I would have been glad to have lived under my woodside, and to have kept a flock of sheep, rather than to have undertaken this government.

Cromwell presents political power not as an ambition fulfilled but as a burden accepted under pressure of circumstance. The image of living quietly “under my woodside” and tending sheep evokes the ideal of rural retirement—peace, simplicity, and moral safety—set against the anxieties and compromises of rule. Read this way, the line functions as a claim of reluctant leadership: he implies he would have preferred private life, but felt compelled to assume government for the public good (or by providential necessity). It also works rhetorically to disarm suspicion of tyranny by framing his authority as duty rather than desire.