RichThesaurus
bend to one's will
vs
rule with a rod of iron
bend to one's will
verb
To compel someone or something to conform to one's desires.
rule with a rod of iron
verb
To rule with stern severity.
How often have the words
bend to one's will
and
rule with a rod of iron
occurred in a corpus of books?
(source:
Google Ngram Viewer
)