luxurious joys. But for a Runnymede thus to decline would be worse than
extinction.

For six centuries the Runnymedes had served their country. Edward I had
summoned one of them to his "model Parliament," and the present lord
could still spell out a word or two of the ancient writ that hung framed
in the hall at Stennynge, with the royal seal attached. Two of his
ancestors had died by public violence (one killed in battle, fighting
for the Yorkists, who Lord Runnymede inclined to think represented the
Legitimist side; the other executed under Elizabeth, apparently by
mistake), and regretting there were not more, he had searched the
records of the Civil Wars and the 'Forty-five in vain. But never had a
Runnymede failed in Parliament, or the Council of the King, as he
preferred to call it; and their name had frequently appeared among the
holders of subordinate but dignified offices, such as the Mastership of
the Buckhounds, to which special knowledge gave an honourable claim.

Trained from his first pony in political tradition, and encouraged by
every gamekeeper to follow the footsteps of his ancestors, Lord
Runnymede had inevitably taken "Noblesse oblige" as his private motto.
But of what service was nobility if its obligations were abolished? He
sometimes pictured with a shudder the fate of the surviving French
nobility--retaining their titles by courtesy, and compelled to fritter
away their lives upon châteaux, travelling, aeroplanes, or amatory
intrigues, instead of directing their wisdom and influence to the right
government of the State. The guillotine was better. He could not imagine
his descendants without a House of Lords to sit in. Without the Lords,
he was indeed the last of the Runnymedes, and upon the scaffold he might
at least die worthy of his name.