To kill the captive therefore, whereby the heir, in the apprehension of all royalists, became forthwith king--what was it, in truth, but to set their captive free, and to give him besides other great advantages?
"Next, it was a deed most odious to the people, and not only to your party, but to many among ourselves; and, as it is perilous for any government to outrage the public opinion, so most was it perilous for a government which had from that opinion alone its birth, its nurture, and its defence.
"Yet doth not this properly belong to our dispute; nor can these faults be justly charged upon that most renowned Parliament.

For, as you know, the high court of justice was not established until the House had been purged of such members as were adverse to the army, and brought wholly under the control of the chief officers." "And who," said Mr Cowley, "levied that army?
Who commissioned those officers?
Was not the fate of the Commons as justly deserved as was that of Diomedes, who was devoured by those horses whom he had himself taught to feed on the flesh and blood of men?
How could they hope that others would respect laws which they had themselves insulted; that swords which had been drawn against the prerogatives of the king would be put up at an ordinance of the Commons?
It was believed, of old, that there were some devils easily raised but never to be laid; insomuch that, if a magician called them up, he should be forced to find them always some employment; for, though they would do all his bidding, yet, if he left them but for one moment without some work of evil to perform, they would turn their claws against himself.

Such a fiend is an army.

They who evoke it cannot dismiss it.

They are at once its masters and its slaves.
Let them not fail to find for it task after task of blood and rapine.
Let them not leave it for a moment in repose, lest it tear them in pieces.
"Thus was it with that famous assembly.