My readers will, doubtless, be more interested in visiting Robin Hays
than in noting the preparations made and the order observed by the
Protector for his intended journey. When Cromwell put his state upon
him, he did it with all dignity; there was no sparing of expense, no
scant of attendants, no lack of guards--boldly and bravely were his
arrangements formed; for he wisely knew that plainness and simplicity,
although they may be understood and appreciated by the high-minded, are
held in contempt by the low and the uneducated, because imagined to be
within their own attainment. Had Cincinnatus ruled in England, he would
never have abandoned a kingdom for a ploughshare; such an act would have
been looked upon, at least by more than half the nation, as proceeding
from weakness rather than from true strength of mind. The English,
notwithstanding all their talk about equality, have not enthusiasm
enough to understand or to feel the greatness that slights, and even
scorns, magnificence! a gilded pageant wins their hearts; and a title
overturns their understandings. We will here hazard the assertion, that
if Cromwell had listened to a very powerful party, and had accepted,
instead of having declined the name, while he possessed the station of a
"King," he would have conquered all the obstacles by which he was
surrounded, and have bequeathed a throne to his son, that in all human
probability would have been continued in his family, even to our own
day. We must leave this sentence, startling though it may be, without
the arguments necessary to support it; certain it is, however, that so
thought the Protector himself, who considered that the people of
England, like the Israelites of old, would never be at rest until they
had "a king to rule over them."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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