The Last of the Barons — Complete
I dedicate to you, my indulgent Critic and long-tried Friend, the work which owes its origin to your suggestion. Long since, you urged me to attempt a fiction which might borrow its characters from our own Records, and serve to illustrate some of those truths which History is too often compelled to leave to the Tale-teller, the Dramatist, and the Poet. Unquestionably, Fiction, when aspiring to something higher than mere romance, does not pervert, but elucidate Facts. He who employs it worthily must, like a biographer, study the time and the characters he selects, with a minute and earnest diligence which the general historian, whose range extends over centuries, can scarcely be expected to bestow upon the things and the men of a single epoch. His descriptions should fill up with colour and detail the cold outlines of the rapid chronicler; and in spite of all that has been argued by pseudo-critics, the very fancy which urged and animated his theme should necessarily tend to increase the reader’s practical and familiar acquaintance with the habits, the motives, and the modes of thought which constitute the true idiosyncrasy of an age. More than all, to Fiction is permitted that liberal use of Analogical Hypothesis which is denied to History, and which, if sobered by research, and enlightened by that knowledge of mankind (without which Fiction can neither harm nor profit, for it becomes unreadable), tends to clear up much that were otherwise obscure, and to solve the disputes and difficulties of contradictory evidence by the philosophy of the human heart.
My own impression of the greatness of the labour to which you invited me made me the more diffident of success, inasmuch as the field of English historical fiction had been so amply cultivated, not only by the most brilliant of our many glorious Novelists, but by later writers of high and merited reputation. But however the annals of our History have been exhausted by the industry of romance, the subject you finally pressed on my choice is unquestionably one which, whether in the delineation of character, the expression of passion, or the suggestion of historical truths, can hardly fail to direct the Novelist to paths wholly untrodden by his predecessors in the Land of Fiction.
Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton
THE LAST OF THE BARONS
DEDICATORY EPISTLE.
PREFACE TO THE LAST OF THE BARONS
BOOK I. THE ADVENTURES OF MASTER MARMADUKE NEVILE.
CHAPTER I. THE PASTIME-GROUND OF OLD COCKAIGNE.
CHAPTER II. THE BROKEN GITTERN.
CHAPTER III. THE TRADER AND THE GENTLE; OR, THE CHANGING GENERATION.
CHAPTER IV. ILL FARES THE COUNTRY MOUSE IN THE TRAPS OF TOWN.
CHAPTER V. WEAL TO THE IDLER, WOE TO THE WORKMAN.
CHAPTER VIII. MASTER MARMADUKE NEVILE MAKES LOVE, AND IS FRIGHTENED.
BOOK II. THE KING’S COURT.
CHAPTER I. EARL WARWICK THE KING-MAKER.
CHAPTER II. KING EDWARD THE FOURTH.
CHAPTER III. THE ANTECHAMBER.
CHAPTER I. THE SOLITARY SAGE AND THE SOLITARY MAID.
CHAPTER II. MASTER ADAM WARNER GROWS A MISER, AND BEHAVES SHAMEFULLY.
CHAPTER IV. LORD HASTINGS.
CHAPTER V. MASTER ADAM WARNER AND KING HENRY THE SIXTH.
BOOK IV. INTRIGUES OF THE COURT OF EDWARD IV.
CHAPTER I. MARGARET OF ANJOU.
CHAPTER IX. THE GREAT ACTOR RETURNS TO FILL THE STAGE.
BOOK V.
CHAPTER II. COUNCILS AND MUSINGS.
CHAPTER III. THE SISTERS.
CHAPTER IV. THE DESTRIER.
BOOK VI
CHAPTER I. NEW DISSENSIONS.
CHAPTER III. WHEREIN THE DEMAGOGUE SEEKS THE COURTIER.
CHAPTER IV. SIBYLL.
CHAPTER V. KATHERINE.
CHAPTER VII. A LOVE SCENE.
BOOK VII. THE POPULAR REBELLION.
CHAPTER I. THE WHITE LION OF MARCH SHAKES HIS MANE.
CHAPTER II. THE CAMP AT OLNEY.
CHAPTER III. THE CAMP OF THE REBELS.
CHAPTER IV. THE NORMAN EARL AND THE SAXON DEMAGOGUE CONFER.
CHAPTER V. WHAT FAITH EDWARD IV. PURPOSETH TO KEEP WITH EARL AND PEOPLE.
CHAPTER VI. WHAT BEFALLS KING EDWARD ON HIS ESCAPE FROM OLNEY.
CHAPTER VII. HOW KING EDWARD ARRIVES AT THE CASTLE OF MIDDLEHAM.
CHAPTER I. THE LADY ANNE VISITS THE COURT.
CHAPTER II. THE SLEEPING INNOCENCE—THE WAKEFUL CRIME.
CHAPTER IV. THE FOSTER-BROTHERS.
CHAPTER V. THE LOVER AND THE GALLANT—WOMAN’S CHOICE.
CHAPTER VII. THE FEAR AND THE FLIGHT.
CHAPTER VIII. THE GROUP ROUND THE DEATH-BED OF THE LANCASTRIAN WIDOW.
BOOK IX. THE WANDERERS AND THE EXILES.
CHAPTER I. HOW THE GREAT BARON BECOMES AS GREAT A REBEL.
CHAPTER II. MANY THINGS BRIEFLY TOLD.
CHAPTER IV. THE WORLD’S JUSTICE, AND THE WISDOM OF OUR ANCESTORS.
CHAPTER VI. THE SUBTLE CRAFT OF RICHARD OF GLOUCESTER.
CHAPTER VII. WARWICK AND HIS FAMILY IN EXILE.
CHAPTER VIII. HOW THE HEIR OF LANCASTER MEETS THE KING-MAKER.
CHAPTER IX. THE INTERVIEW OF EARL WARWICK AND QUEEN MARGARET.
BOOK X. THE RETURN OF THE KING-MAKER.
CHAPTER I. THE MAID’S HOPE, THE COURTIER’S LOVE, AND THE SAGE’S COMFORT.
CHAPTER V. THE MEETING OF HASTINGS AND KATHERINE.
CHAPTER XI. THE TOWER IN COMMOTION.
BOOK XI. THE NEW POSITION OF THE KING-MAKER
CHAPTER IV. THE RETURN OF EDWARD OF YORK.
CHAPTER V. THE PROGRESS OF THE PLANTAGENET.
BOOK XII. THE BATTLE OF BARNET.
CHAPTER II. SHARP IS THE KISS OF THE FALCON’S BEAR.
CHAPTER III. A PAUSE.
CHAPTER IV. THE BATTLE.
CHAPTER V. THE BATTLE.
CHAPTER VI. THE BATTLE.
NOTES.