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Alexandria, a woman of a vigorous mind, held the reins of civil power with great steadiness, while her eldest son, Hyrcanus the Second, was decorated with the sacred diadem as the head of the nation. But, unhappily, the commotions which had disturbed the reign of her husband were again excited, and once more divided the people into two furious parties.
He, however, judiciously allayed their wrath by refusing to take the money, which he said he did not need, while as they wore both unwilling to obey and unable to command, he called in the aid of superstition, and declared that Alexander himself had appeared to him in a dream, as when alive, arrayed in the ensigns of royalty, seated in his tent, and despatching affairs of state, and he proposed that they should erect a magnificent tent, should place a golden throne in the centre, on which should be laid a diadem, sceptre and royal apparel, and that there they should transact business as in the presence of the king.
A fortunate soldier, whom he instantly promoted to the rank of tribune, encircled his neck with a military collar; four robust youths exalted him on a shield; he stood firm and erect to receive the adoration of his subjects; and their choice was sanctified by the benediction of the patriarch, who imposed the diadem on the head of an orthodox prince.
At last it was understood that a Princess of Saxe-Babel, though allied with royal and imperial houses, might share the diadem of a successful adventurer, and then in time, and when it had been sufficiently reiterated, paragraphs appeared unequivocally contradicting the statement, followed with agreeable assurances that it was unlikely that a Princess of Saxe-Babel, allied with royal and imperial houses, should unite herself to a parvenu monarch, however powerful.
Accordingly, through many days in June the effigy of Cromwell, which had been crowned with a royal diadem, draped with a purple mantle, in Somerset House, and afterwards borne with all imaginable pomp to Westminster Abbey, was now exposed at one of the windows at Whitehall with a rope fixed round its neck, by way of hinting at the death which the original deserved.
The fire of youth still glowed in the eyes of the Thracian woman, her tall figure was still full and unbent; her hair, though grey, was wound round her beautifully formed head in luxuriant waves, and laid together at the back in a golden net, and a sparkling diadem shone above her lofty forehead.
Maternity, to her, instead of being repulsive, is a diadem of beauty, a crown of rejoicing; and deep, tender, and self-forgetting are her love and reverence for him who has placed it on her brow. How noble, how august, how beautiful is maternity when thus bestowed and received!
Earth and air have their armies still faithful to me, and still I remember the war song that summons them up to confront you! Ayesha, Ayesha! recall the wild troth that we pledged among the roses; recall the dread bond by which we united our sway over hosts that yet own thee as queen, though my scepter is broken, my diadem reft from my brows!" The Veiled Woman rose at this adjuration.
It is also extremely unlikely that in these other passages the reference is to a crown as the emblem of sovereignty, for that idea is expressed, as a rule, by another word in Scripture, which we have Anglicised as 'diadem. The 'crown' in all these passages is a garland twisted out of some growth of the field.
He who was destined one day to support the laurelled diadem of universal empire on his bald brows, stood even now among the noblest, the most ambitious, and the most famous of the state; though not as yet had he unfurled the eagle wings of conquest over the fierce barbarian hordes of Gaul and Germany, or launched his galleys on the untried waters of the great Western sea.
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