He now averred that he would never take arms against the King, but that he would go where man should never see him more.
Such was the condition of the nobles, greater and less.

That of the people could not well be worse.

Famine reigned in the land.

Emigration, caused not by over population, but by persecution, was fast weakening the country.

It was no wonder that not only, foreign merchants should be scared from the great commercial cities by the approaching disorders; but that every industrious artisan who could find the means of escape should seek refuge among strangers, wherever an asylum could be found.