have floated loose through the land. Among the commons, a half-
conscious recollection that the nobles are a different race from
themselves feeds a secret rancour and mislike, which, at any fair
occasion for riot, shows itself bitter and ruthless,--as in the
outbreak of Cade and others. And if the harvest fail, or a tax gall,
there are never wanting men to turn the popular distress to the ends
of private ambition or state design. Such a man has been the true
head and front of this commotion."

"Speak you of Robin of Redesdale, now dead?" asked one of the
captains.

"He is not dead. [The fate of Robin of Redesdale has been as obscure
as most of the incidents in this most perplexed part of English
history. While some of the chroniclers finish his career according to
the report mentioned in the text, Fabyan not only more charitably
prolongs his life, but rewards him with the king's pardon; and
according to the annals of his ancient and distinguished family (who
will pardon, we trust, a license with one of their ancestry equally
allowed by history and romance), as referred to in Wotton's "English
Baronetage" (Art. "Hilyard"), and which probably rests upon the
authority of the life of Richard III., in Stowe's "Annals," he is
represented as still living in the reign of that king. But the whole
account of this famous demagogue in Wotton is, it must be owned, full
of historical mistakes.] Montagu informs me that the report was
false. He was defeated off York, and retired for some days into the
woods; but it is he who has enticed the sons of Latimer and Fitzhugh
into the revolt, and resigned his own command to the martial cunning
of Sir John Coniers. This Robin of Redesdale is no common man. He
hath had a clerkly education, he hath travelled among the Free Towns