There are no signs that York yet entertained any disloyal designs on the throne, but he undoubtedly knew that, as the heir of the house of Mortimer, he owned a better hereditary claim to the throne than any member of the line of Lancaster. He was contented, however, to bide his time and wait for the succession of the childless king. Meanwhile he took care to keep his party together, and steadfastly persevered in his very justifiable desire to evict the incapable Somerset from office. But it was the misfortune of England that Somerset was not friendless and unsupported, as Gaveston or the Despensers had been. He was the chief of a considerable family combination among the nobility, who were ready to aid him in keeping his place. There were, too, many others who disapproved of him personally, but were prepared to support him, some out of sheer loyalty to King Henry, some because they had old personal or family grudges against York or York's chief friends and supporters. [Sidenote: =Power of the nobility.=] The chief misfortunes of the unhappy time that was now to set in, had their source in the swollen importance of the great noble houses, and the bitterness of their feuds with each other. For the last hundred years the landed wealth of England had been concentrating into fewer and fewer hands. The House of Lords contained less than a third of the numbers that it had shown in the days of Edward I. The greater peers had piled up such vast masses of estates that they were growing to be each a little king in his own district. The weak government of Henry VI. had allowed their insolence to come to a head, and for the last twenty years private wars between them had been growing more and more frequent. They found the tools of their turbulence in the hordes of disbanded soldiers sent home from France, who knew no other trade but fighting, and would sell themselves to be the household bullies of the highest bidder. [Sidenote: =The rival factions.--The Yorkists.=]