I never could believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world, ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden.
ATTRIBUTION:
Richard Rumbold (1622–1685), British soldier, conspirator. Speech on the scaffold, Edinburgh, 1685. Quoted in Macaulay, History of England, vol. 1, ch. 5 (1849).
Rumbold, one of the guards about the scaffold at the execution of Charles I in 1649, was implicated in the failed rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth, for which both men were executed.
