Connecticut western news., 1921-09-08

Warner, of h.s obscure and devoted child, Sibyll. Here, into this gory ocean, all scattered rivulets and streams had hastened 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 trir~,3h of n dvnoGtT: the fall of that warlike baronage, of which Richard Neville was the personifica- tion, the crowning flower, the greatest representative and the last-associ- ated with memories of turbulence and excess, 1t is true, but with the proud est and grandest achievements In our early history; with all such liberty as had been yet achieved since the Nor man conquest; with all such glory as had made the island famous--here with Runnymede, and there with Cres- sy; the rise of crafty, plotting, im- perous despotism, based upon the growing sympathy of craftsmen and traders, and ripening on the one hand to the Tudor tyranny, the republican reaction under the Stuarts. the slav- cry and the Civil war but on the oth- CT hand to the concentration of all the vigor and life of genius into n single and strong government, the graces, the arts. the letters of q polished court, the freedom, the energy. the resources of a comm ercial population destined to rise above the tyranny at which 1t had first connived, and give to the emanclpated Saxons the markets of the world. Upon the victory of that day those contendng interests, this vast alternative in the future, swayed and trembled."
 The great earl, who had made Ed ward the Fourth king, found himself for very personal reasons trying to unseat that prince and to put in his place another Edward, of the house of Lancaster, heir to Henry the Sixth. whom Edward of York was holding a prisoner in the Tower. Yet Warwick's path was not an easy one; while his younger daughter was married to Ed ward of Lancaster, his other daughter, Isabel, was the wife of the kings younger brother Clarence, who was as yet the male heir to the throne. How ever things might go, Warwick might some day sit upon the throne of Eng land-df one did not take thought of the possibilities that lay hidden behind the inscrutable smile of the kings youngest brother, Richard, duke of Gloucester But Warwick was at heart fighting the battle of aristocracy, while the king was with the current which was converting an agricultural into a trading population. With War wick was his powerful fighting broth CT, Montagu; with him-or against him, who could tell?-was his other brother, the facile archbishop who aspired to be pope, whose mansion was at once a school for youth, a court for middle life, an asylum for age, whither as to agMedici fled the let ters and the arts. LhgCr |.
 Tn the end Warwick found himself In open battle against the king he had placed upon the throne. The impetu- ous and fiery temperament of Edward the Fourth was rendered yet more fearful by the indulgence of every in- temperance. Ills very virtues strength ened his vices his courage stifled ev- cry whisper. It almost seemed as if he loved to provoke danger for the pleasure it gave his brain to baffle or his hand to crush 1t. And yet he had shrewd policy which perhaps drew him knowingly into the quarrel with Warwick, which merely his evil pas sions seemed to provoke. 'I wish to raise q fresh nobility" he said, Ito counteract the pride of the old; only upon new nobles can a new dynasty rely" This was the Yorkist principle of humbIng the baronial and raising the middle class. It was easy of exc cution at n period when a martial aris- tocracy was beginning to merge into n voluptuous court.
 Warwick was defending freedom for the barons. Robin Hllyard was strug- gling to win freedom for the people as against king and nobles. Yet the earl and Robin found themselves fighting in the same army. Neither white rose nor red shall be on my banner" cried Hilyard, put our standard snail be the gory head of the first oppressor we can place upon a pole. We are taxed, ground, pillaged, plundered- sheep, maintained to be sheared for your peace or butchered for your war" Through the cause of the gentle Henry in the Tower Robin saw greater free dom for the people.
 War Is not the only theme of the book, however. The intrigues of the queens family, the patient diplomacy of the bitter and revengeful Margaret of Anjou, queen of the king in the Tower, the love of the gentle Anne Neville for Margaret's son Edward, the influence of royal marriages on the fate of nations, the struggles of the ,ollards, predecessors of the Puritans who caused Charles the First so much | fpa Tfolion nq tcI