King’s commission of array, and sent petitions to the King as fierce and rebellious as ever they had done before, demanding of him, that he would disband his soldiers, and come up to the Parliament, and leave those whom the Parliament called delinquents (which were none but the King’s best subjects) to their mercy, and pass such bills as they should advise him; would you not have the King set forth declarations and proclamations against the illegality of their ordinances, by which they levied soldiers against him, and answer those insolent petitions of theirs?
B. No; it had done him no good before, and therefore was not likely to do him any afterwards. For the common people, whose hands were to decide the controversy, understood not the reasons of either party; and for those that by
