Thomas Hobbes

“ A. All that can be said against them in that point will be excused with the pretext of war, and come under one name of rebellion; saving, that when they summoned any town, it was always in the name of the King and Parliament, the King being in the contrary army, and many times beating them from the siege; I do not see how the right of war can justify such impudence as that. But they pretended that the King was always virtually in the two Houses of Parliament; making a distinction between his person natural and politic; which made the impudence greater, besides the folly of it. ”

“ Besides, the Parliament never represents the people but when the King calls them; nor is it to be imagined that he calls a Parliament to depose him. Put the case, every county and borough should have given this Parliament for a benevolence a sum of money; and that every county, meeting in their county-court or elsewhere, and every borough in their town-hall, should have chosen *certain* men to carry their several sums respectively to the Parliament. ”

“ And for those men who had skill in the laws, it was no great sign of understanding not to perceive that the laws of the land were made by the King, to oblige his subjects to peace and justice, and not to oblige himself that made them. And lastly and generally, all men are fools which pull down anything which does them good, before they have set up something better in its place. He that would set up democracy with an army, should have an army to maintain it ”

“ For the common people, whose hands were to decide the controversy, understood not the reasons of either party; and for those that by ambition were once set upon the enterprise of changing the government, they cared not much what was reason and justice in the cause, but what strength they might procure by seducing the multitude with remonstrances from the Parliament House, or by sermons in the churches. ”

“ For the Independents immediately cast down the whole line of communication; divided the militia of London, Westminster and Southwark, which were before united; displaced such governors of towns and forts as were not for their turn, though placed there by ordinance of Parliament; instead of whom, they put in men of their own party. They also made the Parliament to declare null all that had passed in the Houses from July the 26th to August the 6th, and clapped in prison some of the lords, and some of the most eminent citizens, whereof the lord mayor was one. ”

“ Common people know nothing of right or wrong by their own meditation; they must therefore be taught the grounds of their duty, and the reasons why calamities ever follow disobedience to their lawful sovereigns. But to the contrary, our rebels were publicly taught rebellion in the pulpits; and that there was no sin, but the doing of what the preachers forbade, or the omission of what they advised.—But now the King was the Parliament’s prisoner, why did not the Presbyterians advance their own interest by restoring him? ”

“ For this was but an university quibble, such as boys make use of in maintaining (in the schools) such tenets as they cannot otherwise defend.
In the end of this year they solicited also the Scots to enter England with an army, to suppress the power of the Earl of Newcastle in the north; which was a plain confession, that the Parliament’s forces were, at this time, inferior to the King’s. And most men thought, that if the Earl of Newcastle had then marched southward, and joined his forces with the King’s, that most of the members of Parliament would have fled out of England. ”

“ Prince Rupert returned the way he came, and the Earl of Newcastle to York, and thence with some of his officers over the sea to Hamburgh.
The honour of this victory was attributed chiefly to Oliver Cromwell (the Earl of Manchester’s lieutenant-general) . The Parliamentarians returned from the field to the siege of York, which not long after, upon honourable articles, was surrendered; not for favour, [4] but because the Parliament employed not much time, nor many men in sieges. ”

“ B. I cannot see the force of this argument: we represent the people, ergo, all that the people has is ours. The mayor of Hull did represent the King. Is therefore all that the King had in Hull, the mayor’s? The people of England may be represented with limitations, as to deliver a petition or the like. Does it follow that they, who deliver the petition, have right to all the towns in England? When began this Parliament to be a Representative of England? ”

“ B. Any man might see that he was never like to be restored to his right without victory: and such his stoutness being known to the people, would have brought to his assistance many more hands than all the arguments of law, or force of eloquence, couched in declarations and other writings, could have done, by far. ”

“ In April, 1646, General Fairfax began to march back to Oxford. In the meantime Rainsborough, who besieged Woodstock, had it surrendered. The King therefore, who was now also returned to Oxford, from whence Woodstock is but six miles, not doubting but that he should there by Fairfax be besieged, and having no army, to relieve him, resolved to get away disguised to the Scotch army about Newark; and thither he came the 4th of May; and the Scotch army, being upon remove homewards, carried him with them to Newcastle, whither he came May 13th.
B. Why did the King trust himself with the Scots? ”

“ This opinion, though it did not lessen their endeavour to gain the victory for the King in a battle, when a battle could not be avoided, yet it weakened their endeavour to procure him an absolute 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 yet, converse with those divinity-disputers as long as you will, you will hardly find one in a hundred discreet enough to be employed in any great affair, either of war or peace. It is not the right of the sovereign, though granted to him by every man’s express consent, that can enable him to do his office ”

“ A. They had, in their anger against the Lords, formerly declared the supreme power of the nation to be in the House of Commons; and now, on February the 5th, they vote the House of Lords to be useless and dangerous. And thus the kingdom is turned into a democracy, or rather an oligarchy; for presently they made an act: that none of those members, who were secluded for opposing the vote of non-addresses, should ever be re-admitted. And these were commonly called the secluded members; and the rest were by some styled a Parliament, and by others the Rump. ”

“ To these follies I might add the folly of those fine men, which out of their reading of Tully, Seneca, or other anti-monarchies, think themselves sufficient politics, and show their discontent when they are not called to the management of the state, and turn from one side to another upon every neglect they fancy from the King or his enemies. ”

“ A. The Parliament, upon the first notice of the King’s marching from Shrewsbury, caused all the trained-bands and the auxiliaries of the city of London (which was so frightened as to shut up all their shops) to be drawn forth; so that there was a most complete and numerous army ready for the Earl of Essex, that was crept into London just at the time to head it. And this was it that made the King retire to Oxford.—In the beginning of February after, Prince Rupert took Cirencester from the Parliament, with many prisoners and many arms: for it was newly made a magazine. ”

“ A. In the beginning of 1648 the Parliament gave commission to Philip Earl of Pembroke, then made Chancellor of Oxford, together with some of the doctors there as good divines as he, to purge the University. By virtue whereof they turned out all such as were not of their faction, and all such as had approved the use of the Common-prayer-book; as also divers scandalous ministers and scholars (that is, such as customarily without need took the name of God into their mouths, or used to speak wantonly, or haunt the company of lewd women) . ”

“ Do not divines comprehend all civil and moral philosophy within their divinity? And as for natural philosophy, is it not removed from Oxford and Cambridge to Gresham College in London, and to be learned out of their gazettes? ”

“ And for his soldiers, though they were men as stout as theirs, yet, because their valour was not sharpened so with malice as theirs were of the other side, they fought not so keenly as their enemies did: amongst whom there were a great many London apprentices, who, for want of experience in the war, would have been fearful enough of death and wounds approaching visibly in glistering swords ”

“ A. The Londoners manned their works, viz.: the line of communication; raised an army of valiant men within the line; chose good officers, all being desirous to go out and fight whensoever the city should give them order; and in that posture stood expecting the enemy.
The soldiers in the meantime enter into an engagement to live and die with Sir Thomas Fairfax, and the Parliament, and the army. ”

“ A. The entrance of the Scots was a thing unexpected to the King, who was made to believe by continual letters from his commissioner in Scotland, Duke Hamilton, that the Scots never intended any invasion. ”

“ And I wonder what kind of men they were, that hindered the King from taking this resolution?
A. You may know by the declarations themselves, which are very long and full of quotations of records and of cases formerly reported, that the penners of them were either lawyers (by profession) , or such gentlemen as had the ambition to be thought so. Besides, I told you before, that those which were then likeliest to have their counsel asked in this business, were averse to absolute monarchy, as also to absolute democracy or aristocracy, all which governments they esteemed tyranny ”

“ B. Are not the Scots as properly to be called foreigners as the Irish? Seeing then they persecuted the Earl of Strafford even to death, for advising the King to make use of Irish forces against the Parliament, with what face could they call in a Scotch army against the King? ”

“ A. In the west, the Earl of Stamford had the employment of putting in execution the ordinance of Parliament for the militia; and Sir Raph Hopton for the King executed the commission of array. Between these two was fought a battle at Liskeard in Cornwall, wherein Sir Raph Hopton had the victory, and presently took a town called Saltash, with many arms and much ordnance and many prisoners. ”

“ A. Yes, much; just as they assisted his son, our present most gracious Sovereign, who two years before fled thither out of Cornwall.
B. It is methinks no great polity in neighbouring princes to favour, so often as they do, one another’s rebels, especially when they rebel against monarchy itself. They should rather, first, make a league against rebellion and afterwards, (if there be no remedy) fight one against another. ”

“ 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. ”

“ B. No; we are indeed gone from the greater businesses of the kingdom; to which, if you please, let us return.
A. The first insurrection, or rather tumult, was that of the apprentices, on the 9th of April. But this was not upon the King’s account, but arose from a customary assembly of them for recreation in Moorfields, whence some zealous officers of the trained soldiers would needs drive them away by force; but were themselves routed with stones; and had their ensign taken away by the apprentices, which they carried about in the streets, and frighted the lord mayor into his house ”

“ They had many gallant officers, and for general the Earl of Norwich; and increased daily by apprentices and old disbanded soldiers. Insomuch as the Parliament was glad to restore to the city their militia, and to keep guards on the Thames side: and then Fairfax marched towards the enemy.
B. And then the Londoners, I think, might easily and suddenly have mastered, first the Parliament, and next Fairfax his 8,000, and lastly Cromwell’s army; or at least have given the Scotch army opportunity to march unfoughten to London. ”

“ Besides, seeing the penners and contrivers of these papers were formerly members of the Parliament, and of another mind, and now revolted from the Parliament, because they could not bear that sway in the House which they expected, men were apt to think they believed not what they writ. ”

“ And for the men they should set forth for soldiers, they were almost all of them spitefully bent against the King and his whole party, whom they took to be either papists, or flatterers of the King, or that had designed to raise their fortunes by the plunder of the city and other corporation towns. ”