revenge on the hierarchy) would extend the protection they had never
found in the previous sway of her husband and Henry V. Possessed of
extraordinary craft, and even cunning in secular intrigues, energetic,
versatile, bold, indefatigable, and, above all, marvellously gifted
with the arts that inflame, stir up, and guide the physical force of
masses, Robert Hilyard had been, indeed, the soul and life of the
present revolt; and his prudent moderation in resigning the nominal
command to those whose military skill and high birth raised a riot
into the dignity of rebellion, had given that consistency and method
to the rising which popular movements never attain without
aristocratic aid.

In the principal tent of the encampment the leaders of the
insurrection were assembled.

There was Sir John Coniers, who had married one of the Neviles, the
daughter of Fauconberg, Lord High Admiral, but who had profited little
by this remote connection with Warwick; for, with all his merit, he
was a greedy, grasping man, and he had angered the hot earl in
pressing his claims too imperiously. This renowned knight was a tall,
gaunt man, whose iron frame sixty winters had not bowed. There were
the young heirs of Latimer and Fitzhugh, in gay gilded armour and
scarlet mantelines; and there, in a plain cuirass, trebly welded, and
of immense weight, but the lower limbs left free and unincumbered in
thick leathern hose, stood Robin of Redesdale. Other captains there
were, whom different motives had led to the common confederacy. There
might be seen the secret Lollard, hating either Rose, stern and sour,
and acknowledging no leader but Hilyard, whom he knew as a Lollard's
son; there might be seen the ruined spendthrift, discontented with
fortune, and regarding civil war as the cast of a die,--death for the