Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
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A35629
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The accomplished commander being necessary instructions for the prudent conduct of officers in an army / written by a person of great experience in military affairs, and published for the common benefit, by R.C.
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Person of great experience in military affairs.; R. C.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing C96; ESTC R3979
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26,949
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149
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But it is not enough for a Commander to use Speed and Expedition in Execution of his Enterprize Of Resolution in War. unless he be also constant and resolute of Courage in Chances and Checks of Fortune in Perils and Dangers whereupon the said Caesar without all doubt surpassed all other Captains whose memorable Prowess by the help of Learning hath come to the Knowledge of Posterity For upon many occasions opposing himself alone against his flying and discomfited Soldiers sometimes pulling them back one by one and another while forcing them to turn again He would rally Ranks half broken and renew a Battel at the point of wavering re-securing whatsoever before was doubtfull In the Field which he fought with the Nericy the Battel being brought to that Exegent that his whole Cavalry was upon point of flight and the Seventh and Twelfth Legions in great distress their Captains and Commanders being allmost slain Caesar casting his Shield on his Arm and pressing through the midst of the Squadrons to the Front of the Battel he made such Proof of his Valour that partly upon his Example and partly for the Danger wherein they saw their General engaged the Soldiers perceiving hopes gathering strength and courage a fresh renewed the fight and so Valiantly behaved themselves that fifty thousand of their Enemies lay slain on the Place by which President it may plainly be seen how much Resolution and Expedition import a General For albeit that Caesar was a Captain so wary and so circumspect yet was he suddenly and secretly set upon by the Policy of his Enemies who being covered with the-thickness of these Boughs which did over spread them were sooner felt than seen he wanted but little of his latest Ruine and final Overthrow had he not helped himself by his innate Valour and speedy Order In his War of Africa his Soldiers being put to the worst he lugged one of his Ensign-bearers by the Throat and turning him towards his Enemies There there said he are those against whom thou must fight In the very same War the Enemies having given his Men so furious a Charge that they had already entred their Rampiers and fell pell-mell with his Soldiers Caesar thrusting forward amongst them by his presence and example reheartened the one and restrained the other And likewise in Spain perceiving his Soldiers ready to fly traversing the Troups and posting themselves from one unto another what with ealling upon them and what with lying about he so managed the Matter that his Men for very shame not to be said to forsake their General if not betray him took Heart and Courage and obtained Victory with the death of thirty Thousand Pompeians Of Errours in War and the evil Consequences thereof IN Military Affairs it is extreme folly and much blamable to say I did not think it for in other occurrences an Errour may haply be amended but Over-sight in War-fare without punishment and repentance instantly accompanying them cannot possibly be redressed and therefore it standeth with the Reputation of a General to premeditate throughly upon his designments and to have an open and a watchfull Eye even upon Matters of smallest Moment We read that Sempronius committed there great Errours which every one deserved to be recompenced with the loss that followed the first was That he fought with Hannibal in a Campaigne being by far inferiour in Horse and withall thereby subject to the African Elephants which in inclosed or uneven Grounds and Woodlands would have been of no use His Second Errour was In the Battel of Trebia both the Romane Consulswere beaten by Hannibal That he made no discovery of the place upon which he fought whereby he was grossly over-reacht and ensnar'd by the Ambush which Hannibal had laid for him The third was That he drencht his Foot men with empty Stomachs in the River of Trebia even in a cold and frosty day whereby in effect they lost their Limbs for there is nothing in the World more inconvenient and perilous than to present an Army tired with Travel to an Enemy fresh and fed since thereby the Strength of the Body faileth the Generosity of the Mind is but an empty Vapour When the Knowledge of Alexander's Landing on Asia side was brought to Darius he so much scorn'd the Army of Macedon and had so contemptible an opinion of Alexander himself as having styled him his Servant on a Letter which he had wrote unto him reprehending his Disloyalty and Audacity for Darius entitled himself King of Kings and Kinsman to the Gods he gave order withall to his Lieutenants of Lesser Asia that they should take Alexander alive whip him with Rods and then convey him to his Presence that they should sink his Ships and send the Macedons taken Prisoners beyond the red Sea belike into Aethiopia or some other unhealthfull Part of Africa Darius lost in one Battel against Alexander as Curtius saith 100000 Foot and as many Horse and 40000 taken Prisoners when Alexander 's Army there miscarried but 200 and 80 in all sorts but by the Experience of his own overthrow he found his grand Errour imputing too much confidence in a multitude of disorderly and unwarlike Men. We see what Errour the Empire of Constantinople committed in using the help of foreign Auxiliaries in taking ten Thousand Turks against his Nighbour Princes he could never by Persuasion or Force set them again over Sea upon Asia side which gave beginning to the Christian Servitude that soon after followed Alexander the Son of Cassander sought aid of the great Demetrius who being entred into his Kingdom slew the Son Alexander that had invited him and made himself King of Macedon Syracon the Turk was called into Aegypt by Sanor the Soldane against his opposite but the Turk did settle himself so saft in Aegypt that Solidon his Successour became Lord thereof and all the Holy Land soon after What need we look about for Examples of this Kind every Nation in effect can furnish us the Britains drew the Saxons into this our Country and Macmurrough drew the English into Ireland but the one and the other soon became Lords of these two Kingdoms Of Honourable Retreats with Examples thereof IT is the true Judgment of Men of War Honourable Retreats are no way inferiour to brave Charges as having less of Fortune more of Discipline and as much of Valour Darius was overthrown with all his Cowardly and Confused Rabble when those Grecians under their Captain Amintas held firm and marched away in order in dispight of the Vanquishers old Soldiers are not easily dismay'd We read in Histories Ancient and Modern what brave Retreats have been made by them though the rest of the Army in which they have served hath been broken At the Battel of Ravenne were the Imperialists were beaten by the French a Squadron of Spaniards old Soldiers came off unbroken and undismay'd for it is truly said by these men who by being acquainted with dangers fear them
it resisted obstinately he razed to the ground from thence he entred into Caria where Ada the Queen who had been cast out of all that ever she held except the City of Alinda by Darius his Lieutenant presented her self unto him and adopted him her Son and Successour which Alexander accepted in such gratious part that he left the whole Kingdom to her disposing Sir Walter R. It was duly observed that as often as Octavius Augustus entred Rome no punishment that day was inflicted upon any person he was griev'd himself when he pronounc'd a grievous Sentence and he thought himself punished when he punished others Senec. When the same Augustus had by Proclamation promised a great summe of money to him that should bring in that famous Pirate Corocoto and put him into his Power he knowing the Emperour 's mild and temperate Vein took the boldness to come in himself and demanded the summe promised to him that should bring him in Augustus both Pardoned him and gave him the Money Dion Crassus taken by Cyrus and imprisoned despoiled of all things but the expectation of Death he was forthwith tied in Fetters and set on the top of a great and high heap of Wood to be consumed to ashes thereon to which when the Fire was kindled remembring the discourse which he had had with the Athenian Law-giver he thrice cried out on his Name Solon Solon Solon and being demanded what he meant by that invocation he first used silence but urged again he told them that he now found it true which Solon had long since told him That many men in the Race and Courses of their lives may well be counted fortunate but no man could discern himself happy indeed till his End Of which Answer Cyrus being speedily informed and remembring the Changes of Fortune and his own Mortality he commanded his Ministers of Justice to withdraw the Fire with all diligence and did not only spare his Life but entertained him ever after as a King and his Companion Sir Walt. R. Julius Caesar said the greatest Pleasure that ever he took of his Victories was that he daily sav'd the Lives of some of his Country-men that bore Arms against him And when Pompey's Head was presented unto him he wept bitterly and caused him to be honourably Buried Saying Ego Pompeii casum deploro meam fortunam metuo I lament Pompeys Fall and fear my own Misfortune From which we may observe in the general That the most fam'd Men in the World have had in them both Courage and Compassion and often times wet Eyes as well as wounding hands Of Fame gotten in War with Examples thereof PLutarch tells of a poor Indian that would rather endure a dooming to death than shoot before Alexander when he had discontinued least by shooting ill he should lose the Fame he had gotten Doubtless even this man was ordered by a Power above him which instilleth into the minds of all men an ardent Appetition of a lasting fame Desire of Glory is the last Garment that every Wise man lays aside not that it betters himself being gone but that it stirs up those that follow him to an earnest endeavour of Noble Actions which is the only means to win the Fame we wish for David durst fight with the great Philistian after he heard how the man should be honoured that slew him Themistocles that streamed out his youth in Vine and Venery and was suddenly changed into a Vertuous and Valiant man told one that ask'd what did so strangly change him That the Trophy of Miltiades would not let him sleep Tamberlane made it his practice to read often the Heroick Deeds of his own Progenitors not as boasting in them but as Glorious Examples propounded to enflame his Vertues Surely nothing awakes our sleeping Vertues like the Noble Acts of our Predecessours how many Valiant Soldiers does a generous Leader make Brutus and others bred many constant Patriots Fame I confess I find more eagerly pursued by the Heathens than by the Christians of these times the Immortality as they thought of their Name was to them as the Immortality of the Soul to us a strong reason to persuade to worthiness their Knowlege halted in the latter so they rested in the first which often made them sacrifice their Lives to that which they esteemed above their Lives their Fame When Philip asked Dometritus if he did not fear to lose his Head He answered no for if he did the Athenians would give him one Immortal he should be statued in the Treasure of Eternal Fame Alexander Magnus when he came to Achilles's Tomb he fell a weeping to consider that he had Homer to sing his Praises and to perpetuate them whereas he had no such Poet to set forth his Commendation And Lysander the Lacedemonian seeking after Fame had always about him Choerilus the Poet that he might celebrate in Verse all his Victories and Vertues Augustus Coesar when he had made his Will affixed to it four Books wherein all his great Actions were recorded requiring that they should be engraven in Brazen-Pillars of his Sepulchre And Alphonsus King of Aragon and Sicily seeking Glory and Fame did not only build many stately Edifices but kept about him Parnormitan an excellent Poet and Bartholomew Faccius a skilfull Historian to record his Actions Cornelius Gallus being sent by Octavius Caesar to govern Aegypt he began to grow very Proud of his great Honour commanding his Statues to be erected upon the Pyramides Pompey the Great when Theophanes of Mytelene had written his great Victories and Praises by way of Recompence bestowed a City upon him Belizarius after he had often overcome the Goths in Italy and had taken Prisoner their King Vitiges as also Gilimer King of the Vandals in Africk and had settled Africk and Sicily in peace and often Triumphed over the Persians he caused a Golden Cross of an hundred pound weight set with precious Stones to be made and thereon to be ingraven all his Victories which he dedicated to St. Peter's Church in Rome presuming that out of respect to the Holiness of the Place it would continue there as a lasting Monument of his Praises But of all I like him best who does things that deserve a fame without a search or caring for it Since for a mean man to thirst after mighty Fame is a kind of fond Ambition Can we think a Mouse able to cast a shadow like an Elephant Can a Sparrow have a train like an Eagle Great Fame is for great Princes and such who for their Parts are the Glory of Humanity Good Parts may adorn a private Man. The same fire may be in the Waxen Taper which is in the gilded Torch but is not equal either in Quantity or Advancement Let the World speak well of me and I will never care though it does not speak much Of Monarchy THE first most Ancient most General and most Approv'd was the Government of one Ruling by Just Laws called Monarchy