_B._ We left at the preparations on both sides for war; which when I considered by myself, I was mightily puzzled to find out what possibility there was for the King to equal the Parliament in such a course, and what hopes he had of money, men, arms, fortified places, shipping, counsel, and military officers, sufficient for such an enterprise against the Parliament, that had men and money as much at command, as the city of London, and other corporation towns, were able to furnish, which was more than they needed. And for the men they should set forth for soldiers, they were almost all of them spitefully bent against the King and his whole party, whom they took to be either papists, or flatterers of the King, or that had designed to raise their fortunes by the plunder of the city and other corporation towns. And though I believe not that they were more valiant than other men, nor that they had so much experience in the war as to be accounted good soldiers; yet they had that in them, which in time of battle is more conducing to victory than valour and experience both together; and that was spite. 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?