much against their wills, to destroy the mansion and break
down the walls of the lodge, while they themselves ransacked the church,
turned out the parson, and spoiled the images. They also pillaged very
completely every house in the village. As for John Paston's own place,
they stripped it completely bare; and whatever there was of lead,
brass, pewter, iron, doors or gates, or other things that they could not
conveniently carry off, they hacked and hewed them to pieces. The duke
rode through Hellesdon to Drayton the following day, while his men were
still busy completing the wreck of destruction by the demolition of the
lodge. The wreck of the building, with the rents they made in its walls,
is visible even now" (Introd. xxxv.).

The meaning of all this is evident. We have before us a state of society
in which the anarchical element is predominant. But it is not pure
anarchy. The nobles were determined to reduce the middle classes to
vassalage.

The reign of the Plantagenets witnessed the elevation of the nobility.
The descendants of the Norman barons menaced, and sometimes proved too
powerful for the Crown. In such reigns as those of Edward I., Edward
III., and Henry VI., the barons triumphed. The power wielded by the
first Edward fell from the feeble grasp of his son and successor. The
beneficent rule of Edward III. was followed by the anarchy of Richard
II. Success led to excess. The triumphant party thinned the ranks of its
opponents, and in turn experienced the same fate. The fierce struggle
of the Red and White Roses weakened each. Guy, Earl of Warwick, "the
king-maker," sank overpowered on the field of Tewkesbury, and with
him perished many of the most powerful of the nobles. The jealousy
of Richard III. swept away his own friends, and the bloody contest on
Bosworth field destroyed the flower of the nobility. The sun of the
Plantagenets went down, leaving the country weak and impoverished, from
a contest in which the barons sought to establish their own power, to
the detriment alike of the Crown and the FREEMEN. The latter might have
exclaimed:

"Till half a patriot, half a coward, grown, We fly from meaner tyrants
to the throne."

The long contest terminated in the defeat alike of the Crown and the
nobles, but the nation suffered severely from the struggle.

The rule of this family proved fatal to the interest of a most important
class, whose rights were jealously guarded by the Normans. The Liberi
Homines