Prosperity can only be achieved through Peace. So let’s start a war…

“The king is mindful of his duty to set his people in ease, wealth and prosperity, which can only be achieved through peace. By dissension and discord the mightiest realms have fallen into poverty and desolation. The principal cause of the recent great disturbance is now, through God’s grace and the king’s prowess, rooted out so that there can be no doubt in anyone’s mind that our sovereign lord is king in deed as he has been since the beginning of his reign in right. But the long unrest has left many unhealed wounds and lawlessness is rampant. If the law is not strictly enforced, and offenders executed, within a few years there might have been such destruction of the people necessary for the defence of the land that outward enemies would be encouraged to attack. And a defensive war would be very costly and need more people than an expedition against the enemy. Recent dealings with France have produced nothing and have been a cloak for French sedition and the encouragement of civil war.

The best remedy is war outward, offering honourable employment to the disaffected under the king’s leadership. The king has been disposed to this since the beginning of his reign, but was hindered by his own subjects, stirred by the king of France. Now it seems expedient to take the war to France, as Scipio left Rome and took the war against Hannibal to Carthage. It offers an opportunity to recover not only Normandy and Guyenne but also the crown of France in alliance with the dukes of Burgundy and Brittany. The king of Aragon is already at war against Louis and has gained Roussillon. If the king is successful it will not cost so much to keep the sea, which at the moment costs more than the subsidy, tonage and poundage can yield.

Many gentlemen, including younger sons, might thereby be well rewarded and reside in the land for its defence, and men of war be placed in garrisons there and live on their wages who are otherwise likely to be the nuisance that they are now. It should be remembered that since the Conquest justice, peace and prosperity have only been long-lasting in the land in the days of those kings who made war outward: Henry I, Henry II, Richard I, Henry III for the time he waged outward war, Edward I, Edward III, Henry V and Henry VI. Which last Henry, notwithstanding his simple-mindedness, stood in glory and honour while the war lasted, but afterwards everything fell into decay. So it also happened in Rome when they no longer had external enemies to fight.

If England does not go to war it will make enemies of the dukes of Brittany and Burgundy and trade with the territories of the latter will suffer. The commons are urged to give the king the aid to allow him to achieve his goals.