It is the same prince who afterwards so well apostrophizes his own greatness:--
"O, be sick, great Greatness! And bid thy ceremony give thee cure. Think'st thou the fiery fever will go out With titles blown from adulation? Will it give place to flexure and low bending? Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee, Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream, That play'st so subtly with a king's repose, I am a king that find thee; and I know, 'Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball, The sword, the mace, the crown imperial, The intertissued robe of gold and pearl, The farsed title running 'fore the king, The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp That beats upon the high shoar of this world; No, not all these thrice gorgeous ceremonies, Not all these, laid in bed majestical, Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave."
[Footnote 10: In the Archæologia, vol. xv. art. 24, is "A true and perfect Inventory of all the Plate and Jewells now being in the Upper Jewell House of the Tower, in the charge of Sir Henry Mildmay, together with an appraisement of them, made and taken the 13th, 14th, and 15th daies of August, 1649;" containing the following account of "crowns," &c. demolished:--
"The imperiall crowne of massy gold, weighing 7 lb. 6 oz. valued at 1110 0 0
The queene's crowne of massy gold, weighing 3 lb. 10 oz. 338 3 4
A small crowne found in an iron chest formerly in the Lord Cottingham's charge, &c.:
The gold 73 16 8 The diamonds, rubies, sapphires, &c. 355 0 0 The globe, weighing 1 lb. 5 1/4 oz. 57 10 0 Two coronation bracelets, weighing 7 oz. (with three rubies and twelve pearls) 36 0 0 Two sceptres, weighing 11 oz. 60 0 0 A long rod of silver gilt, 1 lb. 5 oz. 4 10 8
"The foremencion'd crownes, since the inventorie was taken, are, according to ord^r of Parliam^t, totallie broken and defaced."
A second inventory, containing "that part of the regalia" found at Westminster, mentions "King Alfred's crowne of gould wyer worke, sett with slight stones, and 2 little bells, p. oz. 79 1/2, at £3. per oz., £248. 10_s._ 0_d._"]
[Footnote 11: See Sir Edward Walker's Account of "The Preparations for His Majesty's Coronation," &c. 8vo. Lond. First printed 1820.]
[Footnote 12: Taylor, p, 65. The Saxon Chronicle says of the Conqueror: "He was very worshipful. Thrice he bore his _king-helmet_ every year, when he was in England: at Easter, he bore it at Winchester; at Pentecost, at Westminster; in midwinter, at Gloucester. And there were with him all the rich men over all England," &c.--_Sax. Chron._ 189, &c.]
