"The dismissal of all the Woodvilles, except the queen; the revocation
of the grants and land accorded to them, to the despoiling the ancient
noble; and, but for your presence, we had demanded your recall."

"And, failing these, what your resolve?"

"To depart, and leave Edward to his fate. These granted, we doubt
little but that the insurgents will disband. These not granted, we
but waste our lives against a multitude whose cause we must approve."

"The cause! But ye know not the real cause," answered Warwick. "I
know it; for the sons of the North are familiar to me, and their
rising hath deeper meaning than ye deem. What! have they not decoyed
to their head my kinsmen, the heirs of Latimer and Fitzhugh, and bold
Coniers, whose steel calque should have circled a wiser brain? Have
they not taken my name as their battle-cry? And do ye think this
falsehood veils nothing but the simple truth of just complaint?"

"Was their rising, then," asked St. John, in evident surprise, "wholly
unauthorized by you?"

"So help me Heaven! if I would resort to arms to redress a wrong,
think not that I myself would be absent from the field! No, my lords,
friends, and captains, time presses; a few words must suffice to
explain what as yet may be dark to you. I have letters from Montagu
and others, which reached me the same day as the king's, and which
clear up the purpose of our misguided countrymen. Ye know well that
ever in England, but especially since the reign of Edward III.,
strange, wild notions of some kind of liberty other than that we enjoy