176 THE DOVER ROAD 



Religious mania, seems to have attacked the weak 

 brain of this excitable enthusiast while in confinement, 

 and his conduct presently became more eccentric than 

 before. Roaming in the country villages, preaching 

 religious and political salvation to the small farmers, 

 the cottagers, and poor agricultural labourers of Kent, 

 he aroused greater enthusiasm and personal love than 

 before. He had always represented himself to be a 

 member of the Courtenay family, whose head, the 

 Earl of DcA'on, claims descent from Palaeologus, 

 King of Jerusalem in early Crusading times ; and, in 

 addition, he announced himself as the rightful heir 

 to a number of important estates in Kent and neigh- 

 bouring counties. He let it be known that he, the 

 noble Sir William Courtenay, Knight of Malta, and 

 rightful King of Jerusalem, was not too proud to 

 partake of food and shelter at the board and under 

 the roof of the poorest. When he came in power, and 

 claimed his rights, the oppressed should live freely 

 on the land ; the cruel New^ Poor La^v that shut 

 unfortunate men and women out from the world in 

 '' Bastilles," as though Poverty were a crime, and 

 separated man and wife, Avhom God had declared by 

 his handmaid, the Church, man should not put 

 asunder, should be abrogated ; and the workers should 

 have a share in the products of their toil. The people 

 largely responded to these ad^"ances ; and poor folk, 

 together with a number of the class who had earned 

 themselves a small competency, and a few moneyed 

 people, believed thoroughly in Courtenay. He was 

 now a man whom many held to have been persecuted 

 and imprisoned for his championship of the people, 

 and they lo\^cd him for it, many of them with a who'e- 

 souled devotion that culminated in worship. 

 Courtenay's extraordinary facial resemblance to the 

 traditional appearance of the Saviour, and, finally, his 

 ultimate assumption of the character of the Messiah, led 

 many people to believe that Christ was actually come on 

 earth to commence His promised reign ; and enter- 



