Henry trusted, by the promotion of two persons so near him in blood, and so bound by benefits, that he had formed an impenetrable fence about the succession; but he only inspired into Stephen the design of seizing on the crown by bringing him so near it.
Burke reflects on King Henry's misguided attempts to secure the crown's succession through familial ties.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
To keep a balance between the power of acquisition on the part of the subject and the demands he is to answer on the part of the state is the fundamental part of the skill of a true politician.
In some people I see great liberty, indeed; in many, if not in the most, an oppressive, degrading servitude.
They rob only to enable them to cheat; but in a very short time they defeat the ends both of the robbery and the fraud, by making out accounts for other purposes, which blow up their whole apparatus of force and of deception.
Other voices in this conversation
