Speak, Desborough.
Major-General Desborough [rising.] In secret you contrive
A foolhardy design, my brother-in-law.
What! we submit anew to the affront
Of royalty! No king, whoe'er he be!
The troops will Cromwell hail with cries of love,
But Oliver with maledictions.
Death to all systems, clerks and courtiers!
Cromwell.You wage war, Desborough, 'gainst a word, a name.
For if this guiltless people fain would have
A king, why should they not? The kingly name,
Proscribed by your overweening arrogance,—
What is it to a soldier? In his casque
A plume the more!
Whitelocke [glaring at Desborough, aside.
That ploughboy speak ere I!
[Aloud.]My lord, I will be true, come what come may.
No nation without law, no law without
A king.—Hark ye: the argument is sound.
[Aside.]Before me! Desborough! homunculus!
[Aloud.]The king was of all time called legislator
Lator, the bearer, legis, of the law;
Whence I conclude, a king is to the law
WTiat Adam is to Eve. If, then, the king
Is fountain-head and father of the law,
I say again, no land without a king.
My well-assured opinion to confirm,
See Moses, Aaron, Cicero, St. John,
