The cruelties exercised on Prynne and his associates have generally been reckoned among the great reproaches of the primate. It has sometimes been insinuated that they were rather the act of other counsellors than his own. But his letters, as too often occurs, belie this charitable excuse. He expresses in them no sort of humane sentiment towards these unfortunate men, but the utmost indignation at the oscitancy of those in power, which connived at the public demonstrations of sympathy. "A little more quickness," he says, "in the government would cure this itch of libelling. But what can you think of Thorough when there shall be such slips in business of consequence? What say you to it, that Prynne and his fellows should be suffered to talk what they pleased while they stood in the pillory, and win acclamations from the people? etc. By that which I have above written, your lordship will see that the Triumviri will be far enough from being kept dark. It is true that, when this business is spoken of, some men speak as your lordship writes, that it concerns the king and government more than me. But when anything comes to be acted against them, be it but the execution of a sentence, in which lies the honour and safety of all justice, yet there is little or nothing done, nor shall I ever live to see it otherwise."[92] The lord deputy fully concurred in this theory of vigorous government. They reasoned on such subjects as Cardinal Granville and the Duke of Alva had reasoned before them. "A prince," he says in answer, "that loseth the force and example of his punishments, loseth withal the greatest part of his dominion. If the eyes of the Triumviri be not sealed so close as they ought, they may perchance spy us out a shrewd turn, when we least expect it. I fear we are hugely mistaken, and misapply our charity thus pitying of them, where we should indeed much rather pity ourselves. It is strange indeed," he observes in another place, "to see the frenzy which possesseth the vulgar now-a-days, and that the just displeasure and chastisement of a state should produce greater estimation, nay reverence, to persons of no consideration either for life or learning, than the greatest and highest trust and employments shall be able to procure for others of unspotted conversation, of most eminent virtues and deepest knowledge: a grievous and overspreading leprosy! but where you mention a remedy, sure it is not fitted for the hand of every physician; the cure under God must be wrought by one Æsculapius alone, and that in my weak judgment to be effected rather by corrosives than lenitives: less than Thorough will not overcome it; there is a cancerous malignity in it, which must be cut forth, which long since rejected all other means, and therefore to God and him I leave it."[93]