Worms

William Lenthall 1652

Several blogs have quoted this Speaker's words when he denied the King the information he was seeking.

"May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here."

It seems to convey defiance, but further reading shows the man to be much like Speaker Martin (aka Gorbals Mick ), a craven lickspittle on his knees before his boss.

"a worse choice could not have been made, for Lenthall was of a very timorous nature. He was treated with little respect, and was unable to control the proceedings."

He had already called attention to the inadequacy of his salary and been granted a sum of £6000,

an early example of getting the nose into the trough ,

£6000 in 1642 was a huge amount of money .... he threw in his lot with Parliament.

His whole career was of buying favour and of self aggrandisement.

In his will, Lenthall asked to be buried without any state and without a monument, 'acknowledging myself to be unworthy of the least outward regard in this world and unworthy of any remembrance that hath been so great a sinner'. The most he would permit was a plain stone carved with the Latin inscription
Vermis sum, which means:
I am a worm..

History does repeat itself.


Gorbals Mick

"Vermis est"