He had not failed the Duke anyway. The Duke had assured him that he was not letting him down. If he believed, for a moment, that he was failing the Duke, he would turn round, even now, and go straight back to the palace.
But the Duke needed no man's support.
There, at any rate, this man, fixed there, high above him, on horseback, in imperishable bronze, against the clear blue of the summer sky, had been more fortunate than he was. This man had never known the bitterness of neutrality, of personal impotence, of personal insignificance. This man had had a part to play, and he had played it, not unhandsomely, at the last, they said. There was a jingle of some sort about it—
"He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene."
Nothing common or mean? Not at the last, perhaps. But, before the last, in his failure of Strafford?
Still, limited, narrow, and bigoted, as he was, this man had lived, and died, for the faith that was in him.
It had never occurred to him that he could go on strike.
He had stood for, he had fought for, he had died for—the Divine Right of Kings!
The Divine Right of Kings?
How grotesquely absurd the phrase sounded now!