e ordinary
household was suspended; [See Ellis: Original Letters from Harleian
Manuscripts, second series, vol. i., letter 42.] and as ready money was
then prodigiously scarce, the mighty revenues of Warwick barely sufficed
to pay the expenses of the expedition which, at his own cost, had
restored the Lancastrian line. Hard position, both to generosity and to
prudence, to put off and apologize to just claims and valiant service!

With intense, wearying, tortured anxiety, did the earl await the coming
of Margaret and her son. The conditions imposed on him in their absence
crippled all his resources. Several even of the Lancastrian nobles held
aloof, while they saw no authority but Warwick's. Above all, he relied
upon the effect that the young Prince of Wales's presence, his beauty,
his graciousness, his frank spirit--mild as his fathers, bold as his
grandsire's--would create upon all that inert and neutral mass of the
public, the affection of which, once gained, makes the solid strength
of a government. The very appearance of that prince would at once dispel
the slander on his birth. His resemblance to his heroic grandfather
would suffice to win him all the hearts by which, in absence, he was
regarded as a stranger, a dubious alien. How often did the earl groan
forth, "If the prince were but here, all were won!" Henry was worse than
a cipher,--he was an eternal embarrassment. His good intentions, his
scrupulous piety, made him ever ready to interfere. The Church had got
hold of him already, and prompted him to issue proclamations against
the disguised Lollards, which would have lost him at one stroke half his
subjects. This Warwick prevented, to the great discontent of the honest
prince. The moment required all the prestige that an imposing presence
and a splendid court could bestow. And Henry, glad of the poverty of his
exchequer, deemed it a sin to make a parade of earthly glory. "Heaven
will punish me again," said he, meekly, "if, just delivered from a
dungeon, I gild my unworthy self with all the vanities of perishable
power."

There was not a department which the chill of this poor king's virtue
did not somewhat benumb. The gay youths, who had revelled in the
alluring court of Edward IV., heard, with disdainful mockery, the grave
lectures of Henry on the length of their lovelocks and the beakers
of their shoes. The brave warriors presented to him for praise were
entertained with homilies on the guilt of war. Even p