upon incident; revolutions, rebellions, dethronements follow one another with amazing rapidity—­all duly authenticated and elaborated by powerful dialogue.  It is thronged with historical material, sufficient, according to one critic, to make at least three novels.  The period dealt with, 1467-1471, witnessed the rise of the trading class and the beginning of religious freedom in England.  Lytton leans to the Lancastrian cause, with which the fortunes of one of his ancestors were identified, and his view of Warwick is more favourable to the redoubtable “king-maker” than that of the historians.

I.—­Warwick’s Mission to France

Lacking sympathy with the monastic virtues of the deposed Henry VI., and happy in the exile of Margaret of Anjou, the citizens of London had taken kindly to the regime of Edward IV.  In 1467 Edward still owed to Warwick the support of the more powerful barons, as well as the favour of that portion of the rural population which was more or less dependent upon them.  But he encouraged, to his own financial advantage, the enterprises of the burgesses, and his marriage with Elizabeth Woodville and his favours to her kinsfolk indicated his purpose to reign in fact as well as in name.  The barons were restless, but the rising middle-class, jealous of the old power of the nobles, viewed with misgiving the projected marriage, at Warwick’s suggestion, of the king’s sister Margaret and the brother of Louis XI. of France.

This was the position of affairs when young Marmaduke Nevile came to London to enter the service of his relative the Earl of Warwick; and some points of it were explained to the young man by the earl himself when he had introduced the youth to his daughters, Isabel and Anne.

“God hath given me no son,” he said.  “Isabel of Warwick had been a mate for William the Norman; and my grandson, if heir to his grandsire’s soul, should have ruled from the throne of England over the realms of Charlemagne!  But it hath pleased Him Whom the Christian knight alone bows to without shame, to order otherwise.  So be it.  I forgot my just pretensions—­forgot my blood—­and counselled the king to strengthen his throne by an alliance with Louis XI.  He rejected the Princess Bona of Savoy to marry widow Elizabeth Grey.  I sorrowed for his sake, and forgave the slight to my counsels.  At his prayer I followed the train of the queen, and hushed the proud hearts of the barons to obeisance.  But since then this Dame Woodville, whom I queened, if her husband mismated, must dispute this royaulme with mine and me!  A Neville, nowadays, must vail his plume to a Woodville!  And not the great barons whom it will suit Edward’s policy to win from the Lancastrians, not the Exeters and the Somersets, but the craven varlets, and lackeys, and dross of the camp—­false alike to Henry and to Edward—­are to be fondled into lordships and dandled into power.  Young man, I am speaking hotly.  Richard Neville never lies nor conceals; but I am speaking to a kinsman, am I not?  Thou hearest—­thou wilt not repeat?”