The drama's class conflict can seem obscure to the modern reader, since Sir Giles Over-reach appears as an upper-class, not a lower-class figure: he is a knight and a rich man with large country estates, who lives the lavish lifestyle of the landed gentry. There is even a family connection between hero and villain: Frank Welborn is the nephew of Sir Giles' late wife. Yet Sir Giles himself expresses the conflict by noting that he is a "city" man—he comes from the financial milieu of the City of London with its worldly and materialistic values, the domain of nascent capitalism in contrast to the older social order rooted in feudalism. He observes that there is "More than a feud, a strange antipathy / Between us", the men of money, "and true gentry".