Historical and Political Notes on the Life of Oliver Cromwell

...and force than this tutor of the kingdom of yours? Why, therefore, do you now extol with the most exquisite praises what you judged worthy of beheading in a just King? O sign of most abject adulation, and patience of servitude more than Stoic. Therefore, your state was Aristocratic neither by its laws nor by its administration, but an most absolute Dominion. But perhaps the very sweet name of Protector tickled you more intimately, and it seemed more tolerable to carry the saddle under a tutor with a gasp than to rest in peace under a fastidious King. These arts of rulers have now been exposed too much, and although they wrap their poison in silken coverings, it smells everywhere to politicians of a more refined nose, and the rust shines through. These are impostures truly obsolete and known to the bleary-eyed and the barbers, which will no longer deceive even a superstitious old woman. But more on this below.

The rest of this §. barks to the point of nausea about restored peace. I will not deny that it was restored in some way, but it was slippery, bloody, and with the loss of liberty, nor do I deny the quiet; but only to those to whom nature has denied the desire of a free mind, to whom it is established among the articles of highest happiness if they are allowed to abuse the license of conscience, to stuff their bodies with banquets without the fear of a soldier, to indulge their genius, and finally to those who have built up such a thick callus of servitude that they do not feel themselves being scraped to the quick, while most are groaning, to whom

The Titan fashioned their hearts from better clay A quote from Juvenal, Satire 14, implying those with a more noble or discerning spirit.;

But you are restrained within the terms of obedience by the necessity of the laws of the lictor.

Ad §. VII.

The happiness of the marriage, with a wife of a genius versatile for all contingencies, is not to be denied. However, I do not know his sons, who are not celebrated for vice or virtue; nor in the battle of opinions is it entirely clear how I should judge his children, whether the brave are created from the brave, and whether to choose the sins of the sons of heroes. Nothing is surprising about his affinities, since he is most dear who nourishes power with chief utility, and those are considered the most beautiful which stabilize the kingdom. Therefore, when Cromwell saw that his force...