Weak men must fall; for Heaven still guards the right.’
Yet, notwithstanding this royal confession of faith, on the very first news of actual disaster, all his conceit of himself as the peculiar favourite of Providence vanishes into air.
‘But now the blood of twenty thousand men
Did triumph in my face, and they are fled.
All souls that will be safe fly from my side;
For time hath set a blot upon my pride.’
Immediately after, however, recollecting that ‘cheap defence’ of the divinity of kings which is to be found in opinion, he is for arming his name against his enemies.
‘Awake, thou coward Majesty, thou sleep’st;
Is not the King’s name forty thousand names?
Arm, arm, my name: a puny subject strikes