Throughout the Middle Ages the call of a great baron had been enough to raise a formidable revolt.
Yeomen and retainers took down the bow from their chimney corner, knights buckled on their armour, and in a few days a host threatened the throne.
Without artillery however such a force was now helpless, and the one train of artillery in the kingdom lay at the disposal of the king.
[Sidenote: Weakness of the Church] The Church too was in no less peril than the baronage.

In England as elsewhere the great ecclesiastical body still seemed imposing from the memories of its past, its immense wealth, its tradition of statesmanship, its long association with the intellectual and religious aspirations of men, its hold on social life.

But its real power was small.

Its moral inertness, its lack of spiritual enthusiasm, gave it less and less hold on the religious minds of the day.

Its energies indeed seemed absorbed in a mere clinging to existence.