wick; "nor shalt thou continue, brave
Raoul de Fulke. What, my lords and gentlemen," he added, drawing himself
up, and with his countenance animated with feelings it is scarcely
possible in our times to sympathize with or make clear--"what! think you
that Ambition limits itself to the narrow circlet of a crown Greater,
and more in the spirit of our mighty fathers, is the condition of men
like us, THE BARONS who make and unmake kings. What! who of us would not
rather descend from the chiefs of Runnymede than from the royal craven
whom they controlled and chid? By Heaven, my lords, Richard Nevile has
too proud a soul to be a king! A king--a puppet of state and form; a
king--a holiday show for the crowd, to hiss or hurrah, as the humour
seizes; a king--a beggar to the nation, wrangling with his parliament
for gold! A king!--Richard II. was a king, and Lancaster dethroned him.
Ye would debase me to a Henry of Lancaster. Mort Dieu! I thank ye. The
Commons and the Lords raised him, forsooth,--for what? To hold him as
the creature they had made, to rate him, to chafe him, to pry into his
very household, and quarrel with his wife's chamberlains and lavourers.
[Laundresses. The parliamentary rolls, in the reign of Henry IV.,
abound in curious specimens of the interference of the Commons with the
household of Henry's wife, Queen Joan.] What! dear Raoul de Fulke, is
thy friend fallen now so low, that he--Earl of Salisbury and of Warwick,
chief of the threefold race of Montagu, Monthermer, and Nevile, lord of
a hundred baronies, leader of sixty thousand followers--is not greater
than Edward of March, to whom we will deign still, with your permission,
to vouchsafe the name and pageant of a king?"

This extraordinary address, strange to say, so thoroughly expressed
the peculiar pride of the old barons, that when it ceased a sound of
admiration and applause circled through that haughty audience, and Raoul
de Fulke, kneeling suddenly, kissed the earl's hand. "Oh, noble earl,"
he said, "ever live as one of us, to maintain our order, and teach kings
and nations what WE are."

"Fear it not, Raoul! fear it not,--we will have our rights yet. Return,
I beseech ye. Let me feel I have such friends about the king. Even at
Middleham my eye shall watch over our common cause; and till seven feet
of earth suffice him, your brother baron, Richard Nevile, is not a man
whom kings and courts can forget, much less dishonour. Sirs, our honour
is in our