[1]
Another source of most acrimonious controversy was furnished by the
important question of peace or war, which formed a daily subject of debate
in every company, and divided the royalists into contending parties. Some
there were (few, indeed, in number, and chiefly those whom the two houses
by their votes had excluded from all hopes of pardon) who contended that
the king ought never to lay down his arms till victory should enable him to
give the law to his enemies; but the rest, wearied out with the fatigues
and dangers of war, and alarmed by the present sequestration of their
estates, and the ruin which menaced their families, most anxiously longed
for the restoration of peace. These, however, split into two parties; one
which left the conditions to the wisdom of the monarch; the other which not
only advised, but occasionally talked of compelling a reconciliation, on
almost any terms, pretending that, if once the king were reseated on his
throne, he must quickly recover every prerogative which he might have lost.
As for Charles himself, he had already suffered too much by the war, and
saw too gloomy a prospect before him, to be indifferent to the subject;
but, though he was now prepared to make sacrifices, from which but two
years before he would have recoiled with horror, he had still resolved
never to subscribe to conditions irreconcilable with his honour and
conscience; and in this temper of
[Footnote 1: Clarendon, ii.
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