These city dames, who probably were not very facile with their pen, who had no newspapers to read, no clubs or societies at which to discuss public matters, who were, doubtless, much occupied with the affairs of their household, were so moved by the iniquity being perpetrated upon one of their own sex, that they could not forbear taking action. There must have been much indignant gossip between good Mistress Stokes and her neighbours. The outrage on the wifely dignity of Countess Jacqueline appealed to their inmost feelings. They were all women of the thriving, comfortable middle class, as the description implies, “stout women,” and “well apparelled,” whose husbands would be citizens of good standing. Or perhaps some of them were women trading on their own account, wool-staplers and merchants, as was not uncommon in those times. They felt, as all good citizenesses should, that they had part and lot in the affairs of the kingdom, and did not think it “going out of their sphere” to express their opinion on a matter of the gravest import. But it was a bold thing to interfere in the affairs of a peer of the realm, one of royal blood, and to go up in person to the House of Lords, especially for petitioners who by their rank and connections could not command special attention, who had neither husbands, brothers, nor friends in the august assembly to which they appealed. The personal element, which was so manifest in the political women of the eighteenth century, was absent. With the growth of the commercial movement and the increase of material prosperity, society was gradually reconstituted. As feudalism declined, so did chivalry. The artificial view of life which it engendered faded away. The commercial instinct, so strong in the English people, began to override other impulses.