"Sad! Say it not, Hastings! War is the chase of kings! Sir Raoul de
Fulke, why lookest thou so brooding and sorrowful?"

"Sire, I but thought that had Earl Warwick been in England, this--"

"Ha!" interrupted Edward, haughtily and hastily, "and is Warwick the
sun of heaven that no cloud can darken where his face may shine? The
rebels shall need no foe, my realm no regent, while I, the heir of the
Plantagenets, have the sword for one, the sceptre for the other. We
depart this evening ere the sun be set."

"My liege," said the Lord St. John, gravely, "on what forces do you
count to meet so formidable an array?"

"All England, Lord of St. John!"

"Alack! my liege, may you not deceive yourself! But in this crisis it
is right that your leal and trusty subjects should speak out, and
plainly. It seems that these insurgents clamour not against yourself,
but against the queen's relations,--yes, my Lord Rivers, against you
and your House,--and I fear me that the hearts of England are with
them here."

"It is true, sire," put in Raoul de Fulke, boldly; "and if these--new
men are to head your armies, the warriors of Towton will stand aloof,
--Raoul de Fulke serves no Woodville's banner. Frown not, Lord de
Scales! it is the griping avarice of you and yours that has brought
this evil on the king. For you the commons have been pillaged; for
you the daughters of peers have been forced into monstrous marriages,
at war with birth and with nature herself; for you, the princely