"If we have incurred your disfavour from our over-zeal for you," said
the son of Lord Fitzhugh, touchingly, "take our lives, for they are of
little worth." And the young nobleman unbuckled his sword, and laid
it on the table.

"But," resumed Warwick, not seeming to heed his nephew's humility, "I,
who have ever loved the people of England, and before king and
parliament have ever pleaded their cause,--I, as captain-general and
first officer of these realms, here declare, that whatever motives of
ambition or interest may have misled men of mark and birth, I believe
that the commons at least never rise in arms without some excuse for
their error. Speak out then, you, their leaders; and, putting aside
all that relates to me as the one man, say what are the grievances of
which the many would complain."

And now there was silence, for the knights and gentlemen knew little
of the complaints of the populace; the Lollards did not dare to expose
their oppressed faith, and the squires and franklins were too
uneducated to detail the grievances they had felt. But then the
immense superiority of the man of the people at once asserted itself;
and Hilyard, whose eye the earl had hitherto shunned, lifted his deep
voice. With clear precision, in indignant but not declamatory
eloquence, he painted the disorders of the time,--the insolent
exactions of the hospitals and abbeys, the lawless violence of each
petty baron, the weakness of the royal authority in restraining
oppression, its terrible power in aiding the oppressor. He
accumulated instance on instance of misrule; he showed the insecurity
of property, the adulteration of the coin, the burden of the imposts;
he spoke of wives and maidens violated, of industry defrauded, of
houses forcibly entered, of barns and granaries despoiled, of the