Barons

The seemingly noble knights turned out to be rotten robber barons.

Knights acted as a counterpoise to the barons.

While the rest of us toil, the robber barons eat from gilt tableware.

There's a documentary on today about steel barons.

Edward II. being formally deposed in a general assembly of the great Barons, his eldest son was called to the throne, and crowned on Christmas-day, 1326, in the sixteenth year of his age, “during the lifetime of his father.”

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

While the rest of us work hard, the robber barons eat with gilded utensils.