They learn to tremble as little at priestcraft as at swordcraft, having acquired something of each.

Gold in the end, unsanctioned by right divine, weighs up the other forces, supernatural as they are.

And so, struggling along their appointed path, making cloth, making money, making treaties with great kingdoms, making war by land and sea, ringing great bells, waving great banners, they, too--these insolent, boisterous burghers--accomplish their work.

Thus, the mighty power of the purse develops itself and municipal liberty becomes a substantial fact.

A fact, not a principle; for the old theorem of sovereignty remains undisputed as ever.