Last of the Barons | Page 2

King-maker, "the greatest as well as the
last of those mighty Barons who formerly overawed the Crown,"
[Hume adds, "and rendered the people incapable of civil
government,"-- a sentence which, perhaps, judges too hastily the whole
question at issue in our earlier history, between the jealousy of the
barons and the authority of the king.] was involved the very principle
of our existing civilization. It adds to the wide scope of Fiction, which
ever loves to explore the twilight, that, as Hume has truly observed,
"No part of English history since the Conquest is so obscure, so
uncertain, so little authentic or consistent, as that of the Wars between
the two Roses." It adds also to the importance of that conjectural
research in which Fiction may be made so interesting and so useful,

that "this profound darkness falls upon us just on the eve of the
restoration of letters;" [Hume] while amidst the gloom, we perceive the
movement of those great and heroic passions in which Fiction finds
delineations everlastingly new, and are brought in contact with
characters sufficiently familiar for interest, sufficiently remote for
adaptation to romance, and above all, so frequently obscured by
contradictory evidence, that we lend ourselves willingly to any one
who seeks to help our judgment of the individual by tests taken from
the general knowledge of mankind.
Round the great image of the "Last of the Barons" group Edward the
Fourth, at once frank and false; the brilliant but ominous boyhood of
Richard the Third; the accomplished Hastings, "a good knight and
gentle, but somewhat dissolute of living;" [Chronicle of Edward V., in
Stowe] the vehement and fiery Margaret of Anjou; the meek image of
her "holy Henry," and the pale shadow of their son. There may we see,
also, the gorgeous Prelate, refining in policy and wile, as the
enthusiasm and energy which had formerly upheld the Ancient Church
pass into the stern and persecuted votaries of the New; we behold, in
that social transition, the sober Trader--outgrowing the prejudices of
the rude retainer or rustic franklin, from whom he is sprung--
recognizing sagaciously, and supporting sturdily, the sectarian interests
of his order, and preparing the way for the mighty Middle Class, in
which our Modern Civilization, with its faults and its merits, has
established its stronghold; while, in contrast to the measured and
thoughtful notions of liberty which prudent Commerce entertains, we
are reminded of the political fanaticism of the secret Lollard,--of the
jacquerie of the turbulent mob-leader; and perceive, amidst the various
tyrannies of the time, and often partially allied with the warlike
seignorie, [For it is noticeable that in nearly all the popular risings--that
of Cade, of Robin of Redesdale, and afterwards of that which Perkin
Warbeck made subservient to his extraordinary enterprise--the
proclamations of the rebels always announced, among their popular
grievances, the depression of the ancient nobles and the elevation of
new men.]--ever jealous against all kingly despotism,--the restless and
ignorant movement of a democratic principle, ultimately suppressed,
though not destroyed, under the Tudors, by the strong union of a
Middle Class, anxious for security and order, with an Executive

Authority determined upon absolute sway.
Nor should we obtain a complete and comprehensive view of that most
interesting Period of Transition, unless we saw something of the
influence which the sombre and sinister wisdom of Italian policy began
to exercise over the councils of the great,--a policy of refined stratagem,
of complicated intrigue, of systematic falsehood, of ruthless, but secret
violence; a policy which actuated the fell statecraft of Louis XI.; which
darkened, whenever he paused to think and to scheme, the gaudy and
jovial character of Edward IV.; which appeared in its fullest
combination of profound guile and resolute will in Richard III.; and,
softened down into more plausible and specious purpose by the
unimpassioned sagacity of Henry VII., finally attained the object which
justified all its villanies to the princes of its native land,--namely, the
tranquillity of a settled State, and the establishment of a civilized but
imperious despotism.
Again, in that twilight time, upon which was dawning the great
invention that gave to Letters and to Science the precision and
durability of the printed page, it is interesting to conjecture what would
have been the fate of any scientific achievement for which the world
was less prepared. The reception of printing into England chanced just
at the happy period when Scholarship and Literature were favoured by
the great. The princes of York, with the exception of Edward IV.
himself, who had, however, the grace to lament his own want of
learning, and the taste to appreciate it in others, were highly educated.
The Lords Rivers and Hastings [The erudite Lord Worcester had been
one of Caxton's warmest patrons, but that nobleman was no more at the
time