[Clockwork appears to have been introduced into England in the reign of Edward III., when three Dutch horologers were invited over from Delft.

They must soon have passed into common use, for Chaucer thus familiarly speaks of them:-- "Full sickerer was his crowing in his loge Than is a clock or any abbey orloge."] The more the pity!--our red-faced yeomen, alas, are fast sinking into lank-jawed mechanics! We shall find the king in his garden within the next half-hour.

Thou shalt attend me." Marmaduke expressed, with more feeling than eloquence, the thanks he owed for an offer that, he was about to say, exceeded his hopes; but he had already, since his departure from Westmoreland, acquired sufficient wit to think twice of his words.

And so eagerly, at that time, did the youth of the nobility contend for the honour of posts about the person of Warwick, and even of his brothers, and so strong was the belief that the earl's power to make or to mar fortune was all-paramount in England, that even a place in the king's household was considered an inferior appointment to that which made Warwick the immediate patron and protector.

This was more especially the case amongst the more haughty and ancient gentry since the favour shown by Edward to the relations of his wife, and his own indifference to the rank and birth of his associates.