amused them with hearkening to a treaty,
designed to have seized upon their train of artillery first, and,
after that, to have surprised both the city of London and the
Parliament. And I have observed since, that our historians note this
action as contrary to the laws of honour and treaties, though as there
was no cessation of arms agreed on, nothing is more contrary to the
laws of war than to suggest it.

That it was a very unhappy thing to the king and whole nation, as it
broke off the hopes of peace, and was the occasion of bringing the
Scots army in upon us, I readily acknowledge, but that there
was anything dishonourable in it, I cannot allow. For though the
Parliament had addressed to the king for peace, and such steps were
taken in it as before, yet, as I have said, there was no proposals
made on either side for a cessation of arms, and all the world must
allow, that in such cases the war goes on in the field, while the
peace goes on in the cabinet. And if the war goes on, admit the king
had designed to surprise the city or Parliament, or all of them, it
had been no more than the custom of war allows, and what they would
have done by him if they could. The treaty of Westphalia, or peace of
Munster, which ended the bloody wars of Germany, was a precedent for
this. That treaty was actually negotiating seven years, and yet the
war went on with all the vigour and rancour imaginable, even to the
last. Nay, the very time after the conclusion of it, but before the
news could be brought to the army, did he that was afterwards King
of Sweden, Carolus Gustavus, take the city of Prague by surprise, and
therein an inestimable booty. Besides, all the wars of Europe are full
of examples of this kind, and therefore I cannot see any reason to
blame the king for this action as to the fairness of it. Indeed, as
to the policy of it, I can say little; but the case was this. The king
had a gallant army, flushed with success, and things hitherto had gone
on very prosperously, both with his own army and elsewhere; he had
above 35,000 men in his own army, including his garrison left at
Banbury, Shrewsbury, Worcester, Oxford, Wallingford, Abingdon,
Reading, and places adjacent. On the other hand, the Parliament army
came back to London in but a very sorry condition;[1] for what with
their loss in their victory, as they called it, at Edgehill, their
sickness, and a hasty march to London, they were very much diminished,
though at London t