impunity of all offenders, if high-born, of the punishment of all
complaints, if poor and lowly. "Tell us not," he said, "that this is
the necessary evil of the times, the hard condition of mankind. It
was otherwise, Lord Warwick, when Edward first swayed; for you then
made yourself dear to the people by your justice. Still men talk,
hereabouts, of the golden rule of Earl Warwick; but since you have
been, though great in office, powerless in deed, absent in Calais, or
idle at Middleham, England hath been but the plaything of the
Woodvilles, and the king's ears have been stuffed with flattery as
with wool. And," continued Hilyard, warming with his subject, and, to
the surprise of the Lollards, entering boldly on their master-
grievance--"and this is not all. When Edward ascended the throne,
there was, if not justice, at least repose, for the persecuted
believers who hold that God's word was given to man to read, study,
and digest into godly deeds. I speak plainly. I speak of that faith
which your great father Salisbury and many of the House of York were
believed to favour,--that faith which is called the Lollard, and the
oppression of which, more than aught else, lost to Lancaster the
hearts of England. But of late, the Church, assuming the power it
ever grasps the most under the most licentious kings (for the sinner
prince hath ever the tyrant priest!), hath put in vigour old laws for
the wronging man's thought and conscience; [The Lollards had greatly
contributed to seat Edward on the throne; and much of the subsequent
discontent, no doubt, arose from their disappointment, when, as Sharon
Turner well expresses it, "his indolence allied him to the Church,"
and he became "hereticorum severissimus hostis."--CROYL., p. 564.] and
we sit at our doors under the shade, not of the vine-tree, but the
gibbet. For all these things we have drawn the sword; and if now,
you, taking advantage of the love borne to you by the sons of England,
push that sword back into the sheath, you, generous, great, and