Parliament was soon hindered by dissension within this military leadership. These officers were not professional soldiers; their experience and skill at warfare varied. More significantly, a faction of them avoided engagements with the Cavalier forces, hoping that reconciliation with King Charles I was still possible. The Earl of Manchester, perhaps the most prominent of these, expressed his pessimism for the war as follows: "If we beat the King ninety and nine times yet he is king still, and so will his posterity be after him; but if the King beat us once, we shall be all hanged, and our posterity be made slaves".