Noble. Should we be less merciful to our fellow-creatures than to our domestic animals? Before we deliver them to be killed, we weigh their services against their inconveniences. On the foundation of policy, when we have no better, let us erect the trophies of humanity: let us consider that, educated in the same manner and situated in the same position, we ourselves might have acted as reprovably. Abolish that for ever which must else for ever generate abuses; and attribute the faults of the man to the office, not the faults of the office to the man.
Cromwell. I have no bowels for hypocrisy, and I abominate and detest kingship.
Noble. I abominate and detest hangmanship; but in certain stages of society both are necessary. Let them go together; we want neither now.
Cromwell. Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose their direction and begin to bend: such nails are then thrown into the dust or into the furnace. I must do my duty; I must accomplish what is commanded me; I must not be turned aside. I am loath to be cast into the furnace or the dust; but God’s will be done! Prithee, Wat, since thou readest, as I see, the books of philosophers, didst thou ever hear of Digby’s remedies by sympathy?
Noble. Yes, formerly.
Cromwell. Well, now, I protest, I do believe there is something in them. To cure my headache, I must breathe a vein in the neck of Charles.
Noble. Oliver, Oliver! others are wittiest over wine, thou over blood: cold-hearted, cruel man.
Cromwell. Why, dost thou verily think me so, Walter? Perhaps thou art right in the main: but He alone who fashioned me in my mother’s womb, and who sees things deeper than we do, knows that.
FOOTNOTE:
[5] Ludlow, a most humane and temperate man, signed the death-warrant of Charles, for violating the constitution he had sworn to defend, for depriving the subject of property, liberty, limbs, and life unlawfully. In equity he could do no otherwise; and to equity was the only appeal, since the laws of the land had been erased by the king himself.