560 Constitutional History. [chap.
with all its drawbacks and disadvantages, its dangerous privi-
leges and odious immunities, the position of a powerful baron
was one which enabled him to draw classes of society together
in a way which must be regarded as beneficial for the time.
His house was a school for the sons of neighbouring knights
and squires, a school of knightly accomplishment and of all the
culture of the age. By the strictest bonds of friendship and
interest he could gather his neighbours about him. His bounti-
ful kitchen and magnificent wardrobe establishment linked him
to the tradesmen and agriculturists of the towns and villages
round him. His progresses from castle to castle, and his visits
to the court, taught his servants to know the country and
spread public intelligence, whilst it made men of distant
counties acquainted with one another. It was thus doubtless
that men like Warwick maintained their hold on the country;
thus duke Richard of Gloucester was able to cultivate popu-
larity in the north ; and thus in some degree the barons were
qualified to act, as they acted so long, the part of guides and
champions of the commons. For good or for evil, it linked
together the classes which possessed political wτeight. The
Speaker of the house of commons ∙was not unfrequently a bound
officer of some great lord whose influence guided or divided the
peer*. In 1376 Peter de la Mare was steward of the earl of
March 1, Thomas Hungerford was steward of the duke of Lan-
caster 2 ; they were the Speakers in two strongly contrasted
parliaments. Such was the relation of Sir AVilliam Oldhall to
duke Richard of York in 1450; he had been his chamberlain
in Normandy, and was still one of his council3.
Question- 475. It is obvious that such a state of things can be bene-
of baronial ficial only in certain stages of political growth ; and that it
leadership, jlag a tendency to retain dangerous strength long after the
period of its beneficial operation is over. AVhilst the liberties
of England were in danger from the crown, whilst the barons
were full of patriotic spirit, more cultivated and enlightened
than the men around them, whilst they were qualified for the
ɪ See vol. iɪ. p. 450. 2 Vol. ɪɪ. p. 458.
3 See above, p. 163.
XXI.]
The Prelate».
5<5t
post of leaders, and conscious of the dignity and responsibility
of leading, this linking of class to class around them was pro-
ductive of good. When the pride of pomp and wealth took
the place of political aspirations, personal indulgence, domestic
tyranny, obsequious servility, followed as unmitigated and
deeply-rooted evils. Of both results the later middle ages
furnish examples enough ; and yet to the very close the manly
and ennobling sense of great responsibilities lights up the his-
tory of the baronage. They were not the creatures of a court ; Beai great-
they were not the effete and luxurious satellites of kings like medieval
those who ruled on the other side of the channel. They were barona°0
ambitious, covetous, unrelenting, with little conscience and less
sympathy; but they were men who recognised their position
as shepherds of the people. And they were recognised by the
people as their leaders, although the virtue of the recognition
was dimmed by servile and mercenary feelings on the one side,
and by supercilious contempt on the other. When the hour of
their strength was over, the evil leaven of these feelings re-
mained, and, under the new nobility of the Tudor age, became
more repulsive than it had been before. The obsequious flattery
of wealth, however acquired, and of rank, however won and
worn, is a stain on the glories of the Elizabethan age as of
later times, and does not become extinct even when it provokes
an equally irrational reaction.
476. Much that has been said of the great temporal barons Episcopal
, , households,
may be held to apply also to the great prelates in their baronial
capacity. The two archbishops maintained households on the
same scale as dukes, and the bishops, so far as influence and
expenditure were concerned, maintained the state of earls.
They had their embattled houses, their wide inclosed parks,
and unenclosed chaces ; they kept their court with just the
same array of officers, servants, counsellors and chaplains ; they
made their progresses with armed retinues and trains of bag-
gage1, and took their audits of accounts with equal rigidity.
1 Machin writes of the great bishop Tunstall, when he came up to
London to be deprived and to die in x559 : ‘The 20th day of July the
good old bishop of Durham came riding to London with threescore horse
Diary, p. 204.
VOL. III. O 0