[565] About a fortnight after the death of Halifax, a fate far more cruel than death befell his old rival and enemy, the Lord President.

That able, ambitious and daring statesman was again hurled down from power.

In his first fall, terrible as it was, there had been something of dignity; and he had, by availing himself with rare skill of an extraordinary crisis in public affairs, risen once more to the most elevated position among English subjects.

The second ruin was indeed less violent than the first; but it was ignominious and irretrievable.
The peculation and venality by which the official men of that age were in the habit of enriching themselves had excited in the public mind a feeling such as could not but vent itself, sooner or later, in some formidable explosion.

But the gains were immediate; the day of retribution was uncertain; and the plunderers of the public were as greedy and as audacious as ever, when the vengeance, long threatened and long delayed, suddenly overtook the proudest and most powerful among them.
The first mutterings of the coming storm did not at all indicate the direction which it would take, or the fury with which it would burst.
An infantry regiment, which was quartered at Royston, had levied contributions on the people of that town and of the neighbourhood.