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 they soon recruited them again.
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