The air in the shop was thick with dust and the scent of old paper and fresh ink. Sir Robert Filmer, his clothes fine but worn, his face etched with the lines of a man who had lost his property and his peace, ran a finger along the spine of a newly printed volume. The city, bustling with a defiant energy he despised, was a world away from the ordered quiet of his Kentish estate.

A man, younger, dressed in the austere dark wool of a Parliamentarian, stood beside him, holding a pamphlet with earnest intensity. "You see, sir? It is as Milton argues. The power of the crown is not divine, but a trust from the people. A king is a magistrate, and a magistrate who becomes a tyrant forfeits his commission."

Filmer did not turn. His voice was quiet, but with the hard, sharp edge of flint."Milton. A poet who mistakes his fancy for political philosophy. A dangerous combination."

The younger man blinked, taken aback by the cold dismissal. He finally looked at Filmer properly, noting the bearing that spoke of old lineage. "You disagree? You believe a man is born to be subject, as a horse is born to be bridled?"

Now Filmer turned. His eyes were not fiery, but cold and steady, the eyes of a man who believed he held a truth as fundamental as gravity. "A horse and his rider is a poor analogy. It is the relationship of a father and his child that is the true model. Tell me, did you consent to be born? Did you and your siblings gather in your mother's womb to elect your father as your governor? No. His authority was natural, unquestionable, and for your own good. So it is with the King."

The Parliamentarian scoffs "That is a pretty fiction! We are not children. We are free-born Englishmen."

Filmer doesn´t move. "There is no such thing as 'natural freedom'. There is only natural subjection. Your very existence is predicated on it. To speak of a 'contract' with your king is as absurd as speaking of a contract with your own father. You speak of liberty, but you are building anarchy and calling it a state."

The Parliamentarian took a step back, his face flushed with frustration. He saw in Filmer not a villain, but a relic, a man whose mind was a tomb for ideas the world was leaving behind. "Your ideas, sir, will die with the tyranny that spawned them. A new England is being born."

Filmer picks up rhe pamphlet held it as if it were a shield. "No, young man. Your 'new England' is a rebellion against nature itself. And nature always has her reckoning. You have not birthed a new world; you have merely orphaned a nation."

With a slight, stiff nod, Sir Robert Filmer placed payment on the counter and walked out into the noisy, rebellious city, a solitary patriarch amidst the clamour of his disobedient children. Then he notices you. Crazy, isn´t? Those young men are mad, agree?