The Last Of The Barons, Volume 4.

stic salutation of the king's guard; but as, at length, he mounted his steed, and attended but by the squire who had followed him from Dover, pen

n our morning draught, friend. Hark! I hear the brawl of a rivulet, and a drink of fresh water were more grateful now than the daintiest hippocras." So saying, he flung himself from his steed; following the sound of the rivulet, he gained its banks, and after quenchi

e, sternly, "with what me

earl. I await now no

h, that I can serve thee no

well, and my heart chafed sorely, and bled within! but now, methinks, it consoles me to have been so cast off,-to have no faith, no love, but tha

, "Why, this is strange! I gave no throne to this man, and he deserts me not!

ssed from all thine offices; and I came hither; for I will serve no m

"and know that thou hast done more to melt and yet to nerve my spirit

the first to join thee

ulke, the Lords of St

y others of the best b

tr

nother moment a troop of knights and gentlemen, comprising the flower of such of t

ard aright, noble earl? And has Edward IV. suffered the

that men in peace should leave the battle-axe and brand to rust? I am but a useless w

hee justice, or, one and all, we will abandon a court where knaves and var

d eno' in the choice he hath made. Poor Edward and poor England! What woes and wars await ye both, from the gold and the craft and

ers, if widowed and dowered,- forced into disreputable and base wedlock with creatures dressed in titles, and gilded with wealth stolen from ourselves. Merchants and artificers tread upon our knightly heels, and the avarice of trade eats up our chivalry as a rust. We nobles, in our greater day, have had the crown at our disposal, and William the Norman dared not think what Edward

h monarch had ever braved in vain, looked round as he said these last words, and a ch

or Plantagenet, Warwick was third in descent from John of Gaunt, as Henry VII., thr

ontrolled and chid? By Heaven, my lords, Richard Nevile has too proud a soul to be a king! A king-a puppet of state and form; a king-a holiday show for the crowd, to hiss or hurrah, as the humour seizes; a king-a beggar to the nation, wrangling with his parliament for gold! A king!-Richard II. was a king, and Lancaster dethroned him. Ye would debase me to a Henry of Lancaster. Mort Dieu! I thank ye. The Commons and the Lords raised him, forsooth,-for what? To hold him as the creature they had made, to rate him, to chafe him, to pry into his very household, and quarrel with

a sound of admiration and applause circled through that haughty audience, and Raoul de Fulke, kneeling suddenly, kissed the ea

m my eye shall watch over our common cause; and till seven feet of earth suffice him, your brother baron, Richard Nevile, is not a man whom kings and

ng, gravely rode on. Ere he had got many paces, he called to Marmaduke, who was on foot, and bade him follow him to London that nigh

ng sun, they beheld the mob of that day, whom Shakspeare hath painted with such contempt, gathering, laughing and loud, around the