Whether the associations of the Imperial name are bad, as Mr. Gladstone thinks, I will not discuss. Splendid and imposing they certainly were, not only in the age of the Antonines, but in the best days of the mediaeval Empire, from Otto the Great to Frederick II. But that splendour they have lost. … In fact, the title of King is now the less common of the two, and, with such associations as our kingship has, it is far more dignified. There has been a King of the English ever since the ninth or tenth century; no other Monarchy in Europe (except the lands of our Scandinavian kingsfolk and except the Crown of St. Stephen) can boast of anything like an equal antiquity. … Why endanger the pre-eminence of style of the only European Crown which combines the glories of ancient legitimacy with those of equally ancient constitutional freedom?
He had said from the first that the war had been a hideous blunder, and he had supported that opinion in the House of Commons. (Cheers.) … Stop the farm-burning; it had been a great mistake and was against British ideas. (Cheers.) Recognize that they were dealing with men whose bravery and tenacity they could admire, and offer terms to the representatives of the two Republics and to the burghers who were now in arms.
…there had been many changes in the national ideals in this country during the past 50 years. … liberty, so far as it regarded political power, freedom of opinion, and freedom of action, was rather more in men's minds in the fifties as an essential element in the making of national happiness and well-being than it was in the present day. … Republicanism was then a thing much talked of in England. It was curious to note how completely that had gone, and the discovery made that the true enemy of liberty and democracy was not a monarchy, but money, and the power that money exerted.