Every house along its coast showed some spoil from the wars.
Here more than anywhere the loss of the great province whose cliffs could be seen from its shores was felt as a crowning disgrace, and as we shall see from the after complaints of its insurgents, political wrongs added their fire to the national shame.

Justice was ill administered; taxation was unequal and extortionate.

Redress for such evils would now naturally have been sought from Parliament; but the weakness of the Crown gave the great nobles power to rob the freeholders of their franchise and return the knights of the shire.

Nor could redress be looked for from the Court.
The murder of Suffolk was the act of Kentishmen, and Suffolk's friends still held control over the royal councils.

The one hope of reform lay in arms; and in the summer of 1450, while the last of the Norman fortresses were throwing open their gates, the discontent broke into open revolt.