It had the instant effect of turning my mind to a long-ago event in the English Parliament, the grand-daddy of our Westminster model of parliamentary democracy.
And given the passage of time, we often forget that the Westminster model of government was not always parliamentary or democratic. Or clean.
In a particularly turbulent period during the reign of King Charles I, a strong-willed politician and soldier, Oliver Cromwell took centre stage in English politics, becoming a dictator in all but name.
He declared himself Lord Protector of the Commonwealth after beheading the profligate king suspected of Catholic tendencies and after dealing with Parliament, which he barged into on April 20, 1649, riding his horse. There, he made a thunderous speech that has gone down in history as an ornament of oratory.
Of that speech, I remember...