I have found two quotes by Jacob Astley, a Royalist General in the First English Civil War, to be quite useful during my life. At the battle of Edgehill, the first battle of the English Civil War, he famously said the following brief prayer: “O Lord, Thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget Thee, do not thou forget me”. I have found that prayer to be quite useful on many an eventful day.
Much less well known is a statement he made at the last battle of that war, Stow-on-the-Wold. Captured by Parliamentarian troops he prophetically mad this observation: “Well, boys, you have done your work, now you may go and play—if you don’t fall out among yourselves”.  A comforting thought, as the Parliamentarians did fall out among themselves, producing strife that ended only when Charles II was invited to reclaim his father’s throne. Today’s defeat, in time, and with squabbling among the victors, can be the seed of a future victory.
