"Few words, my lord, and I have done," said Richard Gardyner--"there
is no fighting without men. The troops at the Tower are not to be
counted on. The populace are all with Lord Warwick, even though he
brought the devil at his back. If you hold out, look to rape and
plunder before sunset to-morrow. If ye yield, go forth in a body, and
the earl is not the man to suffer one Englishman to be injured in life
or health who once trusts to his good faith. My say is said."

"Worshipful my lord," said a thin, cadaverous alderman, who rose next,
"this is a judgment of the Lord and His saints. The Lollards and
heretics have been too much suffered to run at large, and the wrath of
Heaven is upon us."

An impatient murmuring attested the unwillingness of the larger part
of the audience to listen further; but an approving buzz from the
elder citizens announced that the fanaticism was not without its
favourers. Thus stimulated and encouraged, the orator continued; and
concluded an harangue, interrupted more stormily than all that had
preceded, by an exhortation to leave the city to its fate, and to
march in a body to the New Prison, draw forth five suspected Lollards,
and burn them at Smithfield, in order to appease the Almighty and
divert the tempest!

This subject of controversy once started might have delayed the
audience till the ragged staves of the Warwickers drove them forth
from their hall, but for the sagacity and promptitude of the mayor.

"Brethren," he said, "it matters not to me whether the counsel
suggested be good or bad, in the main; but this have I heard,--there