that bread was not to be had for asking, that the disparities of life
remained the same,--the rich still rich, the poor still poor. In the
first days of the revolution, Sir Geoffrey Gates, the freebooter,
little comprehending the earl's merciful policy, and anxious naturally
to turn a victory into its accustomed fruit of rapine and pillage,
placed himself at the head of an armed mob, marched from Kent to the
suburbs of London, and, joined by some of the miscreants from the
different Sanctuaries, burned and pillaged, ravished and slew. The
earl quelled this insurrection with spirit and ease; [Hall, Habington]
and great was the praise he received thereby. But all-pervading is
the sympathy the poor feel for the poor. And when even the refuse of
the populace once felt the sword of Warwick, some portion of the
popular enthusiasm must have silently deserted him.

Robert Hilyard, who had borne so large a share in the restoration of
the Lancastrians, now fixed his home in the metropolis; and anxious as
ever to turn the current to the popular profit, he saw with rage and
disappointment that as yet no party but the nobles had really
triumphed. He had longed to achieve a revolution that might be called
the People's; and he had abetted one that was called "the Lord's
doing." The affection he had felt for Warwick arose principally from
his regarding him as an instrument to prepare society for the more
democratic changes he panted to effect; and, lo! he himself had been
the instrument to strengthen the aristocracy. Society resettled after
the storm, the noble retained his armies, the demagogue had lost his
mobs! Although through England were scattered the principles which
were ultimately to destroy feudalism, to humble the fierce barons into
silken lords, to reform the Church, to ripen into a commonwealth
through the representative system,--the principles were but in the
germ; and when Hilyard mingled with the traders or the artisans of