Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
King
A King is more powerful when he is enraged with an inferior man.
Buckley’s Homer.—The Iliad, Book I. Page 4.
[The wrath of a king is as messengers of death, Proverbs, Chap. xvi. Verse 14; and as the roaring of a lion, Proverbs, Chap. xix. Verse 12.]
In the breath of a prince there is life and death; and his sentence stands good, right or wrong.
Seneca.—Of Clemency.
The king’s name is a tower of strength.
Shakespeare.—King Richard III., Act V. Scene 3.
The sum of all
Is, that the king hath won.
Shakespeare.—King Henry IV., Part II. Act I. Scene 1.
Obey him gladly; and let him too know,
You were not made for him, but he for you.
Cowley.—The Davideis, Book IV. Line 674. Dryden.—Absalom and Achithophel, Part I. Line 409. Cowper.—Table Talk, Line 55.
If I could find example
Of thousands that had struck anointed kings
And flourish’d after, I’d not do’t; but since
Nor brass, nor stone, nor parchment, bears not one,
Let villany itself forswear’t.
Shakespeare.—Winter’s Tale, Act I. Scene 2. (Camillo detesting Regicides.)
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.)
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule;
That from the shelf the precious diadem stole,
And put it in his pocket.
Shakespeare.—Hamlet, Act III. Scene 4. (Hamlet to his mother.)
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, 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.)
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,
Whose word no man relies on;
Who never says a foolish thing,
And never does a wise one.
Rochester.—On Charles II. (Elegant Extracts.)
Kings may be bless’d, but Tam was glorious,
O’er a’ the ills o’ life victorious.
Burns.—Tam o’ Shanter.
God bless the King! God bless the faith’s defender!
God bless—No harm in blessing the Pretender,
Who that Pretender is, and who that King——
God bless us all!—Is quite another thing.
Scott.—Redgauntlet, Chap. VIII. (Quoting Dr. Byrom.)
A king
Of shreds and patches.
Shakespeare.—Hamlet, Act III. Scene 4. (His rebuke to his mother at the moment the Ghost enters.)