the towns and commercial villages ranged their forces
in opposition to the Baron and his clan; and whensoever an opportunity
offered for suppressing and subverting the feudal dominion and
privileges, the mercantile community never failed to raise the axe and
strike at their root.

The Barons, therefore, manifested the utmost dislike and hostility to the
progress of manufactures and towns. Seldom could a fitting site for a
village or manufactory be found except within the limits of a manor; and
the lord, if he even conceded the liberty for the erection, never failed
to burden the grant with exorbitant rents and exactions, and to fetter it
with the most oppressive restrictions. These grants would never have
been made, only for the temptation of gold. The feudal chiefs were, from
their ostentatious power and display, mostly poor; and in exchange for a
high rent or large purchase money, they were induced to grant tracts of
land to the manufacturer and merchant, whose money capital was the only
bait for the cupidity of the proprietor. Hence, from the reign of Edward
the First onwards, the conflict of capital representing commerce, and
territorial interest representing the lords of the soil. The former
power, feeble at first, grew steadily under the more favorable reigns of
succeeding monarchs, and in modern times has made such strides, as to
equal, if not surpass, the ancient dominion of the fief.

Moreover, the excessive power of the Barons was full of danger to the
peace and security of the realm. Where the dominion and government of
the mass of the people were in so few hands, the peril of the nation was
great from the discontent or ambition of one or more of the chiefs. A
Mowbray, Bohun, Mortimer, or Clifford, could at the head of his clan
disarrange the affairs of the entire kingdom, and plunge the nation into
war. This danger was also increased from the turbulent disposition of
the Barons. The feudal chiefs dwelt apart in the strongholds of their
castles, and the solitude of their manors, and exercised unlimited
dominion and sovereignty over the inhabitants of their domains. Their
mode of life and irresponsible power generated an independence and
insubordination which could ill brook restraint or abridgment even from
the sovereign, setting aside from another chieftain, and which often
broke out in open rebellion, defying even the power of the crown. Hence
the insurrection of a Leicester, a Warwick, and a Nor