And for arms, they had in their hands the chief magazines, the Tower of London, and the town of Kingston-upon-Hull; besides most of the powder and shot that lay in several towns for the use of the trained bands.
Fortified places, there were not many then in England, and most of them in the hands of the Parliament.
The King’s fleet was wholly in their command, under the Earl of Warwick.
Counsellors, they needed no more than such as were of their own body; so that the King was every way inferior to them, except it were, perhaps, in officers.
A. I cannot compare their chief officers. For the Parliament, the Earl of Essex (after the Parliament had voted the war) was made general of all their forces both in England and Ireland, from whom all other commanders were to receive their commissions.
B. What moved them to make general the Earl of Essex? And for what cause was the Earl of Essex so displeased with the King, as to accept that office?
A. I do not certainly know what to answer to either of those questions; but the Earl of Essex had been in the wars abroad, and wanted neither experience, judgment, nor courage, to perform such an undertaking. And besides that, you have heard, I believe, how great a darling of the people his father had been before him, and what honour he had gotten by the success of his enterprise upon Calais, and in some other military actions. To which I may add, that this Earl himself was not held by the people to be so great a favourite at court, as that they might not trust him with their army against the King. And by this, you may perhaps conjecture the cause for which the Parliament made choice of him for general.
B. But why did they think him discontented with the Court?
A. I know not that; nor indeed that he was so. He came to the court, as other noblemen did, when occasion was, to wait upon the King; but had no office (till a little
