 Dislike from all classes could be especially intense in the case of favourites who were elevated from humble, or at least minor, backgrounds by royal favour.Titles and estates were usually given lavishly to favourites, who were compared to mushrooms because they sprang up suddenly overnight, from a bed of excrement.The King's favourite Piers Gaveston is a "night-grown mushrump" (mushroom) to his enemies in Christopher Marlowe's "Edward II".