a greate navie
as lightly hath not been seene before gathered in manner of all nations,
which armie laie at the mouth of the Seyne ready to fight with the Earl
of Warwick, when he should set out of his harborowe." [Hall, p. 282, ed.
1809.]

But the winds fought for the Avenger. In the night came "a terrible
tempest," which scattered the duke's ships "one from another, so that
two of them were not in compagnie together in one place;" and when the
tempest had done its work, it passed away; and the gales were fair,
and the heaven was clear, when, the next day, the earl "halsed up the
sayles," and came in sight of Dartmouth.

It was not with an army of foreign hirelings that Lord Warwick set forth
on his mighty enterprise. Scanty indeed were the troops he brought from
France,--for he had learned from England that "men so much daily and
hourely desired and wished so sore his arrival and return, that almost
all men were in harness, looking for his landyng." [The popular feeling
in favour of the earl is described by Hall, with somewhat more eloquence
and vigour than are common with that homely chronicler: "The absence of
the Earle of Warwick made the common people daily more and more to long
and bee desirous to have the sight of him, and presently to behold his
personage. For they judged that the sunne was clerely taken from the
world when hee was absent. In such high estimation amongst the people
was his name, that neither no one manne they had in so much honour,
neither no one persone they so much praised, or to the clouds so highly
extolled. What shall I say? His only name sounded in every song, in the
mouth of the common people, and his persone [effigies] was represented
with great reverence when publique plaies or open triumphes should bee
skewed or set furthe abrode in the stretes," etc. This lively passage,
if not too highly coloured, serves to show us the rude saturnalian kind
of liberty that existed, even under a king so vindictive as Edward IV.
Though an individual might be banged for the jest that he would make his
son heir to the crown (namely, the grocer's shop, which bore that sign),
yet no tyranny could deal with the sentiment of the masses. In our own
day it would be less safe than in that to make public exhibition "in
plaies and triumphes" of sympathy with a man attainted as a traitor, and
in open rebellion to the crown.] As his ships neared the coast, and the
banner of the Ragged Staff, worked in gold, shon