Of all this Froissart recognized little indeed; though we, in the light of a hundred other documents, can see how all went on under Froissart's eyes. He saw clearly that this was the most warlike nation in Europe; he saw also that it was the most democratic; but he seems neither to have traced any connection here on the one hand, nor on the other to have been troubled by any sense of contrast; it was not in his genius to look for causes, but rather to repeat with child-like vivacity what he saw and heard. Yet for us, to whom nothing in Chaucer's England can be more interesting than to watch, under the great trees of the forest, the springing of that undergrowth which was in time to become the present British people, it is delightful to turn from pictures of mere successful bloodshed to Froissart's bitter-sweet judgments on the national character. "Englishmen suffer indeed for a season, but in the end they repay so cruelly that it may stand as a great warning; for no man may mock them; the lord who governs them rises and lays him down to rest in sore peril of his life.... And specially there is no people under the sun so perilous in the matter of its common folk as they are in England. For in England the nature and condition of the nobles is very far different from that of the common folk and villeins; for the gentlefolk are of loyal and noble condition, and the common people is of a fell, perilous, proud and disloyal condition: and wheresoever the people would show their fierceness and their power, the nobles would not last long after. But now for a long time they have been at good accord together, for the nobles ask nothing of the people but what is of full reason; moreover none would suffer them to take aught from him without payment--nay, not an egg or a hen. The tradesmen and labourers of England live by the travail of their hands, and the nobles live on their own rents and revenues, and if the kings vex them they are repaid; not that the king can tax his people at pleasure, no! nor the people would not or could not suffer it. There are certain ordinances and covenants settled upon the staple of wool, wherefrom the king is assisted beyond his own rents and revenues; and when they go to war, that covenant is doubled. England is best kept of all lands in the world; otherwise they could by no means live together; and it behoveth well that a king who is their lord should order his ways after them and bow to their will in many matters; and if he do the contrary, so that evil come thereof, bitterly then shall he rue it, as did this king Edward II." "And men said then in London and throughout England 'we must reform and take a new ordinance [with our king]; for that which we have had hath brought us sore weariness and travail, and this kingdom of ours is not worth a straw without a good head; whereas we have had one as bad as a man can find.... We have no use for a sluggish and heavy king who seeketh too much his own ease and pleasure; we would rather slay half a hundred of such, one after the other, than fail to get a king to our use and liking.'" "The King of England must needs obey his people, and do all their will."[239]