PART I

An Orationfor War

Be not offended, Noble Citizens, if I labour to persuade my country to make heroic wars, since it is neither safe, profitable, nor honourable for it to live in sluggish peace: for in peace you become ignorant of the arts in war, and living sluggishly you lose the courage of men and become effeminate, and having neither skill nor courage, you cannot expect safety: for should you chance to have enemies, you would not have abilities to help yourselves, having neither experience by practice, nor courage by use and custom; for custom and use work much upon the natures of men. And as for arms, in times of peace they lie like garments out of fashion, never worn but despised and laughed at as ridiculous things, and men of action, like as arms, they jeer and make a mock of. Thus, martial men and arms in time of peace are scorned, although in time of wars they only are a kingdom's safety, to guard it from their enemies. Indeed, peace spoils both youth and age, it makes the one sort covetous, the other wanton: for aged men study only to get wealth; the young men how to spend it. Besides, it makes the poor men rieh men's asses, and rieh men poor men's burdens. Also peace makes old men fools, and young men cowards: for in long times of peace grave counsels are mere gossiping meetings, rather ideally to talk than wisely to advise. They propound many things but resolve not any, debate not, but conclude, and sometimes find faults, but never help to mend them. The truth is, for the most part they rather make errors than help to rectify defects, and in wars they had rather suffer calamity than stir for necessity; neither will they believe they are in danger until their enemies be at their gates. And as for youth, peace quenches out their heroic spirits and noble ambitions: for their only ambition is their mistress's favours, and they will go to no other wars, but Venus,6 where Cupid is general, where they only make love-skirmishes, and are shot through their hearts with glances from their mistress's eyes. Thus peace makes men like beasts: for in peace they feed like swine, sport like apes, live like goats, and may be brought to the shambles like silly sheep.

PART VIII

An Ovation to the People concerning the Death of their Sovereign

Dear Countrymen, and Loyal Mourners,

We may see our loss by our love, and our love by our grief, and our grief by our tears; but we have reason for our general mourning and sorrow in every heart, that our dread Sovereign is taken from us. He was our earthly god, as our protector, defender, assister, subsister, ruler and governor; he protected us with his justice, defended us with his arms, assisted us with his prudence, subsisted us with his love, ruled us with his power and governed us by his laws; and such a prince he was, as he was dreadful to his enemies, helpful to his friends and careful of his subjects; he hath enlarged his dominions with the sword and enriched his people with the spoils, and hath increased his power both by sea and land, and so strengthened and fortified his kingdoms as his subjects have no cause to fear any foreign invasion, but may safely sit with pleasure under their own vines: and so wise and good a prince he was, that though he be gone, yet he hath left peace and plenty amongst his people, and power, dominion, and strength to his successors, with which Heaven grant they may inherit his wisdom, moral virtues, divine graces, heroic spirit, good fortunes, and great fame, that though our old Sovereign is gone to the Gods above, yet our new Sovereign may be as a God to us here; for which let us pray to our Sovereign saint, to intercede for us to the Gods on high, to endue their deputy on earth with divine influences and humane wisdom, to govern and rule us as he did.

A Young Noblemans Funeral Ovation

Beloved Brethren,

We are met together as funeral guests to a dead man, who died in the flower of his age, and whilst he lived was favoured of nature, birth, breeding, and fortune; for he was handsome of body, understanding in mind, noble of birth, knowing in learning, and rich in wealth.

If you wonder, that I join a work of fancy to my serious philosophical contemplations; think not that it is out of a disparagement to philosophy; or out of an opinion, as if this noble study were but a fiction of the mind; for though philosophers may err in searching and enquiring after the causes of natural effects, and many times embrace falsehoods for truths; yet this doth not prove, that the ground of philosophy is merely fiction, but the error proceeds from the different motions of reason, which cause different opinions in different parts, and in some are more irregular than in others; for reason being dividable, because material, cannot move in all parts alike; and since there is but one truth in nature, all those that hit not this truth, do err, some more, some less; for though some may come nearer the mark than others, which makes their opinions seem more probable and rational than others; yet as long as they swerve from this only truth, they are in the wrong: nevertheless, all do ground their opinions upon reason; that is, upon rational probabilities, at least, they think they do: But fictions are an issue of man's fancy, framed in his own mind, according as he pleases, without regard, whether the thing he fancies, be really existent without his mind or not; so that reason searches the depth of nature, and enquires after the true causes of natural effects; but fancy creates of its own accord whatsoever it pleases, and delights in its own work. The end of reason, is truth; the end of fancy, is fiction: but mistake me not, when I distinguish fancy from reason; I mean not as if fancy were not made by the rational parts of matter; but by reason I understand a rational search and enquiry into the causes of natural effects; and by fancy a voluntary creation or production of the mind, both being effects, or rather actions of the rational parts of matter; of which, as that is a more profitable and useful study than this, so it is also more laborious and difficult, and requires sometimes the help of fancy, to recreate the mind, and withdraw it from its more serious contemplations.

PART XII

Noble Gentlemen,

Who are ennobled by time and not by favour, give me leave, since we are sociably met here in this town, that I remember you of our happy condition of life we live in, as on our own lands, amongst our own tenants, like as petty kings in our little monarchies, in peace, with moderate plenty and pleasure; our recreations are both healthful and delightful, which are hunting, hawking, and racing, as being far nobler pastimes than carding, dicing, and tennis-playing; for whereas gamesters meet for covetousness, we meet for love, they leave most of their gettings to the box, we bring most of our gettings to our tables, and whereas we make ourselves merry with our games, they make quarreis with theirs. Thus we live more friendly than gamesters and more happily than great monarchs, we neither quarrel, nor fear usurpers.

Noble Gentlemen,

The Gentleman that formerly spoke said we were petty kings, making our tenants our subjects; but if they be as subjects, they are rebellious subjects, not paying us our rents duly nor truly; besides, they are apt to murmur at the least increase of our farms, although they sell their commodities they get out of our lands at a double rate; and as for our pleasures, as hawking, hunting and racing, they may be sociable, but they are very chargeable, for hawks, hounds and horses, with their attendance, will devour a great estate in a short time, besides open house keeping in Christmas time; all which makes gentlemen beggars and beggars gentlemen, for the servants and tenants grow rieh but their masters and landlords become poor, the one sort buyeth, the other sort selleth, and the title of a gentleman is buried in the ruin of his estate.

The text of A New World called the Blazing World contained in this volume was originally edited by Kate Lilley, who included it in her collection, The Blazing World and Other Writings, published by Penguin Classics in 1992. I am extremely grateful to Pickering and Chatto, who hold the Copyright, for allowing me to use it. Lilley provided forty-one explanatory notes, some of which I have adopted. However, since there is no critical edition of this work, and since it contains allusions and references to a wide range of authors and events, I have added considerably to her annotations. In doing so, I have been aided and inspired by Eileen O'Neill's outstanding edition of Observations on Experimental Philosophy, the companion piece to Blazing World, now published by Cambridge University Press.

While Blazing World has become relatively well known, Divers Orations remains less familiar. This is, to the best of my knowledge, the first modern edition. As well as modernising spelling and occasionally altering punctuation, I have numbered individual orations for ease of reference. However, some inconsistencies, for example in titles, have been left. Because it is a relatively self-explanatory work I have added only a few notes, though I hope readers who wish to explore it in greater detail will use the list of Further Reading.

In preparing this pair of texts for publication I have been helped by Shirley Stacey, who gave me comprehensive advice about the various editions of Margaret Cavendish's works; by Virginia Cox, the Academic Librarian of Christ's College Cambridge, who generously allowed me to use the College's copy of Divers Orations., by Caroline Murray of Cambridge University Press, who took charge of scanning the text of Orations; by Olivia Skinner, who did the same for Blazing World; by Jean Field, who expertly copy-edited the whole volume; by Philip Riley and Janet Hall, who checked the proofs; and by the staff of the Rare Books Room of Cambridge University Library. Together with the General Editors of Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, and Richard Fisher, the most patient and considerate of editors, they have made this volume possible.

I

Margaret Cavendish was a strikingly prolific writer who, in the course of a comparatively short life, published eleven volumes of work. They include plays, poems, stories, letters, and, unprecedentedly for a female author, three books of natural philosophy. Cavendish's ideas about politics and government are spread through many of these writings, but are concentrated in the two works reprinted here, where the political themes that most absorbed her are intensively explored. These preoccupations arose out of her own experience, which was dramatically shaped by the English Civil War, the execution of King Charles I, the years of Cromwellian rule, and the subsequent restoration of the monarchy. Throughout this period Cavendish lived on the edge of the arena of high politics, and the course of her life was moulded by the fortunes of the Royalist party to which she belonged. The fears and convictions generated by this Odyssey form the main elements of her political philosophy which, like the work of many of her conservative contemporaries, focuses on the question of how a monarch can most effectively avoid the dangers of faction and preserve social harmony. A more distinctive feature of Cavendish's writing, however, is her interest in specific forms of social power, a concern which again echoes her own circumstances. The weight she places on a dramaturgical model of political authority, for example, and above all her multifaceted analyses of the hierarchical relations between men and women, reflect her acquaintance with the centre and the margins of English society. The double exclusion of a woman writer who spent the first fifteen years of her adult life in exile is counterbalanced by a familiarity with the ways of power and an aristocratic confidence in her own protected Position. To begin to understand this unusual amalgam, and the political views to which it gave rise, it is helpful to know more about her life.

II

Margaret Cavendish was the youngest child of Elizabeth Lucas, the capable and resourceful widow of Sir Thomas Lucas, an Essex gentleman who died when Margaret was two years old. An apparently uneventful childhood and adolescence spent at her home near Colchester came to an end with the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642, when she and her mother moved to Oxford, the Royalist stronghold to which Charles I had just transferred his court.

PART IV

Accusing and Pleading at the Bar before Jfudges, for and against a Woman that hath Killed her Husband

Most Reverend Judges,

The Plaintiff: This woman, who is accused not only for killing a man, but her husband, we have for this grievous and horrid fact brought before your honours, to be judged according to the laws, delivering her to your justice and judgement.

Defendant: Most Reverend, and Just Judges, ‘Tis true that this unhappy woman hath unfortunately killed her husband, but heaven knows, it was against her will, and as I may say against her knowledge: for her husband and she being lovingly together, not mistrusting any danger, on a sudden came a man who, as it seems, was her husband's enemy, for he assaulted her husband with a drawn sword; this woman seeing her husband in danger, as being unarmed and defenceless, was so afrighted as she knew not what she did; wherefore, she having got a dagger which lay in the room they were in, and thinking to thrust it into her husband's enemy, unawares thrust it into her husband's body, wherewith he feil down and immediately died, which when she saw and perceived the mistake, she was as distracted and at last feil into a trance, but being recovered out of that faint fit, she hath since remained a most sorrowful and lamenting widow; I express her sorrow, to prove her innocence from all evil constructions; for the death of her husband was not designed or intended by her, but by Fate and Fortune; and it is the duty of a loving wife, to defend her husband's honour, person, and life with all her endeavours, and if the success of her honest, loyal, and loving endeavours falls out unfortunately she ought not to be punished for her misfortune; for misfortune is no crime, but rather to be pitied and comforted, neither can justice make misfortune a law to condemn to die; and shall duty and loyalty be made traitors? Shall honest love be punished with torments and death? No, Most Reverend Judges, love and loyalty ought to be honoured with praise and respect, and not with torments and death, and the death of this woman's husband was caused by a maskered fear proceeding from an extraordinary love.

PART II

An Oration from a Besieged City, ready toyield or eise to be taken

I am come here to entreat you, that are our over-powerful enemies, to be our merciful saviours, that though you are determined to destroy our city and possess our goods, yet you would be pleased to spare the lives of the inhabitants; for what profit will it be to destroy numbers of defenceless and powerless persons only to satisfy your fury, which will be satisfied with time better than with blood? For though our blood may quench your present rage, yet it may afterwards clog your consciences and cause a sorrowful repentance, which may disturb the peace of your minds, wherein your thoughts will be in a perpetual war: for to kill us after our Submission, and when we have made a satisfaction for our faults in yielding up our city and goods without any further resistance, our deaths will be but murders; so that you will blemish your conquest, from being noble and generous conquerors to be cruel and inhumane murderers; whereas the sparing of our lives will be acceptable to god, nature, and mankind, and the trumpet of your fame will sound sweetly and harmoniously in the ears of afterages, where you will get as much love and praises for your clemency and mercy, as admiration and renown for your valours and conducts; whereas your cruelty will sound so harshly with such discords as it will beget dislike, and so much hate as to bury all your valour and wisdom in Fortune's partial and unjust favours, ascribing that to her she had no right to challenge.

PART X

An Ovation against Excess and Vanity

Fellow Citizens,

I observe great excess in stately and chargeable buildings, rich and costly furnishings, vain adornings, wasteful feasting, idle entertaining and unprofitable attendances, and the like vanities. First for your building, you build not only for conveniency and decency, but for State and magnificence, and you build not only large and high, as if you would spread to the circumference of the earth and ascend to the mansions of the Gods, but you endeavour to work beyond nature for curiosities in cutting, carving, engraving and painting to the life; also you dig to the abyss, as to the centre of the earth for several materials, as diverse sorts of stones and metals, and endeavour to make your palaces to outshine the sun with gold; wherein you waste so much gold and silver in vain and unprofitable gilding and inlaying, that there is not enough left to make coin for traffic: also your stately building doth not only ruin your posterity, leaving them more houses than land, but you ruin the poor, enclosing the land with your walls and filling up lands with houses, whereas com and fruits should grow; thus you tread upon the bellies, backs and heads of the poor. And as for your rich and costly furniture, it costs much and wears out soon, yielding no profit, for the principal of so much money is wasted and no use made thereof. Secondly, for your feasting, wherewith you eat rather to be sick than to prolong life, you spoil more than you eat and eat more than you have appetite; you are like misers in your feeding, stuffing your stomachs with meat as they do their trunks and bags with money, and the superfluity of meat destroys the gluttonous eater with surfeits. Thirdly, your adorning or rather deforming yourselves in antic fashions and toyish vanities, which sheweth your heads to be brainless, and sometimes your purses to be moneyless, for spending so much on your backs, you cannot keep anything in your coffers nor for your necessary use. Fourthly, your idle visits and unprofitable discourses, wherein is more words than wit, and more time lost than knowledge gained, for you become more ignorant with talking than learned with contemplating, for brains are not manured with foolish discourses but wise considerations.