To his
ambition, it was not sufficient that he actually possessed the supreme
authority, and exercised it with more despotic sway than any of his
legitimate predecessors; he still sought to mount a step higher, to
encircle his brows with a diadem, and to be addressed with the title of
majesty. It could not be, that vanity alone induced him to hazard the
attachment of his friends for the sake of mere parade and empty sound. He
had rendered the more modest title of protector as great and as formidable
as that of
[Footnote 1: Journals, Dec. 5-17; 1659, Sept. 8. Sewel, 260-273, 283, 393.
State Trials, v. 810-842. Merc. Polit. No. 34.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1657. Feb. 22.]
king, and, though uncrowned, had treated on a footing of equality with the
proudest of the crowned heads in Europe. It is more probable that he was
led by considerations of interest. He knew that the nation was weary of
change; he saw with what partiality men continued to cling to the old
institutions; and he, perhaps, trusted that the establishment of an
hereditary monarchy, with a house of peers, though under a new dynasty, and
with various modifications, might secure the possession of the crown, not
only to himself, but also to his posterity. However that may be, he now
made the acquisition of the kingly dignity the object of his policy.
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