The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-25
WY ARwICK, the King Maker, had
 M placed on the throne Edward of NN York-Edward ". the hand-

XN/ ARWlCh' the King Maker' haa A/ placed on the throne Edward of
 W York-Edward w.. the hand- somest, the gayest, the bravest prince In Christendom. and the falsest and most treaeberous. barring his noble brother of France.
 With instant gratitude the new King be- gan to scheme to weaken his creator power It suited him ill to perceive that the masses were far quicker to shout "A Warwick!' or "A Neville than they were to shout the fame of his house of York
 Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury and of Warwick, stood colossal among the iron images of the age. Kinglier in pride, in state, in possessions and in renoWn than the King himself, he held the ale glance of the two extremes of English so- ciety-the great baron and the humble rural class-who saw in him the greatest of the ancient Norman chivalry, though they did not realize that he was doomed to be the last.
 To play against him Edward courted the class whom both the barons and the masses despised and hated-the merchants and others who were even then forming the middle class, destined to be more powerful than masses or barons or kings
 Edward joined familiarly, yet without losing his dignity, in the feasts and diver sions of the traders. He even conferred the knighthood of the bath on some, much to the displeasure of the naughty men of arms.
 He added to their anger by conferring more and more distinguished honors on his wifes house of Woodville, despite the fact that many of that family had supported the side of Lancaster in the Wars of the/ Roses. A selfish and hun gry horde they were, with a few brilliant figures among them to set out the rest in still sharper relief.
 So altogether, Merry England was in anything but a merry mixture, with only a few men like the Earl of Warwick studying the good of the country rather than their own, while even their ideals were dimmed by caste pride, love of war and dense ignorance, for the King himself could not read or write any too fiuently. and science was esteemed by all as witch craft.
 'Necromancers' and witches were hanged and burned piously-a fact which did not. however, deter the Queens mother, the Duchess of Bedford. from keeping necromancers of her own for every purpose from making gold to manu-
 l1
 Among these was Adam Warner-a scientist degraded by royal command into becoming an alchemist. He was crea- ture of genius, born into an age when genius was curse to the possessor. The descendant of a line of knightly ancestors, he had spent his entire fortune in trying to perfect an invention of which even he could guess the purport but dimly in that dim age. Impoverished, he still clung to the fantastic engine that he had fash toned, his mechanical" as he called 1t. his familiar demon as the populace termed it. In this mechanical" this thing of vapors and strange noises. was concealed nothing less than the germ of the steam engine.
 Attacked at last in a moment of super stitious fury, his life and the life of his daughter Sybill, were saved only by the timely interference of friends, and finally by his transfer to the Tower, where the Duchess of Bedford set him to work to make gold.
 There Sybill was seen by Lord Hastings, who then stood in position second only to that of Warwick. Handsome. admired, no less intelligent than brave and mar tial, he disliked the Woodvilles almost as much as he did the house of Neville.
 The great man saw Sybill and fell ir love with her. So he brought 1t about that she was added to the train of the Queen. Thus 1t happened that Sybill War ner, who in childhood had played around the knees of Margaret of AnJou, now the exiled Queen of Henry VI. who was Ed wards prisoner in the Tower, joined the retinue of that former Queens bitter ene- my, Elizebeth woodville Queen of Eng land
 It was at this time that Warwick de- parted with a great throng of attendants to bring about union that he had often urged on the King for the sake of Eng land-that of Edwards sister, to the brother of Louis of France.
 Warwcks s reason for this was that such an alliance would detach the French fox from the side of Margaret of Anjou and Lancaster. Despite the excellent wisdom of the policy, it had two determined fac tions to oppose it. One was that of the London merchants who demanded an al Hance with the Burgundians because theil trade lay that way, and the other was that of the weodvilles who felt that il they could defeat Warwick's plan it would lead the naughty and imperious Earl tc break with Edward.
 The crafty Louis of France, whether through cunning or through true admira- tfon of Warwick. showered the King Maker with such marks of favor and such honors that his enemies in England suc- cesded in infaming the Jealous mind of