The youthful Rosenkavanz was ambassador to the ephemeral republican government of Oliver Cromwell and heard this rebuke from the latter: “Your king chooses rather immature representatives. One can barely say you have a beard.”
“And yet my beard is older than your republic,” replied the ambassador.
Adolfo Padovan, Il libro degli aneddoti (Milan: Bottega di Poesia, 1924), p. 18. (Nobility.org translation.)
Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 56
