Regicide of criminology asserts that the punishment "should fit the crime", and should thus be proportionate and not extreme. This approach was spoofed by Gilbert and Sullivan, when The Mikado sang, ""My object all sublime, I shall achieve in time, to let the punishment fit the crime"". In common with earlier executions for regicides: In both the François Ravaillac and the Damiens cases, court papers refer to the offenders as a patricide, rather than as regicide, which lets one deduce that, through divine right, the king was also regarded as "Father of the country". Regicide The broad definition of regicide (
Gilbert and Sullivan up in a risky intrigue at the Tower of London during the 16th century. The dialogue, though in prose, is quasi-early modern English in style, and there is no satire of British institutions. For some of the plot elements, Gilbert had reached back to his 1875 tragedy, "Broken Hearts". "The Times" praised the libretto: "It should... be acknowledged that Mr. Gilbert has earnestly endeavoured to leave familiar grooves and rise to higher things." Although not a grand opera, the new libretto provided Sullivan with the opportunity to write his most ambitious score to date. The critics, who had recently lauded