Royalist

“ He was a monarch now. Even his nurse, to whom, the moment he saw her, he had held out his hand, kissed it reverently, and called him ceremoniously “his Majesty the King.”
“A king must be always a king, I suppose,” said he half-sadly, when, the ceremonies over, he had been left to himself for just ten minutes, to put off his boy's clothes and be reattired in magnificent robes, before he was conveyed away from his tower to the royal palace. ”

“ Sending his cavalry before to impede the king’s march, Cromwell hurried after him with the foot through central England, summoning all the militia of the southern and midland counties to meet him. With their aid he was able to surround Worcester with an army of thirty thousand men and attack the royalists with an overpowering force on both sides of the Severn. As usual Cromwell freely exposed himself in the battle. He was the first man to cross the Teme and bring support to Fleetwood’s hard-pressed troops. ”

“ Such a sovereign without a crown, or the title of king, with his favorites and his instigators about him, may not be a less dangerous animal, than the monarch whose brow is decorated by the splendor of a diadem. ”

“ His form is thin and shrunken; His cheek is pale and wan; And the lines of care on his furrowed brow Are dread to look upon. But yesterday a monarch, In the flush of his pomp and pride, And, not content with his own broad lands, He would rule the world beside. He built him a stately palace, With gold from beyond the sea; And he laid with care the corner-stone, And he called it Slavery: He summoned an army with banners, To keep his foes at bay; And, gazing with pride on his palace walls, He said, "They will stand for aye!" ”

“ You have this day to declare yourself head of a nation. 'And now, O Lord, my God, thou hast made thy servant ruler over the people. Give unto him an understanding heart, that he may know how to go out and come in before this great people; that he may discern between good and bad. For who is able to judge this thy so great people?' were the words of a royal sovereign; and not less applicable to him who is invested with the chief magistracy of a nation, though he wear not a crown, nor the robes of royalty. ”

“ Pleasures have succeeded [290] to difficulties, and I have met a monarch whom no words can describe—a King to whom all the creation is a slave, and to whom fortune is a vassal, whose hand distributes bounties, so that I know not whether it is the sea or a cloud. The sun has invested him with a crown, so that the world need not fear darkness. ”

“ Monarchy remains impregnably entrenched because the crown, in addition to comprising an accustomed feature of the governmental economy, fulfills specific ends which are recognized universally to be eminently worth while, if not indispensable. As a social, moral, and ceremonial agency, and as a visible symbol of the unity of the nation; king and court occupy an immeasurable place in the life and thought of the people ”

“ But if he fails to execute this my royal command, then, as a just but mild monarch, I shall give orders that you and he are taken, and first dipped in tar and then in feathers, and you shall be executed in the market-place for the entertainment of my courtiers.’
And a smile played round the King’s lips as he finished speaking, and his courtiers and counsellors shook with laughter when they thought of the old woman’s folly, and praised the King’s wise device, and said to each other, ‘What a joke it will be when we see the pair of them tarred and feathered! ”

“ That a kind monarch has his strength employ’d,
To cater for the royal appetite,
And kept his sacred person from the fight.
Ask of the Beaver, Slave! what wholesome rules
Binds his community,—unknown to schools:
Inquire the rights he claims,—the law he gives,
In that society in which he lives?
He will instruct thee, ’tis for mutual good,
To share defence, and fellowship and food:—
That gen’ral benefit cements the tie,
Which binds his species in society. ”

“ The monarchy is purely fictitious; the king is a roi fainéant being, in fact, neither more or less than a gigantic turtle, which is kept in a handsome house, has a train of highly-salaried officials to wait on him, and has his big carapace elaborately ornamented with engraving, polishing and gilding, so that he really looks a most royal reptile, and plays and looks his part to perfection in those rare ceremonies in which his presence is supposed to be required. ”

“ Because no king shall ever wear the crown again, nor wave the scepter, nor wield the sword of state, the Regalia, housed in the Crown Room, and guarded from commoner and king by massive iron grating, is more interesting than any other appanage of royalty in the world. ”

“ A Prince, delegated by his Father, and drawn from his retreat in another country, mild in his temper, and amiable in his manners, was induced to renew their almost forgotten claims upon our monarchy, and to revive the quickly decaying prejudices within our land, in favour of his family and himself. ”

“ Upon these grounds a gray-haired noble dwelt,
⁠A ribboned courtier of the former reign;
A tedious proper man, who glibly knelt
⁠To royalty,—this ancient chamberlain,—
Yoked with a girlish wife, and, for the rest,
Proud of the charge that made a prince his guest. ”

“ If the old royalty is ever restored, it is my opinion, and I offer it with becoming deference, that, from personal hatred to the present titular monarch, and the dread of retaliation by a lineal revival of monarchy, the crown will be placed upon the brows of one of the collateral branches of the expatriated family. ”

“ The great and the rich are assembled to see a king crowned—a monarch whose raiment is the work of men's hands, but who, in all his glory, is arrayed in purple less exquisite than that of a humble flower. ”

“ The prince is here a centre of union; an advantage, the want of which makes a democracy, which is so beautiful in theory, the very worst of all possible governments, except absolute monarchy, in practice. ”

“ As a servant of the fallen Monarchy the veneration with which you kneel at the feet of your King will emphasize the nobility of your character, and without loss of dignity you can lavish upon him every sort of flattery. ”

“ Far more lofty than any title bestowed by earthly monarch is that patent of nobility straight from the hand of the "King of kings," that seems to give to the mortal something of the authority of the immortal, and to crown the head of the priest with the diadem that belongs to those who are "kings and priests unto God." ”

“ The haughty monarch is the citizen king; the wily and secret politician, the most free-spoken and candid of men: the most cautious in an intrigue, the very rashest in action. How is it possible to divine the meaning, or guess the wishes, of one whose nature seems so Protean? ”

“ Whether he is supposed to be a sovereign by the grace of God, or by hereditary right, or by the voice of the people, he represents the country and the people; he is their duke, their king, their emperor, and if they wish to see him honoured by others, they must not fail to honour him themselves. ”

“ With firm hand grasping, steer the nation's bark
Through storms of strife to honour and to peace.
⁠And royalty's proud dust lies mouldering there,
'Neath sculptured marbles, or midst gilded shrines:
While high o'erhead the ancient banners droop.—
Monarchs of other days—of other ages,
Successive generations of the great,
Who ruled the realm of England as she grew
From isolate obscurity to greatness
That with a fame undying fills the world. ”

“ To whom the prince: “This night with joy I stay O monarch great in virtue as in sway! If thou the circling year my stay control, To raise a bounty noble as thy soul; The circling year I wait, with ampler stores And fitter pomp to hail my native shores: Then by my realms due homage would be paid; For wealthy kings are loyally obeyed!” ”

“ Let the world without go as it may; let kingdoms rise or fall, so long as he has the wherewithal to pay his bill, he is, for the time being, the very monarch of all he surveys. The armchair is his throne, the poker his sceptre, and the little parlour, some twelve feet square, his undisputed empire. ”

“ We who are royal are a class apart. We are worshipped prisoners, processional toys. We pay for worship by losing—our elementary freedom. And I was to have married that Prince—You know nothing of him though. Well, a pigmy Prince. ”

“ Happy the prince who, whilst living on terms of equality with the people of a strange country, still distinguishes himself by the superiority of his noble mind and character. Happy the prince who in adverse circumstances can defy fate and make conquests in the kingdom of letters, which cannot, like dynastic authority, be taken away from him. ”

“ The king, a young and virtuous prince, has, I am persuaded, a pleasure in reflecting on the generous benevolence of the action in assisting an oppressed people, and proposes it as a part of the glory of his reign. ”

“ By giving the king the ecclesiastical patronage they not only made a docile instrument of him, but endowed him with a mine of wealth, even more productive than the sale of offices, and a power of favouring and rewarding that transformed a needy and ill-obeyed king into an absolute monarch. ”

“ Thus much in general I have presumed, not without pain and fear, to submit to his Majesty’s consideration; too proud to receive any mark of the King’s countenance and favour, but above all doubly happy could I see those dearer to me than myself comprehended in that monument of royal approbation and goodness, with which his Majesty shall condescend to distinguish me. ”

“ Proclaiming through the living and the dead,—
'The Monarch saith that his great empire's worth
Is set on Laon and Laone's head;
He who but one yet living here can lead,
Or who the life from both their hearts can wring,
Shall be the kingdom's heir—a glorious meed! ”

“ Under every monarchical establishment, it is necessary to distinguish the prince from his subjects, not only by the outward pomp and decorations of majesty, but also by ascribing to him certain qualities, as inherent in his royal capacity, distinct from and superior to those of any other individual in the nation. ”

“ I have known more enlightened monarchs, in more highly civilized lands, to succumb to their excessive zeal for good-fellowship. Quiet, care, and a few drops of balsam are all that this old chief requires to make him a king again from top to toe. ”

“ What can be finer than to imagine the sovereign placed at its head, resplendent in the midst of those marble pillars,—to fancy this monarch like a god graciously permitting the approach of human beings. The crowd surges upward. ”

“ No change ever came to them; and I think, at any day [Pg 119] throughout his long reign, the King would sooner have lost his crown than have lost sight of the Beautiful Mountains.
In course of time, when the little prince, his cousin, was grown into a tall young man, capable of all the duties of a man, his Majesty did one of the most extraordinary acts ever known in a sovereign beloved by his people and prosperous in his reign. ”

“ But just so does the lesser prince believe he would govern a duchy quite otherwise, and the higher one believes the same in regard to a kingdom, and so does the highest, in regard to universal monarchy. ”

“ They consider your Majesty a cruel king, and think that you are trying only to profit by their estates and to claim their personal service—although all is so much to the contrary on the part of your Majesty, as witness the holy laws and ordinances which, for the good government of these lands, your Majesty has made and ordered to be observed. ”

“ It may be put symbolically, and even mystically, by saying that they all bear the image of the King. And, though the most mystical, it is also the most practical summary of equality that all men bear the image of the King of Kings. ”

“ Again, of his son, who rising high in the favour of his Sovereign, was by him dignified with a patent of nobility named after his heritage in this rural spot, with honours further increased; but who, meanly swerving by ingratitude and petty dudgeon, in the first service imposed on him by the monarch who had so recently honoured him,—to the confusion of his royal patron,—was by the same kingly hand, as suddenly and ignominiously extinguished, and with him perished also the name and race of the family, of which he was its last representative. ”

“ This Maxim is, in some Degree, applicable and pertinent throughout all the Gradations and Scale of Society. A Prince, born to the Throne of a mighty Empire, pre-eminent in its Political Constitution, and in the universal Range of the Arts and Sciences, is urged by his Personal Dignity and Public Duty, to aspire to the intrinsick Qualifications of Human Supremacy. ”

“ A great and potent nobility addeth majesty to a monarch, but diminisheth power; and putteth life and spirit into the people, but presseth their fortune. It is well when nobles are not too great for sovereignty nor for justice ”

“ I watched the brave monarch read it through from beginning to end without one manifestation of dismay or even of indignation.
‘My poor subjects!’ was his sole remark as he raised his eyes at the end. ‘They little know the fate they are preparing for their children.’
I asked if his Majesty had any further instructions for me. To my surprise he answered, ‘Yes.’
“I watched the brave monarch read it through from beginning to end without one manifestation of dismay.” ”

“ For this cause the King at this time has summoned his high Court of Parliament; and I liken the King to a shepherd or herdsman, because if a prince be compared to his riches, he is but a rich man; if a prince be compared to his honour, he is but an honourable man ”