profligate, and perfidious, John easily attached to his
person and faction, not only all who had reason to dread the resentment
of Richard for criminal proceedings during his absence, but also the
numerous class of "lawless resolutes," whom the crusades had turned back
on their country, accomplished in the vices of the East, impoverished
in substance, and hardened in character, and who placed their hopes
of harvest in civil commotion. To these causes of public distress and
apprehension, must be added, the multitude of outlaws, who, driven
to despair by the oppression of the feudal nobility, and the severe
exercise of the forest laws, banded together in large gangs, and,
keeping possession of the forests and the wastes, set at defiance the
justice and magistracy of the country. The nobles themselves, each
fortified within his own castle, and playing the petty sovereign over
his own dominions, were the leaders of bands scarce less lawless and
oppressive than those of the avowed depredators. To maintain these
retainers, and to support the extravagance and magnificence which their
pride induced them to affect, the nobility borrowed sums of money from
the Jews at the most usurious interest, which gnawed into their estates
like consuming cankers, scarce to be cured unless when circumstances
gave them an opportunity of getting free, by exercising upon their
creditors some act of unprincipled violence.

Under the various burdens imposed by this unhappy state of affairs,
the people of England suffered deeply for the present, and had yet
more dreadful cause to fear for the future. To augment their misery, a
contagious disorder of a dangerous nature spread through the land; and,
rendered more virulent by the uncleanness, the indifferent food, and
the wretched lodging of the lower classes, swept off many whose fate the
survivors were tempted to envy, as exempting them from the evils which
were to come.

Yet amid these accumulated distresses, the poor as well as the rich, the
vulgar as well as the noble, in the event of a tournament, which was the
grand spectacle of that age, felt as much interested as the half-starved
citizen of Madrid, who has not a real left to buy provisions for his
family, feels in the issue of a bull-feast. Neither duty nor infirmity
could keep youth or age from such exhibitions. The Passage of Arms,
as it was called, which was to take place at Ashby, in the county of
Leicester, as champions of the first reno