"What then," asked Cromwell of Pym, "is the great root of all our grievances?" "The Aristocracy," said Pym, "Give us their true history and you unriddle the secret of every national embarrassment."

Surely truer oracle than this was never uttered. For more than eight centuries of dishonour the story of our Old Nobility is one of all but uninterrupted and, alas! generally successful crime. It divides itself naturally into four well marked epochs.