servant, admirably calculated to prevent all wavering. This man's vanity, lion-strong, was alive to insure his new master's success, and to overthrow him by whom he had been discarded. He was an adept in intrigue; an oily flatterer; a man of unwearied activity, both of mind and body. It was his care to prevent York from suffering any of the humiliations incident to his position. He obtained supplies of money for him—he suffered none to approach who were not already full of zeal—when he. met with any failure, he proved logically that it was a success, and magnified an escape into a victory—he worked day and night to insure that nothing came near the prince, except through his medium, which was one sugared and drugged to please. When he saw Richard's clear spirit clouded by Lord Surrey, he demonstrated that England could not suffer through him; for that in the battle it was a struggle between partizans ready to lay down their lives in their respective causes, so that, for their own sakes and pleasure, he ought to call on them to make the sacrifice. As to the ruin and misery of the land—he bade him mark the exactions of Henry; the penury of the peasant, drained to his last stiver—this was real wretchedness; devastating the country, and leaving it barren, as if sown with salt. Fertility and plenty would speedily efface the light wound he must inflict—nay, England would be restored to youth, and laugh through all her shores and plains, when grasping Tudor was exchanged for the munificient Plantagenet.
In one circumstance Frion had been peculiarly fortunate. The part he had played of astrologer during the foregoing summer had brought him acquainted with a young nobleman zealous in the cause of York, and well able to afford it assistance. Lord Audley was of the west country, but his maternal relations were Kentish, and he possessed a mansion and a small estate not far from Hythe in Kent. Lord Audley was of a class of men common all over the world. He had inherited his title and fortune early in life, and was still a very young man. He loved action, and desired distinction, and was disposed to enter readily into all the turmoil and risk of conspiracy and revolt. His aim was to become a leader: he was vain, but generous; zealous, but deficient in judgment. He was a Yorkist by birth and a soldier by profession—all combined to render him, heart and soul, the friend of the wandering Plantagenet.
Frion led York to the mansion of this noble, and it became the focus of the spirit of sedition and discontent to the country round. The immediate presence of the duke was concealed; but the activity of his friends was not the less great to collect a band of partizans, to which, when prepared and disciplined, they might
