new ones); and being, on the whole, of opinion that the world (the
Church included) is going to the devil, says that as he has been
'showed in a secret manner of his friends, the people sore grudgeth
and murmureth, and speaketh cursedly among themselves, as far as they
dare, saying they shall never have rest of payments as long as some
liveth, and that they had better die than thus be continually handed,
reckoning themselves, their wives and children, as despoulit, and not
greatly caring what they do, or what becomes of them.'

Very dreadful--if true: which last point depends very much upon who
Warham was. Now, on reading Mr. Froude's or any other good history,
we shall find that Warham was one of the leaders of that despondent
party which will always have its antitype in England. Have we, too,
not heard within the last seven years similar prophecies of
desolation, mourning, and woe--of the Church tottering on the verge
of ruin, the peasantry starving under the horrors of free trade,
noble families reduced to the verge of beggary by double income-tax?
Even such a prophet seems Warham to have been--of all people in that
day, one of the last whom one would have asked for an opinion.

Poor old Warham, however, was not so far wrong in this particular
case; for the 'despoulit' slaves of Suffolk, not content with
grumbling, rose up with sword and bow, and vowed that they would not
pay. Whereon the bloated tyrant sent his praetorians, and enforced
payment by scourge and thumbscrew? Not in the least. They would not
pay; and therefore, being free men, nobody could make them pay; and
although in the neighbouring county of Norfolk, from twenty pounds
(i.e. 200 pounds of our money) upward--for the tax was not levied on
men of less substance--there were not twenty but what had consented;
and though there was 'great likelihood that this grant should be much