How merchants could organize resistance to the Crown

Effective rebellion requires the capacity to organize as well as reasons for discontent. People working continuously to feed their families have little time to coordinate resistance, while a government can retain the advantage through trained and motivated armed forces. Merchants, lawyers, clerks, and skilled artisans possess communications, resources, and connections that allow them to organize beyond their immediate neighbourhood. They can pool money to hire military expertise and provide specialists such as artillerymen. Guilds paid for trained bands because secure towns protected their warehouses and trade. In London, those arrangements left the Crown facing an organized armed force when it attempted to seize the capital.