Reigning Heads

the answer to that would be no ....

Must agree with SatanSperm.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown.
But if you're not making the rules, you're following someone else's

Answering the poem and aware of my own English history, the answer into the 17th century was probably No (France had its revolutions in the 18/19th centuries and Russia the Tsar's overthrow in 1917). In the first stanza I could easily imagine the headsman's axe coming down on Charles I and Queen's Anne Boleyn and Jane Grey, as well as many noble commoners who found themselves condemned as traitors.

The picture I am sure is of Oliver Cromwell's head which was posthumously cut off when he was disinterred and was kept on a pole atop Westminster Hall until it fell off in a gale and was kept by a sentry. Ultimately, after being preserved in various hands, it was buried in an unmarked grave in the chapel of his Cambridge college.

I never knew that about Cromwell...a sort of ish hero of mine, but again his story is the same as many...did he not finally become the very thing he strove to end ?

erm is 'strove' a word lol !?

Cheers :)

Don't know if "strove" is correct English, having not used the word myself.

To your question about Cromwell, if you are meaning the monarchy and the absolutism it stood for, Cromwell got to hold power without being a monarch - he refused formal offers of the crown and preferred to call himself Lord Protector or Lord General. He had a ceremonial funeral, with an effigy dressed in royal robes (his embalming went horribly wrong so his body did not openly lie in state).

Am trying get at that tho he ended monarchy, he didn't or failed to bring democracy, he became almost a tyrant for over 20 years, the nation I think breathed a sigh of relief when he died...lol and we got xmas back :)

His rule lasted 9 years (he died 1658, monarchy restored 1660 after the short-lived weak rule of his son Richard and some anarchy). Cromwell believed in a spiritual equality among his fellow Puritans and, apart from his vendetta against the High Anglican Church and RCs, there was better than previous religious tolerance, with Jews being allowed to settle in England. He could not be considered a democrat in modern terms; he called and dissolved Parliaments when it suited him, and the right to vote down to the 19th century remained based on property qualifications (landowning particularly, he was a landowner himself) which excluded the poorer and non-landowning population.

last line is killer and so true - I would include tyrants with kings, sleeping in fear with paranoid dreams :-)

excellent, original poem :-)

Cheers David is exactly wot I wos going for :)