The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-07-26
THE LAST OF THE BARONS
BY EDWARD BULWER LYTTON (LoRD LYTTON)
Condensation BY Prof William Fenwek Harris Cambridge

Condensation BY Prof. William
Listen to an English nobleman paint
q picture of the rise in his country of
that trading bourgeoisie which is so
much in the talk of today. The lead
ers in the strife are Edward the
Fourth, trader-king and Richard Ne
vile, Earl of Warwick, Kingmaker and
Last of the Barons." Around them
cluster the lives of many others in the
great struggle. The scene is set for
the Battle of Barnet, April IA. 1471,
in the Wars of the Roses.
Raw, cold and dismal dawned the
morning Of the fourteenth of April the
Easter Sabbath In the fortunes of
that day were involved those of all the
persons who hitherto, in the course Of
this narrative, may have seemed to
move in separate orbits from the fiery
star of Warwick. Now in this crown
ing hour, the vast and gigantic des-
tiny OF the great earl comprehended
all upon which its darkness or its light
had fallen; no only the luxurious Ed
ward, the perjured Clarence, the
naughty Margaret, her gallant son,
the gentle Anne, the remorseful Isa-
bel, the dark guile of Gloucester, the
rising fortunes of gifted Hastings
but on the hazard of that day rested
the hopes OF Hilyard, and the interests
OF the trader Alwyn, and the perman-
ence OF that frank, chivalric, hardy,
still half Norman race, of which Mich
olas Alwyn and his Saxon class were
the rival antagonistic principle, and
Marmaduke Neville the ordinary type
Dragged inexorably into the whirlpool
Of that mighty fate were even the very
lives nf fha sin, r,ln do
ner, Of his obscure and devoted child,
Sibyll. Here, into this cory ocean, all
scattered rivulets and streams had
fastened to merge at last.
But grander and more awful than
all individual interests were those as
signed to the fortunes Of this battle,
so memorable in the English annals,
the ruin or triumph Of a dynasty;
the fall of that warlike baronage, of
which Richard Neville was the person
iftcation, the GROWING flower, the
greatest representative and the last
associated with memories of turbul-
ence and excess, it is true, but with
the proudest and grandest achieve
ments in our early history; with all
such liberty as had been yet achieved
since the Norman Conquest; with all
such glory as had made the island ia.
mous,-here with Runnymede, and
there with Greasy; the rise of crafty,
plotting, imperious Depotism. based
upon the growing sympathy Of crafts
men and traders, and ripening on the
one hand to the Tudor tyranny, the Re.
publican reaction under the Stuarts,
the slavery and the Civil war. but on
the other hand to the concentration OF
all the vigour and life of genius into
| In OIL n6 or ny,t ~ -
graces, the arts, the letters of polish
ed court, the freedom, the energy, the
resources of commercial population
destined to rise above the tyranny at
which it had first connived, and give
to the emancipated Saxons the mark
cts of the world. Upon the victory OF
that day these contending interests
this vast alternative In the future
swayed and trembled"
Despite the stilted language Of an
other day and the portly size of the
volume, The Last of the Barons" /:
read today because the characters who
play so large part in one of the grea
human struggles toward liberty arr
all human beings and not mere pup
pets. The story is one Of intrigue anc
Of battle, centering nominally in thu
Wars Of the Roses and the struggles o
the two great houses of York and Ian
caster; yet the interest is far large
than a mere dynastic one; the rise O
the middle class to power at the ex
pense Of the baronial, the growth of
national spirit in place of mere indi
vidual loyalty to a feudal chieftain, i
the important thing in this manifesto
ton of RESPONSIVENESS. the plat,
people uniting with the trading towns
men against the mobiles.
The great earl, who had made Ed
ward the Fourth King. found himsel
for very personal reasons trying t
unseat that prince and to put in hi
place another Edward, of the house O
Lancaster, heir to Henry the Sixth
whom Edward Of York was holding
. Iprisoner in the Tower Yet Warwick
path was not an easy one; while hi
younger daughter was married to En-
ward of Lancaster, his other daughte
Isabel was the wife Of the King
younger brother Clarence, who was a
= yet the male heir to the throne How
I. ever things might go, a Warwick Nigh
J. some day sit upon the throne of Enj
n land-if one did not take thought {
,. the possibilities that lay hidden benin
T. the tnscrutable smile Of the King
J. youngest brother, Richard Duke {
s. Gloucester. But Warwick was q
II heart fighting the battle of aristocrac
If while the king was with the currer
which was converting an agriculture
into trading population. With Wa
wick was his powerful fighting brotl
er. Montagu; with him-or agains
him. who could tell?-was his othe
brother, the facile archbishop who a
- pired to be Pope, whose mansion wa
It at once school for yout1. a court fc
o middle life. an asylum for age, whithe
- as to Medici fled the letters and th