Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown

This is the penalty of greatness.

None are completely wretched but the great,
Superior woes superior stations bring;
A peasant sleeps, while cares awake a king.

Thus wrote William Broome, the eighteenth-century clergyman and poet. This is an echo of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part II. ‘Uneasy lies the head that ears a crown’ is the last line of the speech by the King beginning: ‘How many thousand of my poorest subjects are at this hour asleep!’