THE Earl of Dorset HIS SPEECH FOR PROPOSITIONS OF PEACE, DELIVERED TO HIS MAJESTY at OXFORD, on January 18.  
London, printed in the year 1642.   

A Speech spoken by the Earl of DORSET, unto His Majesty at OXFORD, concerning the war now in ENGLAND.  
Most gracious sovereign:  
I Am not altogether unsensible of this business, 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 blood that runs in my veins I have extracted thence, besides, my fortunes have their situation within these confines. What I shall now speak, is not merely 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 do protest, my zeal to your Majesty shall at this time suspend the agitation of such principals, and I will set aside all particular relations, and look 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 tried it, yet the worst of war is usual in the close: And if the conclusion of the most advantageous war that ever was waged, when all reckonings be cast up, the conqueror hath had little whereof to glory. But this is not a war between a King and a stranger, but between a sovereign and his Subjects, a near relation, and they had need to be weighty motives that shall dissolve this knot; subjects are easily lost, we see the work is every day, but once lost, are hardly regained. Affections are like to crystal glasses, which broken, are hardly set together again.  
But these are not subjects, as the kingly Prophet speaketh of, A people that I know not are subject unto me; but your Majesty may say of them, as Adam of Eve, 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 own house a fire, and to destroy the work of his own hands.  
Now let us consider two things: first, the necessity of war, secondly, the motives unto it, whether they be Tanti, and of such moment, that a King should hazard the uncertain chance of war, and the miseries that accompany it, rather than 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 sceptre in the latter times, how willing they were to deliver the stroke of war almost upon any terms.  
If your Majesty consider but the practice 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 deep and profound judgement, and better versed in the mystery of Government; yet what means they use (or rather did use) to divert the course, if at any time it did come within their channel; they counted it no dishonour to yield to their Subjects demands, though sometimes unjust and unreasonable, nay, themselves to be the first seekers, and propounders of Peace. And so by this means, when the storm 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 uncertain, and the event various, and he that committeth one error in the war, especially when the seat of it is in his own kingdom, seldom times to commit a second: we need not to go far for instances, Richard the second, and Edward the second will be fresh precedents for any that shall endeavour to buy the experience hereof upon such dear terms as they did. It should be in the body politic, as it is in the body natural. Phlebotomies should never be used, but when the humours are so predominant, that no other course will remove them, and that unless 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 politic, it cannot be denied, and some it may be that work obstruction in some of the lesser pipes of government, but when your Vena Basilica, and Vena Cava, are full of the royal 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 ●●ines, when all purgations make them malignant. There are three means to be used that have not been tried, any of which are better than the means prescribed. The first removes the occasion; this can be no impeachment to the sceptre, 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 well as the body of the English, yet he never sought the obtruding of minimus infimis, and yet none more zealous of a Kingly Government than he: it is an act of the extremest 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 add one cubit to your stature.  
Secondly, if this like not, let time work it forth, and by this means swallow up the hook or Induxor, the proposal of it left, recreets distasteful things, works most at first, lest afterwards; by degrees your Majesty may work them to that (which for the present) they will rather die then embrace: We see how by degrees the Romans brought a royal slavery upon the world, which if they had at first propounded upon downright terms, had hardly been accomplished: If ever Norman William by degrees brought the English to wear the yoke, which if he had at the first tendered, he either must have missed his aim, or Norman no people to employ; so impatient than were the English Nation to hear of a Conqueror, and we see it is sometimes costly.  
What if your Majesty should seem to yield to the demands of the English now, and give the advantage of a fair game, cannot your Majesty remove the objects by degrees, turn the humours some other way for a more seasonable opportunity, to screw in things by instruments more fit and less subject to exception; the proposal of the course I hold more certain, more safe, more secure, which knows no law, but devours all the other. And I hold that kingdom most miserable which is forced to make use of a remedy worse than the disease.  
Thus much for the first, there is no necessity of war, 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 only to propose the means to such as fish with a golden hook, the loss of which hook is of more consequence than the fish they can take; truly to speak plainly what I think, they that advise war in this case, know not what it is to get, nor greatly care for the loss of a Kingdom, so they may play their own games, and fish in troubled waters; suce counsellors as these were the Bishops of Rosse to the late Queen of Scots, and the Bishop of brooks to that miserable King of Hungary, who was the cause and occasion to bring the Turk into Hungary, and the French into Scotland, both which Nations have cause to wish that they never knew the way thither again.  
Three Reasons have been given to persuade 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 war, but when the end of it is a certain or probable peace, and when there is no way left but that only to obtain it.  
FINIS.