tle-axe and brand
to rust? I am but a useless weapon, to be suspended at rest amongst the
trophies of Towton in my hall of Middleham."

"Return with us," said the Lord of St. John, "and we will make Edward do
thee justice, or, one and all, we will abandon a court where knaves and
varlets have become mightier than English valour and nobler than Norman
birth."

"My friends," said the earl, laying his hand on St. John's shoulder,
"not even in my just wrath will I wrong my king. He is punished eno'
in the choice he hath made. Poor Edward and poor England! What woes and
wars await ye both, from the gold and the craft and the unsparing hate
of Louis XI! No; if I leave Edward, he hath more need of you. Of mine
own free will I have resigned mine offices."

"Warwick," interrupted Raoul de Fulke, "this deceives us not; and in
disgrace to you the ancient barons of England behold the first blow at
their own state. We have wrongs we endured in silence while thou wert
the shield and sword of yon merchant-king. We have seen the ancient
peers of England set aside for men of yesterday; we have seen
our daughters, sisters,--nay, our very mothers, if widowed and
dowered,--forced into disreputable and base wedlock with creatures
dressed in titles, and gilded with wealth stolen from ourselves.
Merchants and artificers tread upon our knightly heels, and the avarice
of trade eats up our chivalry as a rust. We nobles, in our greater day,
have had the crown at our disposal, and William the Norman dared not
think what Edward Earl of March hath been permitted with impunity to do.
We, Sir Earl--we knights and barons--would a king simple in his manhood
and princely in his truth. Richard Earl of Warwick, thou art of royal
blood, the descendant of old John of Gaunt. In thee we behold the true,
the living likeness of the Third Edward, and the Hero-Prince of Cressy.
Speak but the word, and we make thee king!"

The descendant of the Norman, the representative of the mighty faction
that no English monarch had ever braved in vain, looked round as he said
these last words, and a choral murmur was heard through the whole of
that august nobility, "We make thee king!"

"Richard, descendant of the Plantagenet, [By the female side, through
Joan Beaufort, or Plantagenet, Warwick was third in descent from John
of Gaunt, as Henry VII., through the male line, was fourth in descent.]
speak the word," repeated Raoul de Fulke.

"I speak it not," interrupted War