The Earl of Rochester, who was the favorite of Charles II, one day had the audacity to inscribe the following epigram on the door of the king’s bedchamber:
”Here lies our sovereign lord the King;
Whose word no man relies on;
Who never said a foolish thing;
And never did a wise one.”
When the king read the description he said, “True, my sayings are my own, but my doings are those of my ministers.”
Bonus:
The Wiki page for Charles II (below) quotes him thusly:
"That the matter was easily accounted for: For that his discourse was his own, his actions were the ministry's."
Wikipedia’s source for the quotation:
Hume, David (1778) The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688 Volume VIII, London: printed for T. Cadell, p. 212
Source:
Humes, James C. Speaker's Treasury of Anecdotes About the Famous. New York: Harper & Row, 1978. 46. Print.
Further Reading:
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