Shakespeare.—Winter’s Tale, Act I. Scene 2. (Camillo detesting Regicides.)
KING.—Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm from an anointed king:
The breath of
worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord.
Shakespeare.—King Richard II. Act III. Scene 2. (The King to Aumerle.)
Do not fear our person;
There’s such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it
would,
Acts little of his will.
Shakespeare.—Hamlet, Act IV. Scene 5. (The King to Gertrude on Laertes’ threats.)
What earthly name to interrogatories,
Can task the free breath of a sacred king?
No Italian priest
Shall
tithe or toll in our dominions;
But as we under heaven are supreme head,
So, under him, that great supremacy,
Where
we do reign, we will alone uphold,
Without the assistance of a mortal hand:
So tell the Pope
Shakespeare.—King John, Act III. Scene 1. (The King to Pandulph.)
Whiles he thought to steal the single ten,
The king was slyly finger’d from the deck.
Shakespeare.—King Henry VI. Part III. Act V. Scene 1. (Gloster to King Edward.)
I am a sage, and can command the elements—
At least men think I can.
Scott.—Quentin Durward, Chap XIII.; see also the anecdote related of Canute the Great, 1 Hume and Smollett, Chap. III.; where he, in the presence of his nobles, who had so grossly flattered him on his greatness and power, commanded the sea to retire.
It is the curse of kings, to be attended
By slaves that take their humours for a warrant.
Shakespeare.—King John, Act IV. Scene 2. (The King to Hubert.)
Such is the breath of kings.
Shakespeare.—King Richard II. Act I. Scene 3. (Bolingbroke to the King.)
KING.—Now lie I like a king.
Shakespeare.—King Henry V. Act IV. Scene 1. (Erpingham to the King.)
Ay, every inch a king.
Shakespeare.—King Lear, Act IV. Scene 6. (The King to Gloster.)
The wisest sovereigns err like private men,
And royal hand has sometimes laid the sword
Of chivalry
upon a worthless shoulder,
Which better had been branded by the hangman.
What then? Kings do their
best—and they and we
Must answer for the intent, and not the event.
Scott.—Kenilworth, Chap. XXXII.
Here lies our sovereign lord the king,
Who never says a foolish thing,
Rochester.—On Charles II. (Elegant Extracts.)
Kings may be blessed, but Tam was glorious,
O’er a’ the ills o’ life victorious.