resistance was an ordinary remedy for political distempers, a
remedy which was always at hand, and which, though doubtless
sharp at the moment, produced no deep or lasting ill effects. If
a popular chief raised his standard in a popular cause, an
irregular army could be assembled in a day. Regular army there
was none. Every man had a slight tincture of soldiership, and
scarcely any man more than a slight tincture. The national wealth
consisted chiefly in flocks and herds, in the harvest of the
year, and in the simple buildings inhabited by the people. All
the furniture, the stock of shops, the machinery which could be
found in the realm was of less value than the property which some
single parishes now contain. Manufactures were rude; credit was
almost unknown. Society, therefore, recovered from the shock as
soon as the actual conflict was over. The calamities of civil war
were confined to the slaughter on the field of battle, and to a
few subsequent executions and confiscations. In a week the
peasant was driving his team and the esquire flying his hawks
over the field of Towton or of Bosworth, as if no extraordinary
event had interrupted the regular course of human life.

More than a hundred and sixty years have now elapsed since the
English people have by force subverted a government. During the
hundred and sixty years which preceded the union of the Roses,
nine Kings reigned in England. Six of these nine Kings were
deposed. Five lost their lives as well as their crowns. It is
evident, therefore, that any comparison between our ancient and
our modern polity must lead to most erroneous conclusions, unless
large allowance be made for the effect of that restraint which
resistance and the fear of resistance constantly imposed on the
Plantagenets. As our ancestors had against tyranny a most