"Ha!" interrupted Edward, haughtily and hastily, "and is Warwick the sun of heaven that no cloud can darken where his face may shine? The rebels shall need no foe, my realm no regent, while I, the heir of the Plantagenets, have the sword for one, the sceptre for the other. We depart this evening ere the sun be set." "My liege," said the Lord St. John, gravely, "on what forces do you count to meet so formidable an array?" "All England, Lord of St. John!" "Alack! my liege, may you not deceive yourself! But in this crisis it is right that your leal and trusty subjects should speak out, and plainly. It seems that these insurgents clamour not against yourself, but against the queen's relations,--yes, my Lord Rivers, against you and your House,--and I fear me that the hearts of England are with them here." "It is true, sire," put in Raoul de Fulke, boldly; "and if these--new men are to head your armies, the warriors of Towton will stand aloof, --Raoul de Fulke serves no Woodville's banner. Frown not, Lord de Scales! it is the griping avarice of you and yours that has brought this evil on the king. For you the commons have been pillaged; for you the daughters of peers have been forced into monstrous marriages, at war with birth and with nature herself; for you, the princely Warwick, near to the throne in blood, and front and pillar of our time-honoured order of seigneur and of knight, has been thrust from our suzerain's favour. And if now ye are to march at the van of war, --you to be avengers of the strife of which ye are the cause,--I say that the soldiers will lack heart, and the provinces ye pass through will be the country of a foe!" "Vain man!" began Anthony Woodville, when Hastings laid his hand on his arm, while Edward, amazed at this outburst from two of the supporters on whom he principally counted, had the prudence to suppress his resentment, and remained silent,--but with the aspect of one resolved to command obedience, when he once deemed it right to interfere.