BY
If Andre
Reville had survived to complete his projected history of the Great Revolt of
1381, this book of mine would not have been written. But when he had
transcribed at the Record Office all the documents that he could find bearing
on the rebellion, and had written three chapters dealing with the troubles in
Norfolk, Suffolk, and Hertfordshire, he was cut off by disease at the early age
of twenty seven. All his transcripts of documents, together with the fragment
relating to the three shires above named, were published by the Societe de
l’Ecole des Chartes in 1898, with an excellent preface by M. Petit-Dutaillis.
The book is now out of print and almost unattainable. It is with the aid of
Rfiville’s transcripts—a vast collection of records of trials, inquests,
petitions, and Escheators’ rolb—that I have endeavoured to lewrite the whole
history of the Rebellion. The existing narratives of it, with few exceptions,
have been written with the Chroniclers alone, not the official documents as
their basis I must except of course Mr. George Trevelyan’s brilliant sketch of
the troubles in his England in the Age of Wycliffe2 and Mr.
Powell’s Rising of 1381 in East Anglia,3 the iruit of much
hard work at the Record Office. By an unfortunate coincidence Andre Reville had
completed his East Anglian section, and that section only, at the moment of his
lamented and premature death, so that the detailed story of thu revolt in
Norfolk and Sutfolk has been told twice from the official sources, and that of
the test of England not at all.
Reville’s
collection, together with the smaller volumes of documents published by Messrs.
Powell and Trevelyan in 1896
1 Le Soulevement des travailleurs d'Angleterre en
1381, par Andr6 Reville: etudes et documents, publies avec une introduction
historique par Ch. Petit- Dutaillis. Paris, 1898.
3 England
in the Age of Wycliffe, by G. M. Trevelyan. London, 1899.
3 The Rising of 1381 in East Anglia, by
Edgar Powell. Cambridge, 1896.
and 1899, and
certain other isolated transcripts of local records2 lie at the base
of my narrative. 1 may add that there is also some new and unpublished material
in this book, the results of my own inquiries into the Poll-tax documents at
the Record Office. I think that I have discovered why that impost met with such
universal reprobation, how the poorer classes in England conspired to defeat
its operation, and how the counter-stroke made by the Government provoked the
rebellion. The records of the Hundred of Hinckford, printed on pages 167-82, as
my third Appendix, are intended to illustrate the falsification of the
tax-retums by the townships and their constables. The iourth Appendix, the
‘Writ of Inquiry as to the Fraudulent Levying of the Poll- tax ’ of March
16,1381 (never before printed, as I believe), is all-important, as showing the
manner in which the Government prepared to attack the innumerable fabricators
of false returns. This writ, with its threats of imprisonment and exactions
levelled against a large proportion, probably a majority, of the townships of
fifteen shires, may be called, with little exaggeration, the provocative cause
of the whole revolt. Urban and rural England were alike seething with
discontent in 1381, but it required a definite grievance, affecting thousands
of mdividuals at the same moment, to provoke a general explosion, such as that
which I have here endeavoured to narrate. Without that writ of March 16 town
and county would have gone on indulging in isolated riots, strikes, and
disturbances, as they had been doing for the last twenty years, but there would
probably have been no single movement worthy of being called a rebellion.
I have
ventured to insert as my fifth and sixth Appendices two long documents which
have already been published, but which are not very accessible to the student,
because the volumes in which they are to be found are out of print. They are of
such paramount importance lor the detailed
1
The Peasants' Rising, and the Lollards, Unpublished Documents. Edited by Edgar
Powell and G. M. Trevelyan. London, 1899.
a
Such as the Documents in Archaeologia Cantiana, vols. iii and iv, and Essex
Archaeological Society’s Proceedings, new series, i. p. 314, &c.
history of
the rebellion that no student can afford to neglect them. The lirst is the so
-called ‘Anonimal Chronicle of St. Mary’s, York’, of which Mr. George Trevelyan
published the Fiench text in the English Historical Review, part 51. I have
made an English translation of it, and by his kii d permission, and the
courtesy of Dr. Poole, the editor, and Messrs. Longmans, the proprietors, of
the Review, am allowed to reproduce this most valuable document. This chronicle
appeared after Reville’s death, so that his narrative chapters were written
without its aid. The second is the long inquest of November 20, 1382. on the
doings of the chief London traitors, Aldermen Sibley (or Sybyle), Home and
Tonge, and Thomas Farringdon. This document formed part of Andre Reville’s
transcripts: the Societe de l’Ecole des Chartes, who possess the copyright of
his Collections, granted me leave to republish it. All pre\ ious narratives of
the London rebellion have to be rewritten, in view of this most interesting
revelation of the treachery from within that opened the city to the rebels.
I have to
acknowledge kind assistance given me by the following friends, to whom I made
application on points of difficulty—Mr. C. R. L. Fletcher of Magdalen College,
Oxford, Professor W. P. Ker of All Souls College and London University, Mr.
Hubert Hall of the Record Office, Dr, F G Kenyon of the British Museum, and Dr.
Murray of the Oxford English Dictionary. Last, but not least, must come my
testimony to the untiring assistance of the compiler ot the Index—the seventh
made for me by the same devoted hands.
C. OMAN
Oxford,
May
3, rcjco.
CHAPTER I
Introductory. England in 1381
CHAPTER II
The Parliament of Northampton and the Poll-tax . .22 CHAPTER III
The Outbreak in Kent and Essex ...... 32
CHAPTER IV
The Rebels in London : King Richard and Wat Tyler . 55 CHAPTER V
The Repression of the Rebellion in London and the
adjacent District 80
CHAPTER VI
The Rebellion in the Home Counties and the South . 90 CHAPTER VII
The Rebellion in Norfolk and Suffolk .... 99
CHAPTER VIII The Rebellion in Cambridgeshire and
Huntingdonshire 121
CHAPTER IX
The Suppression of the Revolt in the Eastern Counties 129 CHAPTER X
Troubles in the Outlying Counties of the North and
West 138
CHAPTER XI
The Sequel of the Rebellion: the Parliament of
November 1381 148
APPENDICES
PAGE
No. i. The Poll-tax Rolls in the Record Office . . 158
„ 2. The Population of England in 1381 . . . 162
„ 3. A Typical Hundred : Poll-tax Returns of Hinck-
ford Hundred, Essex, in detail . . . 167
„ 4. Writ of Inquiry as to the Fraudulent Levying
of the Poll-tax ....... 183
„ 5. The ‘Anonimal Chronicle of St. Mary’s, York’,
TRANSLATED 186
„ 6. The Traitor-Aldermen. Inquest on the Doings of
Aldermen Horne, Tonge, and Sibley, and of Thomas Farringdon 206
MAPS
1. The
Districts mainly affected by the Rebellion OF 1381 . .
.
2. London
in 1381: a rough Reconstruction .
.
THE GREAT
REVOLT OF 1381
CHAFTER I
INTRODUCTORY
England in 1381
Few of the really important episodes of English
history . are so short, sudden, and dramatic as the great insurrection of June
1381, which still bears in most histories its old and not very accurate title
of ‘Wat Tyler’s Rebellion \ Only , a short month separates the first small riot
in Essex, with which the nsing started, from the final petty skirmish in East
Anglia at which the last surviving band of insurgents was ridden down and
scattered to the winds. But within 1 the space that intervened between May 30 and
June 28,1381 hall England had been aflame, and for some days it had seemed that
the old order of things was about to crash down in red ruin, and that complete
anarchy would supervene. To most contemporary writers the whole rising seemed
an 1 inexplicable phenomenon—a storm that arose out of a mere nothing, an
ignorant liot against a harsh and unpopular tax, such as had often been seen
before. But this storm assumed vast dimensions, spread over the whole horizon,
swept down on the countryside with the violence of a typhoon, threatened
universal destruction, and then suddt nly passed away almost as inexplicably as
it had arisen. The monastic chroniclers, to whom we owe most of our
descriptions of the rebellion— Walsingham and his fellows—were not the men to
understand the meaning of such a phenomenon; they were annalists, not political
philosophers or students of social statics. They only half comprehended the
meaning of what they had seen, and were content to explain the rebellion as the
work of Satan, 01
the result of
an outbreak of sheer insanity on the part of the labouring dasses. When grudges
and discontents have been working for many years above or below the surface,
and then suddenly flare up into a wholesale conflagration, the. ordinary observei
is puzzled as well as terrified. All the * causes of the great insurrection,
save the Poll-tax which precipitated it, had been operating for a long time.
Why was the particular month of J une I j8i the moment at which they passed
from causes into effects, and effects of such a violent and unexpected kind ?
What the Poll-tax was, and why it was so unpopular, we shall soon see. But its
relation to the rebellion is merely the same as that of the greased cartridges
to the Indian Mutiny of 1857. It brought about the explosion, but was only
one. of its smaller'causes. Things had been working up for trouble during many
years—only a good cry, a common grievance which united all malcontents, was
needed to bring matters to a head. This was what the Poll- • tax provided.
The England
which in 1381 was ruled by the boy-king Richard II, with Archbishop Sudbury as
his chancellor and prime minister, and Sir Robert Hales as his treasurer, was a
thoroughly discontented country. In foreign politics alone there was material
for grudging enough. The realm was at the fag-end of an inglorious and
disastrous war. the evil heritage of the ambitions of Edward III. It would have
puzzled a much more capable set of men than those who now served as the
ministers and councillors of his grandson to draw England out of the slough
into which she had sunk. Her present misfortunes were due to her own fault: as
long as her one ruling idea was to brood over the memories of Crecy and
Poitiers, Sluys and Espagnols-sur-Mer, and dream of winning back the boundaries
of the Treaty of Bretigny, no way out of her troubles was available. The nation
was * obstinately besotted on the war, and failed to see that all the cirf
umstances which had made the triumphs of Edward III possible had disappeared—that
England was now too weak and France too strong to make victory possible. Ten
years of constantly unsuccessful expeditions, and ever-shrinking
boundaries,
had not yet convinced the Commons of England thaf to make peace with Fiance was
the only wise course. They preferred to impute the disasters of the time to the
* incapacity of their governors. But it was useless to try • general
after general, to change the personnel of the King’s Council every few
months—it had been done thr tee since King Richard’s accession- -to accuse
every minister of imbecility or corruption. The fault lay not in the leaders,
but in the led—in the insensate desire of the nation to persevere ri the
struggle when all the conditions under which it was waged had ceased to be
favourable.
The various
ministers of Richard II had, ever since hit; reign began, been appearing before
Parliament at short intervals to report again and again the loss of some new
patch of England’s dwindling dominion beyond the seas, to confess that they
could not even keep the South Coast safe from piratical descents of French
corsairs, or guarantee the Northumbrian border from the raiding Scot, or even
maintain law and order in the inward heart of the realm. Yet they were always
forced to be asking for heavier and yet heavier taxation to support the losing
game. Naturally each one of their financial expedients was criticized with
acrimony. The classes who took an intelligent interest in politics demanded
efficiency in return for the great sacrifices of money which the nation was
making, and failed to get it. The far larger i section of Englishmen who were
not able to follow the course of war or politics with any real comprehension,
were vaguely Indignant at demands on their purse, which grew more and mor> inquisitorial,
and penetrated deeper down as the years went on.
All nations
labouring under a long series of military disasters are prone to raise the cry
of ‘ Treason and to accuse their governments either of deliberate corruption or
of criminal self-seeking and negligence. The English in 1381 • were no
exception to this rule: they were blindly suspicious of those who were in power
at the moment. John of Gaunt, the King’s eldest uncle, the most prominent
figure in the politics of the day, had not a clean record. He had, in the
last years of
his father’s reign, been in close alliance with the peculating clique which had
surrounded the old king and battened on his follies. It was natural to suspect
the ministers of 1381 of the same sins that had actually been detected in the
ministers of 1377 : while John of (jaunt continued to take a busy part in
affairs this was inevitable. As a matter of fact, however, the suspicion seems
to have been groundless. The ministers of 1381 were, so far as we can ■
judge, honest men, though they were destitute of the foresight and the
initiative necessary for dealing with the deplorable condition of the realm.
Archbishop Sudbury, who had been made chancellor at the Parliament which met in
January 1380—‘ whether he sought the post of his own freewill or had it thrust
upon him by others only God can tell ’1— was a pious,
well-intentioned man—almost a saint. He would probably have been enrolled among
the martyrs of the English calendar if only he had been more willing to make
martyrs himself. For it is his lenience to heretics which forms the ma.n charge
brought against him by the monastic chroniclers. They acknowledge that he
possessed every personal \irtue, but complain that he was a halfhearted
persecutor of Wycliffe and his disciples, and hint that his terrible death in
1381 was a judgement from heaven for his lukewarmness in this respect. Sudbury
was sometimes proved destitute of tact, and often of firmness, but he was one
of the most innocent persons to whom the name of Traitor was ever applied. Of
his colleague, Treasurer Hales, who went with him to the block during the
insurrection, we know less—he was, we are told, ‘ a magnanimous knight, though
the Commons loved him not *2; no proof was ever brought that he was
corrupt or a self-seeker *. None of the minor ministers of state of 1380-1 had
any such bad reputation as had clung about their predecessors of 1377. But the
nation chafed against their unlucky administration, and vaguely ascribed to
them all the ills of the time.
Yet if the
political arid military problems had been the* only ones pressing for solution
m 1381 there would have been no outbreak of revolution in that fatal J une. All
that would have happened would have been the displacing of one incompetent
ministry by another—no more capable than its predecessor ol dealing with the
insoluble puzzle of how to turn the French war mto a successful enterprise.
The fact that
the political grievances of England nad come 1 to a head at a moment
when social grievances were also ripe was the real determining cause of the
rebellion. Of these social grievances, the famous and oft-described dispute in
the countryside between the landowner and the peasant, which had started with
the Black Death and the ‘ Statute of Labourers ’ of 1351 was no doubt the most
important, since it affected the largest section of Englishmen. But it must 1
not be forgotten that the rural community was not a whit more discontented at
this moment than was the urban. There were rife in almost every town old
grudges between t the rulers and the ruled, the employers and the employed
which were responsible for no small share of the turbulence of the realm, when
once the rebellion had broken out. They require no less notice than the feuds
of the countryside.
It was
customary a few years ago to represent the rural discontent of the third
quarter of the fourteenth century as arising mainly from one definite cause—the
attempt of the lords of manors to rescind the agreements by which theii
villeins had, during the years before the Black Death, commuted their
customary days of labour on the manorial demesne for a money payment1.
Later research, however, would seem to show that this, although a real cause of
friction, was only one among many, Such commutations had been local and
partial: in the majority of English manors
1
This, of course, was Professor Thorold Rogers’s great theory, and for twenty years
it was accepted by economic writers without criticism. It will be found
repeated in Social Englandj ii. 328-9, and by Professor Cunningham. But it
would seem to be grounded on data of insufficient number : if such troubles can
be traced in certain manors, recent research has discovered a much larger list
of cases where they do not appear, and where other causes of discontent must be
sought. See Ashley, ii. 265, and R^ville, xxxiii-v.
they had not
been introduced, or had only been introduced on a small scale, before the fatal
year 1348-9. It seems far from being a fact that the lords in general made a
desperate attempt, after the Black Death, to rescind old bargains and restore
the regime of corvees in its entirety. In many cases the, number of ,ioldmgs on
the manor which lay vacant after the pestilence was so great, that the
landowner could not get them filled up by any device.1 There was
bound, therefore, • to be a permanent deficit in the total of days of service
that could be screwed out of the villeins. In sheer despair of finding hands of
any sort to till their demesne-land, many lords actually introduced the custom
of commuting service for rent soon after the year of the Plague—so that its
result in their manors was precisely the reverse of what has been stated by
Professor Thorold Rogers and his schooU It is dangerous to formulate hard and
fast general statements as to the way in which the landowning class faced the
economic problem before them. Conditions varied from manor to * manor, and from
county to county, and the action of the lords was dependent on the particular
case before them It is certain that many abandoned the attempt to till the
demesne either with villein-labour or with hired free labour, and let out
holdings for rent, often on the ‘ stock and land lease ’ system—by which the
tenant-farmer took over not only the soil but the animals, implements, and
plant required to till it.2 Others threw their demesne, and even the
vacant crofts of extinct families of villeins, into sheep farms, on which rural
public opinion looked askance. But it would appear that in the majority of
cases* jvhere the old customary services had never been abolished or commuted
before the Black Death, the landowner went on enforcing them as stringently as
he couTd. > supplementing the corvee-work of the villems by hiring free
labour, though he wished to use as little of it as he could contrive. The main
design of the Statute of • Labourers is to enable the employer to obtain that
labour as cheaply as possible. The hirer is prohibited by it from/
1
For cases in Norfolk see details in Jessop’s Coming of the Friars, 193-200. a
Merton College had leased out all its land on such terms by 1360.
offering, or
the labourer from demanding, more than the old average rates of payment that
had prevailed before 1348. Moreover, in an excess of unwise economy. the
Statute estimates the old rate at its lowest instead of its highest average—at
2d.-3d. a day instead of at 3^.-4^. There would have been much more prospect of
carrying out the scheme with success if something had been conceded to the
labourei—but he was offered only the worst possible bargain.
One
generalization however is permissible. I The Black ‘ Death permanently raised
the price of labour—despite of all statutes to the contrary—though its effects
would have been much greater if they had not been checked by the legislation of
Parliament^ On the other h;ind, the price of agricultural produce had remained
comparatively stationary—at times it had even shown some signs of falling. The
profits of the ' landowner, therefore, were no larger, while his expenses were
decidedly heavier, than they had been in the earlier days of Edward III. Even
in manors where the old services of the villeins had never been commuted, and
still remained exigible, the lord had to seek a certain amount of
supplementary labour, and could not buy it so cheaply as in the years before
1348. If legislation had not intervened, the period would have been a sort of
Golden Age for the labourer, more especially the free labourer. He was quite
aware of the fact, chafed bitterly at the artificial restrictions which
prevented him from taking lull advantage of the statf of the market, and set
his wit? to work to evade them by every possible shift and trick.
To understand
the standing quarrel between employer and * employed, which made bitter
the whole thirty years between the passing of the Statute of Labourers and the
outbreak of ‘ Tyler’s Rebellion we must distinguish with care between the two
classes of working-men with whom the landowner had to deal—the villein who held
his strips of soil on condition of discharging all the old customary dues, and
the landless man, who had no stake in the manor, and lived not on the produce
of his holding, but by the sale of the work of his hands. The latter might be a
mere agricultural labourer,
or a
handicraftsman of some sort, smith, thatcher, tiler, carpenter, mason, sawyer,
and so forth. From the villein the lord wished to exact as stringently as
possible his < us- toinary corvees, and the petty dues and fmes^ncident on
his tenure. From the landless labourer he wisSied to buy his services at the
lowest possible .rate—that stipulated in the Statute of 1351. Conversely we
have the villein desiring to be quit of customary work and customary dues, in
order that he may become a tenant at a fixed rent, and the landless labourer
determined that at all costs he will get from his employer something more than
the miserable pay allowed him by law.
In these
simple facts lie the causes of thirty years of conflict. Both parties
were..extremely obstinate : each had r » a vague moral conviction that it was
in the right. Neither was very scrupulous as to the means that it employed to
obtain what it considered its due. The landowners grew' desperately cruel, as
they saw wages rising and old customs gradually dying out, despite ol all the
reissues of the Statute of Labourers which they obtained from Parliament. It
will be remembered that branding with hot irons and outlawry were among the
supplementary sanctions which they added to the original terrors of the law of
1351. It does not seem that such punishments were often put in practice, but
their very existence was enough to madden the peasant. On the other hand the
workers thought every device from petty perjury and chicane up to systematic
rioting justifiable against the. local tyrant.
On the whole,
it would seem that the landless labourer fared-better than the"viTlein
during this age of strife. He could easily abscond, since he had no precious acres
m the common-field to tether him down. If he was harried, held down to the
letter of the Statute, and dragged before justices in his native district, he
could always move on to another. He therefore, as it seems, enjoyed a very real
if a precarious and spasmodic prosperity. He might at any moment fear the
descent of a justice upon him, if neighbouring landlords grew desperate, but
meanwhile he flourished, Langland’s
Piets
Plowman, from which so many valuable side-lights on the time cat. be drawn,
describes him as ‘ waxing fat and kicking’. ‘The labourers that have no land
and work w’th their hands deign no longer to dine on the stale vegetables of
yesterday; penny-ale will not suit them, nor bacon, but they must have fresh
meat or fish, fried or baked, and thaf hot- and-hotter for the chill of their
maw: Unless he be highly paid he will chide, and bewail the time he was made a
workman. . . . Then he curses the king and all the king’s justices for making
such laws that grieve the labourer.’1
So far we have
been considering the condition of the landless worker: but .the same economic
crisis had also affected the landhol Lng villeins. They were reluctant to
abscond and throw up their share of the manorial acres, for only in extremity
will the peasant who has once got a grip on the soil consent to let it go. Yet
we tind that, in the generation ' which followed the Black Death, even the
villeins were beginning to si mure loosely up'>n the land : the position* of
the free labourer often seemed more tempting than tEelr own, and those of them
whose acres were few, or whose lord was harsh and unreasonable, not
unfrequently abandoned all, £Cnd fled with their families to seek free service
in some distant county or borough. But it would seem that flight was less frequent
than attempts to combine against the lord and to worry him into coming to
terms. By obstinate perseverance, the villager hoped in the end to deliver
himself from work-days on the demesne, and ms aorial dues, and to get them
commuted for a lixed rent. public opinion among his class had assessed the
reasonable rate for such commutation at 4d. an
1
Piers Plowman, ix, pp. 330 7 and pp. 340 2 :—
* Laboreres that han no londe * to liven on
bot here hands Deyned noght to dyne a-day * night-old wortes.
May no peny
ale hem paye • ne a pece of bacon,
Bote hit be
freesh fleesch other fysh* fried other ybake,
And that
chaud and pluschaud4 for chillyng of here mawe.
Bote he be
heylich yhyred*elles wol he chide,
That he was a
werkman ywroght * waryen the tyme.
And thenne he
corseth the kyng'and alle the kynges Iustices Suche lawes to lere * laborers to
greve.’
acre per
annum. This sum is repeatedly mentioned in many districts during the troubles
of 1381; where the peasantry obtained the upper hand, they were wont to insert
it in the charters which they extorted from their lords. It was undoubtedly too
low to represent the real value of land where free leasing was going on, an
acre was worth twice as much.
In the manors
where the owner and the villeins could not agree, we find that the very modem
phenomena of strikes and agricultural unions were common. The peasants ‘ con- *
federated themselves 111 conventicles, and took an oath to resist lord and
bailiff, and to r< fuse their due custom and service’.1 Weak men
yielded, and allowed their serfs tof commute. Obstinate men called down the
local justice, or# even applied directly to the King’s Council, and got the
strike put down by force. It was sure to break out again after an interval,
when the villeins had forgotten the stocks and the heavy fines which were their
part in such cases.
One of the
most interesting features of these combinations of the peasantry is that in
some cases they tried to raise constitutional points_againat their lords, in
the most lawyerly fashion. It.is_a~new thing in English .history to find the
agricultural classes pleading for that reversion to ancient ■custom which
barons and burgesses had sp.often demanded when struggling against unpopular
kings. The fact is undoubted : in the first parliament of Richard II, a
special statute was passed to deal with such attempts. ‘ In many lordships and
parts of the realm of England’, it runs, ‘the villeins and holders of land in
villeinage refuse their customs and service due to their lords, under colour of
certain exemplifications made fromDomesday Book concerning the manors in which
they dwell; and by virtue of the said exemplifications, and their bad
interpretation of them, they affirm that they are quit and utterly discharged
of all manner of serfdom
1
This is the phrase used in the case of Strixton [Northants], a manor of one
Thomas Preyers in 1380 : the villeins (servicia pro tenuriis suis
rebellice retraxerunt, ac in conventiculis ad invicem confederati et sacramento
inter- confederati ad resistendum praefato Thomae et ministris suis, ne
huiusmodi consuetudines et servicia facerent, congregati sunt *. See Rdville,
p. xxxix.
STRIKES AND
UNIONS
due whether
of their bodies or of their tenuies, and will not. suffer distresses to be
levied on them, or justice done on them , but menace the servants of their
lords in life or members, and what is more, they draw together in great bands,
and bind themselves by confederation that each shall aid the others to
constrain their lords by the strong hand.’1 This was four years
before the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, but * *he main feature of that revolt is
already visible : it was precisely a gathering in great bands to constrain the
landowners and resist by armed violence all attempts to enforce seignorial
duev.
It is to tie
presumed that the ‘exemplifications from Domesday ’ were proofs that in
particular manors there were 1 in 1085 free men and socmen, where in 1377
villeins were to i >e found, so that some lord in the intervening three
centuries [must have advanced his power to the detriment of the ancient rights
of the inhabitants of thepIaceT" To find such archaeological evidence
advanced by mere peasants is astonishing. One can only suppose that they must
have had skilled advisers : probably the growing custom by which persons of
some wealth and status had taken to buying villein-land explains the
phenomenon. Some lawyer who had invested in acres held on a base tenure, must
have hit on this ingenious idea of appealing to ancient evidence against the
custom of the present day. The real -villeins must have admired and copied him.
It is clear
that not only the customary days of service to be done on the lord's demesne,
but also the other incidents of the manorial system, were very hateful to the
peasants of 1381. In all the demands which they made and the charters whii h
they wTon, they carefully stipulated for freedom from such things as
the heriot payable at the death of a tenant, the merchet demanded from him when
he married his daughter, the small but tiresome dues exacted when he sold a cow
or a horse. Sometimes the monopoly of the seignorial mill is made a grievance:
sometimes there is a claim for the abolition of parks and warrens, and the
grant of liberty to
1
Statutes of the Realm, li. a. 3.
hunt and fish
at large. Fhe ‘ freedom ’ which was the * villein’s ideal postulated the
destruction of all these restrictions on daily life.
All over
England we may trace, in the third quarter of the fourteenth century, local
disputes in which one or other
■ > “ i hi the rural grievances came to
the front. The only thing ■ that was new in 1381 was that the troubles
were not confined to individual manors, but suddenly spread over half the
realm. It is dangerous to conclude, as some writers have done, that this
simultaneous action was due to deliberate organization. Ij&e have no
proof that there was any central committee of * malcontents who chose their
time and then issued orders for the rising. The leaders who emerged in each
region seem to • have been the creatures ot the moment, selected almost at
hazard for their audacity or their ready eloquence. The sole • V""
personage among them who had been long known to a large circle was John Ball, ‘
the mad priest of Kent\ and he, so far from starting t he actual insurrection,
had Deen for some time in prison when it broke out, and had to be released by
his admirers. We shall have to deal presently with his personality and his
views. Here it may suffice to say that • he was a visionary and a prophet
rather than an organizer. He had spread discontent by twenty years of itinerant
preaching, but there is not the least proof that he tried to turn it into
practical shape, by leaguing his hearers into secret societies. We must not be
misled by the name of the ‘ Gn at Company ’ (Magna Societas), which occurs
sometimes in the annals of the insurrection, and take it to have been a real
league, like that of the ‘ United Irishmen ’ of 1798. It was a name applied in
a few cases by the rebels to themselves, more especially in Norfolk, and no
more.1 There was, of course, much communication between district and
district: workmen oil the tramp, dodging the ‘ Statute of Labourers’, itinerant
craftsmen, religious mendicants, pro-
1
The best-known case is that of George of Dunsby, a Lincolnshire man, who came
to Bury on June 14, saying that he was ‘ nuncius magnae societatis,1
and bidding all men rise in arms. I do not think we can follow Mr. Powell (p.
57) in reading this into a proof there was i an organization
extending so far as the Humber \ Dunsby is in the extreme south of
Lincolnshire, near Bourn.
?!
fessional
vagrants, outlaws, and broken men of all sorts, were roving freely up and down
England, and through them every parish had some knowledge of what was doing
elsewhere. But it would be absurd to look upon these wanderers as the regular
agents of a definite organization, founded for the purpose of preparing for ar
insurrection. There were * village conventicles ’ and combinations, which must
often have teen in touch with each other, but no central directing body. The
chaotic character of the'rismg is sufficient proof of this : every district
went on its own way of tumult; and ‘ except .where men of marked personality
(like Wat Tyler in • Kent, or Geoffrey Litster in eastern Norfolk) came to the
front, there was no definite plan carried out.
The sporadic
nature of the insurrection was made still more marked by the fact that it
affected many cities and towns, in which the manorial grievances had no part in
c ausing the outburst. We may set in one class places like St. Albans,
Dunstable, Burv St. Edmunds, or Lynn, where the insurrection was that of
townsmen discontented w7ith their feudal superior, and desirous of
wringing; a charter out of him, or of adding new clauses to a charter already m
existence. We shall have to deal in detail with several of these risings on
behalf of municipal liberty: it will be noticed that they all took place in
towns where the lord was l
chuichman
* 1 f w»ii
11—«—law—IMm—
abbots and bisho-PS-Mffitfi-rLQtoriously
slow, in conceding to their vassals the privileges which kings and lay
proprietors
..... iririMi-iiKrnriT- r~|— nn-- ~ri ■ n 1 hhWIh—1 ... iimiiii
had been
freely granting for the last two centuries. The church was comparatively
unaffected by the personal motives which had moved the secular lords to sell
civic freedom: a corporation does not suffer so much as an individual from
temporary stress of war or dearth, and can carry out a continuous poucy in a w
ay that is impossible to a succession of life-tenants of a lordship. Hence
there were, in 1381, towns in ecclesiastical lands which had never yet achieved
the common municipal liberties, or only enjoyed them in a very restricted form.
Such places took advantage of the rising in the country-side to press their own
grievances : when anarchy was afoot it was tne favourable moment to squeeze
II
charters out
of the reluctant monasteries. But there was no < logical connexion between
such movements and the Peasants’ Revolt) troublous times of any sort suited the
townsmen ; Bury had attacked its abbot during Montfurt’s rebellion, and St.
Albans had tried to snatch freedom in the midst of the political chaos that
attended the deposition of Edward II; their chance lay in seizing the opportunity
when the laws of the land were in abeyance and \ iolence at a premium.
~ From
risings of this sort we must carefully distinguish * another kind of municipal
disorders- the numerous cases where insurrections broke out within the towns,
not with the object of attacking the external authority of a lord, but with
that of overthrowing the powei >f n oligarchy within the body corporate.
Many of the places which had obtained the greatest amount of freedom from the
oppressors without, had now new grievances against the oppressors within. The
tiistory of the majority of English towns in the fourteenth century, just like
that of Italian or German towns during that same period, is in a great measure
composed of the struggles of the inferiores against the potentiores, of the
mass of poor inhabitants (whether freemen or unenfranchised aliens) against the
small number of J..*a]thy families which had got possession of the corporation
or the guild merchant, and ruled for their own profit. When the towns had won
their charters under the early Plantagenet kings their population had been
comparatively homogeneous, and differences of
1
wealth had been small. But, by the time of R.'I aid II, there was a cleai
division between *he oligarchy and the democracy, the privileged and the common
herd. The old theory that the mayor and other officials of the town were the
elected representatives of the whole community, and that theii resolves ought
to be referred, in the last instance, to the approval of the general bod}
>f freemen had not been forgotten. But in practice the governing ring often
coopted and re-elected itself, without the least regard to the rights of the
majority. They raised taxation, undertook public works, contracted debts, as
they pleased and laughed the commons to scorn. Wben they went too far there
were disputes, riots, and
ruinous
lawsuits before the rojal courts.1 Nothing more natural than that in
1381, when the rural districts aflame^the lower classes of the towns should
seize the tunity of falling upon their local oligarchies. The numerous cases in
which we find the houses of rich townsmen destroyed, and the lesser number of
instances -a which the owner perished with his tenement, were undoubtedly the
results of the desire to pay off old municipal grudges. ^JVherever the .
government had been corrupt and unrepresentative, the governing few were
attacked in the day of wrath,\ In some instances ihe common;- itf towns far
remote from the regions to which the peasant revolt extended, rose upon their
rulers,, without waiting for the area of general revolt to extend in their
d'rection. This was the case at Winchester, Be\ rley and Scarborough.
In London and
certain other large towns, the mere division of the inhabitants irit-1 u.n
oligarchy and a democracy does not explain all the troubles of 1381. A
comparatively new problem of the economic sort was in process of being
I fought out.
This was the straggle of employers and employed within the guilds. A new
industrial proletariate was in process of formation, and was striving hard
against the conditions which it found existing.2 In the old days the
masters in any trade had been wont to work on a small scale, keeping but two or
three apprentices, each of whom aspired to become a master himself in due time.
But the growing industrial activity of England, and the multiplication of
wealth, was tending to create a class of great employers of labour, and a class
of artisans who could never aspire to become masters* These richer and more
enterprising members of each craft were new beginning to maintain .nuch greater
numbers of workmen. A.t the same time they deliberately made it more difficult
for their employes to start in business for themselves^ placing all manner of
diffi-.
* For details o( surh doings by an oligarchy
see ts-; case of Beverley, in the Joruments in RSville, pp. 160 -9.
* F01 the deta.ls, see charters ix *ro s. of
Mrs. Gcssn^s Town Life m the fifteenth Ctntury, and compare Petit DutotUis’s
Preface to Rrville.
oulties in
the. way of those who wished to take up the dignity of mastership. Thus many
apprent’ces who had completed their term of years were now forced to continue
as hired workers, instead of becoming independent craftsmen.
« These
folks, ‘ journeymen ’ as we should call them now,
‘ valets ’ or
‘yeomen 1 or ‘serving men ’ in the language of the fourteenth
century, were a discontented class. To • protect themselves against their
masters they formed many leagues and societies, often disguising their true
purpose under religious forms, and purporting to meet for the hearing of masses
and the discharge of pious duties. As early as 1306 we find a real trades-union
of this ck*ss formed by the journeymen shoemakers of London it was suppressed—
nominally for O.e public benefit, really for that of the masters of the trade.
But it was only the first of many such combinations: how they worked we may
|udge from a complaint of the cloth-shearers in 1350: ‘ If there is any dispute
between a master of our trade and his man, such a man is wont to go to all the
men within the city of the same trade, and then by covin and conspiracy between
them made, they will order that no one among them shall work or serve his own
master, until the aforesaid master and his servant or man have come to an
agreement; by reason whereof the masters of the said trade have been in great
trouble, and the public is left unserved ’. Such combinations had always been
considered illegal, but/after the Statute of Labourers the case of the
journeymen was apparently more hopeless than ever. Nevertheless they persisted
in their endeavours to bring pressure tcTbear on tKeir masters, and very often,
it would seem, with success : in spite of the rates of wages prescribed
f'ttnfViTi upri n, w>m 11 nr inn ■'in
jiwflWHMffS ~i~~i—^T**f •*■»* —
^"nnr nrr^rjyi t----------- I
- |
for artisans
in the Statute, the actual sums paid to the hired
,n
1 i„ *«mirifi»amfifi~iaTnm*M^r*Tf^—
man continued
to risc.1^ In 1381 the struggle between em-» ployer and employed was
in full swing. The wealthy citizen • who tried to keep wages down, as also the
mayors and aldermen who helped him by fining strikers and dissolving journeymen’s
guilds, were not unnaturally detested by the industrial proletariate. A riotous
attack on the capitalist and the
1
See Mrs. Green’s Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, pp, 122-5. ■
corporation
was certain to ocnir at the first favourable opportunity. Surh an opportunity
occurred when the rural labourers of England rose in insurrection and marched
on London. They were sure of support from the whole of the wage-earning class
in the city, who were as anxious to get rid of the Statute of Labourers as the
peasants themselves!! Nor must it be forgotten that the journeymen and
apprentices were only a part of the discontented class within the city walls.
Thfey represented skilled labour, but there was also a lower and more miserable
stratum of unskilled labour, always living on the verge of starvation. Already
there had g-own up in London and in many of the larger towns a mass of casually
employed hangers-on to the skirts
(of trade.
These miserable folk, constantly recruited by fugitive villeins from the
countryside and all manner of ne’er- do-weels, were ready for any change, since
they imagined that nothing could make their status worse than it was at the
moment. They were equally reaav to rise again 1 the* corporations that ground
down the poor, or against the , Thing's government wEicITetifo^fcecfThe Statute
of Labourers.
We must
probably ascribe to this class more than any other • the attack on foreigners
which formed such a prominent feature in the insurrection of 1381, not only in
London but in thi eastern counties. The foreign resident in those days 1
wasjnot the destitute alien who now fills the slums of the East End, but a
merchant or less frequently a manufacturer. The grievance against him was that
he was supposed to be ?ucking the wealth out of the country^and especially to
be exporting secretly all the gold and silver, for which he gave in return only
useless luxuries.1 Hence there was no cash left in the realm, and
so, in the ideas of the labouring classes, money was hard to come at. and wages
were low. This was the guilt of the merchant: that of the manufacturer, nearly
always the woollen manufacturer from Flanders, was that he was an unfair
competitor, who mined the native artisan by
1
See the evidence of the London Merchants in the Parliament of 1381, as to the
way in which ‘all the gold of England, being good and heavy, was gone beyond
the sea, to the great profit of those who exported itShaw, p. 50.
WAT
TYLER C
using cheap
labour, often that of aliens, women, and children. The Government owed an
appreciable part of its unpopularity * to the fact that ever since Edward
Illjfirst tempted the Flemings and Zeelanders to Norfolk, it lad encouraged
immigration of skilled artisans from abroad^ Every journeyman or casually
employed labourer in the wide branches of the wool trade who chanced to be out
of work, put the blame of his privations, _on the outlarider, whose competition
had straitened the demand for native hands. Hence came the» sudden fury
displayed against the Flemings. It was, no doubt, partly inspired by unreasoning
dislike for all strangers, but mainly rested on the economic fallacies that are
always rife in an uneducated class lh ing on the edge of starvation
In London,
and not in London alone, we find a few leading /and wealthy citizens implicated
in the remu’ts of 1381. Three aldermen of the capital were indicted for taking
open part with the insurgents. At_ York gn ex-mayor is found at the head of the
rioters who attacked the local oligarchs : at Winchester a wealthy draper is
outlawed after the suppression of the rebellion. The explanation is to be
found* in the furious jealousies and personal or guild rivalries which
sometimes split up the governing classes ux the cities. London was at the
moment going through the vicious struggle between che victualling guilds and
the clothing guilds which continued all Through the reign of Richard II, and
was at its height during John of Northampton’s demagogic career, only a year or
two after the rebellion.1
We are less
well informed as to municipal politics in the provincial towns, but may well
suspect that wherever one if the potentiores of a town is found implicated in
the revolt, he was playing the part of Peisistratus of old* and leading the mob
against his own class out of ambition Or jealousy, as the result of some
personal or guild quarrel/^ That such men took such a line is only one more
indication of the hetero
1
For the doings of Alderman Tonge, Sibley and Horne, see pp. 55-6. It is strange
to find that all three of them were of the victualling faction, as was Mayor
Walworth, and not of the clothing faction.
geneous
character of the motives which set England aflame in 1381.
From the list
of these motives, however, it seems clear that we must eliminate one which has
been made to take a prominent place in the causes of the rising of 1381 by
some modern historians.1 It does not seem that Wycliffe’s recent
attack ' on the Pope, the Friars, and the ' Caesarean Clergy ’ had /any
appreciable influence on the origin or the course of the rebellion. Though the
celebrated mission of the Reformer’s band of 1 Poor Preachers ’
began several months before the revolt of 13S1 broke out, yet it is impossible
to discover that the insurgents showed any signs of Wycliffite tendencies.
There were no attacks on the clergy qua clergy (though plenty of assaults on
them in their capacity of landlords), no religious outrages, no setting forth
of doctrinal grievances, no icono- clasm, singularly little church-breaking.
The Duke of Lancaster, the reformer’s patron, was the person most bitterly
inveighed against by the rebels. Indeed, in the midland districts, in which the
reformer’s influence was- sfrongest in the beginning, e.g. the country between
Oxford and Leicester, the rebellion did not come to a head at all None of the
imerous priests who took part in the rising were known followers of Wycliffe:2
the contemporary chroniclers would have been only too glad to accuse them of
it had there been any foundation for such a charge. John Ball had been
preaching his peculiar doctrines many years before Wycliffe was known outside
Oxford, and never had come
1
See, for example, Thorold Rogers’s Work and Wages, pp. 254-5, where the whole
rebellion is treated as a revolt against an attempt of the lords to re-intro-
t^duce commuted corv^es, organized by Wycliffe’s followers—an entirely imaginative
and unhistorical picture. Of course Ball is made 1 the most active
and outspoken of the “Poor Priests”* (p. 255) as if he was a properly
affiliated member of the brotherhood.
a
Absolutely no credence can be given to the story put about by Walden, a whole
generation after Wycliffe’s death [Fasc. Ziz. 273], to the effect that Ball,
when making his confession before his execution, told Bishop Courtenay that he
had been for two years a disciple of Wycliffe, and had learnt from him all the
doctrine he had taught—also that the 1 Poor Preachers * were his
accomplices, and that 1 within two years they had thought to destroy
the whole kingdom’. If anything of the kind had been true we should have heard
of it from contemporary sources.
C 2
into touch
with him It is absurd to call him (as does the Continuator of Knighton)
‘Wycliffe’s John the Baptist’ in any save a purely chronological sense.1
They had no relation with each other. But the bes t proof that the ' Poor Preachers’
had nothing to do with the rebellion is that their great period of activity
lies in the years just after it. For if their teaching had been one of its
causes, the Government would have fallen upon them, and silenced them with no
gentle hand, quoting their misdeeds as its justification. The attack on
Wycliffe and his followers, which began in ^82, was purely one resulting from a
general reaction in church and state caused by the excesses of the rebels, not
a direct punishment of any part taken by the Reformer and his friends in those
excesses Moreover there was one category of men of religion who were openly
accused by contemporary authorities of being responsible for the rebellion, and
these were the most bitter enemies of Wycliffe—\the mendicant orders.?? In the
curious story of ‘JackStraw’s ’ confession, recorded in the Chronicon Anghae,
we are told that the only clergy whom the rebels intended to favour in the, day
of their triumph wen; the Friars.5* It is notable that Langland in
PiersPlowman^ accuses them of being preachers of precisely that philosophic communism
which the Lollards are credited with having popularized. According to him 1
They preche men of Plato and proven it by Seneca "That all things under
heaven ought to be in cornune.’4 In RSville’s documents5
there is a clear case cited of a Franciscan engaged in stirring up the tenants
of the monastery of Middleton to combine against their abbot. The Friar’s old
doctrine of evangelical poverty rather 4han Wycliffe’s theories of
‘dominion’ is at the bottom of the preaching of John Ball and his allies, and
of Wat Tyler’s Sm’ihfield demands. The accusation is acknowledged by
the Friars
themselves, who complain, in their well-known
1
Knighton, ii. 151.
* See the curious Nota in Chron. Angl. p.
31a, as to the causes of the revolt. The friar 4 seducunt
plebem mendaciis et secum in devium pertrahunt \
* pp. 309-10. 4 Piers Plowman, xxiii. 274-5.
1
R6ville, p. lxvii and note.
letter of
1382 to John of Gaunt,1 that they are being charged by many of their
enemies, and especially by the Lollard Nicholas Hereford, with being
responsible for the whole rebellion, because of their declamations against
wealth and theii praises of mendicancy and poverty, as well as for other
reasons. They deprecate the charge, but make no attempt to retort it upon
Wycliffe and his school.
But though
clerks and friars are frequently found among * the leaders of the
rising, it is clear that religious discontent was one of the least prominent
factors among its causes. It was essentially secular in its motives. Religion
had nothing to do with the assault of the villein upon his manorial loid, of
the unchartered townsman on his suzerain, of the skilled or unskilled labourers
of the city upon their employers, of the urban democrats upon the urf an
oligarchs, of river-side mobs upon the foreign merchants. When the * floodgates
were opened and the machinery of law and order was swept away in June 1381, it
was because the multitude was set on achieving its deliverance from practical
grievances,
' ' ' f
fanaticism or disinterested
1
Sec- the Eptstuta Quatuor Ordittum ad tohanmm ductm Lattcaslrtae, in Fasc.
Zizamorum, p 293. They complain that the heretics are so wicked ‘ ut in ipsis
auribus clerl simul et populi clamant et asserant nos et quatuor ordines
nostro? causam fuisse totius rebellions populi, anno ultimo, contra dominum
regem et dominos proceres tam c normittr insurgentis ’.
The Parliament of Northampton and the Poll-tax
It
was into the midst of an England seething with the complicated grievances that
we have described that the ministers and Parliament of Richard II launched
their un- • happy Poll-tax in the winter of 1380-1. The Chancellor- Archbishop
had promised the Houses, when last he met them in the spring, that he would do
all in his power to avoid another session till a full year had passed. As early
as October he had to confess that hi.- pledge could not be kept, and that he
had promised to perform the impossible. The Earl of 1 Buckingham’s costly and
fruitless expedition to France— the great military event of the year 1380—had
drained the Exchequer so far beyond the expectation of the ministers, the
financial outlook had grown so utterly hopeless, that it had become necessary
to appeal once more to the nation. Very unwillingly the ministers dispatched
writs for a Parliament to meet at Northampton on November 5. The place was
inconvenient—there was no sufficient housing, we are told, for the members of
the two Houses and their retinues, and food and forage ran short. It was a wet
winter, floods were out in every direction, and some of the magnates summoned
were late at the rendezvous. All met in a most discontented mood. The cause,
so it is said, of the choice ot Northampton as a place of session, was that the
ministers wished to avoid London, as they had in ham! a great criminal trial in
which the Londoners were deeply interested^',A rich Genoese merchant,
representing a syndicate of his compatriots, had been negotiating with the
Government for a concession to establish a ‘ staple ’ for Mediterranean goods
at Southampton: th?s grant would have taken away commerce
SUDBURY AND
THE COMMONS
from London,
and the enterprising Italian was murdered by some London traders of whom the
chief was a certain John Kirkeby.1 The ministers were set on making
an example of him and his fellows, but there was so much sympathy felt for the
assassins in the capital that they did not wish to face the London mob. They
had therefore chosen to meet Parliament in a distant county town.
Archbishop
Sudbury, from whose virtues and integrity so jh much had been hoped, was now
forced to own himself as great a failure in politics as any of his predecessors
in the Chancellorship. He had to report that all the grants made for < the
sustentation of the war had proved hopelessly inadequate, The tenths and
fifteenths were all exhausted, and_by an * unhappy chance the customs had
yielded less in 1380 than in any recent year. Their shrinkage was caused by the
outbreak of troubles 111 Flanders, the first beginnings of the deadly war
between Count Louis and his subiects of Ghent, which was to last down to the
fatal day of Roosebeke. Distracted by their civil troubles the Flemings had not
bought their normal quantity of wool, and the subsidy on exported flceces, the
mainstay of the customs, had therefore fallen off in the most unsatisfactory
style. Sudbury reported to the discontented members that he had been forced to
borrow on all sides—he had even pledged the King’s jewels, which would soon be
forfeited if not redeemed. There was three months’ pay O'Ving to the garrisons
of Calais- Cherbourg, and Brest, and Buckingham's army was in even larger
arrears.
It is
astonishing to find that the Parliament-men, though they grumbled loud and
long, showed no signs of flagging in their determination that the French war
should be carritd on at all costs. They merely requested Sudbury to name a
definite figure for the grants required, and to state it at the lowest possible
amount ‘because the Commons were poor’. After some hesitation the Chancellor
gave them the appalling» sum of £160,000 as the smallest contribution that
would suffice for the King’s needs. The Commons replied that,* willing as they were
to do their best, they regarded such ail
1
See Chron. Angl. 281.
estimate as
outrageous, and did not see how the money could be raised.) They requested the
peers and prelates to take counsel in the Upper House, and to suggest some way
out of the difficulty. There was a long debate in the Lords on the topic, which
resulted in the drawing up of three alternative propositions, which were laid
before the Commons. It was » first suggested that the money might be raised by
a Poll-tax of three groats per head on the whole adult population of England,
so arranged, however, that ‘ the strong might aid the weak ’ and the poorest
individuals should not pay the whole shilling. Secondly, it might be feasible
to collect the i money by a ‘poundage’ on all mercantile transactions
within the kingdom, the seller in every case accounting for the percentage to
the King’s officials. Or thirdly, the ordinary > course of voting '
tenths ’ and ‘ fifteenths ’ might be tried, though the number granted would
have to be much larger than usual.
The Commons
took these three proposals into consideration. * and finally chose the Poll-tax
as the least objectionable of the three. It seems likely that they were
influenced by their own middle-class interests in doing so. They had a strong, and
not altogether groundless, idea that the lower strata of society were not
contributing their fair share to the defence of the realm, or, as they phrased
it themselves ‘ Liat all the vealth of England was gone into the hands of the
labourers and workmen ’-1 The poundage would have fallen mainly on
the merchants, the tenths and fifteenths On landholders m the counties and
householders in the boroughs. The Poll-tax would hit every one. Accordingly,
the Commons voted that * in spite of thrir great poverty and distress, they
would grant £100,000 to be raised by Poll-tax, if the clergy, ‘who occupy the
third part of the lands of this realm would undertake to laise the rest of the
money demanded by the Chancellor.
The clergy,
anxious in all probability to give no occasion to their enemies for suggesting
broad measures of disen- dowment as an easy way of tilling the national purse,
rose
1 Continuatio Eulogii Hi&toriarum}
p. 345,
to the
occasion with unexpected liberality. They protested that they would make no grant
in Parliament, but promised that the convocations of the two provinces should
vote fifty thousand marks. On tnis assurance, wl ich was loyally carried out,1
the Commons proceeded to draft their scheme for the raising of the Poll-tax.
..J[t was provided that every * lay person in the realm, above the age of
fifteen years, save beggars, should pay three groats : but that the
distribution of the whole sum of one shilling per head should be so graduated
that in each township the wealthy should aid the poor, on the scale that the
richest person should not pay more than sixty groats (£1) for himself and his
wife, nor the poorest less than one groat for himself and his wife. This was a
very different and much more onerous affair than the two previous Poll-taxes
which the realm had paid. In 1377 the sum raised had been only a single groat
ill round the nation. In 1379 the levy had been carefully graduated from one
groat on the ordinary labourer up to £6 13s. 4d. on the Duke of Lancaster.2
Or. neither occasion had more than the fourpence per neac! beer raised from the
poorest classes. But in 1^81 the form of the grant was such that in many places
the whole shilling had to be extracted from the'most indigent persons, and that
even in those where some graduation turned out to be possible, the number of
individuals who got oft with a payment of 4d. or bd. a head was comparati v civ
1
The convocation of Canterbury made its vote on Dec. i; that of York on Jan. 10.
They chose the same method of Poll-tax that their lay brethren had favoured.
Every priest, monk or nun paid half a mark. a The scale had been—
(а) The Duke of Lancaster, and the Duke of
Brittany for his English estates, £6 135. 4d.
(б) The Chief Justices of the King’s Bench and
Common Pleas, and the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, £5 each.
(c) Earls,
Countesses, and the Mayor of London, £4 each.
{d)
Barons, Banneretts, the Prior of the Hospitallers, Aldermen of London, Mayors
of large towns, Sergeants*at-law, Advocates, Notaries, and Proctors of senior
standing, £2 each.
(*)
Knights-Bachelors, Knights and Commanders of the Hospital, Mayors of small
towns, jurors and merchants of large towns, Advocates and Notaries of junior
standing, from £1 down to 35. 4d.
(/) All other
persons a groat.
small How
this inequality of pressure between place and place worked out with grave
injustice we shall explain a little later. It is probable that the legislators
had not in the least realized how inequitable their arrangement would prove.
' In addition
to granting the Poll-tax the Commons continued ‘ the existing subsidy on wool,
though owing to the troubles in Flanders it was likely to prove less productive
than usual. They suggested to the Government that all alien priories should be
dissolved, and foreign monks living in them be forced to return to their own
country. But this was not done, and it was left for Archbishop Chichele to take
up the scheme half a century later, and to found with the revenue of many alien
priories hi* college of All Souls.
Shortly
after the two Houses had dispersed1 and gone home through the
flooded midland shires, the Treasurer, Bishop Brantingham of Exeter, resigned.
He had probably had enough of his invidious task of endeavouring to make two
ends meet: perhaps he was clear-sighted enough to foresee something of the
trouble that was at hand, and to resolve that he at least would have no share
in t. Undoubtedly he saved his own neck by throwing up his appointment, In his
place Sir Robert Hales, Prior of the Knights Hospitallers, was placed over the
treasury. By accepting this office he brought upon himself a dreadful death six
months later. ,
After the new
year the ministers set to work to collect the Poll-tax, which was raised in
January and February ‘non sine diris maledictionibus ’. The method adopted was
to appoint a small body of collectors for each shire, who were to deal by means
of a more numerous body of sub-collectors with the constables of townships and
the mayors or bailiffs of towns, and to see that from each place as many
shilling? were paid as there were adults ovei fifteen years of age. The
grievance which at once leapt into sight was that this form of levy bore most
hardly on the poorest places. Wher-
1 Past fs'sta Natalis Domini
celebrate, presumably between Christmas and the New Year, Walsingham. i. p.
449. ,
ever there
were rich residents, as in large towns, or manors where a great landowner
chanced to reside, the poorest classes got off cheaply; because the wealthy
households gave many gioats, and so the labourers paid no more than fourpence
or sixpence a head, as Parliament had provided. But in poor villages, where
there was no moneyed resident, every villein land cottager had to pay the full
shilling, because there was Ino 4 sufficient person ’ to help him
out.1
The remedy
for this inequitable taxation which seems to have occurred simultaneously to
every villager over the greater part of England, was to make false returns to
the commissioners of the Poll-tax. The constables must either have~”been
willing patties to the fraud, or have been coaxed or forced into it by their
neighbours. The result was that every shire of England returned an incredibly
small number of adult inhabitants liable to the impost. This can be proved with
absolute certainty by comparing the returns of the earlier one-groat Poll-tax
of 1377 with those of this one-shilling Poll-tax of 1381. To the former all
persons over fourteen had to contribute, to the latter all persons over
fifteen, so that there should have been a small, but still perceptible, falling
off in the returns But instead of the slight diminution in taxable persons
expected, the commissioners of the Poll-tax reported that there were only
two-thirds as manv conlributaries in 1381 as’i . 1377 The adult population of
the realm had ostensibly fallen from i;355,20i to 896,481 persons.2
These figures were monstrous and incredible—in five years, during which the
realm, though
1 The case may be made clear by comparing
two Suffolk villages from the Poll-tax returns of that county. In Brockley, in
Thingoe hundred, a place with seventy adult inhabitants, there were resident an
esquire, who paid 65. for himself and wife, and five wealthy farmers who each
paid 25. 6d. The consequence of this was that the poorest persons in the place
got off with paying 4d. or 6d. each, representing the value of a day and a half
or two days* unskilled labour. But in the neighbouring village of Chevington
there was no resident landowner and only one farmer of substance. The result
was that every one of the resident villeins and labourers had to pay the full
three groats, to make up a shilling a head on the seventy-eight adult
inhabitants. Thus the poor man in Chevington had to pay just thrice as much as
the poor man in Brockley, which he naturally conceived to be an abominable
grievance.
2 Excluding in both cases the Palatinates
of Durham and Chester.
far from
being in a flourishing condition, had yet been visited neither by pestilence,
famine, nor foreign invasion, the ministers were invited to believe that its
population had fallen oft in some districts more than 50 per cent.,1
in none less than 20 per cent.
A glance at
the details of the township-retums, of which a considerable number survive,
though no single county list is complete and some are altogether lost, reveals
the simple form of evasion ■which the villagers had practised when sending
in their schedules. They had suppressed the existence of their unmarried female
dependants, widowed mothers and aunts, sisters, young daughters, &c., in a
wholesale fashion, ^he result is that most villages show an enormous and impossible
predominance of males in their population, and an equally incredible want of
unmarried females. Nothing is better known than the fact that in an old
agricultural community the females tend to be in an excess. Only in new
settlements, or in lands where female infanticide prevails, is the opposit e
case to be found. When therefore we find Essex or Suffolk or Staffordshire
townships returning, one after another, a population working out in the
proportion of five or four males to four or three females, we know what to
conclude.2 Some of these communities refuse to acknowledge any
unmarried females at all m their midst, and send in a roll consisting solely of
a symmetrical list of men and wives, with
|
1
The figures of a few shires are sufficient to explain the situation |
|
||||
|
|
1377 |
1381 |
|
1377 |
1381 |
|
Kent
. * |
•
56557 |
43838 |
Suffolk |
.
♦ 58610 |
41635 |
|
Norfolk
* |
.
88797 |
66719 |
Berks. |
.
. 22723 |
1489J |
|
Northants |
.
40225 |
27997 |
Devon
. |
•
• +5635 |
20656 |
|
Salop
. . |
•
23574 |
^3011 |
Dorset |
•
34J4J |
I95<>7 |
|
Somerset
. |
54604 |
30384 |
Essex
. |
.
. 4796a |
3<>748 |
|
For
the whole set of figures and |
some
comments |
thereon
see the Table xn |
|||
|
Appendix
II of this book. |
|
|
|
|
|
3
For the figures of a typical Essex hundred in detail see my Appendix, No. Ill,
167-82. I worked out in the Record Office many villages from scattered
counties, with results such as this:—Cam, 18 males, n females; Beauchamp Oton,
44 males, 30 females; Shillingford, 45 males, 36 females; Snareshill, 18 males,
15 females; Lapley, 58 males, 52 females; Pentlow, 29 males, 22 females;
Hammerwych, 9 males, 5 females, &c., &c. In the whole hundred of
Thingoe, Suffolk, we get 487 males to 383 females, and so on through the
hundreds.
no dependants
of either sex.1 In a certain amount of cases, apparently where a
very honest or a very simple-minded constable made the return, we find
households such as we should expect to have existed in reality, with a due
proportion of aged widows, and of sisters or daughters who are living with
their brothers and fathers, but this is quite exceptional. In the majority of
the townships we find an unnatural want ot dependants male and female, but more
especially female. In short the main body of the returns bear witness to a
colossal and deliberate attempt to defraud the Government of its odious
tax-monev by a general falsification of figures. It failed because it was
overdone: the numbers given defied belief, and drove the ministers into an
inquisitorial research into the details of the returns, with the object of
discovering and punishing the persons who had endeavoured to deceive them.
The
collectors had been charged to pay in two-tliirds of their receipts in January,
and the rest in June, 1381. They appear, however, to have set to work to raise
not a part but the whole of the exigible groats at once. The moment that their
accounts began to come in the Government took the alaim. On February 22, 1381,
the Council issued a writ to the Barons of the Exchequer, in the King’s name,
stating that instant efforts must be made to collect the whole of the Poll-tax.
as the sum received had fallen lamentably short of what should have been
forthcoming. On March 16 they issued an additional mandate, declaring that they
had ample evidence that the collectors and constables had behaved with
shameless negligence and corruption, and creating a fresh body of
commissioners, who were to travel round the shires to compare the list of
inhabitants returned in the first schedules with the actual population of the
townships, to compel payment from all persons who had evaded the impost, and to
imprison all who resisted their authority.2 It is said that this
commission was suggested to the ministers by John
1 Woodbaston (Staffs.) is a case of this.
Northwood (Glos.) returned only one unmarried woman in a population of 34
souls.
2 See the writ in my Appendix IV, p. 183-5.
Legge, one of
the King’s sergeants-at-arms. The reputation of having done so cost him his
life.1 [For reasons which we cannot discover, the commissioners were
directed to set to L^work on fifteen shires only, including all those of the
southeast, and, in addition, Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, Gloucestershire, and
the West Riding of Yorkshire. Some of the counties left unscheduled had
produced returns as bad as any of these. The second roll of commissioners for
the survey of the Poll- tax was drawn up in March, not without difficulty, for
many of the persons designated to serve excused themselves, foreseeing, no
doubt, the unpopularity which they would incur. There must have been in many
districts hardly a family which had not sent in a false return, and thereby
rendered itself liable not only to the payment for the concealed members but
also to punishment for having concealed them.
Nevertheless
the commissioners were at last got together, and in many districts had begun to
work in April and May, So far as their activity had gone, it sufficed to show
at once that the ministers had been right, and that wholesale fraud had been
practised against the Government during the first levy of the Poll-tax. In
Norwich town 600 persons were discovered to have evaded the original
collectors, in Norfolk about 8,000, but still more striking was the case of the
county of^Suffolk, where no less than 13,000 suppressed names were
1 collected
in a few weeks.2 But the revision had not gone far when an explosion
< f popular wrath occurred on a scale that not even the gloomiest prophet
had foreseen.
The
explanation of the outburst is simply that the countryside was seething with
discontent ere ever the Poll-tax was imposed, that the Poll-tax itself was
monstrously heavy for the poorest classes, that these classes had—with
wonderful unanimity—tried to defend themselves by the simple device of false
returns, and that they had been ‘found out’, and were in process of being
mulcted. The Government had taken in hand the chastisement of tens of thousands
of
1
Knighton’s Continuator, ii. 130.
a
First return of Norwich, 3,268 adults, revised return of May, 3,833 ; first
return of Suffolk, 31,734 adults, revised return, 44,635; first return of
Norfolk, 58,714, revised return, 66,719. See Powell, p. 6.
offenders,
and had entrusted it to commissioners who were backed by no armed force, but
descended on the offending districts accompanied by half a dozen clerks and
sergeants only. Their task was so odious, their compelling power so weak, that
it is only surprising that they were not stoned out of the very first villages
that they took in hand. Yet it was only after a month of friction, and when
thousands of shillings had been extorted from the needy evaders of the tax,
that the trouble commenced.
The Outbreak in Kent and Essex
The actual outbreak of violence began in Essex, on the
last day but one of May. Thomas Bampton, one of the new commissioners, had
ridden down to Brentwood to revise the taxation-retums of the hundred of
Barstaple. Not suspecting in the least that he was likely to meet with
resistance, he brought with him only his three clerks and two of the King’s
sergeants-at-arms. He opened his inquiry with the examination of the three
marshland villages of Fobbing, Corring- ham. and Stanford. The peasants and
fishermen of these little places came prepared to resist.1 The
Fobbing men were cited before him; as the chronicler tells us, they informed
him that they did not intend to pay a penny more than they had already
contributed,2 and used such contumacious language that Bampton bade
his sergeants arrest the. spokesman.3 This gave the signal for
violence, which had obviously beeapremeditaied,: the peasants, about 100
strong, fell upon the party from London, beat them, and stoned them out of the
town.4
Bampton,
bruised and frightened, returned to the Council, and reported his misadventure.
Thereupon the Government, still misconceiving the aspect of affairs, sent, down
to Brentwood Robert Belknap, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, on a
commission of Trailbaston, with orders to seek out and
* AH this comes from the excellent chronicle
published by Mr. Gtorgi Trev< Ivan in Hist. Rev.
vol. xiii.
* ‘ Ilz ne voderont nulld
denier paier, par cause que ils avoient un acquitancc pur celle subsidie. Sur
lequel le dit Thomas les manassa fortement &c., ibid. p. 510.
3 Probably the Thomas Baker of Fobbing who
is mentioned by the Continuator of Knighton as the first leader of sedition,
Knighton* ii. Ji. 131.
4 ‘ Fueront en purpose de occire le dit
Thomas et lesditz seriantessays the chronicle, perhaps somewhat exaggerating
their fury.
33
punish the
rioters. But meanwhile the men of Fobbing and Corringham had sent messages all
round southern Essex, to call out their neighbours We learn from the judicial
records of the rebellion that these emissaries, some of them local men, others
strangers from London, were riding up and down on June i, rousing all
malcontents and bidding them be ready to offer armed resistance when the judge
should appear. It would seem that confident assurances were made to the effect
that Kent and London were prepared to rise, the moment that the signal should
be given.1 When, therefore, Belknap came down to Brentwood on June 2
and opened his commission, he and his chirks wore suddenly set upon by an armed
multitude. It was inexcusable folly on the part of the Council to have sent
them forth without an escort. Belknap was seized, and forced to swear on the
Bible that he would never hold another such session; his papers were destroyed,
yet he was finally allowed to escape. But the mob beat to death and then
beheaded three < -f the local jurors who had been called up to ‘ present5
the original rioters before the chief justice, and then killed three; unfortunate
clerks. Their heads were set on poles, and paraded round Brentwood and the
neighbouring villages. After this bloodshed there could be no turning back :
the men of south Essex would be forced in self-preservation to defend themselves
from the vengeance that they had called down upon their own heads. Accordingly,
the murders at Brentwood were promptly followed by a general outbreak of
plunder and i iot, which spread through the county, eastward and north • ward,
during the first week of June.
It might have
been expected that the Council, now at last, after such a desperate defiance of
its power had been made, would collect every armed man in London that could be
1
For example, Roger of South Ockendon, and John Smith of Rainham, 1
equitaverunt vi armata et compulerunt homines earundem villarum cum iis ire, in
conventiculis et congregationibus huiusmodi1; while the two London
butchers, Adam Attewell and Roger Harry, both of whom were afterwards prominent
in the troubles in the capital, are said to have been raising the Essex
peasantry fourteen days before they entered London, i.e. about May 31 or June 1.
See Essex indictments and the Sheriff’s reports of Nov, ao, 1383, in R^ville,
p. 196.
WAT
TYLER D
trusted, and
send a force—however small—to occupy Brentwood on the day after the outbreak.
But this was impossible : for already Kent was following the example of Essex,
and even in the capital itself the King’s ministers felt the ground quaking
beneath their feet',
As early as
Jure 2 a small armed band, headed by one Abel Ker of Erith, had set the example
of rebellion in Kent. They burst into the monastery of Lesness, and frightened
the Abbot into swearing an oath to support them. Then they took boat across the
Thames estuary, conferred with the men of the villages about Barking, and
returned on June 4, bringing with them a band of about 100 auxiliaries from
beyond the river. On the following day this small mob entered the town of
Dartford, and ‘traitorously moved the men of the said town to insurrection,
making divers assemblies and congregations against the King’s peace
It was
apparently about this moment1 that the Council sent down into Kent a
judge with a commission of Trailbaston just as they had done in Essex a few
days before. He proposed to ride to Canterbury to open proceedings, but was
intercepted and driven back to London by an angry mob ; unlike Belknap,
however, he and his party got off scot free as far as their persons were
concerned.2 ,\11 the central parts of the shire were now in a
disturbed state. We hear no more of Abel Ker; but one Robert Cave, a baker of
Dartford, now appears for a few days as the ringleader oi the rioters. He led
a multitude collected from Dartford. Erith, Lesness, Bexley, and all the small
places in their neighbourhood. towards Rochester, on the morning of J ,n>;
6. It was on this day that the Kentishmen first began to do serious mischief ;
hitherto nothin;; more than riotous assembly had been
1
So at least we should gather from the sequence of events in the chronicle in
Hist. Rev. xiii, p. 511.
* * En celle temps une
j'ustice fust assign^ par le roy et son counciel et maund€ en Kent pour sere
illonques de Trailbaston, en mannere comme fust en Excesse, et ovesque luy un
seriant d’armes du roy Johne Legge per nome, portant ovesque luigraunde nombre
de enditements. . . et voyderont avoir assis en Kanterburye, mais ilz furent
rebot^s par les commons’, ibid. p. 511. I do not
think that this means that they ever got near Canterbury ; probably they were
intercepted and turned back as early as Dartford.
laid to their
charge. But now they beset the castle of Rochester, and, after making several
ineffective assaults on the old Norman keep, finally terrified the constable,
Sir John Newton, into capitulating. They broke open the dungeons, delivered a
certain prisoner named John Belling,1 and plundered the castle.
After this success the doings of the rebels became* much more outrageous. The
whole mob, now several thousands strong, marched up the Medway to Maidstone,
and on entering that town murdered a burgess named John Southall—how he had
offended them we do not know—and plundered his house and that of a certain
William Topcliffe, who must have been a person of great wealth, as goods to the
value of no less than 1,000 marks were taken from him.
It is on the
next day, June 7, that we are first confronted with ’ that famous* but
enigmatic personage Wat Tyler.
‘ Thereat
Maidstone’, says the most detailed and trustworthy of the chronicles, ‘ they
chose as chief Wat Teghler of that place, to maintain them and act as their
counsellor.’ .His origin, and his earlier career are entirely unknown : the
legends wliich make him an artisan of Dartford, whose daughter had been
insulted by one of the collectors ot the Poll-tax, may be safely neglected.2
If he had been a Dartford man. his name would certainly appear among those of
the companions of Robert Cave during his riotous proceedings
1
In the indictment of Robert Cave it is stated that the captive obj’ected to
being1 released. * Robertum Belling, prisonem in eodem castro
detentura, contra voluntatem ipsius prisonis cepit [idem Robertus Cave] et cum
eo abduxit.’ It is clear that this man must be identical with a person
mentioned in the chronicle of the Peasants’ Revolt printed in the Historical
Review, xiii. pp. 509-22. This document states that Sir Simon Burley had on
June 3 caused much anger at Gravesend by arresting there an escaped villein of
his own. He seized the man, and took him off to Rochester Castle, where he
placed him in custody. Apparently the purpose of Cave’s assault on the castle
was the deliverance of this prisoner, whose capture had caused much excitement
and sympathy, Burley was very unpopular, as being one of the knot of courtiers
about the King whose responsibility for the misgovernment of the realm was
being loudly asserted.
3
The story of a Tyler of Dartford, who slew the tax-collector, is only found in
the Elizabethan annalist Stow, and he calls the man John, not Walter, The tale,
however, that some of the poll-tax men had behaved indecently in Kent —without
details given—comes from the better authority of the Continuator of Knighton,
ii. 130.
D 2
on June 5-7.
But though seven or eight of these rioters are registered in the legal
proceedings against these insurgents there is no Walter and no Tylei among
them. It even seems doubtful whether he was really domiciled at Maidstone : the
rolls of Parliament simply call him, ‘ Wauter Tyler del count6e de Kent while
the juries of the hundreds of Faversham and fiownhamford, which lie only a few
miles east of Maidstone, style the great rebel * Walterum Teghler de Essex ’ in
their presentations.1 A Maidstone document calls him Walter Tyler of
Colchester : if so, he was a compatriot of John Ball. The continuer of the
Eulogium Historiarum, a good contemporary authority, also makes him appear as
mus tegulator de Estsex. It is probable that he was an adventurer of unknown
antecedents, and we may well believe the Kentish- V man who declared that he
was a well-known rogue and highwayman.2 The authority ot Froissart
for English ‘domestic events is not very great, but it is tempting to follow
him in this case, and to credit the tale that Wat (like his successor Jack
Cade) was a discharged soldier returned from the French wars. We aretold thal
he had been overseas in the service of Richan t Lyons (the swindling financier
against whom the Good Parliament had raged) when the latter was one of the
sergeants-at-arms of Edward III, Froissart adds that Lyons lost his life, in
the riots of June 14, because of his old subordinate’s rancorous remembrance of
a thrashing received many years before. The way in which Tyler established his
authority over the disorderly multitude, his power of enforcing discipline,
and his evident capacity for command, all tend to make us suspect that he won
his supremacy over the insurgents because he was a man with military
experience. There must have been a very considerable sprinkling of old soldiers
among the mob : a large proportion of the able-bodied men of the realm had been
serving as bills or bows in one or another of the expeditions sent out in the
later years of
1 See Archaeologia Cantiana, iii. 92-3.
J‘Un valet de Kent, estant entre les gentz du roi, pria
pur vier Je dit Watt cheftaine de les commons, et quant il luy vist il dist
apertement que fust !e plus grand robbare et larron de toute Kent.’ Chronicle
in Hist. Rev. iviii.p.sig.
Edward III,
and it would be among them that chiefs would naturally be sought. But whatever
may have been Tyler’s antecedents, we know that he was a quick-witted,
self-reliant, ambitious fellow, with an insolent tongue, and the gift of
magniloquence, which a mob orator needs.1 That he was anything more
than a bold and ready demagogue there is no proof whatever. There is no reason
to believe either that he had been the organizer of the revolt, or that when he
had talked or pushed himself to the front he had elaborated any definite plan
for the reformation of the body politic of England. Who can say what ideas may
have flashed through the brain of an adventurer who suddenly found himself in
command of a host of ten or fifteen thousand angry, reckless, and ignorant
insuigents ? He may have been dreaming of no more than his own personal
aggrandizement: he may have had some vague notion of changing the framework of
society, perhaps he may even have conceived the machiavellian plan of using the
King’s name to destroy the governing classes, and then making away with the
King himself, which is attributed to him by some contemporary writers.2
It is probable, ‘lowever, that he was a mere opportunist, whose designs
expanded with the unexpected growth of his short-lived empire over the
multitude. Originally he was but the nominee of the Kentish mob, whose desires
were firstly to destroy the ‘ traitors ’ about the King—the men responsible for
the Poll-tax. the general misgovemmcnt, and the disasters of the French war,
such as the Duke of Lancaster. Archbishop Sudbury and Treasurer Hales—and
secondly, to do away with the tiresome incidents of the manorial system. When
the
1 He was * vir versutus, et magno sensu
preditus says the Chron. Angl. p. 294. For his magniloquence see his speeches
to the Hertfordshire insurgents in ibid. 300, and elsewhere. For his insolence
his conduct at the Smithfield interview is sufficient evidence. His capacity
for maintaining discipline is shown by the fact that he executed thieves among
his own followers, and his authority seems never to have been questioned by any
rival.
a
See mainly the celebrated confession of Jack Straw in Chron. Angl. p. 309. It
is impossible to say how far it can be trusted. It embodies the fears of the
ruling classes, but it may also embody the real design of the more desperate of
the leaders of the insurgents. Certainly, however, the bulk of them had no such
intentions : they were perfectly loyal to the King.
rebels found
themselves undisputed masters of the countryside, and still more when they had
entered London in triumph and slain their enemies, the leaders at
least—whatever the multitude thought—must have had a glimpse of the greatness
of their opportunity. Tyler’s assumption of dictatorial authority, and his-
ruthless exercise of the power to slay during the two days of his domination in
the city, together with his gratuitous insolence in the presence of the King,
indicate that he had no intention of going 1 ome when the redress of grievances
had been promised, but was intending to maintain himself as a power in the
realm. A landless adventurer who had pushed his way to the front in the crisis,
and who had bathed his hands in blood, was not the sort of person to be
satisfied with the King’s concessions, or to retire content into his former
obscurity. But whatever visions of greatness may have hovered before him on
June 15, he was on June 7 merely the casually chosen captain of the unruly mob
that thronged the streets of Maidstone. The first use that he made of his
influence would seem to have been to direct the march of his followers on
Canterbury.
On_the -8th
and 9th .the rising was extending itself in all directions, and bands of
recruits from every village between the Weald and the estuary of the Thames
were flocking in to join the main body. On these two days a good deal of mischief
seems to have been done in the countryside. The anger of the insurgents
would_appear to have been directed mainly _ against four classes-1-
royal officiatg^lawyer^ adherents of John of Gaunl, and unpopular landlords.1
We learn that they sehed great quantities of official documents in the houses
of Thomas Shardelow of Dartford, the coroner of Kent, and of Elias Raynor of
Strood. which they ‘traitorously burnt and consumed in the midst of the
streets of the aforesaid towns’.2 They levelled to the ground the
great manor house of Nicholas Herring at North Cray, pillaged his goods, and
drove off his cattle. They seized as
1 For murders of lawyers see Chron. Angl.
p. 287. For attack on retainers of Lancaster, see Chronicle in Hist. Rev. p.
512.
2 See the Indictments in Reville, pp.
185-6.
hostages four
prominent country gentlemen—Sir Thomas Cobham, Sir Thomas Tryvet, John de
Freningham, and James Peacham, and held them as hostages, aftf-r making
(them swear
an oath of fealty 'to_\"King Richard and the Commons of England
They broke open all the gaol:- and released their inmates, to whose deliverance
we may probably attribute the epidemic of burglary ui the houses of private persons
which accompanied the second stage of the rebellion.
All this
sporadic mischief seems to display no fixed plan of campaign; but at last, on
the 10th, a delink" movement was made. On that day Tyler moved off to
Canterbury at the head of the main body of his horde. They entered the city
without opposition, and were joined by a Urge number of the citizens. They then
proceeded to sack the palace of the Archbishop. It was clearly against Sudbury
as chancellor and politician, and not against churchmen at large, that they
were ennged, for they spared the great monastic establishments of Canterbury^
They made, it is true, a riotous entry into the Cathedral during service time,
but it was only with the object of shouting to the monks of the chapter that
they would soon have to elect a new primate, for Sudbury was a traitor and was
doomed to a traitor’s death : they were going to seek him in London, and to
deliver the King from his hands. Next to the Archbishop, Sir William Septvans
the sheriff, as the mam instrument of the local government, was the best hated
man in Kent: but he was lucky enough to escape with his life, though he was
hustled, maltreated, and forced to give up all Lis store of official documents
The ’udicial and financial records of the county—a hoard that would have been
invaluable to the historians of to-day— were burned in the street. Moreover,
the castle was sacked, and the gaol, as usual during the rising, was broken
open and emptied,,
The an lval
of th« insurgents seems to have been the signal for the settling of many old
grudges among the citizens of Canterbury, ‘ Have you not some traitors here ? ’
the newcomers are said to have asked : whereupon three unfortunate persons
were pointed out by the local mob. They were
dragged into
the street and beheaded :1 moreover the houses of several other ‘
suspects ’ were broken open and sacked, though they themselves escaped with
their lives. There was an immense destruction of legal documents, leases,
bonds, and suchlike, belonging to private individuals of no impor- ( tance.2
This must have been the work of their personal enemies, who turned the mob
against them, in order to get the chance of burning inconvenient papers.
Housebreaking and wanton pillagu of this kind went on for several days after
the main body of the rioters had departed, and was so outrageous that the city
of Canterbury was one of the places excepted from the general amnesty, in the
first list drawn up by Parliament after the suppression of the revolt. The
Mayor and bailiffs had not been deposed by the mob, though they had been forced
to take the oath to ‘ King Richard and the Commons which was now the watchword
of the insurgents. But it is clear that they were wholly impotent, and could
do nothing to preserve peace and order in the city.
It is notable
that on the very day of the entry of the bands of West Kent into Canterbury
outbreaks of plunder and riot are chronicled not only in the villages close to
the metropolitan city, but in places so remote as Sandwich. Tenterden, and Appledore.
Evidently tljt■ 'inissaries of the rising had penetrated in all
directions, far ahead of the main boil", and had succeeded in raising the
local malcontents even before the news of the capture of Canterbury could have
reached them. On this day and the two following all eastern Kent was in an
uproar. Everywhere the houses of unpopular landlords were sacked, and manor
rolls were burnt. . Bij.t it is a notable feature of the whole movement that
ery few murders were committed ■ there seems to have been comparatively
little of that ferocious hatred for the whole of the upper classes which had
been displayed in France twenty- three years before, during the horrors of the
Jacquerie. The
1
See the Hist, Rev., Chronicle, p. 510.
See, for
example, the documents 7 anti 8 of Rcville's Appendix, p. 189. where A^nes
Tebbe and John Spicer plead that all their documents had been destroyed by the
rebels.
doings of the
insurgents are much more like those of the peasants of South Germany during the
Bauernkr eg of 1525, where (as in England) bloodshed was the exception and not
the rule. Many of the gentry of Kent deserted their homes, and rode off with
their f am -lies and their retainers to undisturbed districts : others, as we
are told, took to the woods and lay hid for many days : others locked
themselves up in their dwellings and waited for the worst. The worst, when it
came, took the shape of pillage and insult; but, in Kent at least, it only fell
to the lot of the minority. The larger number of the landowners had only to pay
blackmail, under \ the name of contributions to ‘ the Cause-’, and
to consent to take the oath of fidelityto ‘ King and Commons ’. Moreover their
court-rolls were usually taken trom them’ "and made into a bonfire before
the unwelcome visitors departed. Occasionally, but only occasionally, a man of
importance was carried off as a hostage and compelled to accompany the rebel
host, as Cobham and his three companions had been during the first days of the
rising. But we have no clear instance of the murder of any one of the Kentish
squirearchy what little bloodshed there was took place in the towns.
On the very
next morning after the capture of Canterbury, Tyler led off his horde toward
London. This, from his and their point of view, was undoubtedly the right
policy : it was only by seizing the capital and the person of the King that
they could attain their ends. No amount of local riot and plunder would help
them, and if they dallied long the Government would have time to organize an
army and defend itself. Long ere the whole of the bands of eastern Kent had
flocked in to the muster in the cathedral city, the van of the rebel host was
in full march westward. On the nth it passed through Maidstone on its return
journey, and there renewed the scenes of riot that had taken place on June 8.
It is sai' 1
to have been at Maidstone1 that the host was joined by the personage
who was to be its most notable figure after Tyler, the celebrated Jolrn Ball,
the ‘ mad priest of Kent: whom we have already had occasion to
mention.
1
So the Continuator of Knighton, ii p. 131.
He had been
delivered by the mob from the Archbishop’s prison, where he had been confined
since April. Ball was a familiar figure all over southern England: originally a
secular priest, he had ministered first in York and then in Colchester; but he
had after a time thrown up regular clerical work for the life of an itinerant
preacher. He had been for •twenty years on the tramp, and was a well-known
agitator long ere Wycliffe—on whom his doctrines have been so wrongly
fathered—was anything more than an orthodox lecturer on theology at Oxford.
Ball was a prophet in the ancient Hebrew style—a denouncer of the wickedness of
the times, and more especially of the wickedness of the higher clergy. His
inspiring idea was the ‘ evangelical poverty ’ ^ which had been preached
by the Franciscans in the previous century : his butts were the political
bishops and pluralist dignitaries in whose hands so much of the wealth of the
Church was accumulated. The Papacy too had come in for a share of his abuse—in
the day of the Great Schism, the spectacle of the rival pontiffs waging war
with swords as well as curses provoked much milder men to use violent language.
Bui evil secular lords and their oppressions were not omitted in his
objurgatory sermons. He was a kind of modem Jeremiah, hateful to the Pasl irs
and Zedekiulis of 1381.
Though he was
always a very half-hearted persecutor, the primate had twice felt himself
obliged to put Ba.'l in ward After his first release, as Sudbury complained, 1
he had slunk back to our diocese, like the fox that evades the hunter, and
feared not to preach and argue both in churches and churchyards (without the
leave or against the will of the parochial authorities) and also in markets and
other profane places, there beguiling the ears of the laity by his invectives,
and putting about scandal* concerning our own person, and those of other
prelates and clergy, and (what is worse) using concerning the Holy Father
himself dreadful language such as shocked the ears of good Christians. ’1
For three months Ball had been constrained to silence in his dungeon, and w hen
he was liberated by the rioters he had a fund of suppressed
1
Cone. Brit. iii. 153.
JOHN BALL’S
LETTERS
43
eloquence to
vent. Now for the first time he could preach without fear of arrest or
punishment, and was certain of an audience far larger than he had ever before
addressed, an audience, too, which was in entire sympathy with his views. Hence
it came about that his daily harangues grew more and more confident; he thought
that he saw the actual commence* ment of that reign of Christian democracy of
which he had so long dreamed. All social inequalities were to be redressed,
there were no longer to be rich and poor, nor lords and serfs. Spiritual
wickedness Tn high places, evil living, covetousness, and pride were all to be
chastised and ended. It was presumably in the first days of his triumph that
Ball wrote and sent abroad the strange rhyming letters which the Con- tinuator
of Knighton and the author of the Chronicon Anghae have preserved:
'John Ball
greeteth you well all, and doth you to understand that he hath rungen your
bell. Now right and might, will and skill. Now God haste you in every thing.
Time it is that Our Lady help you with Jesus her son, and the Son with the
Father, to make in the name of the Holy Trinity a good end to what has been
begun. Amen, Amen, for charity Amen.'1
And again:
‘John Ball, priest of St. Mary’s, greets well all manner of men, and bids them
in the name of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to stand together
manfully in truth. Maintain the truth and the truth will maintain you
God give aid,
for now is the time. Amen.’2
Still more
interesting is a third effusion, which seems to bear a more definite and more
political character. ‘John Schepe, some time St. Mary's priest of York, and now
of Colchester, greeteth well John Nameless, and John the Miller, and John the
Carter, and biddeth their, that they bewaie of
Now reigneith
Pride in price, And Covetise is holden wise,
And Lechery
withouten shame, cfy And Gluttony withouten blame, Envye reigneth with
treason,
And Sloath is
take in grete season.
1
Knighton, ii. 139.
3
Ibid. ii. 140.
guile in
borough,1 and stand together in God’s name, and biddeth Piers
Plowman go to his work, and chastise well Hobbe the Robber [i.e. Robert Hales
the treasurer], and take with you John Trueman and all his fellows, and no mo,
and look that ye shape you to one head and no mo.’2 The point of
this epistle is evidently to urge the multitude to give implicit obedience to
their one head, i.e. Tyler— discipline, being all important; to bid them beware
of being
turned from
their designs by the townsfolk (who had their
own separate
ends to seek); and above all to warn them not
to take into
partnership false brethren who would turn aside to pillage and self-seeking,
but only honest partisans oi the cause. It is curious that Sudbury’s name is
not bracketed with that of ‘ Hobbe the Robber ’: was Ball perhaps grateful to
the primate for having dealt no harder with him in spite of their repeated
collisions t
Of Ball we
have a very full knowledge : of Tyler we catch a glimpse long enough to enable
us to form some conception of the man. But their lieutenants are mere names to
us . of John Hales of Mailing, Alan Threder, William Hawke, and John Ferrour,
and other leaders named in Kentish documents we have no personal knowledge
whatever: we have only a list of the outrages laid to their charge. Even Jack
Straw, the most notable of them, is a vague figure who flits across Essex no
less than Kent, and though he is mentioned, we seldom or never detect him
actually at work till the entry of the rebels into London. He is probably
identical with the John Raekstraw mentioned in some of the chronicles and in
the judicial proceedings which followed the insurrection,*1
1
Does this mean to avoid being tricked when they get to London, or to avoid
being drawn by designing persons into taking sides in town quarrels, such as
those then raging in Canterbury ?
Chron.
Angl. p. 32a.
3 An article, more ingenious than
convincing, in the Hist Rev. for January, 1906, by Doctor F. W. Brie, will have
it that Jack Straw is no real person at all, but a mere nickname of Wat Tyler.
It is quite true that the Continuator of Knighton held this view [‘ proprio
nomine Watte Tyler sed jam mutato nomine vocatus est Jakke Straw’], and that
two or three ballads and several fifteenth- century chroniclers (e, g. Adam of
Usk, Harding, and Gregory) speak of Jakke
A glance
through the roll of the Kentishmen implicated in the rising shows only one
person of'gentle birth, a certain squire named Bertram Wilmington who raised a
band at Wye;1 in the eastern counties, as we shall see, the ..proportion
of ' chiefs drawn from the upper classes was much larger. In Kent” there is a
sprinkling of wealthy yeomen and priests,® but the great majority are artisans
and peasants of the poorest class, whose goods the escheators valued at a few
shillings.
On June 11
and June 12 the insurgent host executed in wonderfully rapid time their march
from Canterbury to the outskirts of London. They were growing in numbers every
moment, as the numerous contingents from the villages of western Kent joined
them. Hurried as was the movement, they yet found leisure to break open manor
houses and burn I) court-rolls on their way. It is said—but ^trustworthy
details are wanting—that they caught and slew several lawyers. As they drew
near London, they met the King’s mother, the Princess of Wales, who was hastily
returning from a pilgrimage to the shrines of Kent, to put herself in safety
behind the walls of the Tower. She, and her attendants gave themselves up for
lost, but to their surprise buffered no more than a short arrest: after passing
some ribald jokes upon the trembling ladies, the leaders of the insurgents gave
orders that they were to be allowed to proceed, unplundered and unmolested.
They wished, no doubt, to show that they were not thieves or murderers;
moreover they hoped to get the King upon their side, and could not hope to win
his favour if they started by maltreating his mother.
Straw being
killed by Walworth at Smithfield. But the Rolls of *he Parliament of 1381. the
most primary authority of all, most carefully distinguish Ti ler and Straw as
two sep&rate perrons. So does the Chmn. AngUae, whose account of the whole
business is excellent; there is no possibility of confusing the Wat Tyler
killed at Smithfield with the Jack Straw who is arrested and tried before the
commissioners some days later, and who makes, the curious and elaborate
confession concerning the ultimate designs of the rebels. This latter, no
doubt, was that same John Rakestraw who made proclamation to the people of tht
Is’e of Thanet. See Archawhgta Cantiana, iii. p. 76.
1
For his doings see the document in Arch. Cant. iii. 81. 8a
3 Such as John Coveshurst of Lamberhurst,
one of the decapitated leaders, who owned a freehold farm of lao acres. See
Rdville s documents, p. 333.
On the night
of the 12th, the main body of the Kentishmen encamped on Bl.ickheath, but those
of them who were not tired out by their long march pushed as far as Southwark
and Lambeth; there they were met by a mob of malcontents belonging to the
suburbs and even by numerous sympathizers from the city itself, who had been
obliged to take boat across the river to join them, for the drawbridge in the
midst of London Bridge had been raised on the news of their approach. The
advanced guard of rebellion broke open the two prisons in Southwark, those of
the Marshalsea and King’s Bench, and let loose the captives. They pushed on two
miles further to sack the Archbishop’s palace in Lambeth, and then burnt the
house of John Imworth, the Warden of the Marshalsea: its flames flared up all night
in the sight of the King and his councillors in the; Tower, and of the citizens
ot London, who watched from their wharves and windows the signs of approaching
trouble.
It was not
only on the southern side that the city was now threatened. The progress of
affairs in Essex had been exactly parallel to that in Kent; indeed there is na
doubt that the insurgents of the two counties had been in close touch with each
other : Essex men (as we have already seen),' had crossed the Thames to jr.in
the original band of rioters which commenced the trouble at Dartford. Between
the 2nd and the 12th of J une the rising which had started at Brentwood had
spread in every direction. It was a little more agrarian and less political in
character than the Kentish insurrection, just because Essex was a more purely
rural county than Kent, and suffered more from feudal grievances. But that the
political element in the trouble- was not absent is shown by the fact that a
systematic attack was made on the King’s officers. John Ewell, the escheator of
the county, was murdered at Langdon-hills; the manor-house of the sheriff, John
Sewall, at Coggeshall, was plundered (though he himself escaped), as was also
that of John Guilsborough, one of the justices. Special fury was shown in destroying
the dwelling of the treasurer, Sir Robert Hales, at Cressing Temple (June 10).
This might have been expected, as, with the pos
sible
exception of Archbishop Sudbury. ‘Hobbe the Robber ’ was undoubtedly the most
unpopular man in the realm, The Admiral Edmund de la Mare was also a victim of
the rioters: his manor of Peldon was sacked, and a bundle of Admiralty papers
stuck on a pitchfork was borne before the local band of rioters when they
marched on London1.
Colchester,
the county town of Essex, fell into the hands of the insurgents without making
resistance. Its capture was celebrated by the massacre of several Flemings,
which we may suspect to have been thework of the urbap mob rather than of the
peasantry. We also hear of the murder of a Fleming at Manningtree. But the main
object of the bands in every direction seems to have been the destruction of
court-rolls, and the forcible extraction of leases or charters from the
landowners who could be caught. The religious houses suffered quite as much as
the laity, and the great abbey of Wrltham in especial saw every document that
it possessed consigned to the flames. In the general anarchy which prevailed we
learn that many persons enlisted the services of parties ox rioters, to instal
them in manors or lands on which they had old claims of doubtful validity,
after expelling the present occupants by force.
On June 11,
no doubt in strict concert with the men of Kent, the Essex bands began to
gather in a mass, and moved off towards London. On the 12th their main body lay
encamped in the fields by Mile End, outside the north-eastern comer of the
walls of the city. Their leaders seem to have been very obscure
persons-£-Thomas Farringdon, a Londoner,2 is the only one of whom we
know much y Henry Baker of Manningtree. Adam Michel, and John Starling are mere
names to us. It would seem thafr'some of the local clergy must have been
implicated, as we are toid that many of them, both
1
For all these details see the indictments of the Essex men in the Appendices
to Rdville,
pp. 216-39.
3 According to the report of the sheriffs
this Thomas was the most prominent person in the Essex mob. We are told that *
ivit ex proprio suo capite, ad malefactores de comitatu Essexiae , .. et cum
praedictis insurrectoribus ut unus eorum capitaneus, venit Londonias ducens
retro se magnam turbam *. R6viIIe, p. 194.
chaplains and
parish priests, had to fly and go into hiding when the insurrection was over.1
But none of them, it is clear, took such a prominent part in the troubles as
did John Ball in Kent, or Wraw and Sampson in Suffolk.
On the
evening of June 12, therefore, the King’s Council in the Tower, and the Mayor
Walworth and his aldermen at the Guildhall, gathered together in no small
perturbation of mind, to face the situation, and to see how the joint advance
of the Kentish and Essex insurgents could be met. It is astonishing that the
ministers had not yet succeeded in gathering an armed force with which to take
the field against the rebels, They had now had thirteen days since the outbreak
at Brentwood, in which they might have made their preparations. But absolutely
nothing had been done: an attempt had (it would seem) been made to stop the
expedition under the Earl of Cambridge which was starting for Portugal: but it
turned out that his squadron had already put to sea before the orders of recall
came to hand. Preparations had also been in progress for the sending of a
small reinforcement to the English garrisons in Brittany, The Council
countermanded their voyage and bade them muster in London; but it would seem
that only the old condottiere Sir Robert Knolles, and some few scores of
men-at-arms and archers whom he had enlisted, were available. Their head
quarters were at his house in the city. It is impossible to make out why the
ministers had not called out the whole of the gentry of the home counties, and
also put under arms all the trustworthy elements in the London militia : there
were thousands of citizens (as later events showed) who were ready to take the
field for the suppression of a rising which meant plunder and anarchy. Probably
a military head was wanting at the council board: of the King’s uncles John of
Gaunt was away on a mission to Edinburgh ; Thomas of Woodstock was somewhere in
the Welsh March ; Edmund
1
In R6ville’s documents, on p. 225, we find the King ordering the collectors of
the clerical subsidy not to press for the contributions due from those who i
timent se occasione insurrectionis in comitatu Essexie faciliter posse
impetiri, unde capellam et clerid isti forte culpabiles existunt \
of Cambridge
had just sailed for Portugal. The main responsibility lay on the
chancellor-archbishop and the treasurer Hales, neither of whom rose to the
occasion. So far was Sudbury from thinking of self- defence that on June 12,
the day of the appearance of the rebels at Blackheath, he laid down the Great
Seal and begged for leave to retire from the conduct of public affairs. The
other notables present in the Tower were the King’s half-brothers, the Earl of
Kent and Sir John Holland, his cousin Henry of Bolingbroke, the heir of John of
Gaunt, and the Earls of Salisbury, Warwick, and Oxford. Bolingbroke and Oxford
were mere lads of fifteen and seventeen years respectively, but Salisbury and
Warwick were middle-aged men, who had seen service in the waru of France : the
first-n-imed earl had commanded one of the wings at Poitiers, with great credit
to himself. It is astonishing that neither oi them came forward to take upon
himself the responsibility of urging prompt action at all costs, during the
first twelve days of June. It would certainly have been possible to gather in a
considerable force from the districts of the midlands where no troubles had yet
broken out—for, as we shall see, it was only after Tyler’s arrival at London
that the rebellion spread into those regions. Bat no attempt to collect the
loyalists of the home counties was made : contemporary chroniclers noted with
wonder the extraordinary panic or apathy which had struck the governing classes
during the first fortnight of that memorable June. The only guard which lay
about the person of the King, when the rebels appeared at Blackhcath, consisted
of about 600 men-at-arms and archers, retainers of the royal household, or of
the members of the Council, who had followed their masters into the Tower.
A large force
could have been raised in London, where the Mayor, William Walworth, and the
majority of the aldermen were perfectly loyal, and viewed the insurrection with
horror. The wealthier citizens quite understood the perils that were involved
in the collection of a great body of ignorant peasants led by adventurers and
fanatics. If the horde entered their gates, it would almost inevitably get to
WAT TYLER E
the liquor
and fall to riot and plundering. Bui the difficulty which lay before the city
fathers wras that they were fully .conscious that the proletariate
of London was no less discontented than the country folk of the home counties.
Their grievances were different, but their .spirit was the same : if the lower
classes of the city had not manorial customs and feudal dues to resent, they
had grudges of their own—against the foreigners whom they believed to be making
undue profits, against the royal officers who represented to them the
misgovemment of the time, most of all against the municipal oligarchy. The
Mayor and his fellows knew that the artisans and unskilled labourers of London
regarded them as selfish, unscrupulous, and oppressive rulers, and were only
waiting for an opportunity to burst out into rebellion/ Nor could they trust
the whole of their own body—there was a bitter and unscrupulous minority, even
in the council, which was ready to stir up trouble in order to get rid of the
existing office-holders, and instal itself in their places. The events of the
next two days were to show the lengths to which these persons were ready to
proceed. In the earlier days of June the opposition contented itself with
protesting against the adoption of vigorous measures, and extenuating the
doings of the insurgents—probably representing them
■ as haimless men driven into a righteous
protest against the corrupt and incapable rule of the King’s present ministers.
However this may be, the Mayor and his colleagues made no vigorous attempt to
call to arms the classes who had something to lose, still less did they go out
of their way to offer the support of the London militia to the Council. Yet it
they had chosen they might have called out 4,000 or 5,000 well-equipped and
trustworthy fighting-men. But it was only three days later, after they had seen
and recognized the methods of the insurgents, that they showed their power
Meanwhile the discontented section was displaying a very different activity :
on June ir-12 there were already many Londoners present with the insurgents in
Kent and Essex, others had gone far afield, even to Cambridge and Suffolk, to
spread the news of the rising and organize local tumults.
On the
evening of June 12, Walworth, as we have already- seen, had raised the
drawbridge in the midst of London Bridge, had closed the gates on all sides of
the city, and had commissioned the aldermen of 1he various wards to set guards
upon the portions of the defences committed to their charge. He also sent out
some of his council—Adam Carlisle, John Fresch, and John Home—all three
aldermen—to visit the insurgent camp, warn the rebels to approach no nearer tp
the city, and bid them respect the King’s commands and retire to their homes.
Carlisle and Fresch seem to have delivered their message; but Horne, separating
himself from his companions, sought a secret interview with Tyler and the other
chiefs. He told themthat the whole of London was ready to rise in their aid, and
urged them to demonstrate against the bridge and the gates, promising them help
from within. When night fell he took back with him to his house three of
Tyler’s lieutenants, and put them in touch with the malcontents of the city,
for the purpose of concerting a tumult on the following morning. Home then had
the effrontery to go to the Mayor, and assure him that the insurgents were
honest folks and that he would wager his head that if they were admitted within
the walls they would not do a pennyworth of damage.1
On the
morning of June 13, therefore, the rebels were in high spirits, and confident
that they would soon be admitted into the city. It was apparently early on this
day that John Ball preached his famous sermon on Blackheath to the assembled
multitude, using as his text his famous jingling couplet—
i Whan
Adam dalf, and Eve span,
Who was then
a gentilman ?
The version
of his discourse that the chroniclers2 have preserved for us is no
doubt drawn in the most lurid colours, but the main thesis is probably correct‘
In the beginning all men were created equal: servitude of man to man was
introduced
1 See the Sheriff"? report on the
doings of the rebel aldermen in Reville’s documents, pp. 190 8.
a
See especially Chron. Angliat, p. 321, for a full account of the sermon.
by the unjust
dealings of the wicked, and contrary to God's will. For if God had intended
some to be serfs and others lords, He would have made a distinction between
them at the beginning Englishmen had now an opportunity given them, if they
chose to take it, of casting off the yoke they had borne so long, and winning
the freedom that they had always desired. Wherefore they should take good
courage, and behave like the wise husbandman of scripture, who gathered the
wheat into his bam, but uprooted and burned the tares that had half-choked the
good grain. The tares of England were her oppressive rulers, and harvest-time
had come, in which it was their duty to pluck up and make away with them
all—evil lords, unjust judges, lawyers, every man who was dangerous to the
common good. Then they would have peace for the present and security for the
future; for when the great ones had been cut off, all men would enjoy equal
freedom, all would have the same nobility, rank, and power.'
We may
suspect that the horrified chronicler has exaggerated the preacher’s
incentives to a general massacre, but otherwise his thesis must, from the
nature of things, have been much what the chroniclei puts into his mouth. It is
notable that Ball is made to preach democracy and not communism— the insurgents
wanted to become freeholders, not to form phalansteries and hold all things in
common. When the sermon was over, the multitude (as we are told) cried with a
loud and unanimous voice that they would make him both archbishop and
chancellor, for the present primate was a traitor to the commons and the realm,
and should be slain as soon as they could lay hands on him.
It was
probably while Ball’s sermon was in the course of delivery that the leaders of
the insurgents leamt that the King was coming out to meet them. They had
received a message from him on the previous afternoon, asking their intent, and
had replied by protesting that they were his loyal subjects, and zealous for
the honour ot England, and wished only to lay before him their grievances
against his uncles and his ministers, who had so long misgoverned the realm. It
it said that the bearer of their answer was Sir John
Newton, the
constable of Rochester Castle, who had been kept as hostage ever since his
capture on ]une 6.1 In spite of the protests of the Archbishop and
the Treasurer, Richard /(determined to give the Kentishmen a hearing. He sent
the answer that he would come to meet them on the shore below Blackheath, and
listen to what they had to say. The morning was still young when tht: royal
barge, followed by four other boats, was seen to leave the Tower, and drop down
the river to the Greenwich shore. It had on board the King, the
Chancellor-archbishop, and the Earls of Warwick, Salisbury, and Oxford, besides
several others of the Council. The}' found the sloping bank covered with a vast
crowd of insurgents, 10,000 or more, arrayed under two great banners with St.
George’s cross and more than forty pennons. All burst out into a medley of
shouts and yells as the barge diew in to land. There was no show of discipline
or ordei among them, some were giving loyal cheers for the King, others were,
howling for the heads of John of Gaunt and Sudbury, others brandishing their
weapons and shrieking like men possessed.2 It was clear from the
first that it would be impossible to allow the King to land in the midst of
this frantic crowd. The rowers were ordered to lie upon their oars a score of
yards from the shore, and in a moment of comparative silence Richard raised his
voice to open the parley. ‘ Sirs,’ he is said to have shouted, ‘ what do you
want ? Tell me, now that I have come to talk with you.’ But the whole multitude
began to roar that he must disembark, they had many things to say, and could
not
1 So Froissart, and though he is not
supported by any other chronicler, yet Sir J. Newton would have been exactly
the sort of person whom the rebels were likely to send. Froissart says that
they had secured his faithful delivery of the message and return to their camp,
by swearing to kill his two sons, also prisoners, if he did not bring back the
King’s reply. In the documents the only person mentioned as being sent to the
rebels on the morning of June 13 is a certain John Blydon. But there were three
separate interchanges of messages on the Tuesday and the Wednesday, as shown in
the Hist. Rev., Chron. p. 513.
2 1 Ils commencaient tous a huer et a donner un si grand cri, qu’il sembla
proprement que tous les diables d’enfer fussent venus en leur compaignie ’,
says Froissart, in his graphic (and probably accurate') account of the scene-
x, 106. His
description is borne out by the Chronicle in Hist. Rev. 1 ils furent gentz sans reason, et ne avoient
sceu de bien fair’ [p. 513].
easily confer
with him at a distance. To have permitted the King to land would have meant to
surrender him into the hands of the rebels without hope of escape. It would
also probably have involved the death of several of the unpopular councillors
who attended him. Wherefore the Chancellor, according to one version, or the
Earl of Salisbury, according to another,1 bade the bargemen push off
and return to the Tower. The rebels thereupon burst out into curses and wild
shouts of ‘treason! treason!* but did not, as might have been expected, salute
the departing boats with a volley of arrows. The first minute of the rowing,
however, must have been one of deadly terror to the royal party—they might
every one of them have been riddled with shafts before the barge had got out of
range—for the longbow would carry far. That nothing of the kind happened is a
clear proof that there was a very real loyalty to the King’s person prevalent
among the rank and file rebels.
1
The Chronicle in Hist. Rev. says that the Chancellor and the Treasurer both
protested, and that the boats turned back (p. 513). The Chronicon Angliae makes
them even prevent the King from leaving the Tower, which is dearly wrong (p.
287). Froissart agrees with the Chronicle in Hist. Rev., but makes Salisbury
dissuade the King from landing, x. 106.
The Rebels in London : King Richard and Wat Tyler
The attempt to open negotiations with the King having
failed, the only course remaining to the insurgents was to endeavour to obtain
an entry into London, either by force or by fair words. They were by now
beginning to suffer from hunger, for they had already eaten up both the scanty
supplies of food that they had brought with them and all the provisions that
they could obtain in the suburban villages south of the Thames. Observers,
wise after the event, maintained that if they could have been kept out of
London i for another twenty-four hours, the bulk of them would have dispersed
from mere starvation.1 But the party of malcontents inside the city
saved them from this danger.
As the
multitude thronged down from Blackheath towards Southwark and London Bridge,
they were met by John Home, the alderman who had encouraged them on the
preceding day. He was on horseback, and waving in his hand a standard with the
royal arms, which he had obtained by false pretences from the town-clerk.2
He harangued the Kentishmen, telling them to press on, for they would find none
but friends in London, the citizens were ready to join them in their designs,
and would give them any succour that they might need. There was good foundation
for what he said, for another of the malcontents, Walter Sibley [or Sybyle],
the alderman of Billingsgate, was preparing to admit them. He had taken post at
the drawbridge with a very few armed men, and sent away all the burgesses who
came to offer him aid to resist
1
The Sheriffs of London, in their report, say that the rebels at this moment *
in proposito fuerunt ad hospicia sua revertendi ’ (Reville, p. 190).
* For the details of Horne’s double-faced
conduct see the documents in Reville, pp. 190-5.
the rebels,
angrily bidding these volunteers to mind their own business, and leave him to
do his duty in his own ward.1 When the mob came surging on to the
southern arches of the bridge, he exclaimed to those about him that it was
useless to resist, and lowered the drawbridge : the Kentishmen at once streamed
into the city. As if this was not enough, there was treachery displayed on the
other side of the city also. Alderman William Lmge opened Aldgate.to the Essex
rebels, £ bat whether because he was in agreement with the aforesaid
John Home and Walter Sibley, or because he was terrified by the threats of the
Kentish rebels who had already entered the city, no man knows to this day ’.a
By the afternoon of Thursday, June 13, the rebels were in possession of
London, without having had to strike a single blow. The leading loyalists
barricaded themselves in their houses, or retired to join the King in the
Tower. The bulk of the well- to-do citizens tried to make the best of the
situation, by offering food to the newcomers and broaching for them great
barrels of ale. The last at least was a very short sighted measure on the part of
these worthy householders 1 But at first the men of Kent and of Essex behaved
far better than might have been expected : it is recorded that many of them
paid for their meals, and that they did no damage to private property that
afternoon. Their chiefs had them well in hand, and kept reminding them of their
political duty, the obligation to chastise John of Gaunt, the Archbishop, the
Treasurer, and the rest of the ‘ traitors The ministers were
1
1
Ubi Thomas Cornwallis, dicto die Iovis, venit cum magna armatorum comitiva et
obtulit se ad succurrendum eidem Waltero, et ad custodiendum introitum pontis .
.. idem Walterus Sybele felonie et proditorie illud adiuvamen recusavit, . . .
dicens “Quid facitis hie? Redite ad proprias vestras wardas vel domus custodiendas,
quia nemo intromittet se hie in mea warda nisi ego et socii met*'. . .. Et non
permisit aliquam custodiam contra praedictos malefactores, sed sine custodia
reliquit portas civitatis apertas * (R^ville, documents 193 and 197, from the
Sheriffs’ report),
3
On Tonge see ibid. pp. 197-8. But there is an error in the date, as the
document says that Tonge let in the Essex rebels on the night of June 12-13
(Wednesday), the Kentishmen being already in the city, while earlier in the
same narrative the Sheriffs say that Sibley only let in the Kentishmen on the
morning of Thursday, June 13, I suppose, therefore, that we must place Tonge’s
treachery on the later day.
m the Tower,
safe for the moment, and the Duke of Lancaster was far away at Edinburgh, but
at least their houses could be sacked. Lambeth Palace had already been pillaged
on the preceding night,1 but there was a still prouder dwelling open
to assault.,, John of Gaunt’s great mansion, the Savoy, the most magnificent
private residence in the whole of England. It was but lately finished, but was
already stored with all manner of valuables—tapestry, furniture, armour, plate,
and ornaments, the gifts of his father, Edward III, and the spoil ot France.
The moment that the insurgents had tilled their empty stomachs they moved off m
mass towards the Strand, guided by their London friends, and shouting in union,
‘To the Savoy!’2 It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when the
mob, swollen by thousands of the apprentices, artisans, labourers, and
professional criminals of the city, reached their goal. They Went very
methodically to work, the leaders repeatedly reminding them that they were come
to destmy^not to steal; that they were executing vengeance, not seeking
profit. The doors of the palace were broken open, the caretakers having fled
without offering resistance. Everything in the Savoy capable of destruction was
then destroyed. The furniture was thrown out of the windows and hacked to
pieces in the street; the rich hangings, the clothes, and carpets were torn up;
the plate and ornaments were broken into small fragments and cast into the
river ; the jewels, it is said, were smashed with hammers 01 brayed in a
mortar. When the whole dwelling had been gutted it was set on fire and burnt to
the ground: its destruction was completed by the explosion of three barrels of
gunpowder from the duke’s armoury.5 So anxious were the rioters to
show their disinterested motives, that when a man was caught making off with a
silver goblet, he was seized and put to death But a party of reprobates made
their way
1
See p. 46.
a
So Malverne’s Chronicle, p. 2. The Chronicle in Hist Rev. (p. 514) says that
the Londoners attacked the Savoy before the country folk had come up j but we
have good proof in the Indictments that Kentishmen were in the forefront of
the mischief.
3 Hist, Rev.y Chron. p. 515.
to the
cellars, and there swilled the rich wines till they were overcome with bestial
intoxication; they could not escape when the palace was fired, and so were
smothered or burnt.1 An indictment of the year 1382 shows that a
small party of Rochester men found and stole the duke’s strongbox, containing
£1,000 in cash, smuggled it into a boat at the watergate in rear of the
palace, and took it over to Southwark, where they hastily divided it and then
escaped. Evidently they were in fear of being detected and lynched by their
more scrupulous comrades.2
In rushing on
to the Savoy, the greater part of the insurgents had passed by the Temple
without turning aside,3 but in the late afternoon they returned to
attack this ancient group of buildings. Their object was twofold : the Temple
now belonged to the Knights of St. John, and the Treasurer, Robert Hales, the
head of that order m England, was, next to John of Gaunt and Simon of Sudbury, the
most prominent of the ‘ traitors ’ of the King’s ministry. But this was not
all: already theTemple had become the head quarters of the 1 lawyers of
England; here were their Inns, their schools,
, and their
library. Of all classes obnoxious to the insurgents the legal profession was
the most hated; it was they who w ere the tools of the manorial lords in
binding the chains of the serf : from them were chosen the judges and officials
who descended on the shires at assize time to gloze might into right. It was
their cursed parchments which were the ruin of honest men. Nothing, therefore,
was more natural than that 'the mob should make a general assault on the Temple
They burst into the church and there broke open the chests full of books, which
they tore up and burnt in the street.4
1
Knighton’s Continuator, ii. p. 135, says that they were {iocis et
canticis et aliis illecebris ebrietatibus vacantes, donee ostium obturatum fuit
igne
3 Indictment of John Ferrour, of Rochester,
and Joanna, his wife, in R^ville,. pp. 196-73 But it would seem
from the Hist. Rev., Chron. p. 515, that some of them
turned off to
attack the lawyers, though the greater portion went on to the Savoy.
4 Apparently the libraries were kept in the
Temple Church, j‘ust as at Oxford the University books were kept in St. Mary’s.
* Cistas in ecclesia sive in cameris apprenticiorum inventas fregerunt et
libros inventos securibus scindebant et in cibum ignis dederunt’ (Knighton’s
Continuator, ii. p. 135). The Hist. Rev.
They sacked
the Inns and dwellings of the lawyers, destroying an enormous quantity of
chartexs, muniments, and records. The book-chests and furniture supplied
materials for the bonfire in which the documents were consumed. The lawyers and
students had fled at the first irruption of the mob ; it was marvellous to see
’, says one chronicler, ‘ how even the most aged and infirm of them scrambled
off, with the agdity of rats or evil spirits ’.
It was now
dark, but the work of the insurgents was not yet done From the Temple they
hurried off to another of Treasurer Hales’s official abodes—the priory of St.
John’s, Clerkenwell, the head quarters of the Knights Hospitallers in England.
They were guided by Thomas Farringdon, the London malcontent who had put
himself at the head of the Essex rioters, who rode at their head shouting
threats against the unfortunate prior. The church, hospital, and mansion of the
Hospitallers were sacked and burnt, and seven Flemings who had taken sanctuary
at the altar were dragged out and murdered. This was the first sign of the
length to which the hatred oftheLondoner against alieag was to be carried.
Other
exploits of the rioters during the evening hours of June 13 were the
destruction of the prisons of the Fleet and of Newgate, and of several private
houses in Holborn. All the felons were released, and eagerly joined ir the
arson and housebreaking which was afoot. There were nine or ten murderers
committed that night, beside the slaughter of the Flemings. The best-known
victim was a* questmonger ’ named Roger Legett, who was tom from the altar of
St. Martin’s- le-Grand, and beheaded in Cheapside. At last, tired with their
day of excitement, the multitude lay down to rest, some taking lodgings with
their London friends, but the majority encamping on the open spaces of Tower
Hill and St. Catherine’s Wharf, where they slept round great watch-fires,
blockading the King and his Council in the old Norman fortress, for they were
determined that their enemies should not escape them
Chronicle says ‘Allerent en Esglise et pristeremt livres et rolles et
remembrances, et porteront en le haut chemine et les arderent *.
Only the
leaders were still alert; it is said that they met in the house of that Thomas
Far-ingdon1 whom we nave already had occasion to mention, and
occupied themselves in chawing up plans for the morrow, and in compiling a
proscription list of all those whom they intended to put to death. It is said
that the catalogue of ‘ traitors ’ drawn up by the men of Kent embraced the
names of John of Gaunt, Archbishop Sudbury, Treasurer Hales, Courtenay Bishop
of London, John Fordham, Clerk of the Privy Seal and Bishop-Elect of Durham,
Chief Justice Belknap, Chief Baron Plessington, Sir Ralph Ferrers, John Legge,
the King’s sergeant who was supposed to have advised the sending out of the
Poll-tax commissioners, Thomas Bampton, and Sir Thomas Orgrave, Sub-Treasurer
of England.2
The King and
his Council meanwhile were holding a conclave within the Tower 111 a very
different frame of mind. The flames of the Savoy and of Clerkenwell were
reddening the horizon, while close at hand the rebels kept up a din far into
the night, clamouring for the heads of ‘ the traitors ’ and shouting that they
would storm the fortress next morning. This, of course, was mere * windy folly
’—the Tower could have held out for an indefinite time against any enemy unprovided
with a batteiing-train. Nevertheless the situation was very grave, since the
King and the ministry had allowed themselves to be shut up in a place from
which they could not easily escape, and there was no one outside to organize an
army for their relief If they could have guessed that London was about to fall
into the hands of the insurgents without a blow being struck, the ministers
would certainly
(have retired
with the King into the Midlands before the Kentishmen arrived at Blackheath.
Facing the
present crisis the magnates beleaguered ii 1 the Tower fell into two parties.3
One held that desperate
1 t
Recepit secum noctanter [idem Thomas] plures principales insurrectores,
Robertum Warde et alios, imaginando ilia nocte cum aliis sociis suis
conspirando nomina diversorum civium, quae fecit scribi in quadam schedula,
quos vellet decapitare.’ (The grammar is peculiar !) Sheriffs' indictment,
R^ville, p. 195.
3
See Hist. Rev., Chron. pp. 512, 513.
a
The general course of the discussion in the Tower is given by several
measures were
the only way to safety, that it would be wise to make a midnight sally upon the
rebels and endeavour to destroy them before they could put themselves m a posture
of defence. The disorderly mass bivouacked around the- fortress absolutely
invited an attack. Walworth, the Mayor, who was a strong partisan of vigorous
action, declared that he would guarantee that 6,000 or 7,000 armed men, all the
wealthier citizens and their households, would readily strike m on the side of
law and order if only the garrison of the Tower opened the attack. Sir Robert
Knolles, with the 120 men-at-arms who were garrisoning his mansion, would provide
the nucleus around which the loyalists could rally But while the energetic
Mayor pleaded for a resort to arms, the Earl of Salisbury, the most experienced
soldier present, maintained the opposite opinion. He held that a sally against
the unsuspecting besiegers might begin well, but that if they rallied and were
joined by the whole of the lower classes of London, the battle would develop
into street fighting and no one could foresee how that might end The loyalists
might not be able to umte and combine, and might be annihilated piecemeal.—Tf
we begin w hat we cannot carry through we should never be able to repair
matters. It will be all over with us and our heirs, and England will be a
desert.’1 Salisbury, therefore, urged that negotiajtions should be
tried before the final resort to arms was made. The one thing necessary was to
disperse the multitude ; if this could be done by any reasonable concessions
the situation might be saved. His arguments carricd the day.
The first
attempt to open up negotiations failed. The King sent out two knights with a
letter directing the commons to formulate their grievances in writing, to
dispatch them to him by the hands of a deputation, and then to betake
themselves to their homes. This offer was made to the assembly on St.
Cathei'ne’s Wharf by one of the knights,
chroniclers.
The advice of Walworth and Salisbury by Froissart only. But the tenor of their
speeches is so probable that I venture to follow Froissart in this point,
despite his well-known capacities for going wrong,
1 These details are from Froissart, but
must be reasonably correct
who stood on
an old rhair and read the epistle by torchlight. The rebels cried out that
‘all this was trifles and mockery V and bade the messenger return and bring
back a better proposition. The Council, after a short debate, resolved that the
King should grant the insurgents on Fridayjnoming the interview which he had
refused to them at Blackheath twenty-four hours before. His position had been
so much changed by the fall of London, that he was now forced to take the risk
of being imprisoned or even murdered by the rebels, which bad seemed unnecessary
on the previous day. Richard fully understood his danger, but surprised all the
followers by the eager courage with which he resolved to face it. Apparently,
the boy was agreeably excited at the prospect of putting himself forward and of
showing that he could assert his personal influence over the multitude.
In his second
message to the commons Richard bade them all muster in the meadows at Mile
End—a favourite suburban promenade of the citizens of London, some way outside
the north-eastern angle of the walls. It is said that the Council had their
secret reasons for naming this rendezvous. If the rebels evacuated the city in
order to attend the conference, a chance would be given to the loyalist party
to rise and shut them outside the gates. Even if this happy consummation did
not occur, yet when the besiegers moved off from round the Tower, Sudbury 'and
Hales would be given a way of escape, when the exits of "-he fortress were
no longei beset by so many thousand watchful enemies.2
The insurgent
chiefs sent back word to the King that his offer was accepted. But though the
mass moved off to the
1 Hist. Rev., Cbron. 516.
2 Knighton and the anonymous chronicle in
the Historical Review, p. 517, both lay stress on the fact that the interview
was intended to give Sudbury a chance of absconding. Walsingham’s venomous
suggestion that Richard quitted the Tower in order to let the insurgents enter
and slay the scapegoats, the Archbishop and Hales, may safely be disregarded.
He says 1 Rex igitur in arcto constitutus, permisit eis in
Turrim intrare, et loca secretissiiua pro sua voluntate nequissima perscrutare,
quia nihil negare tute potuit quod petebant\ It is incredible that Richard
should have left his mother in the Tower if he had intended it to be sacked
during his absence.
place ot
conference, Tyler left g. small but compact body of picked men ta.watch the
Tower. When Sudbury tried to escape by boat during the morning, he was sighted
and forced to turn back to the water-gate from which he had emerged.
About seven
o’clock on the Friday morning Richard and his cortege rode out of the Tower: he
was followed by all his Council save Sudbury and Hales, who dared not show themselves,
but by a small escort only. The bulk of the garrison of the fortress remained
behind. The magnates who accompanied the King included the Earls of Warwick,
Oxford, and Kent, Sir Thomas Holland, Sir Thomas Percy, Sir Robert Knolles, and
the Mayor Walworth; Aubrey de Vere, uncle of the Earl of Oxford, bore the sword
of state before the King.1
The ride to
Mile End was perilous : at any moment the crowd might have broken loose, and
the King and all his party might have perished. On Tower Hill the notorious
Thomas Farringdon seized the King’s bridle-rein, and began clamouring for the
instant execution of Treasurer Hales ‘ Avenge me he shouted, ‘ on that false
traitor the Prior, who has deprived me of my tenements by fraud ; do me right
justice and give me back my own, for if you do not, I am now strong enough to
take justice into my own hands.’ Richard answered that he should have all that
was just, whereupon Farringdon dropped his rein, but instead of accompanying
the cortege to Mile End. slipped back with a band to the Tower to look for the
unfortunate Hales.3 A little further on a certain William Trewman
stopped the horse of Nicholas Bramber, late Mayor of London, loaded him with
insults, and was with difficulty prevented from assaulting him. Nevertheless,
though surrounded all the way by a noisy and boisterous multitude, Richard and
his
1
The Hist* RevChron. is clearly wrong in stating- that Buckingham was also
there. He was in Wales. Also in stating that the King’s mother accompanied him
in a whirlecote, Chron. Angl. 191 and other authorities prove that she was left
in the Tower.
3
All this is taken from the Sheriffs1 report, so often quoted
already, printed in Reville, pp. 195-6.
party
ultimately reached Mile End. On the way the Earl of Kent and Sir John Holland,
taking advantage of a casual thinning of the crowd, edged their horses out of
the procession and galloped off over the fields beyond Whitechapel It was an
infamous act to abandon their half-brother in the hour of need, and one wonders
that Richard ever forgave them. They were the only members of the royal party
who thus betrayed their master.
The
conference occupied some time, and was noisy in the extreme.1 But
the King had come prepared to grant almost anything, and the leaders of the
insurgents found, to their surprise, that their demands were granted one after
another. Tyler himself was the spokesman: the topics which he brought forward
on this day were mainly connected with manorial grievances. Richard consented
that serfdom ^should be abolished all over the realm, that alT~ feudal services
should disappear, and that all holders in villeinage ‘j should become free
'enants, paying the moderate rent of 4d. an a ci e per year to the lord. In
addition all restrictions on free buying and selling were to be swept away, and
the. market monopolies of ail favoured places were to disappear. Finally, a
general amnesty was to be given for all irregularities committed during the
rising. The King promised to give his banner to the chosen representatives of
each county present, as aj&Jjen that he had taken them under hisjyotection.
As a sign of the honesty of his intentions he
engaged to
set thirty clerks to draw up charters I )fstowing the freedom and amnesty on~
The’~inTiabitants of such districts as came forward to claim them. A great
number of such documents were issued that day, and the formulae have been
preserved in more than one copy.2
There
remained one question—the punishment of the ministers whom the insurgents
regarded as ‘ traitors \ Tyler pressed the King on this point. ‘The commons’,
he said, ‘ will that you suffer them to take and deal with all the
1
One person at least, a certain John French, was killed at Mile End, See
Reville, lxxxviii, and Archaeologia Cantiana, iiL 95. a One may be
found in Chron. Angl. pp. 298-9.
traitors who
have sinned against you and the law.’ Richard replied, in a temporizing
fashion, that they should have for due punishment such persons as could be
properly proved by process of law to be traitors. Indeed, all traitors throughout
the realm of England should be arrested and brought before him, and juslice
should be done on them as the law directed.
But justice,
after due trial and legal process, was not what Tyler and his friends intended
to secure ior their enemies. While the King was still at Mile End, distributing
promises and banners, he went off with a chosen band of his personal following,
and made a dash for the gate of the Tower1 Either by mere
mismanagement, or to show an ostentatious confidence in the people, the drawbridge
had not been raised, nor the portcullis lowered after the King’s departure.
When, therefore, a solid mass of several hundred2 determined rebels
made a dash for the open entry, the men-at-arms on guard had to make instant
decision whether they would keep the intruders out by violence, and so provoke
an affray, or suffer them to pass. It probably flashed through the brain of the
captain at the gate that if he resisted and shed blood, the King and his
retinue, who were still in the power of the mob, would perish. At any rate, he
gave no order to strike, and the mob rushed in. The rebels did not molest the
soldiers; indeed, they showed a jocular friendliness, shaking hands with the
men-at- arms, stroking their beards with uncouth familiarity, and telling them
for the future they were all brothers and equals Tyler had come not to figbt
the garrison, but to slay the ' traitors ’.3
1
That the invasion of the Tower took place after the Mile End interview had
reached its culminating point, and the King’s promise had been given, is proved
by Tyler's presence at both. The Chron. in Hist. Rev. gives the sequence
exactly. From some of the other chroniclers (e.g. Malverne and Knighton) we
might have supposed that the rush into the Tower took place soon after the King’s
departure,
3
It is said that only 400 rioters took part in the actual murders, but this ia
probably far too small a number.
3 * Quorundam militum barbas suis incultissimiset
sordidis manibus contrectare, demulcere, et verba familiaria serere modo de
societate cum eisdem habenda de cetero, modo de fide servanda ipsis
ribaldis&c. Chron, Angl. 291.
Separating
into a number of bands, they ran through the wards and towers hunting for their
victims. Tyler and Thomas Farringdon are recorded as being at the head of the
hunt. The men-at-arms looked on helplessly, while the King’s private chamber
was invaded, and his bed turned up to see if there was not a ‘ traitor ’ hiding
under it. The rebels also searched the Princess of Wales’s room; one ruffian,
it is said, wanted to kiss the terrified lady,1 who fainted and was
carried off by her pages, put into a boat, and taken round to the ‘ Queen’s
Wardrobe’ near St. Paul’s. Not one of the garrison drew his sword ; the
chroniclers unite in pouring scorn on the knights and squires who allowed a
half-armed mob of a few hundred men to run riot through every comer of the
fortress.
The victims
whom Tyler and his gang sought were found without much trouble. The Archbishop,
when his abortive attempt to escape in the early morning was foiled, had
apparently realized the full danger of his position. When the hazardous
experiment of letting the King go forth to Mile End had been decided upon, he
retired to the chapel of the Tower, and prepared for the end that was only too
likely to come. ‘ He sang his mass devoutly ’, and then confessed and
communicated his colleague the prior-treasurer, the other minister whose death
was certain if the mob should break loose. While the King and his retinue were
making ready to depart, and while they were on the first stage of their ride,
the unhappy Sudbury and Hales had to endure a long and agonizing time of
waiting. ‘ They heard two masses, or three, and then the Archbishop chanted the
commendatione and the placebo, and the dirige, and the seven penitential
psalms, arid last of all the I’tany, and when he was at the words omnes sancti
orate pro nobis, the murderers burst in upon him.’ There was a general howl of
triumph—the traitor, the spoiler of the1 people, was run to earth.
Sudbury boldly stood forward and faced the horde: ‘ here am I, your Archbishop
’, he is said to have replied, ‘no traitor nor spoiler am I ’. Rut the
insurgents rushed in upon hun. cruelly
1
Chron. Angl. 191, Froissart tells the tale at greater length.
buffeted him.
and dragged him out of the chapel and across the courts of the Tower to the
hill outside, where they beheaded him upon a log of wood, The headsman's work
was so badly done that eight strokes were spent in hacking through the unhappy
prelate’s neck. His companion, the treasurer Hales, was executed immediately
after. Only two other persons seem to have perished1. the first was
William Appleton, a Franciscan iriar, who was the physician of John of (jaunt,
and passed for one of his chief political advisers ; the other was John Legge,
whose advice concerning the Poll-tax had made his obscure name notorious in
every comer of the realm. The heads of all the foui victims of Tyler were
mounted on piles and borne round the city, that of the Archbishop having his
mitre fixed to the skull by a large nail. They were then set over the gate of
London Bridge,
It is
impossible not to regret Simon of Sudbury’s dreadful end. He was made the
scapegoat r.ot merely of the ministry but of the whole nation : for it was the
nation’s wrongheaded determination to persist in the unrighteous French war
which necessitated the grinding taxation that was the cause of the outbreak.
Personally, the Archbishop seems to have been an honest, pious, and charitable
man. All that we know of him is to his credit, save that he does not seem to
have been clever enough to realize that the policy of the realm required
alteration. Assuredly he had sought no personal advantage when he accepted the
Chancellorship, nor had he profited in any way by his tenure of the. office.
But in times of revolution the multitude looks for individuals on whom to fix
the responsibility for all that has gone wrong— and it is the highest head that
falls first. If Sudbury regarded the late policy of the Council as correct and
inevitable, he should have taken measures to defend it by force. A fighting
chancellor might perhaps have nipped the rebellion in the bud But to watch the
growth of the rising with helpless
1
Possibly three other victims suffered on Tower Hill, if we may trust Knighton,
ii, 134, who calls the three unknown sufferers * socii * of John Legge. The
Hist. Rev. Chron. adds not three but one person more, ‘un jurour1,
p. 517.
F 2
dismay, and
then to lay down the Great Seal on the day when the rebels entered London, was
feeble in the last degree. It was not personal courage that Sudbury lacked: he
died like an honest man, nay even like a martyr, but he. was no ' j statesman.
It is curious to find that his contemporaries did not make a saint of him. in
spite of his many virtues and his dreadful end : but the. reason is not far to
seek : he had refused to be a persecutor in his day of power, and the priestly
caste bitterly resented his mild treatment of the Lollards. If only he had set
himself to root up Wycliffe and his followers, his name might be standing
beside that of Peter Martyr in the Calendar of the canonized defenders of the
mediaeval church.1
After the
execution of Sudbury. Hales, and their fellows, the section of the. insurgents
under Wat Tyler’s immediate command appear to have evacuated the Tower, and to
have allowed the garrison to close its gates. The King, however, did not return
thither; probably the news which he received at Aldgate, while riding; back
from Mile End, made him imagine ‘ that it was still in the hands of the frantic
crowd which had wrought the murders. He turned aside, and joined his mother in
the Wardrobe, near St. Paul’s. There his clerks and secretaries spent the
afternoon in copying out the charters exacted at the late conference, and in distributing
them to the representatives of the Essex peasantry. Satisfied with these tokens
of the King’s submission, many thousands of the insurgents went home. ‘ The
simple and the honest folk, and the beginners in treason departed’., remarks
Froissart.2 But the rising was far from being at an end—the
demagogues and the criminals and the fanatics were not to be pacified by the
mere abolition of serfdom and feudal dues—they had ambitions of their own which
were still far from satisfied. Tvler and his friends, indeed, were far more
busy on Friday than they had been on the precedmg day, and still had
1
Walsingham notes that public opinion in his own class held ‘ Archiepi- scopum,
quanquam credibile est eum martyrio finisse vitam, tamen propter teporem curae
quam adhibuisse debuerat in hac parte [persecution] horrenda mortis passione
puniri \
a ‘Les simples, et les boines gens, et les novices,’
about them ‘
thirty thousand men who were in no hurry to get their seals and charters from
the King
The murders
in the Tower indeed were only the commencement of the outburst of slaughter
and arson to which the more sinister members of the insurgent host had been
looking forward. The whole of June 14, from morning to midnight, was a carnival
of anarchy. We have only space to record some of its more prominent and typical
features. The most notable was a general assault on aliens, ’The commons made
proclamation that every one who could lay hands on Flemings or any other
strangers of other nations might cut off their heads.'1 Nor was this
an empty cry: some 150 01 ibo unhappy foreigners were murdered in various
places— thirty-five Flemings in one batch were dragged out of the church of St.
Martin in the Vintry, and beheaded on the same block. Popular tradition records
that every man suspected of Flemish birth was seized, and asked to pronounce
the shibboleth ‘ bread and cheese ’; if he answered ‘brod and case' he lost his
head/ The Lombards also suffered, and their houses yielded much valuable
plunder But the aliens were not the only sufferers : all manner of ui>
popular Londoners met their death Tylei himself, it is said, went in search of
Richard Lyons, the old enemy of the Good Parliament, and out off his
head—whether in revenge for the ancient chastisements recorded by Froissart or
on general grounds we are unable to say. One John Greenfield was killed in
Cheapside merely because he had said that Appleton (the Franciscan beheaded on
Tower Hill) was a good man and suffered unjustly.3 Disorderly bands,
as we are told, went about putting to passers-by the watchword ‘With whom hold
you ? ’ and if the person interrogated refused to say ‘ with King Richard and
the true commons ’, they tore off his hood, and raised the hue and cry upon
him, and dragged him to one of the blocks, which they had set up at street
corners, to be. beheaded. It is recorded that they killed no one save by the
axe, and that the larger proportion of the
1
Chron. in Hist Rev. p. 518. 2 London Chronicle, ed. Kingsford, p.
15.
5
Chron, in Hist. Rev, p. 518.
victims were
either lawyers, jurymen of the city, persons \ connected with the levying of
taxes, or known adherents of the. Duke of Lancaster. But many perished, not
because they had given any public offence, but merely because their personal
enemies had the craft to turn the rioters against them by some vamped-up tale.
Beside
murder, the streets of London and even the scattered suburbs round about it
were rife with arson, plunder, and blackmail. Jack Straw led a gang several
miles beyond the walls to burn the manor-house of the Prior of St. John at
Highbury:1 another party went out to destroy the dwelling of John
Butterwic.k, under-sheriff of Middlesex, in the village of Knightsbridge Within
the city, John Home, the alderman who had played the traitor on the preceding
day, went up and down with a great crowd at his heels, bidding any man who
wanted swift, and speedy justice to apply to him : he turned citizens out of
houses to which he said that they had no right, forced creditors to give their
debtors bonds of release, and levied fines on persons whom he chose to regard
as swindlers or usurers ; ‘ thereby taking upon himself the royal prerogative
of justice’, as his indictment somewhat superfluously proceeds to add. The
legal proceedings which followed the suppression of the rebellion show us that
every form of villany was in full swing on that dreadful Friday, from open
murder down to the extorting of shillings, by [readful threats, from clergymen
and old ladies.8
I he young
King no longer sheltered by the walls of the Tower, but lying with his small
retinue in the unfortified Wardrobe, must have felt that all his diplomacy at
Mile End had been wasted. The state of London on Friday night was far worse
than it had been even on Thursday. Yet the
1
The Indictments in Reville, pp. 310-12, show that the Highbury fire was on
Friday, not (as several of the chroniclers assert) on Thursday. The same proofs
show that the Knightsbridge fire was also on the second day. The otherwise
accurate Chron. in Hist. Rev. goes wrong here. Note that the St. Albans
deputies, journeying to the Mile End meeting, found Jack Straw at work at
Highbury. Chron. Angl* p. 300.
3
How Simon Gerard and John Fawkes extorted twelve pence from Robert, vicar of
Clapham, and how Theobald Ellis threatened to kill Elizabeth, widow of Sir
Ralph Spigornell, may be read in Reville, Indictments, pp. 210-15.
evil was
beginning to cure itself: the conduct of the insurgents had grown so
intolerable, that every man who had anything to lose saw that he must prepare
to defend his life and his property by armed force. Already some small attempt
at resistance had been made : a riotous band which had presented itself at the
Guildhall, brandishing torches and proposing to burn ‘ the book which is called
the Jubilee and all the muniments of the city of London, had been refused entry
and turned back without difficulty.1 All the wealthier citizens must
have been asking themselves whether it was necessary to wait till they were cut
oft in detail by the drunken bands which were parading the streets. Apprentices
were murdering their masters, debtors murdering their creditors ; at all risks
the anarchy must be. stopped. Yet no attempt to combine against the terror was
made, and it was not till the following day that the party of order turned out
in force.
Saturday
morning opened as gloomily as ever: the sacking of houses continued,2
and one more notable murder was wrought before the day was many hours old. John
Imworth, the Marshal of the Marshalsea, had taken sanctuary in Westminster
Abbey. A body of rioters entered the church, passed the altar rails, and tore
the unhappy man away from the very shrine of Edward the Confessor,3
one of whose marble pillars he was embracing in the vain hope that the sanctity
of the spot would protect him. He was dragged along to Cheapside, and there
decapitated.
The state of
mind of the King and his Council is sufficiently shown by the fact that instead
of endeavouring to call out the loyal citizens and the garrison of the Tower
for an open attack on the rebels, they merely tried to resume the negotiation?
J] which had
been opened at Mile End. A messenger * was sent out to the leaders of the
rebels to invite them to a second
1
This curious fact may be found in the indictment of Walter Atte Keye, in Rdville,
p. 206.
* It lasted even till the afternoon, and
some rioters were arrested in the very act of housebreaking when the reaction
began, after Tyler’s death. See Reville, Indictments, p. 195.
3
Chronicle in Hist. Rev. p. 518.
1
Sir John Newton, according to Chron. Angl. 296. It will be remembered that this
knight is said to have carried messages on June 12 also.
conference,
as it seemed, from their refusal to depart, that they had stdl something to
crave of the King. Richard invited them to meet him outside Aldersgate, in the
open place of Smitlifield, a square partly surrounded by houses, where the
cattle-market of the city was held even down to the second half of the
nineteenth century. The meeting was likely to be even more perilous than that
which had taken place on the previous day, for the rebels were now more certain
of their own strength, and had waded so far in massacre during the last
twenty-foui hours that they can have had but few scruples left. Moreover, the
greater part of the simple peasantry had gone home with their charters ; those
who remained were the extremists, the politicians, and the criminals. Tyler
himself, as his conduct was to show, was beside himself in the insolent pride
of success : we get a glimpse of him on the Friday night declaring that he
would go wherever he pleased at the head of 20,000 men, and ‘ shave the beards
’ of all who dared oppose him—‘by which’, adds the simple annalist, ‘ he meant
that he would cut oft their heads ’-1 He is also said to have
boasted that within foui days there should be no laws in England save those
which proceeded out of his own mouth.'4 It is certain that he and
his subordinate demagogues had no intention of letting the insurrection die
down But, whatever were his ultimate intentions, he did not refuse the
conference offered by the King. Did he intend to utilize it for the capture of
Richard, or perhaps for the massacre of the nobles and councillors of the royal
suite ?
Fully
conscious that they were very possibly going to their death, but yet resolved
to try this last experiment, Rinhard and his followers made ready for the
interview by riding down to Westminster, and taking the sacrament before the
high-altar from which Imworth had been torn only an hour before. The King shut
himself up for a space with an anchorite, confessed to him, and received
absolution * His
1 Chi-on. Angl p. 300. a
Ibid. p. 296
s • Ev apres ie roi parla avtsque le aukre. et luy
confrssa, et fust par louge *.empi, avecciue lui’, Hist. Rev.,
Chron. p. 518. Whn was this anchorite ?
retinue
pressed round the shrine of the Confessor in long and devout prayers. At last
they rode off together toward Smith- field. a body of about 200 men in all,
most of them in the robes of peace, but with armour hidden under their long
gowns. It is noteworthy that, when once at Westminster, Richard and his party
might have made a dash for the open country to the west,1 and have
got away to Windsor. The fact that they made no such attempt shows that the
wish to secure their personal safety was not the guiding motive of the moment:
they were determined at all costs to pacify London, if only it were possible.
At Smithfield
the King found the insurgents prepared to meet him. He and his party drew rein
011 the east side of the square, in front of St. Bartholomew’s: all along the
western side was the an ay of the rebels draw n out in 1 battles ’
in a very orderly fashion. The mid space was clear. Presently Rirhard ordered
the Mayor Walworth to proclaim to the multitude that he wished to hear their demands
by the mouth of their chief. Thereupon Tyler rode out to him on a little
hackney, with a single mounted follower bearing his banner at his heels, but no
other companion. He leapt down from his saddle, made a reverence to the King,
and then seized his hand and shook it heartily, telling him ‘ to be of good
cheer, for within a fortnight he would have thanks from the commons even more
than he had at the present hour Richard then inquired why he and his fellows
had not gone home, since all that had been asked at Mile End had been conceded
to them.3
Of what
followed we have several accounts varying in their details, though showing a
general similarity. Tyler, it would seem, answered that there were many
additional points which required to be settled over and above the mere
abolition of serfdom and manorial dues. According to one
1 This is pointed out and commented upon
with much sagacity by Mr, Trevelyan
in
his Wicliffe, p. 241.
3
All this is from the Chronicle in Hist. Rev., which gives both the most detailed
and the most probable of all the narratives. I follow it for most of the
incidents of Smithfield.
narrative he
required that the game laws should be abolished,1 according to
another that the charters concerning serfdom given on the previous day should be
revised ; but the most precise and detailed of our chronicles makes him touch
on much higher matters—‘ there should be no law save the law of Winchester,2
no man for the future should be outlawed as the result of any legal proceedings
; lords should no longer hold lordship except civilly (whatever exactly that
may mean) :3 the estates of the church should be confiscated, after
provision made for the present holders, and divided up among the laity : the
bishoprics should be abolished all save one; all men should be equally free and
no legal status should differentiate one man from another, save the King alone
Such a programme could not be settled offhand in Smithfield . if Tyler really
broached it, it must have been with the object of provoking opposition, or at
least in the hope that the King and Council would ask for delay and discussion.
Either would suit him equally well, since; he wished to have an excuse for
keeping his bands together, if not for seizing on the person of his master.
Richard, as
might have been expected, replied that the commons should have all that he
could legally grant ‘ saving the regalities of his crown \ This was practically
no answer at all—and much of what the demagogue had demanded most certainly
could not be granted by the royal fiat and without the consent of Parliament.
There was a
pause : no one said a word more, ‘ for no lord or councillor dared to open his
mouth and give an answer to the commons in such a situation Tyler, apparently
taking the King’s reply as a practical refusal, began to grow unmannerly.4
He called for a flagon of beer, wbich was
1 This comes from Knighton, ii. 137, and is
not mentioned in the Chronicle in Hist. Rev., where the other points are
rehearsed.
2 Apparently a confused reference to the
police-provisions of Edward I’s Statute of Winchester.
3 *Et que
nul seigneur averoit seigneurie fors sivelment ester proportion^ entre tous
genz, fors tant solement le seigneur le roi/ Hist. Rev., Chron. p. 519.
1 According to Hist. Rev. Chron. he called for a mug of
water and 1 rincha sa bouche laidement et villaineusement
avant le roi, pour le grand chaleur que il avoit before drinking his beer.
brought him
by one of his followers, drained it at a draught— it was a hot day and he had
made a long harangue—and then clambered upon his horse. At this moment a
Kentish \retainer, who was riding behind the King and who had beei:
intently gazing on the demagogue, remarked in audible tones that he had
recognized the man, and knew him for the most ..notorious highwayman and thief
in the county^ Tyler caught the words, looked round on the speaker and bade him
come out from among the others, ' wagging his head at him in his malice ’. When
the Kentishman refused to stir, Wat turned to the fellow who was bearing his
banner, and bade him draw his sword and cut down the variet. ^t thi - the other
answered that he had spoken the truth and done nothing to deserve death ,
whereupon the rebel unsheathed a dagger which he had been holding in his hand
throughout the debate, and pushed his horse in among the royal retinue,
apparently with the intent of taking justice into his own hands.1
Then Walwoith the Mayor thrust himself across the demagogue’s path, and cried
that he would arrest him for di awing his weapon before the King’s face. Tyler
replied by stabbing at his stomach, but the Mayor was wearing a coat of mail
under his gown and took no harm. Whipping out a short cutlass, he struck back
and wounded the rebel in the shoulder, beating him down on to his horse’s neck.
A second after one of the King’s squires, a certain John Standwick,2
ran him twice through the body with his sword. Tyler was mortally wounded, but
had just strength enough to turn his horse out of the press ; he rode hah
across the square, cried ‘ Treason ! ’ and then fell from his saddle in the
empty space in sight of the whole assembly.
1
The Hist. Rev. Chronicle says that Tyler 1 porta un dragge en
sa main quel il avoit pris d’un autre homme\ This seems to refer to the
incident described by
Chron.
Angl. p. 297, and Froissart, who says that the rebel on first meeting the King
insisted on being presented with a fine dagger that he had noticed in the
possession of one of the King’s followers,—Sir John Newton, according to Chron.
Angl. Richard ordered his knight to give it up, and Tyler continued playing
with it all through the time of his speech and the altercation which followed.
3
Or Ralph Standyche according to Knighton, ii, 138.
This was the
must critical moment oi the whole rebellion : there seemed every probability
that Richard and all his followers would be massacred. A confused cry ran
round the ranks of the insurgents as they saw their leader fall; they bent
their bows, untrussed their sheaves of arrows, and in ten seconds more would
have been shooting into the royal cortige massed in front of the gate of St.
Bartholomew’s. But the young King rose to the occasion, with a cool courage and
presence of mind Which showed that he was the true son of the Black Prince.
Spurring his steed right out into the open, he cantered towards the rebels,
throwing up his right hand to wave them back, and crying, ‘ Sirs, will you
shoot your King ? I will be your chief and captain, you shall have from me that
which you seek. Only follow me into the fields without’.1 So saying
he pointed to the open fields about St. John’s, Clerkenwell, which lay to the
north of Smithfield, and rode forth into them at a slow walk. After a moment’s
hesitation the insurgents began to stream out in his wake. Part of the royal
retinue. lost in the crowd, followed as best they could.2 But
Walworth, the Mayor, turned back hastily to the city, to bring up all the
loyalists that he could find and rescue the King from his perilous position.
For the danger was not yet over: Richard was absolutely at the mercy of the insurgents,
and nothing was more likely than that an affray might be, provoked by some
angry admirer of Tyler.
The Mayor
rode in at Aldersgate, and began to send messages to the aldermen and officers
of the twenty-four wards, bidding them turn out every armed man that could be
trusted, and come to save the King. There was a stii all through the city, and
in a few moments the party of order were beginning to draw together in
Westcheap and St. Martin’s- le-Grand. It wras in vain that the
traitor-alderman Walter Sibley, who had been present at Smithfield, strove to
disperse
1
There are as many versions of the King's words as there are descriptions of the
scene in the Chroniclers. I give the common element, partly in the phrase of
Chron. Angl. 297. But this version is too long, Richard had only time for a
hurried sentence or two.
a
But many shirked off‘pur doubt que ils avoient d’un affray Hist. Rev., Chron.
p. 520,
the
loyalists, swearing that he had seen the King slain, and warning the burgesses
to man their walls and close their gates, since no more could be done. He and
his ally Home were swept aside, ‘ after they had done all that in them lay to
pre- vent.men from succouring the King and the Mayor when they lay in such
peril No one would listen to them: Walworth within half an hour was able to
open Aldersgate and send out the van of a considerable army. The loyalists had
appeared in numbers far greater than any one had expected : the atrocities of
the last two days had converted many citizens who had been lukewarm or even
hostile to the Government, into friends of order. Whatever their discontents
had been, they could not tolerate the anarchy that was on foot, or allow London
to be burnt and sacked piecemeal. The misgovern- ment of the Council was, at
any rate, better than Tyler’s ‘hurling time’.2 When, therefore, the
banners of the more distant wards, each surrounded by its clump of bills and
bows, had come into line at the foot of St. Martin’s Street, Walworth found
that not less than 6,000 or 7,000 men had been collected. There was a
stiffening of trained soldiers from the garrison of the Tower and the
mercenaries of Sir Robert Knolles The Mayor begged that old condnttiere to take
military charge of the sortie, and march at once.
When the head
of the column reached the fields that surrounded the blackened ruins of
Clerkenweil, they found the King still safe, and engaged in parleying with the
ring of insurgents who surround him. What he had said or promised during the
last three-quarters of an hour we do not know, He must have been ‘ talking
against time ’, and arguing with strange interlocutors, for John Ball and other
wild extremists were in the press. But at last, overlooking the crowd iron) his
saddle, he saw the banners of the wards pressing forward from Smithfield, and
noted that Knolles had deployed his force to right and left, and was pushing
forward on each flank so as to encircle the mass of rebels. Presently a band of
lances pushed through the throng, and ranged itself behind
1 Sheriff’s Inquest in R^ville’s Documents,
p. 194.
3
‘And thys was called “the Hurlyng Tyme”/ Gregory’s Chronicle, p, 91.
the King, and
Knolles reported to him that 7,000 men were at his disposition. It is said that
some of these at Richard’s side whispered to him that he could now avenge
himself, by ordering his army to fall upon the insurgents, and make an end of
them. The King refused to listen to the proposal: the mob had spared him when
they had their chance, and he had not the heart to reply to their confidence by
a massacre. We are told that he answered to his evil counsellors,
three-fourths
of them have been brought here by fear and threats ; I will not let the
innocent suffer with the guilty ,.1 He simply
proclaimed to the multitude that he gave them leave to depart: many of them, as
we read, fell on their knee? ■n the trampled wheat of the fields and
thanked him for his clemency.2 A great swarm of Essex and
Hertfordshire men dispersed devious to north and east, and hurried home. The
London roughs slunk back to their garrets and cellars. Only a solid mass of
Kentishmen remained : the royal army blocked Lheir way home. But Richard formed
them into a column, gave them two knights as guides and escort, and bade them
march back through the city and over London Bridge, nothing doubting; this they
did, neither molesting nor molested, and went off from Southwark down the Old
Kent Road.
While Richard
sat triumphant on his charger, watching the multitude disperse, the Mayor
brought him the head of Tyler, the only one of the rebels who perished on that
memorable day. When Walworth went to seek him in Smithfield, the rebel could
not be found at first. His friends had carried him, three-quarters dead, into
St. Bartholomew's hospital; there the Mayor had him sought out, and dragged into
the square, where, unconscious or perhaps already dead, he suffered the
decapitation that he had inflicted on so many others. Richard ordered his head
to be taken to London
1 For this we have only Froissart’s
authority, but it probably expresses the King’s views.
2 ‘Ils
chayeront al terre en my les ble^s, comme genz discomfitees, criant al roy de
mercye pour lour mesfayt2} et le roy benignement les granta mercye
says Hist. Rev.,
Chron. 520.
Bridge, to
replace that of the unfortunate Archbishop Sudbury. Before leaving the
Clerkenwell fields, he knighted Walworth, and with him two other Londoners of
the loyal party, the Aldermen Nicolas Bramber and John Philpott, as well as the
squire John Standwick.
That
afternoon, while the watch was engaged in arresting local London malefactors
who were still at the work of plunder and blackmail,1 not realizing
what had happened, the King rode back to the Wardrobe ‘to ease him of hid heavy
day’s work'. His mother met him, crying, as we are told, ‘ Ah, fair son, what
pain and anguish have I had for you this- day ! ’ To which he made reply, ‘
Certes, Madam, 1 know it well. But now rejoice and praise God, for to-day I
have recovered my heritage that was lost, and the realm of England also ’. And
well might he make the boast, for his own courage and presence ot mmd alone had
saved the situation and turned the perilous conference of Smithfield into a
triumph. What might not have been hoped from a boy of fourteen capable of such
an achievement, and who could have guessed that this gifted but waywaid king
was to wreck his own career and end as the miserable starved prisoner of Pont
efract ?
1
e. g. the celebrated Thomas Farringdon was ‘ captus et prisonae deliberates quo
tempore idem Thomas fuit circa prostrationem tenementi Iohannis Knot, in
Stayning Lane5. Reville, Indictments, p. 195.
The Repression of the Rebellion in London and the adjacent District
Thf Kentishmen had tramped home, half cowed, half
tricked, and wholly sullen The- peasants of Essex had dispersed with their
charters, elated for the moment, yet doubting, rightly enough, if those hardly
won documents were worth the parchment on which they were engrossed. In short,
the initiative had passed out of the hands of the rebels, and was now in that
of the King and his councillors. Surrounded by the mass of armed London
burghers, and with reinforcements dropping in every day, as the squires of the
home counties came flocking in to the capital, the Government might at last
feel itself safe, and begin to devise measures for the repression of the
tumults which still raged all around It would seem that the advisers who had
most weight round the royal person at the moment were the Earl of Arundel, who
had hastily taken over the Great Seal in Sudbury’s place, and the Earls of Salisbury
and Warwick. A few days later they were joined by the King’s uncle, Thomas of
Woodstock, who came hurrying in from the Welsh March, and by the Earl of
Suffolk who (as we shall see) had escaped with some difficulty from the rebels
of East Anglia. But Richard himself, elated at the triumph which he had won at
Smithfield by his personal ascendancy over the multitude, was no longer the
mere boy that he had been down to this moment, and was for the future a factor
of importance in the government of the realm. Like hi- father, the Black
Prince, he had ‘won his spurs’ early, though in the unhappy field of civil
strife and not on the downs of Northern France.
The first
necessity was to stamp out in Londoi the last Bickerings of the fire of
insurrection. On the night of that same Junr 15 which had seen Tyler’s death,
we find the
King granting
a dictatorial authority over the city to Walworth the Mayor, with whom were
associated the old con- dottiere Robert Knolles, and the aldermen Philpott and
Bramber. They were charged with the duty of guarding the King's peace, and
given power to proceed against all malefactors not only by the law of the land,
but if necessary ‘ by other ways and means If it pleased them they might go so
far as beheading and mutilation 1
In pursuance
of this commission, Walworth and his colleagues arrested on that night and the
following day a considerable number of insurgents, Londoners and others, some
of whom were actually seized while they were still at work on the task of riot
and plunder.2 A certain proportion of these prisoners were beheaded,
without being granted a jury or a formal trial. Among them were John Kirkeby
and Alan Threder, notable leaders of the Kentishmen, and Jack Straw, who had
been Tyler’s principal lieutenant. This last- named rebel left a curious
confession behind him, which may or may not have contained an element of truth
11 it. When he had been condemned, Walworth offered to have masses said for his
soul during the next three years, if he would give some account of what the
designs of his friends had been. After some hesitation, Straw spoke out,3
and answered that Tyler had intended to keep the King as a hostage, and to take
him about through the shires, using the ( royal name as a cloak for all his
doings. Under this pretended authority he intended to arrest and execute the
leading magnates of the land, and to seize on all cEurcK property. The rebels
would have made an end altogether of bishops, canons, rectors, abbots., and
monks, and would have left no clergy in the land save the mendicant orders
Finally they
1 ‘ Ad castigandum omnes qui huiusmodi insurrectiones
et congregationes
contra pacem nostrum fecerunt, iuxta eorum demerita, vel secundum legem
Angliae, vel aliis viis et modis, per decollationes et membrorum mutilationes,
prout melius et celerius iuxta discretiones vestras vobis videbitur faciendum.*
Commission
to Walworth, &c., of June 15, 1381.
3
As for example Thomas Farringdon, see p. 79, who was actually pillaging
a house when
arrested, Reville, Documents, p. 193.
5 For his alleged revelations see Chron,
Angl, pp. 309-10. -
WAT
TYLER G
would have
killed the King himself, ‘ and when there was no one greater or stronger or
more learned than ourselves surviving, we. would have made such laws as pleased
us Tyler would have been made ruler of Kent, and other chiefs were to have
governed other counties. He added that if the scene at Smithheld had had
another end, the insurgents were intending on that same evening to set fire to
London in four places, and to have sacked the houses of all the wealthier
citizens. How much of this was the bravado of despair, how much a serious
revelation of the plans of the rebel leaders, it is wholly impossible to
determine. We may at least believe that the projected atrocities lost nothing
in the mouths of the horrified auditors who reported them to the chronicler.
Another of
the victims of Walworth’s court-martial was John Starling, an Essex man, who
said that he had been the actual executioner of the Archbishop. He had made
himself notorious by going about with a drawn sword hanging from his neck in
front, and a dagger dangling on his back to match it. He owned to the murder
before the Mayor, and gloried in it even at the gallowsJ-
The
executions, in spite of the magniloquent language of some of the chroniclers,
do not seem to have been very numerous. Even persons who had taken such a
prominent part in the insurrections, as Thomas Fariingdon, and the aldermen
Home and Sibley, were imprisoned, but not put to death under martial law. After
long detention they and many others escaped the extreme penalty, and were
released in 1382 or 1383 on bail and finally allowed to get off scot free.2
1 Was Starling one of the class of lunatics
who claim to have done any great murder that is occupying public attention ?
Such folks crop up frequently in our own day. His actions, as reputed by the
Chron. Angl. (p. 313), were not those of a sane man, for he walked about
London, after the restoration of order, saying that he had killed Sudbury and
expected the reward of his meritorious deed.
3 Horne, Sibley, and Tonge were let out on
bail in April 1383, finding personal security for £300, and providing each four
guarantors who undertake on a penalty of £200 to produce them if called upon.
In 1384 they are finally discharged, and 1 eantquieti See
documents in R^ville, pp. 198-9. Farringdon, whose guilt was even greater,
since he had been in the Tower at the moment of
After the
first hour of wrath was over the Government (as we shall see) showed itself far
less vindictive than might have been expected. We can hardly credit a story of
the chronicler Malverne to the effect that certain nsurgents, who had taken
part in the slaughter of the Flemish merchants, were handed over to the private
vengeance of the relatives of those whom they hud murdered, and that some of
them were beheaded by the very hands of the widows of the unfortunate
merchants.1 There is no trace of an\ such extraordinary measures of
retaliation in the official documents relating to the rebellion.
The peace of
London ha\ mg been provided foi, and a considerable army having been mustered
and reviewed on the rebels’ old camping-ground of Blackheath, the Government
could now take in hand vigorous measures for the repression of the rebellion in
the shires. Or J une 18, a general proclamation to all sheriffs, mayors,
bailiffs, &c., was issued, charging them with the duty of dispersing and
arresting malefactors in their respective spheres of action.2 This
was followed by more specific commissions two days later : on June 20, the
sheriff of Kent, the constable of Dover Castle, Sir Thomas Trivet, the old
condottiere, and two others, are directed to take in hand the pacification of
Kent, where many rebels were still hanging together, and where pillage and
charter-burning was still in progress.3 On the same day, apparently,
the Earl of Suffolk was sent down with 500 lances to establish law and order in
the county from which he drew his title.4 But the region in which
the insurrection seemed least inclined to die down, and where the bands were
most numerous, was Essex, and it was thither that on June 22 the King directed 1
his march at the head of the main body of his army. On the following day he was
at Waltham, and there published a
the
Archbishop’s murder, was imprisoned for a time in Devizes Castle, but pardoned
as early as Feb. 25, 1382.
1 Malverne, p. 8.
2 There is a copy of this document in
Chron. Angl. p. 314.
1
The text may be found in R^ville, p. 236.
4 The Earl had already reached Sudbury on
June 23 with his corps, so probably started from London on the twentieth or at
latest on the twenty-first.
G 2
curious
proclamation, warning all his subjects against rumours put about by the rebels
to the effect that he approved of their doings and that they were acting in
obedience to his orders Richard in no measured language declares that he has
not, and never had, any sympathy for their riotous and treasonable conduct,
and that he regards their rising as highly prejudicial to his kingdom anti
crown. All true men an1 to resist, arrest, and punish any bands
found under arms, as rebels against their sovereign lord.
This
proclamation was perhaps provoked by the arrival at Waltham of a deputation
sent by the Essex insurgents, with a demand for the ratification of the
promises made at Mile End on June 14, and a request that they might be granted
the additional privilege of freedom from the duty of attending the King’s
courts, save for the view of frankpledge once a year.1 Richard spoke
out roundly to this embassy ; he told them that the pledges made during Tyler’s
reign counted for nothing, having been extorted by force. ‘ Villeins ye ire
still, and villeins ye shall remain ’, he added, ending with a threat that
armed resistance would draw down dreadful vengeance. It is clear that, the
sentimental sympathy for the oppressed peasantry attributed to the young King
by some modem authors had no real existence. He was incensed at the duress
which he had suffered on June 14-15, and anxious to revenge himself.
The Essex
rebels, or at least a large section of them, were not prepared to submit
without trying the chances of war. The Government and the insurrection had not
yet been matched against each other in the open field, and in the vain hope of
mairtaining their newly-won liberties by force the local leaders sent out the
summons for a general mobilization at Great Baddow and Rettenden, not far
south of Chelmsford. They threatened to burn the house of every able-bodied man
who failed to come to the rendezvous.2 A great host was thus got
together, and the rebels stockaded themselves in a strong position upon the
edge ot a wood near
1
See Chron. Angl. p. 316.
3
See R6ville, p. cxvi, and Chron. Angl. p. 316.
Billericay,
covering their flanks and rear with ditches and row’s of carts1
chained together, after the fashion that the English had been wont to employ in
the French wars.
Hearing of
this muster, the King dispatched against it tht vanguard of his army, under his
uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, and Sii Thomas Percy, the brother of the Earl of
Northumberland. There was a sharp light, but the entrenchments of the rebels
were carried at the first charge, and a great number of them—as many as 500, if
the chronicles can be trusted— were cut down [J une 28]. The rest escaped under
the cover of the forest in their rear, but the victors captured their camp, in
which were found no less than 800 horses.
The majority
of the insurgents dispersed after this unfortunate appeal to arms, but the
more compromised among the leaders kept at ousiderable band
together,and,retiring on Colchester, tried to persuade the townsmen of that
place to continue the struggle. Meeting with little encouragement there, they
continued their flight northward, and reached Sudbury in Suffolk, where they
hoped to recruit new levies, as the insurrection had been very violent in that
region ten days before. But Suffolk had already been pacified, and instead of
meeting with reinforcements, the rebels were attacked by a body of local
loyalists under Lord Fit^:-Walter and Sir John Harleston. They were routed,
many captured, and the rest scattered to the w inds.
Another band,
also, as it would appear, composed of Essex men, fled in another direction
about this same time, and tried to escape northward in the direction of
Huntingdon, but the burghers turned out and drove them off. The wrecks of this
party escaped to the abbey of Ramsey, whither they were pursued by the victors.
They were surprised, some iwenty- tive slain, and the rest dispersed.2
For this loyal act the men of Huntingdon received the King’s thanks.
Meanwhile
Richard advanced by slow stages to Chelmsford, in the rear of his uncle and the
vanguard He reached the
1 4 Se munierant in fossatis palis et cariagio,
praeterquam fruebantur maiori silvarum et nemorum tutamento’, ibid. 317.
3
Hist. Rev., Chron. p. 521.
*
place on July
2, and there issued a proclamation which formally revoked all the charters
issued at Mile End, both those of manumission and those of amnesty for crimes
done during the first days of the revolt. The ground was thus cleared for a
judicial inquiry into all the proceedings of the rebels from the first moment
of their assembly. The chief part in this great session was taken by Sir Robert
Tresilian, who had been named Chief Justice, in the room of tht murdered
Cavendish. He sat in many places, mostly in Essex and Hertfordshire, while
Belknap and other of his colleagues were busy in Kent and elsewhere.
The
restoration of peace and order in Kent, we may remark, was not accomplished by
the march of a great army, like that of Essex, nor was there anjT
single decisive combat .such as that which took place at Billericay. The
Constable of Dover, Sir Thomas Trivet, and after a time Thomas Holland, the
Earl of the shire, seem to have gone round at the head of small bodies of local
levies, trampling out the last embers of revolt and arresting gr^at numbers of
insurgents. They met with little or no resistance, yet the rising had been so
widespread that July was far spent before they had visited every township and
restored the machinery of government in each.
It has not
^infrequently been stated that the months of July and August were a veritable
reign of terror in London and the south-eastern counties, that the executions
were numbered not by scores but by hundreds. Froissart’s estimate of 1,500
rebels hanged or beheaded does not. suffice for some modern historians, and
even Bishop Stubbs thought it worth while to quote the monk of Evesham’s wild
estimate that seven thousand persons perished. It is satisfactory for the
credit of the English nation to find, from the original records of the
inquests, trials, and escheats, that these figures are as gross exaggerations as
most other estimates of the mediaeval chronicles. We cannot, owing to
unfortunate lacunae in our documents, reconstitute anything like a complete
list of the victims of the reaction. 1 Jut we have enough evidence to show that
it cannot have been very large. The
praiseworthy
and painstaking efforts of Amlr6 Reville in exploring the rolls of the Record
Office resulted in tliFcoin- piling of a list ot 110 persons who had suffered
capital punishment for their doings in the insurrection.1 O: course
this total is incomplete, but by comparing the rolls of persons indicted or
delated with those of the executed, we cannot fail to come to the conclusion
that the larger proportion of those who perished have been identified.
On the whole
the proceedings of the justices seem to have been far more moderate, and the
observation of forms of law more complete than we should have expected. The
only persons put to death without a proper trial were Jack Straw and a few
other leaders who fell into the hands of the Government at the very
commencement of the repression. But the number of these was very small, as is
clearly shown by the passage, in the Rolls of the next Parliament, which
specially speaks of them as a few ‘ capitaines, hastiment descolldz sans
processe de ley ’.2
When the
Government had recovered from its panic, every prisoner without exception was
proceeded against under the normal processes of law, with the co-operation of a
jury. Even such a notorious offender as John Ball was no exception. He had fled
from London after Tyler’s death, but was caught in hiding at Coventry, whence
he was taken to St. Albans to be tried before Chief Justice Tresilian. On July
13 he met his accusers, fearlessly avowed that he was guilty of taking a
leading part in the insurrection, and acknowledged that the incendiary letters
dispersed in Kent were of ms wi.iuig, He denied that any of his doings were
blameworthy, and refused to ask for a pardon from the King. Considering that he
had not only fomented the rising, but apparently was present in the Tower
during Sudbury's muider, it is not astonishing that he was condemned to be
hanged, drawn, and quartered. What does provoke surprise is that, at the
special request of Courtenay, Bishop of London, he was given two days
1
See Petit-Dutaillis’s remarks of Rtfville's figures on p. cxxi of his introduction
to the latter’s book.
1
Rolls of Parliament, iii. 175.
respite to
make his peace with God, and only executed on July T5-1
No doubt
there must have, been a certain amount of judicial errors committed during the
trials of the rebels in July- August 1381. We are told that in many cases the
juries of presentment allowed themselves to be carried away by old grudges and
personal enmities, and delated individuals who were comparatively innocent as guilty
of the graver offences. In other instances the jurors, conscious that their own
conduct would not bear examination, pandered to the desires of the judges by
denouncing such persons as they knew that the Government would gladly see
indicted. Tresilian occasionally hectored juries, and frightened them into
giving up the names of local leaders, by warning them that their own necks
would not be safe if they shielded the guilty.2
But on the
other hand there are numerous signs of a merciful spirit on the part of the
Government. There were many reprieves and pardons from the very first, and on
August 30, Richard was advised to issue orders that all further arrests and
executions were to cease, and that the consideration of the cases of all rebels
still in prison and untried should be transferred from the local courts to the
King’s Bench. This practically brought the hangings to an end, for one after
another the -surviving insurgents were pardoned and released. An amnesty for
all save certain specified offenders was pub- ( lished on December 14, 1381;
the larger number of these 247 excepted persons were fugitives, who had not
fallen into the hands of the law, and never did. Of those who were unlucky
enough to be. caught and imprisoned there is a fairly long list. We shall see,
when dealing with the annals of the Parliament that met in November 1381, that
it was at first proposed to exclude from the amnesty the towns of Canterbury,
Cambridge, Bridgewater, Bury St. Edmunds, Beverley, and Scarborough, in each of
which the majority of the townsfolk bad been implicated in the rising. But
after consideration Bury alone was excepted from the general pardon, for
reasons
1
Chron. Ang\ p. 320.
'
See for example Chron. Angl. p. 3113.
which we
shall easily comprehend when we come to deal with the events that took place in
that turbulent town.
After the
amnesty had been proclaimed a great number of persons whose names were not on
the list of the excluded thought it worth while to procure from the Chancery
letters de non molestando, protecting them against any further inquiry by the
sheriffs and justices. They were then quit of all further trouble. Not so the
excepted men, actually in the hands of the law, who had to stand their trials :
yet it is surprising to find how lightly these latter were dealt with. The
Government, when the first spasm of revenge had passed, was extraordinarily
merciful, and seems to have considered that anything was better than waking
anew the memories of the rebellion by belated executions. Among persons who
escaped with their lives after shorter or longei terms of durance we may quote
not only the London offenders already spoken of—Farringdon, Horne, and
Sibley—but Thomas Sampson, the leader of revolt about Ipswich, Robert
Westbroun, who had been saluted ‘ King of the Commons ’ at Bury,^and Sir Roger
Bacon, a great offender (as we shall see) in Eastern Norfolk? These three were
released at various dates between December 1381 and April 1385.1 The
only man who seems to have endured a really long term of imprisonment was
Robert Cave of Dartford, the leader of the first assembly in Kent. He must be
considered very fortunate, for having escaped the first burst of vengeance: but
having done so was simply left in pnson, and kept there till 1392, when he was
turned loose.2 Considering the sanitary condition of mediaeval
prisons, we must conclude that he possessed a wonderful constitution.
1
Bacon was amnestied on December 18, 1381, Sampson in January 1383,
Westbroun in
April 1385. See R^ville's notes and appendices, pp. 158, 173.
3
See document 3, p. 180, in R6ville’s Appendix.
The Rebellion in the Home Counties and the South
In following up the fate of the insurgents of
London, Kent, and Essex, whose doings form the main thread of the history of
the Great Rebellion of 1381, we have been drawn on beyond the strict sequence
of events. While Tyler was running riot in the capital, troubles were beginning
to break out in regions of which we have hitherto hardly spoken, While the
Government was already commencing its measures of repression in the Home
Counties, the rebellion was only just reaching high-water mark in districts
remote from the centre of affairs. For the rising in the outlying shires only
began when the news of the successes of the first insurgents was bruited
abroad, and so came to a head some days after Tyler’s march on London, and
continued for some time after his death. It was long before the full import of
the dramatic scene at Smithfield on Saturday, June 15, became known in the
remoter centres of disturbance.
Though all
the counties of Eastern and South-Eastern England were affected by the
insurrection, we shall see that the only district where the troubles broke out
with an intensity similar to that seen in Kent and Essex, was East Anglia, i.e.
the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridge. There we find a reign of
anarchy of the most complete kind with marked local peculiarities of its own.
But outside this focus the troubles were no more than the ground-swell moving
outward from the central disturbance which had burst so tempestuously upon
London. In Surrey, Sussex or Hertfordshire, and still more in the remote
counties, the riots and outrages were sporadic and short-lived; they only broke
out where there was some pre-existing provocative cause, or where detachments
from the main body of the insurgent horde were actually present or close at
hand
Northern
Surrey, Middlesex, and Hertfordshire were in actual contact with Tyler’s hordes
after they had marched on London. In all these the troubles broke out only
after the arrival of the Kentishmen at Blackheath : emboldened by the sight of
these successful insurgents, the inhabitants of the villages for a ring of ten
miles round the capital copied their doings; they burnt the local manor rolls,
and often the manors with them, and sometimes blackmailed or hunted away
unpopular residents. We can trace serious disturbances at Clapham, Croydon,
Kennington, Kingston-on- Thames, Harrow, Barnet. Inhabitants of almost every
parish of Middlesex and Northern Surrey are to be found among the list of
persons excluded from the general pardon issued by the King, at the end of the
measures of repression which followed the revolt. Hendon, Hounslow, Rulalip,
Twickenham, Chiswick, Carshalton, Sutton, Mitcham1—the list would be
endless if complete—each supply their contingent ; some of the outlawed men
had been to London, and taken a prominent part in the arson and murder started
by Tyler’s gangs : others had done local mischief. In the mun the inhabitants
of the suburban region had merely then rural grievances to avenge, and struck
out no line of their own ; they simply followed the lead of the Kentishmen.
In
Hertfordshire the tale is more interesting, all the more so that we have
elaborate narratives of the proceedings of the rebels by monks of St. Albans
and Dunstable, so that we can follow the progress of events with a minuteness
of detail that is wanting in most other regions. Though there was a good deal
of the ordinary revolt against serfdom and manorial customs in the county, yet
in the main centre of trouble, at St. Albans, a very different cause was at the
bottom of the disturbance. Here the rising of 1381 was but an incident in a
long and venomous struggle between the abbots and the townsfolk : it is exactly
parallel to the similar feud at Bury St. Edmunds, which we shall have to
mention when dealing with East Anglia. St, Albans, like Bury, was a
considerable market town which had grown up around the
1
See the documents in R6villef pp. 214-33.
ubbey; if it
had been on royal demesne., or had belonged to some, lay lord, it would long
ago have obtained a charter of incorporation, and have achieved some measure of
local autonomy. But the wealthy and powerful abbots, free from the political
necessities which affected kings, and the financial stress which often lay
heavy on earls and barons, h<id never sold or given municipal freedom to
their vassals. The town of St. Albans remained a mere manor, governed
autocratically by the monks, and for two hundred years had been charing against
the yoke. The jeading inhabitants bitterly resented the pressure of the dead
hantLof the church, which kept them in the same subjection as the serfs of a
rural hamlet, and carefully maintained every petty restraint that dated back to
the twelfth or eleventh century. They were always on the look-out for a chance
of upsetting the dominion of the abbots and winning their liberty 1
They had even invented a legend that the town had received a charter from King
Offa, which the monks had stolen away and suppressed. In 1274 and again in 1314
and 1326 they had risen against their lords and freed themselves for a moment,
only to be put down by the interference of the royal authority.
Hence the
insurrection of 1381 seemed to the townsfolk of St. Albans an admirable
opportunity for making one more dash for liberty. They were neither rural serfs
oppressed with boonwork, nor politicians anxious to remove ‘ traitors ’ from
the ministry, but they saw the advantage of throwing in their lot with the
rebels of Kent and Essex. Moreover they had a very able and determined leader
in the person of a certain William (inndcobbe, one of the few popular chiefs of
the day of whom we possess a detailed knowledge.
The trouble*
began at St. Albans only on June 14, the day after Tyler entered London;z
but it is clear that the. leaders of the townsfolk had been watching the face
of affairs for some days before. ()n that morning a deputation presented itself
to the abbot Thomas de la Mare, a hard-handed and litigious priest much hated
by his vassals,3 and informed him that
1
Gesta Abbatum, III. p. 329. s
Chron. Angl. p. 289.
8
For a sketch of his character see Riley's Preface to Gesla Abbafum, III. x.
they had
received a summons from the chief of the Kentish- men. They were bidden to come
to him in arms and pledge their loyalty to the true Commons of England: if they
delayed, Tyler had sworn that he would come in person to St. Albans and lay
the town waste. This pretence of compulsion can hirdly have deceived the
abbot, more especially as Grindcobbe, the leader of the deputation, was a noted
enemy of the monastery, and had been excommunicated and forced to do penance
for violent assaults on certain of the brethren.
The band of
townsfolk started for London at dawn on June 14, and passed Highbury just as
the mano* was being burnt by Jack Straw;1 they fraternized with his
band, took the oath to ‘King and Commons and pressed on their way. They were in
time for the end of the conference at Mile End, slipped in among the
representatives of the Essex hundreds, and were promised one of the numerous
charters which the King’s clerks were distributing that day. While it was being
written, Grmdcobbe and some of his associates stole away and interviewed Wat
Tyler, who made them swear a solemn oath recognizing him as their captain and
chief : he promised them his ;<id, gave them a set of instructions as to
the line of conduct they were to pursue with the abbot, and vowed that they
should have the aid of 20,000 of his men to ‘ shave the monks’ beards ’ if they
met with any resistance.2
Without
waiting for the King’s letter, the leaders of the St. Albans townsmen hastened
back that same afternoon to their houses—they must have gone more than thirty
miles that day—and proclaimed to their friends that the Kmg had abolished
serfdom and all manorial nghts. As a token of theii new freedom they broke
down, before retiring to rest, the gates of the abbot’s home-park, and
destroyed the house of one of his officials in the town
Next mcrning the
whole of the townsfolk set to work to make an end of the outward and visible
signs of the abbot’s seignorial authority over them. They drained his
fish-pond, broke down the hedges of his preserves, killed his game, and
1
Chron. Angl. p. o$o. s
Ibid. ji. 300
cut up and
divided among themselves certain plots of his domain ground. They hung a rabbit
at the end of a pole on the town pillory, as a token that tliti game-laws were
abolished. But it was not only rabbits that were killed that day : the mob
entered the abbot’s prison, and held a sort of informal session on its inmates.
They acquitted and dismissed all the captives save one, a notorious malefactor,
whom they condemned and executed, fixing up his head alongside of the dead
rabbit.
Presently
those of the deputation who had remained behind in London arrived with the
King’s letter , which they had duly received. Armed with this all-important
document they interviewed the abbot, and after a long debate, in which the wily
ecclesiastic tried all possible methods of turning them from their end.
obtained all the old regal charters on which his manorial rights were based,
and burnt them in the market-place. They then tried to get from him the
imaginary charter of King Offa, granting borough rights to their ancestors ;
this, of course, could not be found 1; in default of it the abbot
was told to draw up a new document emancipating the townsmen. He did so, but it
failed to satisfy them, and they resolved to construct one for the mselves,
and to force him to seal and sign it. Meanwhile this same: Saturday saw the
sacking of the houses of the abbey officials, and an irruption into the
monastery buildings to tear up some famous stones in the floor of one of the
rooms. These were ancient millstones, a trophy of the victory of a former
abbot, who had prevented the inhabitants from establishing private mills of
their own, and had confiscated their querns to pave his parlour.2 No
other damage of importance was done to the abbey buildings.
On Sunday
morning the scenes of Smithfield and the death of Tyler were known in St.
Albans. But neither abbot nor townsfolk knew exactly how much was implied by
the King's success. The news, however, rendered the noters
1
Gesta Abbatutn, III. 991-2.
1
This had been the work of Abbot Roger Norton in 1274. See Gesta AM- batum, I.
453 and III. 309.
cautious, and
they drew up a very moderate charter for themselves. By it their liege lord was
made (a) to grant them wide rights of pasturage on his waste ; (b) to give them
leave to hunt and fish in his woods and ponds ; (c) to abolish the monopoly of
the seignoria1 nidi; (d) to concede to the town municipal freedom,
the right to govern itself by its own elected magistrates without any
interference on the part of the bailiff and other officials of the monastery.1
When the men
of St. Albans had worked their will on the abbot, his troubles were by 110
means at an end. Between Saturday, June 15, and the following Wednesday, J nne
19, he was visited by more or less turbulent deputations from all the minor
manors belonging to the abbey, who, by more or less violent harangues and
threats, forced him to ratify the King’s general abolition of serfdom, by
drawing up a charter for each village. He was made to resign his rights over
all his serfs, and often to grant free hunting and fishing, and exemption from
tolls and dues, to them. Except that they killed the game and broke the closes
in the abbatial preserves in their neighbourhood, they seem to have conducted
themselves with moderation. No murder and little pillage or blackmailing is
reported,^'
The Abbot of
St. Albans was the greatest landowner, but by no means the only one in
Hertfordshire. The rising was, of course, not confined to the boundaries of his
scattered estates. At Tring, which belonged to the ‘traitor’ Archbishop of
Canterbury, there was a bonfire of local manorial archives. The houses of two
justices of the peace, John Lodewick of Digswell and John Kymperle of Watford,
were broken open. The indictments drawn up after the rebellion was over, nive
us many more instances of roll-burning and of violent seizure of lands in
various comers of the county. The Priors of Redboume and Dunstable were forced
to draw up charters emancipating their servile tenants, just as their wealthier
neighbour at St. Albans had been.2 But on the whole, the doings of
the Hertfordshire men compare very
1
For the text see Gesta Abbatum, III. 317-20.
J
See Annals 0/Dunstable, pp. 417-18.
favourably
with those of their neighbours. Only two murders are reported from the county,
both of persons of no importance : but one of them (that of an unpopular
bailiff at Cublecote) deserves mention, because it was committed by a band
headed by a priest, ‘Hugh, the Parson of Puttenham’.1 In every shire
there was a proportion of the lower clergy implicated in the most violent
episodes of the rising.
When the day
of repression and punishment arrived, there was no attempt at armed resistance
in Hertfordshire, as there had been in Kent, Essex, and East Anglia. This was
due partly to the cautious behaviour of the King’s ministers, who acted by
negotiation instead of by open attack, and partly to the fact that the
insurgents, conscious that they had no long list of atrocities to their
discredit, did not feel so desperate as the Kentishmen or the East Anglians.
After much haggling with the abbot, the St. Albans men surrendered their
charter, and bound themselves to pay a fine of £200 for the damage that they
had done to the monastic property, while their lord engaged, on his part, not
to delate them to the King, nor to press for their punishment. Richard arrived
in person at St. Albans on July 12, after ha\ing made an end of the Essex
rebels. The whole population of the county did homage to him, assembled in the
great court of the abbey, acknowledged their guilt, and swore never again to
rise in arms. In return, the King pledged his word that none should suffer
except ringleaders in definite acts of rebellion or murder, who should be dealt
with by regular process of law.2
About eighty
persons were arrested in the county ; they were tried by Robert Tresilian, the
Chief J astice of the King’s Bench. All were regularly ‘ presented ’ by local
juries : indeed, Tresilian took the precaution of summoning three separate
bodies of jurors one after another, each of which was made to go through the
list of suspects, so that no prisoner was brought to trial who had not been
delated by thirty six of his neighbours.3 In all, fifteen insurgents
were
1
The victim’s, namt was William Bragg. See R t'ville:, p. <10.
s Chron,
Angl, p, 325.
• Chron. AttjJ. p. 320; Gesta Abhaturn,
III. 34;.
condemned and
executed, three of whom were prominent inhabitants of St. Albans ; the rest
were persons concerned in the two murders that had taken place in the shire, or
in other acts of violence. Thus it cannot be said that the vengeance of the
Government was ruthless or indiscriminate ; the remainder of the rebels,
including several leaders who had laid themselves open to severe punishment,
were released after a few weeks or months of imprisonment.1 The most
notable victim of Tresilian’s sessions was the chief organizer ot the St.
Albans rising, William Grindcobbe, a man whose courageous bearing and evident
disinterestedness might have moved a sentiment of pity and admiration in any one
but the monastic chronicler, who has told his tale.2 This ‘son of
Belial ’ was liberated on bail in the early days of repression, under the
expectation that he would use his influence with the townsfolk to procure their
speedy submission. He disappointed the abbot’s hopes. The harangue which he
made to his neighbours rings finely even when reproduced by the monk’s
unsympathetic pen. ‘ Friends, who after so long an age of oppression, have at
last won yourselves a short breath ox freedom, hold firm while you can, and
have no thought for me 01 what I may sufter. For if I die for the cause of the
liberty that we have won, I shall think myself happy to end mj life as a
martyr. Act now as you would have acted supposing that I had been beheaded at
Hertford yesterday.’ He returned to prison, and was one of the first to suffer.
St. Albans had to wait till the Reformation before it achieved the liberty of
which he had dreamed.
About the
troubles of Sussex and Hants we are much less
1
See R6ville, pp. 152-3, and the corresponding documents in the list oi
indictments.
3 The most odious paragraphs in the St.
Albans Chronicle are those which tell the story of what happened to the bodies
of Grindcobbe and his fellows. Their friends stole them away and buried them ;
but they were compelled to dig them up, when far gone in corruption, and to
hang them up again with their own hands. ‘ Et quidem merito says the
chronicler, 1 hoc erat foedum officium virorum usurpantium
minus iuste nomen u civium ”, ut apte vocarentur, et essent,
suspensores hominum. Compulsi sunt propriis manibus suos concives resuspendere
catenis ferreis, quorum iam corpora tabe fluentia, putrida et foetentia, odorem
intolerabilem refundebant&c. Ckron. Attgl. 326.
WAT
TYLER H
well-informed
than about those of the. East Midlands. We know that in the former county the
villeins of the Earl of Arundel were up in arms dui mg the days that followed
Tyler’s entry into London: one chronicler tells us in vague terms that many
murders were committed in the shire,1 and the less doubtful evidence
of the royal escheators shows us that at least two rebels were executed in
Sussex, while eight more who had escaped the gallows by' flight were outlawed.
In Hampshire it would seem that the centre of revolt lay among the urban malcontents
of Winchester, rather than among the peasantry. Apparently the lower class of
craftsmen rose against the burgess-oligarchy of mayor and aldermen. as had
happened in London. At any rate, the list of the confiscated property of local
rebels condemned to death or outlawed, shows that we are dealing with small
tradesmen and artisans- skinners, tailors, hosiers, fullers, &c. There is
only one exception, a wealthy draper, named William Wigge, whose goods were
valued at £81, and who got a pardon in February 1383, though three knights of
the Parliament of 1381-2 had protested against his being included in the list
of pardons, because he had been a leader in ‘ treasons and felonies ’.2
No doubt, like Home and Sibley in London, he had gone against his own class
owing to some old municipal grudge.
1
The Continuator of the Eulogium Historiarum, p. 354.
1
See the Winchester documents in R^ville, pp. 278-9, especially no. 192.
The Rebfliion in Norfolk and Suffolk
When we cast our eyes northward, and turn from Wessex
to East Anglia we find a very different state of affairs. The rebellion in
Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire was not sporadic and partial, but
universal and violent in the extreme. There was as much disorder and even more
arson and murder than had prevailed in Kent and Essex. The urban and the rural
districts were equally affected; though the motives were diverse, the action of
peasants and townsfolk was similar in its reckless and misdirected energy. The
movement received its original impulse from London and Essex, yet its history
was not intimately connected with that of the main rebellion. It came to a head
after Tyler’s death, and was at its height when the insurgents of the south had
already been dispersed. Its leaders seem to have had no ambition beyond that of
dominating their own districts, and made no attempt to march on the capital, or
to rekindle the smouldering embers of revolt in Essex and Kent. Finally, the
main rising was quelled, not by force sent from the capital, but bv local magnates.
The whole story of the eastern revolt can be treated as an independent episode.
Our
authorities give us no reason for supposing that any trouble broke out in East
Anglia before June 12, the day when the Kentishmen reached Blackheath On that
day the most prominent of the chiefs of the rising, John Wraw, made his
appearance at Liston, on the Stour, just outside the shire-line of Suffolk, at
the head of a band of rioters, mostly drawn fmm Essex. There he. made
proclamation thal he was come to right the grievances of all men. and called
the* ‘ true commons ’ to hi? banner, sending a special message to the
neighbouring town of Sudbury, from which he expected to raise a large
contingent of allies. Wnen a few scores ot
H 2
rioters had
rallied round him, he opened his proceedings by sacking the manor of Richard
Lyons, that same dishonest financier whom the ‘ Good Parliament ’ had impeached
five years before, and whom the London mob was to murder next day. Evidently
the name of Lyons so stank in the nostrils of all Englishmen, that an assault
on his property was a good advertisement for an insurgent chief just about to
open his career. On the following morning Wraw was already at the head of a
great horde of followers, and able to take serious enterprises in hand.
— Rebellions
do not flare up in this sudden fashion unless the ground has been prepared.
What were the special circumstances which made Norfolk and Suffolk so ready
and eager to rise ? They were the most thickly peopled counties in England, and
Norfolk at least (Suffolk was poorer) stood at the head of the list in wealth
also.1 They were not purely rural and agricultural: besides the
towns such as Norwich, Lynn, Bury St. Edmunds, Ipswich, and Yarmouth, which
were noted for their commerce, they were full of minor centres of industry :
even small villages had a considerable proportion of artisans among their
population. It would seem that the. economic condition of the countryside
compared favourably wil h that of any other part of the realm. But nowhere else
was there a greater and more flagrant diversity between the status ot different
sections of the people. Side by side there were towns which enjoyed the best
possible charters, such as Norwich and Yarmouth, and others, like Bury, which
had been gripped in the dead hftnd of the church, and had never been able to
win their municipal independence. Set among the rural districts there were
villages where the old preponderance of the free man (so prominent in the
Norfolk of Domesday Book) had never disappeared, where there was no demesne
land, or where at least the inhabitants owed nothing to the demesne.2
But on the other hand, there were
1
Norfolk, with 97,817 inhabitants, stands in the Poll Tax returns of 1377 at the
head of all the counties, save the vast shire of York with 131,040; Suffolk
comes fourth in the list, being beaten only by the far larger county of
Lincoln, which runs Norfolk close with 95,119 inhabitants.
1
See Vinogradoff’s Villeinage m England, p. 316.
other places
where the manorial system reigned in its ex- tremest foim, and where every due
and service was stringently exacted. Tt is notable that many East Anglian
landowners had already despaired of the old system, and let out all theit
estates on farm, since it was no longer possible to work them profitably by the
labour of the villeins.1 Wherever this had happened, the peasants of
the neighbouring manors must have chafed more than ever at their own servitude.
It has been noted that peasant-revolts all over Europe were wont to spring up,
not in the regions where the serf was in the deepest oppression; but in those
in which he was compantively well off, where he was strong enough to aspire to
greater liberty, and to dream of getting it by force. This was a marked feature
of the great German rising of 1525, where the regions on which feudalism
pressed heaviest were precisely those which took no part in the insurrection.
It would seem that the same rule held in England, and that the violence of the
outburst in East Anglia was due to the fact that it was the most advanced of
all the sections of rural England. Freedom was almost in sight, and therefore
seemed worth striving for. We may add to this general cause all the particular
causes that we have noted in other parts of England—hatred of hard-handed
landlords, clerical or lay. in some parts, grievances in the towns felt by the
small folk against the local oligarchy, political discontent with the
misgovemment of the land. It would be rash, however, to add the possible
influence of Wvcliffite doctrines which some have suspected in these counties.
Though afterwards a great focus of Lollardy they showed in 1381 no signs of
being actuated by religious motives.2 If clerical landlords were
attacked, it was because they were landlords, not because they were clerics. If
an unusual number of poor parsons appear among the rebel leaders, it was
because they were poor and disc ontented, not because they were fanatical
reformers. In East Anglia, as in Herts
1
See Petit-Dutaillis’s note on p. 56 of Reville, to the effect that the letting
of manors in farms was far more common in Norfolk than in e, g. Kent,
Middlesex, or
any other county.
3 See Reville, pp. 123-4, most convincing
pages*
Or Kent or
Essex, we find no sign whatever of a tendency to church-breaking or other
sacrilege. It is one of the most notable features of the rebellion throughout
the whole of England.
The leaders
of the East Anglian rising were drawn from many and divers ranks ot life. In
Kent and Essex the insurgent chiefs, with the exception of John Bail, were
peasants and artisans ; in London a few’ c itizens of wealth and good position,
like the aldermen Horne and Sibley, and Thomas Farringdon, had been drawn into
the revolution either by personal grievances or by bitter municipal quarrels.
In Norfolk and Suffolk we find not only, as has been already pointed out, an
extraordinary number of priests among the organizers of the troubles, but also
a fair sprinkling of men drawn from the governing classes. Two local squires
were deeply implicated in the disturbances at Bury, a knight, bearing the
honoured name of Roger Bacon, directed the sack of Yarmouth, another, Sir
Thomas Comerd, is recorded as having gone about levying blackmail at the head
of a band. In addition, members of well-known county families of Norfolk and
Suffolk, such as Richard and John Talmache, James Bedingfield, Thomas de
Monchensey, Thomas Gissing, William Lacy, are found taking an active part in
deeds of murder and pillage : it is clear from the details that they were
willing agents, and had not been forced by threats to place themselves at the
head of the hordes which followed them. After studying the crimes laid to their
account, we are driven to believe that they were unquiet spirits, who took
advantage of the sudden outbreak of anarchy in order to revenge old grudges 01
to plunder their weaker neighbours. It is impossible to recognize in them
‘liberal ’ members of the governing class, honestly endeavouring to guide the
revolt into channels of constitutional reform.1 Their deeds betray
their real character : the genuine reformer does not
1 I therefore cannot agree with Mr. Powell
in his East Anglian Revolt when he says that * A genuine sympathy for the
working-classes, combined with the strong aversion which they held, in common
with them, to the Poll Tax, may possibly account for these members of the
better class giving their active assistance to the revolutionary party [p. 3].
occupy
himself in compelling his neighbours to sel1 him their land at a
nominal price, or in extorting money by threats from those who are too weak to
defend themselves.1 But it is clear, from the way in which these
East Anglian knights and squires behaved, that the insurrection was not
socialistic in its general bent, nor purely a rising of the poor against the
rich. If that had been the case, the lebels would never have chosen landed
gentry for their leaders.
It seems, in
short, that the rising in the eastern counties was caused by a general
explosion of the suppressed grievances of every class : villeins who disliked
manorial customs, townsfolk who wanted a charter, artisans oppiessed by
municipal oligarchs, clergy who felt the sting of poverty, discontented knights
and squires, all took part in it, with the most diverse ends in view. Hence
came the chaotic and ineffective character which, from first to last, it
displayed.
But it is
time to return to the detailed history of this sudden outburst of wrath. It was
on June 12, as we have already seen, that John Wraw gave the signal by
unfurling his banner at Liston, and sacking the house of Richard Lyons, the
financier. Wraw was a priest; he was, or had been, vicar of Rirgsfield near
Beccles. Of his earlier life we know nothing more; but it is evident that he
was poor2, discontented, and ambitious. His acts during the insurrection
were those of a vam, cruel, and greedy man ; he was filling his
privy purse (as his own confession shows) throughout his short tenure of
power. When it was over he displayed despicable cowardice, and tried to save
his life by
1 e.g., Sir Roger Bacon took prisoner
William Clere, who owned the Manor of Autingham, forced him to sell it to him,
and then sold it himself at a profit, three days later, to William Wychingham.
[R<5ville, pp. 111-12.] He also levied ten marks of blackmail from John
Curteys by horrible threats. Sir Thomas Cornerd, a still meaner scoundrel, went
as the lieutenant of Wraw to a certain John Rookwood, and took from him by
threats ten marks in gold. He came back to Wraw, swore that he had only got
eight, and begged for a percentage ‘pro labore suo’ : Wraw gave him 40s., so
that Cornerd got off with 66s. 8d. out of the whole 1335. 4d. extorted—50 per
cent. [Wraw’s confession in R^ville, p. 181.]
2 At his trial it was deposed that he had
no property, real or personal, whatever. Reville, p. 59.
turning
King’s evidence. He laid depositions against all his own lieutenants, and
furnished the Government with sufficient information to hang many of them,
though (as we are glad to see) he did not thereby save his own miserable neck.
Of the qualities that an insurgent leader should own, Wraw seems to have
possessed only unscrupulousness and a loud and ready tongue. He was neither a
fighter nor an organizer, and collapsed the moment that he met with opposition.
It would seem
that this turbulent priest had come straight from London to raise the peasantry
of his native county. There he had been conferring with the leading
malcontents, though the Chronicon Angliae must be wrong when it says that he
had met Tyler, for the latter reached Blackheath only on the same day on which
the Suffolk rising commenced | June 12J.1 But Wraw knew all that
had happened in Kent, and the way for him had been prepared by emissaries from
Essex, who had been carrying the news of the revolt northward for some days
before the actual call to arms.2
It was on the
Wednesday that Wraw sacked Lyons’s manor and raised the men of Sudbury. On the
next morning he was at the head of a large following, whose leaders were a
squire, Thomas Monchensey of Edwardston, and three priests from Sudbury
-probably old friends and allies of the insurgent chief. They commenced their
march into the heart of the county by visiting the manor of Overhall, which
belonged to the Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, Sir John Cavendish. The judge
was unpopular, not only as being a prominent member of the governing clique at
London, but as having lately taken over the invidious task of enforcing the
Statute
1
The chronicle says that Wraw conferred with Tyler in London, and got
orders from
him on the day before he raised his standard. But Wraw rose on June 12, and
Tyler only entered London on June 13. Therefore the priest cannot have seen the
Kentishman, unless he had crossed the Thames and met him on the ninth or tenth
at Canterbury or Maidstone. This is unlikely, as it is more than fifty miles
from London to Liston, and therefore Wraw must have started from London on the
tenth. Probably he conferred with London malcontents only.
3 Such as Adam Worth, and Thomas Sweyn of
Coggeshall, who appear in the indictments as having come out of Essex to stir
up Suffolk early in June. See Reville, pp. 58, 59.
of Labourers
in Suffolk and Essex.1 It would seem that he had been warned of the
approach of the insurgents, for he stowed all his valuables in the church tower
of Cavendish, and escaped in a north-westerly direction, perhaps intending to
seek refuge at Ely. Wraw’s gang pillaged his manor, and not finding his plate
and other precious goods in the house, went to seek them m the church. They
broke open its doors, and distributed the silver among themselves, but did no
further damage to the sacred edifice.
In the
afternoon Wraw marched for Bury St. Edmunds, the largest place in Suffolk,2
though not its county town. He knew that he was eagerly expected there, and
would meet with much suppoit from the inhabitants. For Bury, like St. Albans,
was one of those unhappy towns which owned a monastery for its lord, and had
hitherto failed to secure municipal rights and liberties. It was not for want
of trying : the townsfolk had risen against the abbots on four or five separate
occasions during the last sixty years. In 1327 they had extorted a charter by
violence, only to see it torn up a few months later, when the sheriff of
Norfolk came down on the town with his men-at-arms and hanged several
ringleaders. On another occasion they had kidnapped their abbot, and spirited
him away to Brahant, a freak for which they had to pay 2,000 marks in fines.
Now matters were again ripe: the title of abbot was disputed between two rivals,
Edmund Brounfield, a papal ‘ provisor and John Tymworth, who had been elected
by the majority of the monks. Pending the settlement of their claims by
litigation, the management of the monastery was in the hands of the Prior ,
John Cambridge. The townsfolk were strong partisans of Brounfield. who was a
local man with relatives in their midst, and had given them secret promises of
a favourable charter ; but their candidate was at this moment in prison. He had
been arrested under the Statute of Provisors, and was expiating in durance vile
his presumption in introducing the papal
1
See Powell's East Anglian R.'stng. pp. 13, 14.
1
In the census ol persons liable to the Poll-tax (i.e. over 15 years of age), in
1377, Bury St. Edirundi shows 2,145 adults, and Ipswich only 1,507.
bull into
England. The men of Bury were full of wrath against the monks in general, and
against Prior Cambridge, the chief opponent of Brounfield, in particular.
The time of
insurrection seemed favourable for the humbling ol the monastery and the
winning ot a charter. Accordingly, the townsfolk sent messages to Wraw and his
horde, inviting them to come; to Bury and set matters right. On the evening of
June 13 the rebels appeared in great force, and were welcomed with open glee by
the poorer classes, many of whom joined them. The wealthier burgesses affected
to hold themselves aloof from the movement, but secretly gave both
encouragement and advice to the invaders. For good consideration received, Wraw
undertook to bring the monks to reason 111 his own way. His band started
operations by plundering the houses belonging to the abbey officials, as also
the town residence of Sir John Cavendish. That night Prior Cambridge fled,
having heard that it was the intention of the rebels to kill him on the
following morning. But he only gained himself thirty-six hours of life by thus
absconding Parties of Wraw’s followers, guided by men of Bury, sought for him
in every direction. On the afternoon of June 14, he was betrayed by a
treacherous guide, and captured in a wood three miles from Newmarket, as he
strove to make his way to Ely. His captors dragged him to Milden- hall, there
he was subj ected to a mock trial before John Wraw and certain of the Bury men,1
and beheaded on the morning of June 15. His body was left lying for five days
unburied on Mildenhall Heath ; his head, fixed on a pike, was borne back to
Bury. The monastic chroniclers unite in deploring the fate of one who was a
faithful seivant of his abbey, and who, moreover, * excelled Orpheus the
Thracian, Nero the Roman, and Belgabred of Britain in the sweetness of hi?
voice and in his musical skill ’.2
The Prior’s
head was not the only trophy that was carried
1
Wraw delated his own lieutenant, Robert Westbroun, and two Bury squires named
Denham and Halesworth, as the main agents of the Prior’s trial and death. But
he could not disguise the fact that he participated himself in the affair.
R^ville, Documents, p. 177.
3 Chron. Angl. p. 301.
in triumph to
Bury that afternoon. Another band of the insurgents had got upon the track of
Sir John Cavendish, and caught him up at Lakenheath, a place on the border of
the fenland, not many miles from Mildenhall. Seeing that he was pursued, the
unfortunate Chief Justice made for the ferry over the. river Brandon. He had
nearly reached it when a certain Katharine Gamen pushed off the boat into
mid-stream, so that he was apprehended at the water’s edge. He was promptly
beheaded by the pursuing mob, who were under the leadership of two local men,
John Pedder of Ford- ham, and John Potter of Somerton [June 14]. They had taken
his head to Bury, and fixed it on the town pillory, when Wraw’s party, bearing
that of the Prior, arrived. Cavendish and Cambridge had been intimate personal
friends during their lifetime, wherefore it seemed an excellent jest to the mob
to parade the two heads side by side, sometimes placing the Judge’s mouth to
the Prior’s ear, as ii he was making his confession, at others pressing the
dead lips together for a kiss.1 When tired of this ghoulish
pleasantry, the rebels fixed the two heads on the pillory. A few hours later,
they added to its adornments a third trophy, the head of John Lakenheath, a
monk who, bearing the office of custos boroniae in the abbey, had been charged
with the unpopular duty of exacting manorial dues and fines. Three othei
brethren, designated for a similar fate, escaped, one by concealing himself,
the other two by taking sanctuary at the altar, where (by some inexplicable
chance) the mob did not seek them.2 On Sunday, one more head, that
of a local notable, who was considered too friendly to the abbey, was set with
the others.3
Wraw was in
full possession of Bury and its neighbourhood for eight days. His armed men
aided the townsfolk to impose hard terms on the surviving monks. Ihey were made
to surrender their deeds and muniments into the hands
1
See Chron. Angl. p. 303, and Gosford’s narrative in Powell, pp. 140, 141.
s
See Gosford and Walsingham, as above.
3 ‘Quendam
valentem de patria, eo quod amicus fuit ecclesiae, occiderunt, et caput eius
super collistrigium suspenderunt.’ Gosford, in Powell, p. 14a.
of a
committee of burgesses ; their jewels and plate were taken from them, to be
held as a pledge for their good behaviour. and a great charter of liberties
for the. town was drawn up, which the sub-prior was forced to seal, pending the
release of the townsmen’s candidate for the post of abbot— for Edmund
Brounfield still lay a prisoner in Nottingham Castle. All through these
proceedings, we are told, the Bury men carefully held back from the actual
slaying and plundering, which they deputed to their rural allies, and confined
themselves to intimidation and bargaining; but on the principle of cui bonu it
was easy to see that their responsibility for the outrages was no less than
that of the actual murderers.
Wraw seems to
have remained at Bury for the greater part of his short day of power. He sent
out his lieutenants to spread the revolt, and to exact blackmail where it was
to be got. Thus his two clerical friends, Godfrey Farfeye and Adam Bray of
Sudbury, extorted twenty marks in gold from the mayor and corporation of
Thetford, who thereby bought off a visit from Wraw himself. Sir Thomas Cornerd,
one of the renegade knights who joined the rising, got ten marks out of John
Rookwood of Stanfield in a similar fashion, but cheated his employer of part of
his gains, by pretending that he had only obtained eight. But on at least one
occasion Wraw went forth himself, to conduct a particularly lucrative tour
.11 the north-eastern comer of Suffolk. His first exploit was the sack of
Mettingham Castle near Bungay, He led thither a strong detachment of his
followers, over 500 men, and got possession of £40 in cash and £20 worth of
chattels [June 181J. On the following day he held a sort of assize
in the neighbouring town of Bec.cles, ind presided at the execution of Geoffrey
Southgate, an unpopular resident, who was delated to him by three of his
neighbours. On the same afternoon he employed himself more profitably in
sacking the manor of Hugh Fastolf at Bradwell, from which his followers are
said to have carried off goods to the value of no less than .£400. The offence
of
1
See Reville, p. 75, and Powell, p. 24.
11
the owner was
that he had been one of the commissioners for the collection of the Poll-tax.
W raw’s
authority seems to have extended all over western and northern Suffolk : only
the district about Ipswich appears to have been dominated by bands independent
ot him. But in other directions his name is heard even beyond the limits of his
native county. Emissaries acting under his direction stirred up riot in the
county of Cambridge, and were found m Norfolk also.1 A curious
passage in the Chronicon Angliae2 states that his
enthusiastic followers hailed him as ‘ King of the Commons ’, but that he
refused the title, saying that he already possessed one crown, that of the
ecclesiastical tonsure, and would not take another. He bade the mob, if they
must choose a king, elect his lieutenant, Robert Westbroun. This must all be
idle talk : the whole story sounds most improbable.
To complete
the picture of Suffolk during the third and fourth weeks of J une, it is only
necessary to give a few details about the eastern side of the county. Here the
insurrection broke out two days later than in the district dominated by Wraw.
It was not till J une 14 that two small ba nds appeared in the district south
of Ipswich. But on the following day tht. peasantry began to flock together
under two local leaders, John Battisford. the parson of Bucklersham. and Thomas
Sampson of Harkstead, a wealthy tenant farmer.3 We know nothing
about the grievances of these persons nor of the particular ends which they
wished to attain. But on June 16 they entered Ipswich at the head of several
thousand men, meeting no opposition from the burgesses. They sacked the houses
of the Archdeacon of Suffolk, of John Cobat, collector of the Poll-tax, and
several other wealthy residents. One murder was committed, that of a certain
William Frannces, but no more. Their bands then spread themselves over all the
eastern hundreds of Suffolk as far as the sea, picking up two more leaders in
the persons of two squires named
1
See Rdville, p. 8o, and Powell, p. 49. 3
Chron. Angl. p. 310.
3 His stock and chattels were valued by the
escheators at no less than £69. See Pow< 11, pp. 143, 144.
James
Bedingfield and Ri>'hard Talmache of Bentley, Their main work was the
burning of manor rolls, and the plundering of the houses of justices of the
peace, escheators, tax-collectors, and othei officials. The victim who was most
sought for was a certain Edmund Lakenheath, a justice and the owner of four or
five manors. He was chased to the coast, and escaped in a boat, only, however,
to fall into the hands of a French privateer, who held him to ransom for 500
marks, a sum which the unfortunate Lakenheath, whose landed property had all
been devastated, had the greatest difficulty in collecting.1
On the whole,
however, the rebels of eastern Suffolk were not so violent in their proceedings
as were their neighbours in the west. Bui if they committed fewer murders, and
were not so given to wholesale arson, they were no whit behind the western men
in theft. The indictment rolls are full of cases of blackmail, extortion of
money by threats, and carrying off of cattle and horses. One act of a local
leader, the squire J ames Bedingfield, deserves special note, as showing a
desire to organize the forces of rebellion which we find nowhere else 111 East
Anglia. He went to William Rous, chief constable of the hundred of Hoxne, and
forced him to levy ten archers from the hundred, who were to be kept,
permanently under arms. ‘ The said William gave him the archers, being under
fear of death, and each of them was to receive 6d. a day, by the order of the
said James.’2
When w'e cast
our eyes north of the Waveney and the Brandon, and examine the history of the
rising in the county of Norfolk, we find that we have to deal with a separate
piece of history w’hich has comparatively little to do with the tale of the
Suffolk rising. Though Wraw’s name is once or twice mentioned in the Norfolk
documents, we have for the most part to deal with an entirely different set of
leaders. It is quite clear, however, that the impulse to rise came from
Suffolk; the first troubles broke out in villages on the southern border of the
county, and only began on June 14, two days after Wraw had raised his standard
at Liston, and one day
1
See R£ville3 p. 83, and Powell, pp. 22, 130, 2 Powell,
pp. 130, 131.
after he had
made liis triumphal entry into Bury. On that morning we find a case oi
blackmailing at Watton near Thetford, which belonged to the Knights of St.
John, who seem everywhere to have paid dearly for the unpopularity of the
chief, Sir Robert Hales, the treasurer,1 A. certain Thomas Smyth
extorted from the local representative of the order a quittance for the debts
which he owed, and also went off with a promise of twenty marks. He had
threatened to call in the Suffolk rebels unless he was satisfied. On the same
day John Gentilhomme and Richard Filmond of Buxton were mo\mg the countryside
further to the east, ‘ riding from village to village, raising the hue and cry,
and calling out the commons to rise against the crown and the laws of England
’.z
It seems to
have taken no more than thirty-six hours to set western Norfolk in a lame;
evidently the news of what was going 011 in Essex and Suffolk spread round the
county ;n a moment. On the 16th outrages are reported from half a
dozen different districts, reaching as far as East Dereham and Wymondham; on
the following day, Monday, Juno 17, anarchy had set in throughout the region
between Norwich and the Wash, and bands, many hundreds strong, were passing
from village to village working their wicked will on every one who was rich,
defenceless, or unpopular.
The peculiar
characteristics of the rebellion in western Norfolk were, that it was sporadic,
non-political, and apparently destitute of all rational object. There was no
single leader in command, to draw together the forces of the movement, as
Tyler had done in Kent or Wraw in Suffolk. We find a score of bands, each
cleaving close to its own district, and each led by two or three chiefs of the
most approved insignificance. They seem, for the most part, to have guided
their followers into acts of mere brigandage : it is curious to find that the
manorial grievances, so prominent in other counties, are hardly heard of in
this neighbourhood.3 Records
1 Reville, p. 84. 3
Reville, document on p. 115.
8
For this curious fact see the notes on Reville, pp. 94, 95. He says there was
only one exception, having missed the case of Methwold, for which see Powell,
pp. 27, 28.
exist of
felonies committed in no less than 153 villages, but in only two cases are they
connected with attacks on the landlord qua landlord. These two exceptions took
place it; John of Gaunt’s manor of Methwold (near Brandon) on June 16, and at
the Abbot of Bury’s manor of Southry (near Dnwnham) on June if. In each case we
are told that the local mob sought out and destroyed the court-rolls during the
course of their pillage. But it is worth while noting that both the duke and
the rulers of the monastery were personally unpopular beyond the majority of
landowners. It would seem that western Norfolk must have been exceptionally
free from the usual sources of rural fri( tion, apparently dues and fines and
corvees must have been commuted ere now in most villages.
The amnunt of
mischief done by the rebels in a countryside where neither political nor
manorial grievances took a prominent place among the causes of trouble, is
therefore all the more astonishing. From the bulky rolls of indictments which
compose the epitaph of the rising we draw a picture of half a county given over
for ten days to mere objectless pillage. Looking through the individual cases,
we see that only in a small minority of them were the persons injured either
squires, knights, or landlords of any sort. In many instances we find that the
rebels had been carrying off the oxen and sheep of a farmer, or the meagre
chattels of a parish priest, or the stock-in-trade of a village tradesman. In
still more they were merely in search of hard cash, and did not disdain the
most modest contributions—-by dreadful threats of injury to limb or life
wretched sums of a few shidings1 were wrung from men who can have
been hardly richer than their plunderers. It was only on rare occasions that
the money carried off by the rebels attained a respectable figure. Evi-
1
See the cases cited in Reville, pp. 89-91, e.g., John Lothale of Wymond- ham
extorts 13s. 4^. from Richard Palmer, by threatening Ho break both his arms and
his legs J. John Carlton constrains Richard, vicar of Mattishall, to
pay him 65. Robert Tuwe and others of
Southry wish to blackmail
Robert
Gravel; when he demurs they place his head upon the block, and under the axe
the poor man discloses his little hoard of eight marks, which (along with
twenty-eight cattle) the band carries off in triumph.
dently we are
dealing with an outburst of village, ruffianism, not with a definite social or
political propaganda. The King’s law had ceased to run for the moment, and
things had relapsed into the state ‘ when they may take who have the power, and
they may keep who can The. rebels in western Norfolk did not pretend to be
levying subscriptions to maintain the common cause, or to be tining persons who
had offended against public opinion. They merely took money where they could
steal it, and divided it among themselves.
The only spot
where we find anything more than mere brigandage is the town of Lynn, Bishop’s
I ynn as it was called in those days, when it depended on the see of Norwich,
and had not yet become King’s Lynn by passing into royal demesne. Here we read
that the cry against ' traitors ’, so well known in Kent, was raised, and
several persons were arrested and imprisoned, but were released in consequence
01 the intercession of divers burgesses of repute, who were anxious to restrain
the. mob of artisans and shipmen.1 Only two men perished at the
hands of the rioters of Lynn : one was a Fleming whose nationality seems to
have been his whole crime ; of the other we know not even the name.
A few miles
north of Lynn there was an exciting man-hunt on Jane 17-18. The two most
unpopular individuals of this north- western comer of Norfolk were John
Holkham. a Vistice, and Edmund Gurney, the steward of the estates of John of
Gaunt within the countv. The hue and cry was raised against them by a certain
Walter Tyler, a namesake of the Kentish captain, and they were chased for
twenty-four hours, till, tracked down to the coast, they procured a small boat
at Holme-by-the-Sea and launched out into the deep. This being reported to
their pursuers, a dozen of them seized a larger boat and put out to run them
down. The chase lasted for twenty miles, and was just about to terminate in the
capture of the exhausted fugitives when night came down and hid them from their
enemies. So, ‘ though they had completely despaired of saving their life or
members ’,2
1
1
Magno prece bonorum horainum evaserunt illaesi.’ See R^ville, p. 96.
* See Document in Powell, pp. 135-6.
WAT TYLKR
I
Holkham and
Gurney slipped away, landed at Bumham, and escaped.
Turning from
western to eastern Norfolk, we find ourselves confronted with a very different
picture. Here, as in Suffolk and Kent, the rebellion had found a leader, and
was worked from a single centre and with a definite purpose. The protagonist
in the local drama was a certain Geoffrey Litster, a man who emerged from
obscurity much after the fashion of Tyler; just like the Kentishma n we find
him suddenly exalted to command by his fellows at the outset of the rising,
without being able to guess at the reason of his promotion. He was a dyer of
Felmingham (near North Walsham), and not a rich man in his own class, for his
stock-in-trade was valued at no more than 33s. after his death.1 Yet
he clearly possessed the capacity to compel obedience, and for the short week
of his rule en] 1 >yed an uri disputed authority in the whole eastern half
of Norfolk, from Holt and Cromer down to Yarmouth and Diss. He seems to have
been a busy, enterprising man, with a programme of his own, which ran to
something more than Wraw’s gospel of pillage. We seem to trace in his actions
an attempt to conform to the propaganda that had been set forth in Kent and
London. He was the enemy both of the4 traitors ’ who conducted the
King’s government, of the oppressive landlords who enforced manorial customs,
of the foreign merchants and artisans who were hated as trade rivals, and of
the burgess-oligarchs of the great towns. Against every one of these classes we
shall find him taking very stringent and drastic measures of repression. His
right-hand man and chief executive officer was that unscrupulous and unquiet
knight Sir Roger Baron of Baconsthorpe. How it came to pass that the dyer
commanded and the gentleman obeyed we cannot guess, but all the evidence showrs
that Bacon, in spite of his supenor status, was no more than the lieutenant of
Litster.
On June 17
the whole of the bands of East-Central Norfolk concentrated on Mousehold Heath,
the regular mustering- place of the county from the earliest times down to the
last
1
Escheator’s Inquisition Norfolk and Suffolk, 5-6 Ric. II, ra. ia.
great East
Anglian rising of Kett in 1549. Litster was already their chosen chief : how
and why they had elected him to the post we are not told. But it was part of
his plan to exhibit at the head of his bands men of higher social status than
himself : Sir Roger Bacon was already at his side, of his own free will; but
the dyer sought for a still more dignified colleague. He sent a party to seek
for W'lliam Ufford, the Earl of Suffolk, who was known to bt, residing at one
of his Norfolk manors. But on their approach the Earl fled, leaving his dinner
half eaten on the table, and, disguised in the cloak of a varlet, rode off
across country ‘per deserta, per loca ultra citraque posita’,1 till
he tonally reached St. A'bans and comparative safety. In default of him
Litster’s followers collected five knights and brought them to their chief.
These were Sir William Morley, ancle of the young Lord Morley, Sii Jolrn
Brewes, Sir Stephen Hales, Sir Roger Scales, and Sir Robert Salle. The first
four found favour in Litsters sight. they were evidently scared into obsequious
obedience, and he made them members of his staff, if we may use the term. Sir
Robert Salle, an old soldier of fortune, who had risen from the ranks xn the
wars of Edward III, was of less malleable stuff. He withstood the rebel leader
to the face, and used such plain language about him and his followers that the
mob rushed in upon him, threw him down, and beheaded him there and then, before
the chapel of the Magdalen on Mousehold Heath.2
The great city
of Norwich was but a mile or so distant from
1
Chron. Angl. p. 305.
3
Sir Robert, though born the son of a mason, had won great fame in the wars, and
had been knighted by the sword of Edward III himself. He was, says the
Chronicle in Hist. Rev. (p. 522), * grand larron et combatour ’, and had
amassed a considerable fortune abroad. In his house at Norwich were -£aoo worth
of valuable chattels. Froissart says that he was constable of Norwich, and rode
out to endeavour to appease the rebels, who offered him the command of their
host, and on his refusal fell upon him. He adds that the knight got his sword
out and slew twelve men before he was knocked down and killed. All this must be
incorrect; he does not seem to have held the post of constable, and Chron. Angl.
and the Hist. Rev. Chronicle both say that he was captured, that he spoke his
mind too freely, and was then beheaded, not slain in affray. 1 Non diu permansit vivus inter eos, qui dissimulare
nescivit, ut ceteri, sed coepit eorum facta condemnare publice ... sic
expiravit miles qui
the
mustering-place of the rebels, and it was with the object of taking possession
of the. county capital that they had assembled. It seemed at first as if they
might meet with resistance. The citizens shut their gates, and raised their
drawbridges: if they had possessed a vigorous leader they might perhaps have
held their own: but the Earl of Suffolk, who ought to have put himself at the
head of the forces of order, had fled away, and Sir Robert Salle was dead. The
Mayor and aldermen dreaded the insurgents: they had probably heard already of
what had happened four days before in London, when Tyler entered the city. But
their resolve to resist the insurgents was sapped by the sinister temper displayed
by the lower class, who were evidently desirous of Admitting Litster and his
crew. After some hours of painful indecision, the municipal authorities sent
out a deputation to confer with the rebels, and finally agreed to open their
gates and pay down a large fine, on condition that the ‘ true commons ’ should
pledge themselves to abstain from slaughter, pillage, and arson. Litster
accepted the terms, took the money, and entered Norwich in triumph; his forces
marched m with Sir Roger Bacon riding at their head in armour ‘ with pennons
flying and in warlike array ’.
Then followed
the scenes of riot that might have been expected : instead of keeping their
agreement Litster and his men at once betook themselves to plunder, and were
eagerly aided by the rabble of the. city. Their first act was to arrest,
maltreat, and finally behead Reginald Eccles, a justice of the peace, one of a
class which everywhere bore the brunt of the wrath of the multitude. They then
sacked the houses of all whom they chose to consider traitors, the dead Sir Robert
Salle, the Archdeacon of Norwich, Henry Lomynour late member of Parliament for
the city,, and many others. There was, however, no general massacre, nor were
the mass of the burgesses assaulted or plundered: so fax the rebel chief seems
to have kept up a sort of discipline.
Litster then
established himsell m t.he castle, and ban-
mille lx iis solus
terru!s*et, si cortigisset ui aperto M.artf puguasse contra eos.’ Chron.
dngl. p. 305.
queted there
in state, the foui knights who were his captives being compelled to serve as
the great officers of his table : Sir Stephen Hales carved for him, and the.
others acted as butler, chamberlain, and so forth. Struck with joy at the
magnificent spectacle the insurgents saluted their leader as ‘ King of the
Commons a title in which (as we are told) he gloried during the short week that
he had yet to live.
King
Geoffrey, however, was no mere spectacular monarch. Next morning his forces
were moving in all directions: one party was sent to the priory of Cairow, to
seize its deeds and corn t-rolls, which were brought into Norwich and bamt
before Litster’s face A more important detachment, under Sir Roger Bacon, set
out for Yarmouth and reached it that same evening [June 18]. The men of this
great port were odious to their neighbour? precisely because of the excellent
charters which they possessed. Their most cherished privilege was a market
monopoly, which provided that no one for seven miles around should buy or sell
save in Yarmouth market. This was most inconvenient to villagers who would have
preferred to go to Lowestoft, Beccles, and other local centres. Another grant,
which gave the borough control of the roadstead of Kirkley and its harbour
dues, was equally hateful to the seafaring folk of Lowestoft, who wished to have
their share in its conveniences.1 Many Suffolk men therefore came to
join in Bacon’s assault on Yarmouth. The burgesses, as terror-stricken as their
fellows at Norwich, made no resistance, and allowed the rebels to enter the
town with banners flying. Bacon immediately demanded the town charter, and tore
it into two halves: one he kept for Litster and Norfolk, the other he sent to
Johr: \\ raw, as the representative of Suffolk. He then broke open the gaol,
and setting free one of the four prisoners whom he found there, an Englishman
from Coventry, beheaded the three others, apparently because they had the
misfortune to be Flemings.2
This was not
all: after maltreating and threatening many
1
See Rolls of Parliament, iii. 94-5.
5
Or rather Dutchmen, their names being John of Roosendaal, Copyn de Sele of
‘Cerice’ (i. e. Zierickzee), and Copyn lsang.
of the
burgesses, the intruding horde sacked s considerable number of houses,
including those of Hugh Fastolf, a collector of the Poll-tax, and William
Ellis, member for Yarmouth in the Parliament of 1377- They also found and tried
three more unfortunate Flemings, ‘ quorum nomina ignorantur ’1; all
three were beheaded. Moreover, they established new custom-house officers of
their own at Kirkley Road, to levy the harbour dues which had hitherto been the
perquisite of the men of Yarmouth.
It is curious
to find that while on one side of the mouth of the Yare Flemings were being
murdered merely because they were foreigners, on the other a stranger of the
same race was acting as a prominent chief among the insurgents. For at
Ixiwostuft, only ten miles from Yarmouth, a Hollander named Richard Resch is
recorded to have placed himself at the head of the mob, and to have killed with
his own hand a certain John Race.2 There is no parallel instance of
a foreigner among the rebels to be found throughout the whole length and
breadth of the counties affected by the rebellion.
On
June 19, 20, and 21, we find Litster’s host, the ‘ Great Company * as it was
called (magna societas), busy at various points between Norwich and the sea.
The ‘ King of the Commons ’ himself visited many villages, superintended the
burring of an infinite number of deeds and court-rolls, dispossessed many
persons from lands and tenements to which others laid claim, and presided at
several trials both of * traitors ’ and of persons accused of ordinary
felonies. One or two of these unfortunates were put to death. It would seem
that Litster tried to keep up a certain amount of discipline among his followers;
at least ordinary theft, as opposed to charter-burning or the destruction of
the houses of traitors, was far less common in Eastern than in Western
Norfolk.* Rich abbeys like St. Bennet-at-Holme, Binham, Bromholm, where mere
robbers would have found much attractive plunder, suffered nothing save the
destruction of their court- rolls and documents. There are comparatively few
indictments, after the suppression of the rebellion, for theft and 1
See Reville, p. m. a Se*
Powell, p 34. and RSville, p. 108
robbery The
worst offender indeed in this respect, seems to have been no peasant but Sir
Roger Bacon, who used the authority delegated to him by Litster to enrich
himself by blackmailing, and even by forcing his neighbours to transfer their
manors to him for a nominal price.1
When he had
got all eastern Norfolk in his hand, Litster took a step which shows that he
was not thinking merely of his royalty of the moment, but wished to establish a
modus vivendi for the future. No doubt he had already heard the news that Tyler
was dead, and that the King was collecting an army at London. At any rate,
about June 20 or 21 he resolved to send an embassy to the capit al, to request
the grant of a charter of manumission for all Norfolk, such as had been given
at Mile End to the men of Essex and Hertfordshire, as also of a general pardon
to himself and his followers for all their irregularities committed during the
last week. He selected as his ambassadors two of the knights whom he was holdmg
as hostages, Sir William Morley and Sir John Brewes, and joined with them three
of his trusted lieutenants who bore the une.uphonious names of Trunch, Skeet,
and Kybytt: all of th<‘m are found as ‘ capitanei male- factorum ’ in the
narratives of the doings at Norwich and Y armouth. They were to seek from the
King ‘ a charter more special than all the charters granted to other counties
’,a and in order to propitiate the royal clemency bore with them a
considerable sum of money, the whole of the large, tine which had been levied
on the city of Norwich on June 17. Evidently then the captain of the ‘ Great
Company ’ had established a public treasury, and had not allowed his followers
to seize and divide all that they had extorted.
1
We have already alluded to the case of Bacon’s dealings with William Clere on
p. 103.
1 ‘ Cumque iam fatigari communes coepissent, et multi
dies pertransissent, consilium inierunt ut mitterent duos milites, cum tribus
in quibus confidebant, ad regem, Lundonias vel ubicunque possent eum invenire,
pro carta manumissionis et remissionis obtinenda. Quae ut specialior esset
caeteris cartis, aliis comitatibus concessis, magnam summam pecuniae quam
coeperant a civibus Norwichensibus, praefatis nunciis tradiderunt, ut videlicet
pacem et libertatem (quam non meruerant) pecunia impetrarent.' See
Chron. Angliae,
p. 300-
The
ambassadors started from Norwich or its neighbourhood; Litster was touring
round the hundreds of northeastern Norfolk when he sent them forth. For some
unknown reason they took not the direct road to London, via Ipswich and
Colchester, but a more circuitous road by Cambridge: but they had got no
further than Icklingham near Newmarket when they encountered an adversary who
made a prompt end of their mission. This was Henry Despenser, the warlike Bishop
of Norwich, who now [June 22] becomes the most prominent figure in the history
of the Rebellion in the Eastern Counties. But before dealing with his
achievements, we must trace out the course of the insurrection in
Cambridgeshire—the last of the three East Anglian counties with which we are
now concerned.
The Rebellion in Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire
In
the fourteenth century the shire of Cambridge was sharply divided into the Fen
and the Upland. The northern half of the shire was a great stretch of marsh,
hardly peopled save for the settlements that had grown up around the great
abbey of Ely and the smaller foundation of Thome.y. The southern half was a
thickly settled region, full of agricultural villages, and similar in general
character to West Suffolk, its nearest neighbour. The smaller county of
Huntingdon, enclosed in the concave front which Cambridgeshire shows on its
inner side- was divided in an exactly similar fashion to its greater neighbour.
Its north-eastern third was a fen running into the marshes of Ely and
Whittlesey in whose midst lay the great abbey of Ramsey ; the rest was a
well-peopled agricultural region.1 The chief towns of the two
shires, Cambridge and Huntingdon, were flourishing little boroughs, the one
with some 3,500 the other with about 2,000 inhabitants. They differed only in
the fact that the latter was purely a market town, while the former had,
growing in its midst, the University, a corporation for which it had exactly
the same lively detestation that Oxford felt for its gownsmen. The privileges
which royal favour had secured to the two Universities were Ln each case a
grave cause of offence to the municipality, and m every time of national
disturbance the strife between town and gown was prone to break out. The University
was hated by the burgesses of Oxford and Cambridge almost as much as the abbot
was hated by those of Bury or St. Albans.
1
The total population of the shire of Cambridge was in 1377 27,000, that of
Hunts. 14,000. In each case the Fen was hardly inhabited and the population was
concentrated in the Upland.
Oxford was
not in eluded in the boundaries of the area of the revolt of 1381, but
Cambridge lay within them, with results disastrous to the gownsmen for the
moment, but to the townsmen in the long run.
The rebellion
in Cambridgeshire broke out only on J une 14, the day preceding Tyler’s death.
Before that moment we can hardly trace any sign of the approach of the trouble
: an isolated act of violence on June 9 at Cottenham may have had no connexion
with the great rising.1 But an assault on a manor belonging to the
knights of St. John on June 14 was certainly the first token of the coming
storm. For the Hospitallers in all parts of England were a favourite prey of
the rebels, owing to the unpopularity of their prior, the unfortunate Robert
Hales. Moreover, the locality of this first outbreak was the village of
Chippenham, on the very edge of Cambridgeshire, and in close touch with Wraw’s
sphere of activity about Bury and Mildenhall in Suffolk.
On the next
day, Saturday, June 15, the date of the great scene at Smithfield, rebellion
flared up simultaneously in at least a dozen separate points in Cambridgeshire.
We are fortunately so well provided with local documents, that we ran trace two
distinct origins for the revolt. The first was the arrival of emissaries from
London, full of the news of Tyler’s early successes. The second was the
trespassing of a detachment fromJWraw’s Suffolk bands over the borders of
Cambridgeshire.
That the news
from the capital travelled down into the Fenland with all possible celerity is
shown from the fact that two incendiaries from London, who had been present on
June 13 at Tyler’s triumphal entry into the city, and at the subsequent riot
and arson, were already active in Cambridgeshire thirty-six hours later, on
the morning of the fifteentn. These were John Stanford, who was a saddler in
London, but owned property at his native place of Barrington near Cambridge,
and John Greyston of Bottisham, who had chanced to be staying in the capital
when the rebels entered
1
See Powell, p. 43, and Rdville, indictment-documents in the Appendix, p. 241.
it, and had
hurried home as soon as he was sure of theii victory 1
On June 15,
Greyston was nding about the villages in the neighbourhood of his own domicile,
declaring that the King had given him a warrant to raise an armed force and to
destroy ‘ traitors ’; he summoned the peasants to loir him under pain of death,
and had the effrontery to display to the unlettered mob an old Chancery document,
which he happened to possess, as being the royal mandate addressed to him In a
similar vein John Stanford went about Abington and other places, declaring that
he had the King’s sign-manual in a box, which he exhibited, and that it authorized
him to arrest and punish traitors. It is a sufficient commeniary on the
character of these two worthies to state that, though they destroyed no
traitors, they started operations, the one by blackmailing the wealthier
inhabitants of his own village, and the other by stealing a horse, value two
marks, from a local farmer.
Meanwhile,
other firebrands of revolt had entered the county from its eastern side. John
Wraw had now been acting as dictator in West Suffolk for some three days, and
was sending his emissaries abroad to spread the insurrection on every side. His
chief agents on this side were Robert Tavell, who had taken a prominent part in
the Bury riots, and a chaplain named John Michel, an Ely nia.n who had gone off
to join the Suffolk rioters a few days before, and returned furnished with
Wraw’s mandate to raise the people in the Fens.2
But though
Stanford and Greyston, Tavell and Michel, each became the centre of a small
focus of disorder on June 15, they were by no means the chief leaders of the
Cambridgeshire insurrection The place of honour must be claimed for two
wealthy local landowners. John Hanchach of Shudy Camps, and Geoffrey Cobbe, of
Gazeley, who put themselves at the head of the rising for reasons to us
unknown, Their conduct is as great an enigma as that of Sir Roger Bacon or Sir
Thomas Comerd in East Anglia. Hanchach owned pro-
1
See Pr well. pp. 42-3, and Reville. p. c. 1
See Powell, pp. 43-4.
perty in five
townships;1 Cobbe’s yearly income is assessed at £22, asum which
must have placed him high among the landed gentry of the shire. Were they men
with a grievance, or merely turbulent fellows who could not resist the opportunity
of leading a mob to riot and pillage ? Whether they acted from principle or
interest they conducted matters with a reckless violence, which can only be
paralleled from the most mob-ridden corners of Norfolk.
A glance at
the details of t he havoc committed by the Cambridgeshire bands shows that the.
programme in this county was exactly the same as that which was carried out 111
East Anglia. We find the usual outbreak against manorial dues: emissaries rode
up and down the county proclaiming that the King had freed all serfs and that
no one for the future owed suit or service to his lord.2 Tn a score
of villages there were bonfires of charters and documents belonging to
unpopular landowners. Some of these burnings were accompanied by the sack or
destruction of the manor house, some were not. The classes of people against
whom the main anger of the rebels was directed were, as in East Anglia,
justices of the peace, commissioners of the Poll-tax, royal officials in
general, and clerical landlords such as the Abbots and Priors of Ely, Ramsey,
Tliomey, and Barnwell, the Prioress of Icklington and the Knights Hospitallers
at Duxford and Chippenham. We naturally find the sheriff of the county, Henry
English of Ditton Valence, among the sufferers, as also the justices Roger
Harleston and Edmund Walsiugham, and the Poll-tax collectors Thomas Torell and
John Blanchpayne. A special animosity was displayed against Thomas Haselden,
the steward of the household of the Duke of Lancaster. WTe do not
know wrhether it was because of his own sins, or merely because of
his master’s unpopularity in the n :alm, that the two chief rebels of the
shire, Hanchach and Cobbe. united their forces for the thorough devastation of
his manors of Steeple Morden and
1
He owned lands in Linton, Babraham, Abington Parva, Hadenham, and
Cambridge
town. See Powell, p. 44.
3
See the case of Adam Clymme in R^ville, p. c, and in Powell, p. 49.
Gilden
Morden. Haselden himself was absent in Scotland in the train of John of Gaunt,
or he would assuredly have come to an evil end.1
The only
person of note who actually met his death in the Cambridgeshire riots was the
wealthy justice Kdmund Walsinpiham. who was seized by local rioters at Ely,
whither he had fled from his manor of Eversden, and there decapitated after a
mock trial. His head was placed on the town pillory [June 17]. A lawyer of the
name of Galon seems also to have been put to death in the same place, where,
says Capgrave, ‘ their t-ntent was to kille all the men that lerned onvlawe ’.2
Murder, however, seems to have been the exception m the shire, though every
other form of violence abounded.
A sjjecial
interest attaches to the domgs of the burghers of Cambridge town during the
four short days when the insurrection was at its height. To them the rebellion
of 1381 was mainly an opportunity for revenging themselves on their two
enemies, the University and the suburban monastery of Barnwell. It was at dusk
on Saturday, June 15, that the town rose; the people were already aware that
tumults had broken out in all the rural villages around, and John Hanchach with
some of his followers from Shudy Camps had already come into the town to proffer
his assistance. The signal for insurrection was given by the tolling of the
bells of Great St. Mary’s church, and a mob assembled in front of the Guildhall
and elected two brothers, James and Thomas of Grantchester, as their chiefs.
After a short debate they resolved to start operations bv an attack on the
gownsmen, and, with the two Grantchesters and Hanchach at their head, went in
a body to visit William Wigmore, the bedel of the University. He had already
fled, but his goods were plundered and the town-crier proclaimed that ‘ any one
who met him might slay him at sight ’.
It may be
asked why the mob visited their first wrath on the bedel, and not on the
Chancellor, the official head of the University. The explanation is simple; the
Chancellor was
1
See Powell, p. 44.
3
Capgrave, Chron. Angt. p. 237.
no less a
person than that John de Cavendish, the Chiet Justice of England, who on the
previous day [June 14] had been murdered by the Suffolk rebels at Lakenheath.
This was unknown to the Cambridge townsfolk, who went to his house, ‘threatened
him with tire and sword’, and finding him not on the premises had to content
themselves with wrecking his furniture.1
Then, at
something past ten o’clock at night, the rioters moved on to Corpus Christi
College, a corporation specially obnoxious to them because it owned much
house-property m the town . it is said that a sixth of the borough paid rent to
it.2 Hearing of the coming storm, the masters and students fled, and
the mob was able to sack the College without resistance. They gutted the
buildings from cellar to roof, stole £80 worth of plate, burnt the charter-box.
and finally carried off doors and glass windows, and any other parts of the
fitting? which they could detach and turn to account. The adjacent hospital of
Corpus Christi was also wrecked.
This plunder
seems to have ended this lively Saturday night. but on Sunday morning the
townsfolk resumed their plan of operations against the University. They began
by entering St. Mary’s church during mass-time, and seizing the great chests in
which the University archives, as also its common-plate and ‘jewels’, were
kept. Next they moved on to the house of the Carmelites (now represented by
Queens’ College), broke into the chapel, and there carried off other chests and
boxes, containing the books which formed the University Library ; its value was
afterwards estimated at the modest sum cf £20.
Having got
possession of this property, the townsmen proceeded to bum it all in the Market
Square, A certain old woman named Margery Starre is recorded to have flung pare
hment after parchment into the flames, to the c.ry of ‘Away with the learning
of clerks! Away with it ! ’ Hence comes the fart that the early history of
Cambridge University
1
See Fuller’s History of the University of Cambridge, pp. 115-16.
3
This came from many deceased townsfolk having left houses in ‘ candle rents’ to
the College, i. e. for the sustentation of lights and the saying of masses for
their souls. See Fuller, ibid.
is very
difficult to substantiate. The archives, from which it might have been written,
perished, along with the Library* in the smoke of this unholy bonfire.1
The evidence
of the royal charters and the private gifts on which the wealth of the
University rested being thus annihilated, the townsfolk thought that the way
was clear for the drawing up of a new modus vivendi between town and gown, They
prepared a document by which the University was made to surrender all the
privileges which it enjoyed under royal donations, and to engage that its
members should for the future plead 111 the borough courts only,- For further
security the gownsmen were compelled to bind themselves in a bond of £3,000 not
to bring any actions against the town, for damages suffered during the last two
days. Some sort of congregation of temfied Masters of Arts was got together and
forced to assent to and seal this unsatisfactory c.ompacf [June 16].2
The
University having thus been humbled, the men of Cambridge turned to deal with
theii other local enemy, the Piior of Barnwell. With him they had an
old-standing quarrel, concerning the right of free pasturage over certain
meadows called Estenhall. The earlier riots had been led by Hanchach. the two
Grantchesters, and other unofficial persons; but for the attack on Barnwell,
the townsfolk resolved to put themselves under the conduct of their Mayor,
Edmund Redmeadow (or Lister), who had hitherto stayed in the background. He was
evidently a feeble and cautious personage, who wished to keep out of trouble,
but on being beset by an angry mob who (according to his own statement)
threatened to behead him unless he went forth as theii captain, he consented to
lead the crusade against the Prior They marched out over 1,000 strong by
Barnwell Causeway, and fell upon the priory, pulling down walls and felling
trees to the value of £400, draining the fish-ponds, and carrying off the store
of turfs for the winter. The enclosures round the Estenhall meadows were, of
course, obliterated to the last stake. To buy off personal violence and the
destruction of
1
See Powcl1, p. 52, and Fuller, p. 116. 1 See Fuller, p. 116.
bis chapel
and other buildings, the Prior was compelled to sign a document binding himself
in the sum of {2,000 not to prosecute the town or any individual townsman for
the damage that had been done to the monastery.1 There is no need to
speak of other disorders in Cambridge town- -the sack of the tenement of
Blauchpayne, the collector of Poll- tax, and such like details. In these
respects, the borough behaved only after the fashion of its rural neighbours.
From
Cambridgeshire the tumults, as we have already shown, spread into the
neighbouring shire of Huntingdon. Here, however, the rebellion was not nearly
so acute : the town of Huntingdon held aloof from the movement, closed its
gates against rioters, and even repelled by force the. attempt of an armed band
to enter—an instance of loyalty to the powers of order almost unparalleled
during the whole of the rebellion in Eastern England.* In the rural districts
there was a moderate amount of disturbance—the tenants of the Abbot of Ramsey,
for example, refused to pay him their dues—but nothing that could be compared
to the troubles of Cambridgeshire. An attempt of a small raiding band from Ely
to plunder the Abbey itself met (as we shall see) with no success [June 18].3
But a little
further to the north the rebellion flamed out much more fiercely in the estates
of the wealthy Abbey of Peterborough, in the comer of Northampton that runs up
to meet the shire-boundaries of Cambridge and Huntingdon in the heart of the
fenland. Here the peasantry found the Abbot a hard master, and were resolved to
free themselves from their manorial grievances, while the townsfolk apparently
were not disinclined to join them m an assault on the Abbey of the ‘ Golden
Borough ’. There was a general rising on Monday, June 17. a date which shows
that the trouble was the result of the successful outburst of Cambridgeshire
during the two preceding days. How it was nipped in the bud we must next
proceed to show.
1
Rdville, Appendix, document no. 128.
3 See the Charter granted them by the King
on Dec. 12 for their faithful services, in R6ville, p. 250. * See p. 85, supra.
The Suppression of the Revolt in the Eastern Counties
Of
all the magnates of England, Bishop Henry of Norwich was the only one who
showed real presence of mind and active energy in dealing with the
insurrection. While veterans of the old French Wars like Warwick and Salisbury
seemed to have lost their heads, and made no resolute effort to crush the
rising at its commencement, this resolute and narrow-minded churchman showed
how much could be accomplished b> mei e during and single-hearted
perseverance. Despenser was the grandson of the well-known favourite of Edward
II, and the brother of a famous soldier of fortune, who had served Pope Urban V
in Italy, and had used his favour with the pontiff to get his kinsmen put in
the way of clerical promotion. It is said that Henry himself had seen service
abroad m his biother’s band, and felt the helmet sit more naturally on his head
them the mitre. This much is certain, that when the nobles of England were
tried by the test of sudden insur- iection he showed himself the best
fighting-man in the whole house of peer*.1
He was, as it
chanced, absent from his diocese when the rebellion broke out, bring far from
its limits, in the county of Rutland, at ‘Burleigh House by Stamford Town ’,
when the crisis came. For a few days such rumours of the rising as reached him
pointed to nothing more than local tumults in Kent and Essex. But presently
came the news, not only that the rebels of the south were marching on London,
but that his own East Anglians had begun to stii. The tale of W raw’s doings
near Sudbury on June 12 must have reached him two days later, and almost at the
same time he must have heard
1
See his Biography in Capgrave’s De Illusttibus Hmricis, pp. 170-5.
WAT
TYLER K
that not only
Suffolk but the nearer shire of Cambridge was on the move, for the first
troubles in that region commenced as early as the fifteenth of J une, so that
the Bishop found that, in order to return to his diocese he would have to cut
his way through a countryside that was up in aims.
Despenser had
been travelling with no more than the ordinary retinue of a great prelate,
eight lances, as we are told, and a few archers.1 But he saw that it
was his duty to make his way to his own centre of influence, and set forth
without hesitation at the head of this small band.
He was nearing
Peterborough, the first stage of his homeward journey, when he received the
news that the tenants of the abbey had just risen in arms, and were about to
fall upon the monks, demanding the usual grant of charters and abolition of
serfdom.'2 'The Bishop halted a few hours to gather in some recruits
from the local gentry and the friends of the monastery, and then dashed into
the town, He had taken the enemy by surprise, and, small as was the number of
his followers, they beat the rebels out of the abbey just at the moment that
they were commencing the sack. ‘ Some fell by lance or sword without the
minster, some within, some even close to the altar. So those who had come to
destroy the church and its ministers perished by the hand of a churchman. For
the bishop’s sword gave them their absolution.’3 Despenser tarried
in Peterborough long enough tc restore order; he saw certain leaders hanged
offhand, imprisoned others, and then moved on into the county of Huntingdon.
It was at
Ramsey that he first met the insurgents of the Fens ; a band from Ely, headed
by Robert Tavell, a lieutenant of Wraw, had entered the place, and was blackmailing
the monastery. Despenser fell upon them, and took them all prisoners [June 18].
Handing them over to the Abbot of Ramsey4, the energetic Bishop
pushed on next day
1
Hist. Angl. p. 306.
3 Knighton’s Continuator, ii. p. 140. 8 Ibid. p. 141.
4 The Abbot had to account to the
Escheators of Cambridgeshire for seventeen horses, nineteen saddles, and
certain weapons belonging to Taveil’s band (see Powell, p. 46).
to Cambridge,
which (as we have seen) was a great local centre of disorder. Here, according
to his eulogist Capgrave, he ‘ slew some of that wicked mob, imprisoned others,
and the rest he sent to their homes, after taking from them an oath that they
would never again take part in such assemblies We know from the Rolls of
Parliament that he made an example of John Hanchach, the wealthy local
landowner who had both led the attack on the estates of John of Gaunt’s steward
and also participated in the assault on the. University. He was beheaded in
Cambridge market-place, and apparently others suffered with him. But the
majority of the rebel leaders of the shire were more fortunate : Geoffrey
Cobbe, the other squire who had taken a leading part in the troubles, Stanford,
who had first come down from London and stirred up the insurrection. Red-
meadow, the Mayor of Cambridge, who had (willingly or unwillingly) conducted
the attack on the Priory of Barnwell, all escaped with prison 01 reprimand.
As to
Cambridge town, the Government, when the pacification of the land was
complete, saw that the Mayor had been but the tool of hi? townsfolk. He was
merely removed from office as ‘ notoriously insufficient ’s, and
suffered no furthei penalty. It was the borough itself that was chastised, and
the chastisement took the form that was most certain to humble its pride. Not
merely were the old privileges of the University restored, but many new ones
were granted, to the detriment of the town’s autonomy. For the future the
gownsmen could not only claim to plead in their own Chancellor’s court, but
they were entrusted with the charge of many functions that would naturally have
fallen to the municipality. They secured the oversight of all victuals in the
market, the right to license all lodgings, the privilege of punishing
forestallers and regraters, the control of ‘ focalia ’, i.e. fill firestuffs,
turf, timber, and coal, and (most offensive of all to the townsfolk) the
management of Stourbridge Fair, the great temporary mart m which the most
important com-
1
See Capgrave, De Illustribus Hennas, p, 172.
a
See supra, p. 124. 9 See
Reville, Appendix, document no. 126.
K 2
mercial
transactions of the fenland counties were conducted The riots of June 15-16,
1381, in short, were as fatal to their instigators in the one University town,
as those of St. Scho- lastica’s day, 1354, had been in the other. Oxford and
Cambridge were now on a level in respect of the abnormal immunities and
privileges granted to the gownsmen in dealing with the town—rights that in many
cases were destined to last down to our own day.
It may be
worth noting that Cambridge wellnigh suffered the fate of Bury St. Edmunds in
being put out of the law of the land for a space. But, like Canterbury and St.
Albans, it was ultimately pardoned, and not enrolled as an ‘excepted borough’
by the Parliament that sat in the ensuing autumn.
Having, as it
would seem, made Cambridge his head quarters- on June 19 and J une 20, the
Bishop moved on via Newmarket into his own diocese. It was probably 011 the
morning of the 22nd that he met, at Temple-Bridge, near lcklingham, on the
Suffolk border, the troop of ambassadors whom Litster ha d sent forth on their
mission to London. They ran straight into his band of men-at-arms, and were
arrested. Despenser, seeing the knights Morlev and Brewes, began to question
them as to their purpose. They explained the situation to him, whereupon the
Bishop, with small delay, had their colleagues, Skeet, Trunch, and Kybett,
beheaded by the wayside. He sent their heads to be fixed on the pillory at
Newmarket,1 and pressed forward on his way into Norfolk.
The moment
that his approach was noised abroad, the oppressed loyalists of Western Suffolk
and Norfolk came flocking in to his banner. ‘ All the knights and men of gentle
blood who had hid themselves for fear of the commons, when they saw their
bishop in helm and cuirass, girt with his two- edged sword, joined themselves
to his company.’2 It was accordingly at the head of a considerable
force that on June 24 he presented himself at the gates of Norwich. The main
body of the rebels, and Litster their chief, had left the city, and the
burghers gladly received Despenser. He ‘ saw and bewailed the destruction of
houses and places that had been made by
1
Chron, Angl, 306. * Ibid. 307.
the furious
people and as a token of his pity gave hack to the city the sum of money which
he had seized in charge of Litster’s ambassadors at Temple-Bridge; it had been
originally (as will be remembered) a forced contribution extorted from Norwich
by the rebels.1 The corporation returned it to him as a free gift,
begging him to use it. as a tund for the pay of his troops.
Why the 1
King of the Commons ’ had evacuated Norwich we cannot tell: perhaps he had
feared to offer battle there because of the notorious ill-will of the citizens,
who might have betrayed him to the enemy. He had fallen back on North Walsham,
and had sent urgent messages to all his partisans2, to bid them
mobilize at that place and ‘ strive to tame the malice of the bishop ’. It
would seem that the muster was less numerous than Litster had hoped, for the
news from London had now had ten days to circulate, and every one knew that
Tyler was dead and that the Kentishmen had dispersed. Moreover, the easy
success which Despenser had won at Cambridge and Peterborough must have caused
the rebels to doubt iheir own strength.
Nevertheless,
the ‘ King of the Commons ’ had gathered a numerous following, and had done his
best to give them a chance of victory. He had fortified a position at North
Walsham with a ditch and palisades, and had covered his, flanks and rear with
wagons chained wheel to wheel, and piles of furniture—not merely (as the
chronicler suggests) in order to prevent his lines from being turned, but also
in order to keep his bands from slinking off to the rear when the fighting
began. When the Bishop arrived in front of the enemy, he took a rapid survey of
the defences, and came to the conclusion that they could be carried by a
resolute charge. Hardly allowing time for the archers to open the light, he
delivered a direct frontal attack with his cavalry
1
See supra, p. 116.
a
Among the indictments of the Norfolk Juries is one against a certain John
Gyldyng who had been carrying Litster’s message to Causton, Corpusty, and
Dalling on June 25, ‘dicendo diversis hominibus quod bonum esset, et proficuum
communibus, arrestare episcopum, et ilium obstupare de malicia sua See Reville,
p. 138.
He himself
was the first to leap the ditch and burst through the palisades, his knights
followed, and all together came hurtling in upon the rebels.1
Litster’s men stood for a short time, but presently broke and strove to flee.
Many escaped, but their own rear defences hindered their retreat, and some were
slain and more captured Among the prisoners was Litster himself, whom the
Bishop promptly adjudged to be hanged, and afterwards beheaded and quartered.
Then with a sudden relapse into a clerical point of view, he remarked that the
man must not be denied the last offices of religion He confessed and absolved
the rebel himself, and walked beside him to the gallows as he was drawn along
on his hurdle, sustaining his head lest it might be dashed against the stones
of the road.2
Thus died
Geoffrey Litster, the least unworthy of the leaders of the insurrection of
1381; he was not such a ruffian as Tyler or Wraw, and had evidently both a turn
for organization, a plan of operations, and a steadfast courage. With his fall
the Norfolk rising came to a sudden end : in no corner of the county did the
rebels again offer battle to the Bishop. Where- ever Despenser came he
conquered: he had nothing to do but to hunt down the surviving chiefs and deal
with them as he pleased. Some were hung offhand : the majority, however, were
consigned to Norwich gaol, and remanded till the normal processes of law could
be resumed. By the first week of July the juries of the hundreds were drawing
up the regular lists of indictments, and the time of martial lav* was over. We
learn from the surviving documents of this month 1hat most of Litster’s
lieutenants had been captured. Some were duly tried and hanged, but many were
spared; among those who got off with their lives were Sir Roger Bacon. Thomas
Gissing, and several others who deserved the gallows as much as any of those
who perished. In Norfolk, as in the home counties and London, the rolls of
1382 and
1 I
follow the detailed account in Chron. Angl. 307-8, rather than that of
Capgrave, as the latter lived further from the date of the rebellion, and gives
many false details—e. g. that the Bishop had started from London instead of
Burleigh—a very odd blunder.
a
Chron. Angl. 308.
1383 are full
of record? of pardons ; that of Bacon is said to have been granted in response
to the solicitation of the young Queen Anne, whom Richard II had wedded in the
winter that followed the rebellion.1
In Suffolk
the repression of the insurgents was even more prompt and easy than in Norfolk
The Earl of the shire, William LTfford, arrived at Bury on June 23
with 500 lances detached from the royal army at London. Before this formidable
force, the rebel bands melted away, without making the least show of
resistance. Their leader, the greedy and unscrupulous Wraw, showed himself an
arrant coward. Instead of offering battle to the forces of ordei, as Litster
liad done, he fled and hid hims< If. When captured he wished to turn King’s
evidence, and drew up a long indictment against all his lieutenants, seeking to
implicate them in the responsibility for each of bis own actions.2
It is satisfactory to know that he did not thus obtain his pardon ; the Bury
murders had to be punished, and Wraw went to the gallows. Thomas Sampson, the
leader of the Ipswich rebels, was more fortunate ; though condemned to death, he
was kept eighteen months in prison and finally pardoned on January 14,1383. So
also was Robert Westbroun, the rival of Litster for the title of ‘ King of the
Commons ’.
It is
possible to collect a list of twenty-eight rebels who were formally tried and executed
m Norfolk, and of sixteen who suffered in a similar way in Suffolk.3
This does not include the names of those who, like Skeet, Tiunch, and Kybett,
suffered under the Bishop’s martial law in the first days of repression. The
indictment-rolls too arc incomplete, so that it is probable that a good many
unrecorded cases should be added to those of which we have knowledge. If we
take into consideration also the number oi those who fell in battle at North
Waltham, we are driven to conclude that East Anglia was more hardly hit by the
reaction than anj,
1 Sec Powell, p. 39.
• It will be found at length in pp. 175 8a
of R^ville's Appendices, rhis detectable priest did his best to get all his
followers handed,
’ See
Reville. p. 157.
other of the
districts which had taken part in the rebellion, with the exception of Essex.
Few of the
trials present any points of importance ; the interminable delations to which
Wraw gave vent, while he was trying to save his neck, are only useful as
showing in detail the way in which his lieutenants had harried the countryside
in their day of power. More interesting were the cases of John Wright, and of
George Dunsby, a Lincolnshire man wTho had carried incendiary
messages from the ‘ Great Company ’ all over Norfolk. Both these leaders
gloried in their doings/ and went to death maintaining that they bad served the
commons faithfully. It is unfortunate that the details of their defences have
not been preserved ; they might have given us useful hints as to the way in
which the rebellion was regarded by its more conscientious and manly
supporters, the men who had not joined the rising for mere plunder, but in
order to win their freedom, or to serve some even more ideal end.
The only
trial in East Anglia which presented points of constitutional importance was
that of the burgesses of Buiy. Their town, as we already have had occasion to
note, was the only one in all England which was excluded from the general
amnesty which wras proclaimed at midwinter. ‘ The King ’, as the
Rolls of Parliament tell us, ‘ excludes the burgesses of Bury from his grace,
because of their outrageous and horrible misdeeds, long continued, and will
not have them share in the general pardon, nor take part in it.’2 It
was not till the following year that they were finally allowed to buy the
reversal of their outlawry by a payment of 2,000 marks. Half of this was raised
at once, but the second moiety proved hard to levy, all the more because 500
marks of it was assigned to the abbey as compensation for the atrocities that
had been committed within it by the rebels. The men of Bury put off as long as
they could the payment of this debt due to the hated corporation. It was not
till January 1386, nearly five years after the rebellion, that the last
fractions of this
1 See Dunsby’s trial in Powell, p. 127,
2 Rolls of Parliament, iii. 118 a.
heavy fine
were paid off. Meanwhile the burgesses had been compelled in 1384 to go bail
for themselves, in the enormous sum of £10,ooo, that they would never again
engage in sedition. On the slightest movement reported to the King, the bail
money, xepresenting more than the total value of the town, was to be escheated
to the crown. Seven hundred and twenty-two persons were inserted by name as
responsible each for their share in this guarantee. This number probably
represents the total number of householders in the place, as the sum of adults
there resident had been reported in 1377 a t 2,445 persons.1 This
device seems to have been effectual in restraining the energies of the
turbulent town, which made no further attempt to resume its old quarrel with
the abbey for many a long year.2 Considering the massacres of June
15 it cannot be said that the fine of 2,000 marks was an unduly heavy
pun'shment, from the point of view of a Government set upon restoring law and
order. The provocation received by the town, during many generations of
autocratic government by the abbots, could hardly have been taken into account
by the ministry, who had only to deal with the actual facts of the revolt.
1 See
Tables in Appendix II.
s
For a detailed account of the case of the burgesses of Bury see Reville, pp.
165-71
Troubles in the Outlying Counties of the North and West
No county
west of Cambridge, Hertfordshire, and Essex can be said to have formed part of
the main area of insurrection in J une 1381. Nevertheless, sporadic
disturbances broke out in regions so fai from the mam foci of rebellion as
Yorkshire, and Somersetshire. They deserve a few words of notice, if only as
illustrating the extraordinary divergency of the causes which led various
English communides into the paths of treason. If none of these isolated
outbreak* in the North and West grew to any serious height, it was largely
because the wave of revolt, travelling slowly from the. south-east onward.
reached the outlying counties so late that the reaction was already in progress
at London before the outbreak began at York or Scarborough or Bridgewater. The
Government hastily dispatched the intelligence of Tyler’s death to every comer
of the realm, and bade the local magnates arm. Just at the psychological moment
when the North or West might have flared up into general insurrection, came the
chilling news that the main force of the rebels had been dispersed and their
leader slain. The signs of approaching trouble at once died down, and no rising
took place, save in a very few places, where special circumstances had
precipitated a local outburst.
Going west
from London wehave noted that in all Hampshire only Winchester seems to bave
been disturbed, and that here a municipal quarrel between the town oligarchy
and the lower classes was the cause of trouble. In Wiltshire the escheators
write 1 that ha\ing been directed to render an account for the goods
of any rebels in the county, they have to report that no such persons were to
be found there. The only trace
1
See Reville, Appendix, document 200.
of trouble in
this region is a complaint that lead, stone, and tiles have been stolen from
the royal castle of Mere ; if anything very serious had occurred we should
assuredly know of it. Oddly enough there had been serious riots in Salisbury
town nine months before, in September 1380, evidently arising fron. a strife
between the local oligarchy and the commons. We have only the vaguest hint that
the t roubles may have broken out again in 1381.1 In Somersetshire
there was a curious local outbreak on June 19-20, about Bridgewater, headed by
a priest named Nicholas Frompton and a yeoman named Thomas Engilby. It seems to
have been the result of an old quarrel about an advowson Frompton claimed a
vicarage belonging to the Knights ot St. John, to which he said that he had
been legally presented. He was in London at the time of the murder of Sudbury
and Hales, and, having seen the manner in which the Hospitallers were treated
in the capital, thought that he could take his own private revenge on them.
Hurrying back to Bridgewater, he raised a mob, whose captain was Engilby, and
entering the house of the Knights forced the master to transfer to him the
living which he claimed. Other men of Bridgewater seized and tore up bonds
representing debts which they owed to the Hospitallers : they even forced the
master to sign an acknowledgement binding him to pay the town £200. After this
Engilby led his band out into the neighbouring villages of East Chilton and
Sydenham killed two men named Baron and Lavenham, and burni the manor-rolls of
Sir James Audley and John Cole. He also sacked several houses in the town, and
broke open its gaol.
On June 21
the tumult subsided as fast as it had risen, probably on the receipt of news
from London of the complete dispersion of the Kentish rebels. Engilby fled,
leaving his forty-shilling freehold a prey to the escheators. Yet we are
astonished to find that, though he was condemned to death in default upon July
ib, he received a free pardon so early as March 18. 1382. Of Frompton’s fate we
know nothing.-'
1
See R^ville, documents, pp. 280-r. a See R^ville, Appendix,
document 203.
We hear
nothing of troubles in the rest of Somersetshire, so that the Bridgewater
rising would appear to have been a perfectly isolated affair. Nor are any
special misdoings reported from Dorset, Devon, or Cornwall, though a writ of
February 1382 complains that ‘homicides, highway robbery, burglary, and riotous
gatherings have been more comm- >n than usual in these shires V and charges
the justices of the peace to see to their repression. But this represents not
insurrection, but the ordinary increase of crimes against property in a period
when the King’s law had not been running smoothly.
In Berkshire,
Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire there is a similar lack of evidence of any
political or agrarian disturbance. Even the town of ()xford failed to take
advantage of the general anarchy for an assault on the University, such as had
been common in earlier decades of the century. One manor in Buckinghamshire2
was raided by Hertfordshire rioters from across the county border, but no more.
A few individuals from each of these three counties seem to have straggled up
to London to take part in the riots in the capital, and so Ml into the hands of
the Mayor and his court-martial during the day of retaliation. One of them, an
Oxfordshire man from Barford St. John, tru d to save his neck by inventing a
preposterous tale that two of his fellows had received a bribe of £100 from
John de Vienne, the admiral of France,, to st’T up rebellion in England as a
diversion for a projected French invasion of the south coast.3 He
met the credit that he deserved.
Bedford.
Northampton, and Leicester, were decidedly more affected by the revolt than
their south-midland neighbours. Not only are Bedfordshire men noted among the
prisoners arrested in London, but a considerable number of townsfolk of Luton
are found on the escheators’ rolls as ‘fugitivi pro insurreetione ’.4
Yet there was no general rising in the shire. So w as it also in
Northamptonshire; we hear of
1
See Reville, document on p. 385. 1
Langley Mans*
’ It is dear
that this was all wild invention, and it is curicus thai M. Petit- Dutaillis
seems inclined to treat it >eriously—see his preface to Riville, p. 5tl,
where he severely blames the intrigues of the French admiral.
4 See R£vil!e, document on p. 276.
leagues of
tenants refusing to pay manorial dues, and of a vain attempt of a demagogue,
named William N up ton, to stir up the lower orders of the county town agdinst
their Mayor. But at Peterborough only was actual insurrection and violence
found, and there it reigned for no more than one single day. We have a vivid
picture in the chronicle of the Contin- uator of Knighton, showing how the town
of Leicester was affected on Monday and Tuesday, June 17-18, by a false rumour
that the main army of rebels from London was marching upon their town, because
its castle was a stronghold of the hated Jnhn of Gaunt. More courageous than
most of his fellows, the Mayor of Leicester called out the full levy of his
burgesses, some 1,200 strong, and prepared to defend his charge. For two days
they stood in order of battle on Galtre hill, outside the gates, expecting an
enemy who never appeared, ‘ quia iidem profani essent Londoniis The greatest
anxiety prevailed in the town, and the guardian of the Duke of Lancaster’s
chattels in the castle packed them all up in carts, and brought them to the
abbey for shelter and sanctuary. But the abbot refused to take them in, saying
that it would ruin him and his monks if such wares were found under his roof
when the rebels arrived They had ultimately to be stacked in the church of St.
Mary by the Castle. While the Duke’s goods were thus bandied to and fro, his
wife was undergoing a very similar experience. The Duchess Constance, who had
apparently been lying at one of her husband's midland castles when the
rebellion broke out, had lied North to his great fortress of Pontefract. The
castellan was disloyal and cowardly enough to refuse her entrance, lest her
presence should draw the insurgents in his direction. It was only after long
nocturnal wanderings that she found refuge in Knaresborough.2
Meanwhile,
all this panic had little or no solid foundation ; no riots broke out in rural
Leicestershire, the worst that happened being that the tenants of two manors
belonging to the Knights of St. Jolrn (here, as always, prominent objects
1
See Knighton's Continuator, pp. 142-3.
3
Ibid. p. 144.
of public
dislike) were egged on by a local priest to refuse their dues, and to burn the
tithe-corri which had been collected in the Knights’ barns.1
The same
phenomena were seen in the larger shire of Lincoln There was enough discontent
in the county to induce the Government to bid the Earl of Nottingham and the
other great landowners to arm and prepare to march if troubles should begin.
But they never had occasion to move, the sole overt act being a strike against
manorial dues on the pari of the villeins of Dunsbv and other estates belonging
to the Hospitallers. It may be remembered that a Dunsby man, a messenger from
his village to the East Anglian insurgents, was one of those who was executed
at Bury by the Earl of Suffolk.2 No open rebellion or armed
gathering seems to have occurred in the whole of the wide expanse of the
Lincolnshire Fen and Wold The whole of the West Mi<Hands, from
Gloucestershire to Derby and Nottingham, seem to have been practically undisturbed
by the insurrection. If there were any signs of local disturbance they were no
more than those which were common in all counties of mediaeval England, even
during years of complete political apathy. Village niffianism was a normal
feature of the life of the fourteenth century An obscure disturbance in the
Cheshire peninsula of Wirral, between Dee and Mersey, merits notice only
because of its isolation.
North of the
Humber, however, there were three isolated outbreaks, allin large towns, which
deserve someinvestigation Two of them are clear instances of attacks on the
local burgess oligarchy by the local democracy ; the third witnesses to a state
of something not far from endemic civil war in the greatest city of Northern
England.
Scarborough
was a busy little port of about 2,500 souls, much given to privateering against
the Scots and not averse to occasional piracy. It was evidently divided by
bitter feuds, for on June 23, after the receipt of the news of the
1
The promoter of mischief was William Swepston, parson of Askettleby, and the
manors were the neighbouring villages of Rothley and Wartnaby, near
Loughborough. R£ville, Appendix, p, 253.
3
See supra, p. 136.
capture of
London by Wat Tyler,1 certain townsmen, to the number of at least
500 men, assembled under the leadership ol Robert Galoun,'4 William
Marche, a draper, and Robert Hunter, and proceeded to make a systematic attack
on ‘ all against whom they had old quarrels, or wished to pick new ones They
had adopted a common uniform of a white hood with a red tail,3 and
had sworn a great oath to maintain each other in all their doings. Tney began
by seizing on Robert Acklom, bailiff of the; town, and consigning him to
prison, and then declared that he and all other municipal officers w'ere
deposed from office. Having thus cleared the ground and given themselves a free
hand, they went round blackmailing and maltreating all the richer burgesses.
Some of them were besieged in their own houses for many hours, others taken out
and lodged in the town gaol along with the bailiff. From one three pounds was
extorted, irom another ten marks, from a third as much as twenty, but this was
only after the poor man, a certain William Manby, had been led to the gallows
and threatened with instant death unless he gave up his little, store. In every
case the sole object of the rioters seems to have been the settling of old
scores and the gathering in of money.
It was
natural, therefore, that, on the restoration of order, after the news of the
collapse of the insurrection in the south, the Government should punish the
Scarborough men in the same fashion of fines. The town had to pay 400 marks,
and forty-two excepted persons, leaders and prominent offenders during the
riot, had to buy pardons for themselves by contributions over and above this
general penalty. Robert Galoun, Hunter, and the others escaped the death
penalty, which they richly deserved, but did not obtain their pardons
1 * Percipientes et scientes levaciones et
congregationes in partibus australibus perpetratas, per rebelles et inimicos
domini regis', says the indictment. R<5ville, Appendix,
document 15a.
8
Robert Galoun must have been a man of wealth, as the King disallowed and
confiscated a pious foundation which he had started. See Reville, p. ciii,
* The dress was ‘ unica secta capuciorum
alborum cum liripipis rubeis \ The Hripipe was the long ‘weeper’ or tail, often
wound round the neck. See ibid. document 153.
till May i,
1386. It is probable that they had spent a good deal of the intervening time as
prisoners in Scarborough Castle, before being released on bail.1
The case of
Beverley was rather worse than that of Scarborough. The long and tedious doc
uments which set forth the progress of the troubles in this little town of
4,000 souls, the commercial centre of the East Riding, show that there had been
for many years a venomous quarrel between the local oligarchs, the 1
probiores et magis sufficientes burgenses ’ and the commonalty. The magnates
were accused of having levied taxes unfairly, of selling public property for their
private profit, of using municipal justice as a means to crush their enemies
with heavy fines.2 In especial we are informed that they had taken
advantage of the secret murder of a certain William Haldane by fathering it
upon the leaders of their political opponents, who were in no wray
guilty, and getting them cast into the King’s prison. The beginning of these
accusations runs back as far as 1368, far into the reign of Edward III. If half
what is related by John Erghom, the leading spirit among these strangely-named
‘ probiores viri is true, he must have been a sort of Critias in little.
It must not
be supposed, however, that the ‘ viri mediocres ’, who formed the party of
opposition in Beverley, were passive victims of the oligarchs. Long before the
great rebellion began they had bound themselves in a league to resist their
oppressors. On May 7, three weeks before the first outbreak in Essex, a mob had
broken into the Guildhall of the town, stolen and divided £20 in hard cash, and
made off with the town seal pjid a quantity of its charters.
This outrage
had been condoned, and the leaders had received the King’s pardon, apparently
because of the pro-
1
Reville, Appendix, p. 256, last lines.
a
Great play is made in the indictment of the fact that the oligarchs had raised
for the building of a certain barge for the town more money than the vessel
really cost. Also they had illegally levied rates called bustsilver and pundale
from a number of small artisans &c. whose names are annexed at length. But
the great accusation is that whereas John Wellynges had really murdered William
Haldane, Erghom and his friends maintained and abetted him, and accused of the
crime John Whyte and others of their enemies. See Reville, document no. 161,
pp. 263-7.
vocation that
they nad received, when in the end of June the news of Tyler’s doings reached
Beverley. The' mt'diocres viri1 saw their opportunity, and rose in
force, adopting like their fellows at Scarborough a common uniform of white
hoods Headed by one Thomas Preston, a sk’imer, and by two tilers named John and
Thomas Whyte, they beset all their adversaries, and forced them ‘ by rough
threats, by the imprisoning of their bodies, and by other irrational and unheard
of methods, to acknowledge themselves debtors, and to sign bonds for large sums
Apparently these were the sums which the oligarchs were supposed to have been
illegally exacting from the town during the last ten or fifteen years. Both
parties appealed to the King when order was restored, and each set forth the
misdeeds of the other. After mature consideration, Richard and his council
resolved to side with the ‘ probiores viri ’, as was perhaps natural under the
circumstances. They were pardoned for their illegal doings on paying a small
fine,1 but the community of Beverley was saddled with a contribution
of no less than 1,100 marks, by a royal ordinance, issued in the year following
the revolt.2
At
Scarborough and Beverley the revolt took the definite form of a rising of the
smaller citizens against the greater. But at York the tumults of the summer of
1381 were a much more confused and unintelligible business. Long before the
troubles began in the south, there had apparently been civil strife raging in
this city between two parties headed respectively by John Gisbum, the late
Mayor, and Sirnon Quixley, the present occupier of the municipal chair. As
early’ as January twenty persons had been arrested and sent to prison for
breaking the King's peace.3 In May the council wrote from London to
direct the Archbishop and the Earl of Northumberland to intervene and
terminate the quarrel between Gisburn and his party and the ‘ communitas ’ of
York, i.e. the faction at present in power.4
The mediation
of these magnates was clearly of no effect,
1
Erghom, the chief criminal, paid a sum of ten marks in the hanaper on receiving
pardon. See R^ville, p. 266. 3 R^ville, Appendix,
document 17a.
3 Ibid. document no. 174. 4 Ibid. document no. 176.
WAT
TYLER L
if ever it
was put into use. For the next group of documents show that on July i there was
a great riot at the gate called Bootham Bar. We have documents emanating from
each side. On the one hand, the jurors of the city of York, acting under the
inspiration of Mayor Quixley lay an indii tment to the effect that Gisburn and
certain of his partisans had come to the gates on horseback armed with iron
bars and other weapons, had assaulted a party of citizens who strove to keep
them out, and had then ridden round the streets distributing a badge, and
binding all their friends with a great oath to maintain them in their quarrel
The jurors add that Gisburn was an issuer of false money1 and a
notorious patron of robbers, and that two of his c hief followers had committed
murders some years back, one in 1372, and the other in 1373.
On the other
hand, we ha ve an indictment evidently drawn up by Gisbum’.s friends, stating
thal Quixley and his allies, the bailiffs of York, have seized and imprisoned
five innocent persons, and, by threatening them with death, have induced them
to sign bonds for large sums of money, claimed as due to certain friends of the
Mayor, and also to promise not to pursue the magistrates in the royal courts
for their illegal violence.3
The King
cites both parties to appear before the Chancellor to answer for their
misdeeds, and with a fine impartiality terminates the proceedings by fining the
whole city of York 1.000 marks, after which he pardons all the citizens alike,
except a certain few excepted by Parliament from the amnesty. The names of
these persons show that they were mainly of Gisburn’s party. As has been Iruly
observed * mediaeval justice was mainly finance, though mediaeval finance was
not always justice ’.
Thus ended
this squalid and obscure municipal quarrel, which had obviously no relation to
the general causes of the rebellion of 1381. It merely broke out with violence
at this
1
Perhaps he had farmed the royal mint of York, and was accused of issuing light
money. -
a Reville, Appendix, document no. 179.
3
Ibid. document no. 180.
moment
because all parties, hearing heard the news of tumult in the south, had
concluded that the King’s law no longer ran, and that it was an admirable time
to settle old grudges by armed force. In short, the case was the same as at
Scarborough and Beverley, and indeed the same as at Bury, Cambridge, or St.
Albans. During the ‘ Anarchy * of 1381 every man and every faction strove to win
what could be won by the strong hand.
l 2
The Results ok Insurrection. The
Parliament of November 1381
Having dealt in detail with all the events of the summer
of 1381, in every shire from Somerset to Norfolk, and from York to Kent, it
only remains that we should endeavour to sum up their general result.
All through
the autumn the Government was harassed by rumours that the rebellion was about
to break out once more. The fact that the insurgents had never tried their
armed force against that of the crown, save at the two small combats of
Billericav and North Walsham, had evidently made them doubt whether they had
been fairly beaten. We hear of half a dozen cases of bands reassembling in East
Anglia and in Kent, and of leaders who tried to rekindle the embers of
.sedition during August and September. None of these attempts achieved any
success; the great mass of the people had tasted the results of anarchy, and
were not anxious to set it once more on foot. The desperate men who strove to
renew the insurrection met with little support . Only one of these plots has
any interest, and that merely because of the curious revulsion in political
feeling to which it bears evidence. At the first outbreak of the revolt in
June, John of Gaunt had been (with the possible exception of Archbishop
Sudbury) the most unpopular person in the realm. It was the King who was to
right aU wrongs and terminate all grievances. But after Richard’s revocation of
the Mile End charters, and his drastic declaration to the rebels that ‘villeins
they were and villeins they should remain ’, public opinion swerved round. We
find that a number of obscure persons who were plotting to raise a new
insurrection about Maidstone in September and October, proposed that the King
should be dethroned, and the Duke of Lancaster placed in his
seat. This,
we are told, was merely because they had heard that John had been very liberal
in granting exemption from .servile dues to his tenants in the northern
counties.1 But the plot was betrayed at once to the sheriff, Sir
William Septvans, its framers were arrested, and the movement (which must have
been purely local) was suppressed before it had got into the stage of practical
action.2
The autumn
was occupied in the steady but not too merciless punishment of the rebel
leaders. There were few hangings, or beheadings when once the first flush of
panic was over, and the Government was already beginning to turn clemency into
a means of tilling the exchequer, by allowing rebels of the minor sort to buy
their pardons by payments into the Chancellor’s haaaper. All serious dangei
was ovei when on November 3 the Parliament was summoned to sit at Westminster,
It met on November 13, and sat for a month; then, after having been prorogued
for the Christmas holidays, it reassembled and transacted business from January
27 to February 25, 1382.
The chief
duty of the two Houses during this session was to take into consideration the
state of affairs which the rebellion had created. As was natural, after the
terrors wiiich its various members had gone through during the summer, it
showed itself very reactionary in its policy. One ot its first acts was to pass
an act of indemnity for all those who, like Mayor Walworth and Bishop
Despenser, had put rebels tc death without due form of law during the first
days of repression.
The chief
minister who faced the Parliament in the. Kmg’s name was William Courtenay, who
was Bishop of London when he took over the Great Seal and became Chancellor on
August 10, but had received the Archbishopric of Canterbury on September 9. The
new Treasurer, in place of the mur-
1
This they had learnt, said Cote the informer against them, from pilgrims who
came out of the North Country. See Arch. Cani. iv. p. 85.
a
The original informer was one Borderfield, who told all to the sheriff before
the band was ready for action. They had met on Sept. 30 at Broughton Heath, and
were had up for trial on Oct. 8. Six or seven, including their leader, a mason
named Hardyng, were hanged. See ibid. pp. 67-86.
dertd Sir
Robert Hales, was Sir Hugh Segrave. Courtenay, best known as a bitter enemy of
John of Gaunt, and of the Lollards, opened the proceedings with a long English
sermon, setting forth, no doubt, the evils of rebellion. Hut it was Segrave who
took the main part in laying the problem of the day before the House of
Commons. The King, as he said, had issued, under constraint of the mob at Mile
End, many charters enfranchising villeins and abolishing manorial dues. Such
chai ters were null and void, because the sovereign had no power to publish,
without the consent of Parliament, any such decrees, which granted away the
rights of many of his loyal subjects, before the consent of their representatives
in Parliament had been obtained. Knowing this he had revoked all the charters
by his proclamation of July 2. But he was informed that certain lords were
willing to enfranchise and manmnit their villtms of their own free will; if
this was so the King would have no objection to sanction such emancipations.
This last
clause is curious , the ministers must have known perfectly well that the two
Houses were in no mood to deal tenderly with their serfs at this moment. Did
they wish to set themselves right with the peasantry, so far as was possible,
by throwing the responsibility for the retention of villeinage on the
Parliament ? Or was there some obscure working of conscience in the young
King’s mind, causing him to make a feeble representation in favour of the
serfs, because he had, after all, promised them much that he had never intended
to perform ? Or again—for a third alternative is possible— did Richard and his
Council sincerely believe that it would be for the advantage of the realm that
manorial servitude should be abolished, and so think it their duty to lay this
suggestion before Parliament ?
Whatever was
their object, they received an answer of the most decided sort from the two
Houses. • Prelates, lords temporal, citizens, knights and burgesses responded
with one voice that the repealing of the Charters had been wisely done. And
they added that such a manumission of serfs could not have been made without
the consent of those who had the
mam interest
in the matter. And, for their own parts, they would never consent of their own
free will, nor otherwise, nor ever would do it, even if they all had to live
and die in one day.’1 Immediately after this declaration, Courtenay
resigned the Great Seal, being too busy with the duties of his newly obtained
archbishopric to combine with them those of Chancellor ; the example of
Sudbury’s tenure of the two offices had not been encouraging. Courtenay was
replaced [November 18] b\ Richard, Lord Scrope, the same man who had already
held that office, at the time of the Parliament ot Gloucester. His assumption
of office was only one of several changes made at this time, all intended, as
it wouid seem, to conciliate the opinion of Parliament. Thus an old and trusted
public servant, enjoying the full confidence of the two houses, received the
chief ministerial post: but almost as much importance attached to the
appointment of two permanent guardians for the young king. A petition having
been made that his household should be reformed.. Richard made no opposition,
and in due course the Earl of Arundel and Michael, lord de la Pole, were given
him as tutors, taking an oath to live with him always in the palace ‘ pour
gouvemer ct ci-nseiller sa personne ’. It is curious to note that these two
tutors whom the Parliament gave the King were to become, one his greatest
enemy, the other his best friend. Both were to end disastrously, Arundel on the
scaffold for crossing Richard’s purpose, de la Pole in exile for serving him
too loyally.
The next step
of the Commons was to demand by petition that the King should grant a general
amnesty to all those who had taken part in the late troubles, save certain
important leaders and notable malefactors. This was readily conceded, the new
Chancellor taking the opportunity of getting the House to renew the subsidy on
wool as a token of gratitude for the royal clemency. The rather lengthy list of
persons excluded comprised 287 names, of which a very large proportion were
London criminals.2 The Commons had at first proposed to leave
outside of the law the towns of Canterbury, Cam-
1
Rot. Pari. iii. 100. 3 No less than 151 of the names belong to
London.
bridge,
Bridgewater, Bury St. Edmunds, Beverley and Scarborough. But at. the. King’s
suggestion they left Bury alone on the list, and the other five were allowed to
buy their pardon by the heavy fines of which we have already spoken.
We have seen
also, when dealing with the history of the repression of the revolt, that by
far the larger number of the 287 persons left unpardoned by the general amnesty
were ultimately allowed to go free, after a greater or less term of
imprisonment, and a notable fine, when they were able to baar it. For the next
three years the King was pardoning a few rebels almost every week, and chiefs
so notorious as Sir Rogei Bacon, Thomas Farringdon, Aldermen Tonge, . Home and
Sibley, Sampson of Ipswich, and Westbroun the \ ‘ King of the Commons \ all returned
to their homes sooner \ or later, in a sufficiently humbled frame of mind, as
is to be ' supposed.1 The last outstanding matter of importance from
the rebellion was the case of the burgesses of Bury, and even they (as we have
already seen) were pardoned in December 1382, though they did not pay off the
last instalment of their heavy fine till January 1386. By that time the
rebellion was only an old and evil memory in the minds of men. Later political
events were gradually causing its terrors to be forgotten.
It remains to
ask what was the general result ol this great convulsion. The popular theory
down to the few last years was that formulated by Thotold Rogers, that though
the roimal victory lay with the lords, the real gains had fallen to the peasants,
that, to use his word? 1 the War of 1381 had as its effect the
practical extinction of villeinage. Though the* Parliament refused emancipation
with a great show of indignation, the judges, as I am convinced, at the. King’s
own instance, began to interpret servile tenures in a sense favourable to the
serfs, and to protect them against arbitrary oppression. By the fifteenth
century, villeinage was only a legal fiction \2 In a similar strain
Bishop Stubbs writes that
1
See pp. 8a. 89, 98. 135.
1
For a lengthy setting iorth of this see Six Centuries of Work and Wages pp. 264
71.
‘ although
the villeins had failed to obtain their charters and had paid a heavy penalty
for their temerity in revolting, yet they had struck a vital blow at
villeinage. The landlords gave up the practice of demanding base services ;
they let their land to leasehold tenants, and accepted monry payment in lieu of
laboui : they ceased to recall the emancipated labourer into serfdom, or to
oppose his assertion of right in the courts of the manor and the county’.1
Later
researches, such as those of Professors Maitland and Cunningham, Mr. Powell and
Andr6 Reville, have shown that this statement of the consequences of the Great
Revolt in 1381 is too sweeping, and is not founded on a sufficient number of
observed facts in manorial records. It is true that serfdom is on the decline
during the last year ol the fourteenth century, and still more so during the
first half of the fifteenth. But the immediate result of the rebellion does not
seem to have been any general abandonment by the lords of their disputed
rights. Indeed the years 1382 and 1383 are full of instances which seem to
prove that the first consequence of the suppression of the revolt was that many
landlords endeavoured to tighten the bonds of serfdom, and to reassert rights
which were slipping from their grasp. Now, in the moment of wrath and
repression, was the time for them to reclaim all their old privileges. A case
can be quoted in Suffolk * where a lord claimed and obtained 26 years’ arrears
of base services owed to him by a recalcitrant tenant [1382]. In another
instance in the same county a number of villeins who had withheld their labour
dues for the lesser term of three years are declared to be wholly in the wrong,
and told in words that recall King Richard’s speech at Waltham, that ‘Serfs
they are and serfs they must remain ’.3 In this manor, Littlehawe,
near Bury St. Edmunds, the villeins had obtained exemplifications from Domesday
Hook,
1 Constitutional
History, ii. 503.
a
The manor of Barton Parva, one of those belonging to Bury, where in spite of
all the terrors of 1381, the monks start in 138a to revindicate rights that had
almost passed into oblivion. See Powell, p. 64.
3
Powell, pp. 64-5.
to prove that
there ought to be no serfdom in the manor, perhaps by the council of two
priests, who are said to have acted as their advisers. They had refused their services
in 1382-3-4, tendering instead a rent of 4d. an acre for their holdings. They
were found guilty, lined £3, and told to resume their corvees. Professor
Maitland quotes similar instances, in which every incident of villeinage is
levied with the i) unutest care, in the years following the revolt: in one
manor (Wflburton, Cambs.) it was not till the late date 1423, that the
labour-rents of the tenants ceased to be exacted.1
We may well
believe that many landlords were taught caution by the events of June 1381, and
that they conducted the ruraj machine with comparative moderation for the
future, lest another outburst of discontent should ensue. But there can be no
doubt that the old system went on; it had received a rude shock, but had not
been completely put out of gear.
The best
proof of this is that for the next ten years the archives ot England are full
of instances 01 conflict between landlord and ten;mt precisely similar to those
which had been so rife in the years i umediately preceding the rebellion. We
have countless cases of oaths and conventicles entered into by peasants to
resist their lords, of secret outrages and of open riots against unpopular
lords and bailiffs. If we had not the chronicles of Tyler’s rising, we should
never have gathered from the court rolls of the manors that there had been an
earth-shaking convulsion in 1361. The old quarrels go on in the same old weary
way. Parliament still continued to harp on its ancient theme of violations of
the Statute of Labourers. So far from being cowed or converted by the recent
insurrection, it continued for some years to devise new remedies for the
perversity of the working-classes. The. session at Cambridge in September 1388
was singularly fruitful in futile devices of the usual sort. The peasantry
proved as obstinate as ever, and continued the struggle, but it cannot be
proved that their resistance was a whit
1
Sfce his ‘History of a Cambridgeshire Manor’ in the English Historical Review
for 1894.
more
effective after than before 1381. It is interesting, however, to find that the
terms of the Charters which they had won in Tyler’s time now served as the
ideals which they hoped some day to achieve. The much-tried tenants of St.
Albans are accused by their abbot of having made many copies of the document
which they had extorted from him, ‘ as evidence that they should have the said
liberties and franchises in time to come V The theory7 that the fair
rent of land should be 4d. an acre, popularized at the Mile End Conference,
also reappears regularly in the subsequent demands of the villeins of manors
where a strike or an agricultural union was on foot. Sometimes such folks
dreamed of extending their local grievances once more into a general
insurrection Lke that of 1381. In the very next year there was a widespread
plot in Norfolk raised ‘by certain men inspired by the Devil, whose minds had
not been chastened by the perils of others, whom the deaths and torments of
their fellows had not tamed to slay the bishop of Norwich as a sacrifice to the
manes of Geoffrey Litster. They had also planned to fall upon the folks congregated
at St. Faith’s fair, and force them all to take an oath to rise in the name of
the ‘ true a-mmons ’, and they intended to make the marsh-girt abbey of St.
Benet’s-at- Holme their central fortress. But they w'ere put down before any
thing had got to the stage of action.2 A similar conspiracy', also
in Norfolk, was reported two years later, when certain riotous persons proposed
‘ to carry out all the designs of the traitors and malefactors who feloniously
rose against their allegiance in the fourth yTear of King Richard ’
They were delated and captured before they had time to do much harm.3
There were agrarian troubles on a large scale in Sussex in 1383, when a mob
stormed Lewes Castle, and burnt all the rolls, rentals, and charters of the
Earl of Arundel, its proprietor. Still greater troubles, which almost attained
to the dignity of a formal insurrection, broke out in 1392-3 : they affected
Cheshire and West Yorkshire, districts
1 Rot.
Pari. iii. 129. 2 See details
in Chron. Angl. p. 354.
3 See document in R6villef p.
cxxxiv.
which had
(save for a trifling rising in Wirral) been untouched by the revolt of Tyler’s
year. In short, the great rebellion which we have been investigating does not
mark the end any more than it marks the beginning of the struggle between the
landholder and the peasant.
It is the
same in the towns: the strife between the local oligarchs and the local
democracy in some places, between factions divided by less obvious lines in
others, went on for many years after 1381. In London the war of the ‘ victualling
’ and ‘ clothing ’ guilds was flaring up fiercely in the period that
immediately followed Tyler’s triumph and fall. Riots that often became regular
street-battles were in progress during the turbulent mayoralty of J ohn of
Northampton (1382-3), who was the champion of the commons, and the advocate of
cheap food. There was another outbreak in 1393. so violent that the King
deposed Mayor Hynde, and appointed Sir Edward Dalingridge as a military
governor for the city, suspending the civil administration for many months.
This affair had started with an assault on a Lombard : but attacks on
Flemings, so prominent during Tyler’s rising, are still more frequent in after
days. All London was roused against them bv ‘bills’ posted everywhere in 1425,
and it is said that, there was a plot for their general massacre in 1468}
Provincial towns too continued to have their riots from time to time, all
through the times of Richard II and his fifteenth-centurv successors. Norwich
was up four times between 1433 and 1444. Those who list may find turbulence
enough in the annals of Lincoln, or Bristol, or Exeter. In short, all the
incidents of the great rebellion can be paralleled from the century that
follows, The only difference is that the troubles are once more scattered and
sporadic, instead of simultaneous.
Neither
villainage and all the manorial grievances in the country?’de, nor the
class-war within the towns, were in any sense brought to an end by the great
popular outburst that we have been investigating. The problems were settled, so
far as they were ever settled, by the slow working out of
1
See Gregory’s Chroniclt, pp. 158 ana 337.
economic
changes. If in 1481 we find copyholders and rent-paying yeomen where villeins
had most abounded in 1381, it was due to the working of causes which had
already begun to be visible long before the year of the rebellion, and which
did not attain their full operative force till more than a generation after it
was over. In the first chapter of this book it was shown that the letting of
the lord’s demesne land to farmers, small and great, was growing common even in
the time of Edward III. As the lords abandoned more and more the attempt to work
their home-farms by forced laboui, they had less and less use for the
operationes of then villeins. When all demesne land had been let on lease, or
turned into pasturage, there was little gam to be got from enforcing the
servile status of the old naiivi. Gradually they were allowed to commute all
their liabilities for money, and for the most part became copyholders.
Villeinage died out from natural causes and by slow degrees: it could still be
spoken of as a tiresome anachronistic survival by Fitz- herbert in 1529,1
and Queen Elizabeth found some stray villeins on royal demesne to emancipate in
1574. But by the time of the sixth Henry it had for all intents and purposes
ceased to play any great part in the rural economy of England. It had vanished
away imperceptibly, because it had ceased to serve any practical purpose; it
certainly had not been destroyed, once and for all, by the armed force of
rebellion in Wat Tyler’s ‘ Hurling time \
1 (Howe be it,
in some places the boundmen continue as yet, the which, me seemeth, is the
gretest inconvenience that is now suffered by the lawe, that is to have any
Christen man bounden to another, and to have the rule of his body lands and
goods.... For as me seemeth there shoulde be no man bounde but to God, and to his
kynge and prince over him : . . . and it woulde be a charitable dede to
manumyse all that be bond, and make them free of body and blode.’ Boke of
Surveyenge, p. 50.
The documents relating to the Poll-tax of 1381, which
are to be found in the Record, consist of (1) A complete summary of the results
foi all England save the Palaune counties of Durham and Chester, to be found in
‘ Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer’s Enrolled Accounts, No. 8’, in which are also
to be found two summaries oi the results of the Poll-tax of 1377 (51 Edw. Ill),
when a groat pet head was levied all round the realm on persons over fouiteen
years of age. (2) Of ‘ views of account’, giving the summary of shirts and
towns: of these some thirty only survive. (3) Of the detailed rolls of the townships,
arranged in their hundreds, and of the cities and towns, This series is most
imperfect, and the surviving rolls are often mutilated, dirty, and illegible.
There is nothing from the outlying shires of Cornwall, Devon, Northumberland,
Westmoreland, Cumberland. No single shire is complete; those of which the
largest percentage of rolls survive are Berks., Essex, Suffolk, Surrey, and the
East Riding of Yorkshire. I append a list of them, so far as they can be
identified, for it is possible that some more smal1 fragments may
exist, misplaced among the rolls of the Poll-tax of 1377. When the headings and
dates have been lost (as is often the case) it is easy to confuse the two sets
of returns — -a broken list of tourpenny contributors from the end of a
mutilated scroll may belong to either. Of course in any large tragment the
identity is settled by the prevailing shilling-assess- ment of 1381, which
cannot belong to a document of 51 Edw. III.
The manner in
which the returns of the townships have been prepared varies indefinitely
according to the idiosyncrasies of the constables who drew them up. In some
regions, e.g. Suffolk and Essex, the lists have lull details of the trade and
status of each contributary, and often add notes as to the relationship of individuals.
In other districts there is nothing given but a bare list of names, not even
the relationship of husband and wife, father and son being indicated, and the
occupation of no single person being given. For example, if John Attewell,
tailor, with
Margery his
wife, and his children John and Isabel, had lived in Hinckford hundred in
Essex, we should find them returned thus—
Scissor.
Johannes Attewell et Margeria, uxor ejus,
Johannes
Attewell, nlius ejus,
Isabella
Attewell, filia ejus ; but if the family had lived m some parts ot Berkshire,
we should simply get—
Johannes
Attewell, senior,
Margeria
Attewell,
Johannes
A.tteweU, junior,
Isabella
Attewell.
In some
regions we find vidua after widows’ names, so can distinguish between the
younger and the older womu who are without husbands; but this is rather
exceptional; the region where I found it most prevalent was Staffordshire.
I looked
through many dozens of townships from Essex, Gloucestershire, Suffolk,
Staffordshire, Berks., Surrey, and Bedfordshire, in order to see whether the
preponderance of males over females which I have noted in Chapter II was
universal. It seemed to be so, but in some districts it was decidedly more
marked than in others. Essex and Suffolk are worst in their preposterous suppression
ot' the females. In a very few cases did I find the preponderance of females
over males which must really have been common or even normal. Pehmar«b, in
Essex, and Horningsheath Parva, in Suffolk, were examples. Families, where the
family relationship is indicated, seem to have been much smaller than we should
have expected. The largest family- group that I found was in Surrey, where ono
John Fraunceys had three sons and three daughters, all unmarried and living
with him. No doubt the prevailing system of early mamages led to the sons
establishing themselves outside the paternal domicile at an early age. But
still the numbers of homonymous lamilies in a village are generally less than
we should expect, though in some places a good many of them are to be found. I
am driven to conclude that lamilies were not usually large. Of course we have
no indication of the number ot children under fifteen, since they did not pay
the tax. But the families belonging to men of forty or fifty must have been
grown up, and settled near them—the indications are against their being very
numerous.
The surviving
rolls, arranged under shires, are the following —
Bedford, One
long mutilated and very illegible roll, apparently containing a considerable
portion of the shire. But the amounts paid seem to suggest the Poll-tax of 1379
rather than that of 1381. Also the ' view of account ’ for the shire for 1381.
Berkshire.
Detailed rolls of the inhabitants of the hundreds of Faringdon, Ganfield,
Lamboume, Ock, Kintbury Eaglf, and Sutton.
Bucks. Nothing but ‘view of account ’ tor the shire.
Cambridgeshire.
Details of Cambridge town only.
Cornwall. Nil.
Cumberland, Nil.
Derbyshire. Detailed roll ot the hundred of High Peak, and ‘
view of account ’ for the shire,
Devon. Nil,
Dorset.
Imperfect roll of Dorchester town only.
Essex.
Detailed rolls of the hundreds of Chelmsford, Thurstable, Chaiiord, Beacontree,
Ongar, Wytham, Waltham, and Ilinck- ford : also of towns of Colchester and
Walthamstow.
Gloucester.
Fourteen scraps, containing great parts of the hundreds of Bradley, Berkeley,
and Rapsgate.
Hereford.
Short ‘ view of account ’ tor the whole shire only.
Hertford,
Ditto.
Huntingdon.
Ditto.
Kent. A very
mutilated detailed roll of Canterbury city, and short ‘ view of account ’ of
the shire.
Lancashire.
Detailed rolls of Blackburn Wapentake, and part of Sulford.
Lincolnshire.
Detailed rolls of Calceworth and Skinbeck Wapentakes, and short ‘ views of
account ’ lor Lindsey, Kesteven, Holland, and Lincoln city.
Middlesex.
Nil.
Norfolk.
Detailed rolls of the hundreds of Shropham, Free- bndge. Tunstead, and Lynn
town, also 1 view of accouftt ’ of the shire.
North a.nts.
Fragmentary detailed rolls of Wileybrook hundred and Northampton town, and ‘
view of account ’ of the shire.
Notts. ‘ View
of account ’ of Nottingham town only.
Northumberland.
Nil.
Oxford. Detailed rolls of Oxford town and tlie villages
of Adderbury and Bloxham, and short ‘ view of account ’ of the shire.
Rutland. ‘ View of account ’ of the
shire only. •
Shropshire. Detailed rolls of the hundreds of
Sottesdon and Bradford, and the town of Shrewsbury.
Somersft. Detailed rolls ol Bath and Wells, and
‘view of account ’ of the shire.
Southampton. ‘ View of account ’ only.
Stafford Detailed roll of Cuttleston hundred
only.
Suffoi K. Detailed rolls of the hundreds of
Corsford, Mutford, Blithing, Plymsgate, Thingoe, Finberg Magna, Siowlanertoft,
Wirdswell, Euston, Buxhall, Flempton, Westcretyng, Stow- market, Wetherden,
Stow, Thweyt, Fakenham, Barwe, and short ‘ view of account ’ of the shire.
Surrey. Detailed rolls of the hundreds of Godalming,
Chadyn • field, Haslemere. and the town of Southwark.
Sussex. Mutilated rolls of the Tithing of East Lavant and
of Chichester town, and ‘ view of account ’ of Chichester.
Warwick. Mutilated roll of Tamworth, and 'view
of account’ of the shire and of the town of Coventry.
Westmoreland. Nil.
Wiltshire. ‘ View of account ’ of the city of
New Sarum only,
Worcester. ' Views of account ’ of the shire and
city.
Yorkshire. East Riding Detailed rolls of the
Wapentakes of Ouse, Derwert, Harthill, and Buckrose, and ‘ view of account ’ ot
Hull.
West Riding.
Nil [though the Poll-tax of 1379 is well represented].
North Riding.
‘ View of account ’ of Scarborough, and a mutilated fragment of the wards.
Ainsty of
York, ‘ view of account ’ only.
WAT TYLJtR
M
The following are the figures returned by the
collectors of the Poll-tax of 1381, as summarized in Lord Treasurer’s Remembrancer’s
Enrolled Accounts : Tax Accounts, No. 8, in the Record Office. Set over against
them are the similar returns of the Poll-tax of 1377—the fifty-first year of
Edward III, when a groat, not a shilling, was extracted j>er head. It is
clear that we must not press the returns for the outlying counties too far :
although the whole sum due was supposed to have been collected beiore April 21,
and although many shires professed that they had paid up every exigible
shilling, yet figures like
|
Anno
1377 |
|
Anno
1381 |
|
Cornwall
|
34.274 |
12,056 |
|
Cumberland |
11,841 |
4,748 |
|
Devon
|
45-635 |
20,056 |
|
North
Riding .... |
33.185 |
15,690 |
|
West
Riding |
48.149 |
23,029 |
do not seem
to represent a complete census, ‘ cooked ’ by the constables and
sub-collectors, but rather to be incomplete. There are, unfortunately, no
surviving detailed rolls for any of these regions, save for a scrap oi the
North Riding, so that we cannot verify what proportion of the townships had
paid up when the returns were compiled.
But the
really monstrous part of the statistics was not the returns of these outlying
shires, but those of the inlying regions of the East and South, where every
village purjwrted +0 have furnished a full account of its inhabitants, as is
shown by the rolls surviving in such considerable numbers for Suffolk, Essex,
Surrey, Berks., &c. Far more noteworthy than the Northumbrian or Cornish
totals are figures like
|
Anno
1377 |
|
\nno
1381 |
|
Berks |
22,723 |
15,696 |
|
Essex |
47,g62 |
30,748 |
|
Hants
|
33.241 |
22,018 |
|
Kent |
56,557 |
43.838 |
|
Norfolk |
88,707 |
66,719 |
|
Wilts... |
42,599 |
30,627 |
Here it is
mere trickery and corruption that is displayed, not an imperfect return.
In comparing
the detailed figures of 1377 and 1381 we find that the local authorities seem
to have taken a perverse pleasure >n reckoning into, or out of, the
shire-total, certain small towns. In 1377, Grimsby, Southwark, Scarborough are
not differentiated from the shires in which they lie. In 1381, Carlisle, Derby,
Dartmouth, Hereford, Rochester, Stamford, Boston, Yarmouth. Newark, Ludlow,
Lichfield. Beverley, all ot which gave separate returns in 1377, are thrown
back into the shire total.
Fhe reader
will note that the relative size of the great English towns runs as
followsLondon, York, Bristol,Coventry, Norwich, Lincoln, Salisbury, Lynn,
Boston, Newcastle-on-Tynt., Beverley. L. T. R. Enrolled Accounts. Tax Accounts,
No. 8.
51Edw.HI
4 Rich. II [1377] [1381]
Comitatus
Bedford 20,339 14,895
Comitatus
Berks 22,723 15,6(56
Comiiatus Bucks 24,672 17,997
Comitatus Cantabrigiae .. ... 27,350 24,324
villa de Cantebr.’ 1,902 1,739
Comitatus
Cornubiae 34.274 12,056
Comitatus
Cumbiiae 11,841 4,748
civitas
Karliol 678 no separate return
Comitatus
Derby. 23,243 15,637
villa
de Derby 1,046 no separate return
Comitatus
Devon 45,635 20,656
civitas
Exon 1,5; > > 1,420
villa
de Dertemuth 506 no separate
return
Comitatus
Dorset 34.241 I9>5°7
Comitatus
Essex 47.962 30,748
villa
de Colchestr’ ^,955 1,60a
Comitatu?
Gloucestriae
36.730 27,857
villa Gloucestriae ... 2,239 x>446
villa de Biistoll 6,345 5,652
Comitatus
Hereford 15,318 12,659
civitas
Hereford 1,403 no separate
return
Comitatus
Hertford 19,975 13,296
Comitatus
Hunts 14,169 11,299
Comitatus
Kent 56,307 43.838
civitas
Cantuar. 2,574 2,123
civitas
Roffen 570 no separate return
Comitatus Lancastriae 23.880 8,371
Comitatus Leyrestriae 31,730 21,914
nlla de Leycestei .. 2.101 1708
M 2
|
|
51
Edw. Ill 4 Rich. II |
||||
|
|
[1377i |
[1381] |
|||
|
Comitate-
Lincoln. |
|||||
|
Liudesey
' |
47.303 |
30,235 |
|||
|
Kesteven |
21,566 |
15,734 |
|||
|
Huland
|
18,592 |
13,795 |
|||
|
civitas
Lincoln |
3,412 |
2.196 |
|||
|
clausum
de Lincoln.... |
*57 |
no
separate return |
|||
|
villa
de Stamford..... _ |
1,218 |
no
separate return |
|||
|
villa
de Boston |
2,871 |
no
separate return |
|||
|
villa
de Gryinesby |
no
separate |
return
;62 |
|||
|
Comitattis
Middesex |
11,243 |
9,937 |
|||
|
civitas
London |
23,314 |
2<>,397 |
|||
|
Comitatus
Norffolk |
88,797 |
66,710 |
|||
|
civitas
Norwvci |
3,952 |
3,833 |
|||
|
v*ila
de Lenne |
3,127 |
1,824 |
|||
|
villa
de Jememnth |
1,941 |
no
separate return |
|||
|
Comitatus
Northamptoniae .. |
40.225 |
27,99'/ |
|||
|
villa
Northamp.’ |
i,477 |
1,5*8 |
|||
|
Conntatus
Northumbriae .... |
14,162 |
return
missing |
|||
|
villa Novi Castri super Tvnam |
2.647 |
1,819 |
|||
|
Comitatus
Nottingham |
26.260 |
17,442 |
|||
|
villa
-le Nottin gham |
i,447 |
1,266 |
|||
|
villa
de Newark |
1,178 |
no
separate return |
|||
|
C
omitatus Oxon |
^4,981 |
20.588 |
|||
|
villa
Oxon |
2,357 |
2,005 |
|||
|
Comitanis
Roteland ... . |
5,094 |
5,593 |
|||
|
Comitatus
Salopiae |
2J,574 |
13,04* |
|||
|
villa
Salopiae |
2,082 |
1,618 |
|||
|
villa
de Lodelowe |
1,172 |
no
separate return |
|||
|
Comitatus
Somerset |
54,^3 |
3'>,384 |
|||
|
civitas
Bathon . . |
570 |
297 |
|||
|
civitas
Welles |
901 |
487 |
|||
|
Comitatus
Stafford |
21,465 |
15,993 |
|||
|
dh
itas Lychfeld |
1,024 |
no
separate return |
|||
|
Coi
talus Suffolk |
58,610 |
44,635 |
|||
|
villa
Gippewiri |
1,507 |
963 |
|||
|
villa
St Edmundi |
2,445 |
1,334 |
|||
|
Comitatus
Surrey |
18,039 |
12,6X4 |
|||
|
villa
de Smthwerk |
no
separate return 1,059 |
||||
|
Comitatus
Sussex |
35-3-26 |
26,616 |
|||
|
civitas
Cicestriae |
869 |
787 |
|||
|
Comitatus
Suthainptor , . |
S3,241 |
22,018 |
|||
|
tnsula
Vecta |
4,733 |
3,625 |
|||
|
villa de '■nitlihair.pton. |
1,152 |
1,051 |
|||
|
ComiTatus
Warrewit > . |
25.'447 |
20,481 |
|||
|
villa
de ('0ventre |
4,8l7 |
5-947 |
|||
|
Comitatus
Westmoreland .... |
7,389 |
3,859 |
|||
|
|
51
Edw TII |
4
Rich. II |
|
||
|
|
[13771 |
[liSil |
|
||
|
Comitatus
Wigorniae . |
14,542 |
12,043 |
|
||
|
civitas
Wigom |
1,557 |
932 |
|
||
|
Comitatus
Wyltes |
43,599 |
30,627 |
|
||
|
civitas
Novi Sarum |
3,22,6 |
2,708 |
|
||
|
Comitatus
Eboraci |
|
||||
|
Estn
thing. |
38,238 |
25,184 |
|
||
|
Westrithing. |
48,149 |
23,029 |
|
||
|
Northn
thing |
33,i85 |
15,690 |
|
||
|
civitas
Eboraci |
7,248 |
4,015 |
|
||
|
villa
de Beverley |
2,663
no separate retv |
|
|||
|
villa
de Scardeburg |
no
separate return 1,480 |
|
|||
|
villa
de Kyngeston super Hull |
i,557 |
1,124 |
|
||
|
Totals |
i,355,2oi |
896,481 |
|
||
The clerical
population of England, arranged under dioceses, appears as follows in the
Clerical Poll-tax of 1381. [L. T. R. Enrolled Accounts Subsidies, No. 4.] The
figures include not only all the clergy in full orders, regular and secular,
but also nuns, and persons in minor orders, acolytes, subdeacons, &c. The
return of the diocese of Carlisle is missing. Unlike the lay statistics for the
year, the clerical ones show a shrinkage of numbers, but no very great one,
since the Poll tax of 1377. The difference is 1,415, but the comparison cannot
be made exact, as the diocese of Durham is missing in the earlier, and the
diocese of Carlisle in the later, roil.
Bath and
Wells.
Archdeaconries
of Bath and Wells 714
Archdeaconry
of Taunton 324
Canterbury.
Archdeaconrv
of Canterbury 787
Deanery
of South Mailing 27
Deaneries
of Shoreham and Croydon. ......... (
Deanery
01 Booking 27
Chichester.
Archdeaconry
of Chichester and Cathedral of Chichester . 355
Archdeaconry
of Lewes 363
Coventry and
Lichfield.
Archdeaconry
of Coventry 451
Archdeaconry
of Chester 308
Archdeaconry
of Salop ............ 177
Archdeaconry
of Derby 352
Archdeaconry
of Stafford 376
Durham.
Archdeaconry
of Durham 335
Archdeaconry
of Northumberland . - ..................... 268
Ely.
Diocese ot Ely 759
Exeter.
Archdeaconry ot Cornwall 450
Archdeaconry
of Exeter 283
Archdeaconry
of Fotnes 419
Archdeaconry
of Barnstaple 208
Hereford.
Archdeai-onry
of Herefoid 454
Archdeaconry
of Salop 226
Lincoln.
Archdeaconries
of Lincoln and Stow 2,506
Archdeaconries
of Hunts, and Beds........................ 1,137
Archdeaconries
of Bucks. and Oxon ......... 1,124
Archdeaconries
of Northampton and Leicester ......... 1,827
St.
Albans .. 148
I ,ondon
Archdeaconry
of London 895
Archdeaconry
of Essex 404
Archdeaconry
of Middlesex . 433
Archdeaconry
of Colchester 444
Norwich,
Archdeaconries
of Norfolk and Norwich ........................ I>913
Archdeaconries
of Suffolk and Sudbury ........................ 1,298
Rochester.
Diocese of Rochester 275
Salisbury.
Archdeaconries;
of Dorset and aarum ........................ 1,225
Archdeaconries
of Berks, and Wilts 839
Winchester.
Archdeaconry
of Winton 950
Archdea
conry of Surrey 337
Worcester.
Archdeaconry
of Worcester 600
Archdeaconry
of Gloucester 783
York
Archdeaconries
of York, Richmond, East Riding, Cleveland 2,389
Archdeaconry
of Nottingham 469
Total 20,676
DETAILED
POLL-TAX RETURNS OF A TYPICAL HUNDRED
As a sample
of a Poll-tax account of 1381, I here annex the rolls of thirtten townships of
an Essex hundred—Hinckford, on the border of Suffolk. I selected this hundred
on account of the elaborate definition of the status of each person, and the
careful indication of relationships between individuals of the same family. Few
rolls are so full and satisfactory in this respect. In this Hundred, it will be
noted, lay Liston, the place at which the rebel chief Wraw assembled the band with
which he invaded Suffolk, and started the East Anglian rebellion.
Note the
absurd disproportion of the sexes in most of the townships. Felsted shows—
Men. Women.
Married
pairs 54 54
Other
men 47 —
Other
women — Io
Totdl
101 64
This must
have been one of the most shamelessly ‘ cooked ’ returns in the whole realm.
But Bumstead is almost as bad with—
Men. Women.
Married
pairs 45 45
Other
men 36 —
Other
women — 17
Total
81 62
Stebbing
falsifies on the same scale as Bumstead with—
Men. Women.
Married
pairs 62 62
Other
men 24 —
Other
women — 8
86 70
There is one
village in the hundred, ‘ Pebymersh ’ (now Peb- marsh), whirh unlike all the
rest seems to show a clear majority of women—46 to 33 as far as can be made
out. The lists of the
remaining few
places are terribly mutilated by large holes, which make all calculation
impossible. But they do not seem, as far as they can be collated, to show any
preponderance of the female sex—rather the reverse.
The total of
the fully legible townships works out as follows—
|
|
Men. |
Women. |
|
Alhamston
et Buns . |
49 |
33 |
|
Bewi
hamp Oton |
39 |
37 |
|
Bumstede
|
81 |
62 |
|
Felstede
|
IOI |
64 |
|
Fynrhyngfelde
|
92 |
85 |
|
Gelham
. |
16 |
14 |
|
Gosfeld
.... .,. |
49 |
45 |
|
Hythingham
Sibill.. |
hi |
103 |
|
Ovyton
|
5 |
2 |
|
Pebymersh
|
33 |
46 |
|
Pentelowe
|
30 |
21 |
|
Salyng
Magna |
16 |
17 |
|
Stebbing
|
86 |
70 |
|
Sturmer
|
61 |
52 |
|
Total |
769 |
651 |
Or very
nearly five men to four women. In Thingoe Hundred, Suffolk, which Mr. Powell
worked out, the proportion was 487 to 383.
Lay Subs:dy
Roll, Essex, Hinckford Hundred, No. V/- (4 Rich.
II).
VILL’ DE ALHAMSTON ET DE BURIS.
Libert tenentes 5 tl Quilter et uxor eius . ij vj Radulfus Clerk et uxor
eius . iij
Henricus Whyth et uxor
eius ij vj
Jtih: nne-lu. k .... xii Matilda fitz Geffrey . . x:j Roger I’ach’ , x-.
M *ilda uxor eius ... xij Willelmus Schanke et
uxo~ eius ij
jVIaget [? Margaret] Aleyn xij Johannes Cater* . xij
Philippu“ Weypyld et
'..■r sins ij
Willelmus Sparwehauk . xij Adam Bechhey et uxor
eius ij vj
(\dam Bernard et uxoi « fl
eius ij
J t '’.tnn-s Cobbe . . . xij Alicia Aunger , . , x 1
Johannes iamulus eius xij
Robertas Aunger et uxor
“ius ij vj
Johannes Sparlyng et uxor oin . . . . ij Robertus Wegayn ... xi]
Johannes Clerl ... xi]
Laborarii Ricardus. atte Broke et uxor eius ij
Katerina atte Staple . . xij Vlieia Sparhi' ik . . . xi] Ro)iertu->
Bissc.hop et uxor eius ..... ij
Koserus
Southfen _ Waltenis laylor . . Johannes Hiuk et u
1US
Johannes
RuduOii . Johannes Reynold . Nicholas Newer et uxor eiut ....
Ricardus atte
Pit . , Johannes ><ewyr . Ricardus Hast Ricardus Mody . . Johannes
BalJdewene et uxor eius .... Thomas M«!y . Johannes Sohachelok et xor eins ... Johannes Mody . , Johannes Simeon et uxur eius . . , . , Johannes Kyi et
u
eius
Johannes
White et uxor 'ius . ...
Margeria Payn
. . , Hugo Fi<> ikeleyn . .
|
3 |
a |
|
|
viij |
|
|
xij |
|
ij |
vj |
|
|
vj |
|
|
X) |
|
ij |
|
|
|
xij |
|
|
vuj |
|
|
Vlil |
|
|
iiij |
|
>j |
|
|
|
xij |
|
ij |
|
|
|
xij |
|
ij |
vj |
|
ij |
|
|
|
xviij |
|
|
viij |
|
|
vj |
Thomas
Scubbard et uxor 5 3
eius ij
Jonannes
Resshey et uxoi
eius iiij
Fabri
Ki< ar<
u Donyng . . . xviij
Alicia
Mot iiij
Johannes
Squepyr . . viij Willelmus Dunnyng et xor eiu .
. iij
Walterus Wley
et uxor
eius ij
Johanne-
Hyrde ... xij Thomas Basse .... vj
Piscatores
Thomas
Kyi . x\~ij
Johannes
Wetherisfeld . xij
Agnes
lioda ...... xij
Textor
Willelmui“
Geddyng et uxor eius .
XX
ij vj
Summa
personarum iiij ij prr.ximj. Summa iiij "Ti
11 S.
Libert tenentes Ricardus de Eston et uxor eius . . . . Ricardus Jernays
et uxor
eius
Johannes Albon et uxor
eius
Willelmus atte Frede et uxor eius .... Robertus filius
eius . Isabella filia eius ♦ , Johannes Myldeman et uxor eius ....
Robertus atte Fen . Willelmus famulus eius Avicia ancilla eius . . Matilda Ode
. . . . Johannes Albon junior et uxor eius .... Johannes Gerold et uxor
eius
Alicia filia eius . . . Simon Thresscher et uxor
eius
Christina filia eius ,
Christiana* ylle
Johannes Thomas et uxor eius
v)
xij
viij
xl
K\l
viij
xij
viij
XXX
vj
xij
et
Johannes Swan . Isabella filia eius , Johannes Turnour
uxor eius
J ohannes May .... Johannes Hyrde et uxor
eius
Thomas
Hopelyr et uxor eius
Laborarii Johannes Baylyfh et uxor
eius
Johannes Hyrde et uxor
eius
Johannes filius eius . , Johannes Bertelot . . Sewalus Snelhauk et uxor
eius .......
Rogerus Thresscher’ et
uxor eius
Johannes Adam et uxor
eius .
Johannes Adam
junior . Willelmus Huberd et
uxor
eius
Isabella
Webbe ... . .
Xij
xij
XXX
vj
XVllj
Xij
xij
XIJ
Xij
XXX
Christo ipherus]*...Warde Willelmus Rev* et uxor
eius
Willelmus Reve junior . Simon Obyte et u^vor eius lohannes Katelote et uxor
emt- .... Ricardus Robert . . . Stephanie Folcher et
uxo’ ‘ius
Alicia Eth .... Hawkyn Lech et axor
eius
Ricardus Catelote et uxor
eius .
vij
lllj
xij
xij
XVllj
3 a
Johann<— famulus eius . x Simon Thurston et uxot
eius ij
Mabilla uxoi J ohanni s
Folchyr vj
Johannes Scocct] et uxor eius . ij
Sa'ssores Thomas. . 1. . . ones et uxor eiu ... , ij Proxima Summa
Perso- narum lxxvj i’-oxima Summa iijii xvj 3.
Libsn tenentt S Ricardus Messyng et uxor «ius . . . iij
Robertas Rewe et uxur
eius iij
Robertus Roylyngh et uxor eiu > .
. . ij
Johannes I'rere et uxor
eius ij
Willtlmus Bmngton . . ij Edmundus Beadych et uxor eiu- . , . . iij
Willelmus Robcot et uxoi
eius
ij
Johannes
Trumpe . . . ij Johanna Blev . . xij
Thomas Hit
the et uxoi
eius
ij
Johannes
Ileldeborow et
uxor
eius ij viij
Johanne*
Holmsted . . x j Willelmus Fayr et uxor
eius
ij
Agnes
Cote v i
Thomas
Punge . xij
Walterus
Smyth et uxoi
eius
. . ij vj
Walterus famulus eius . vj Johannes Cote . . . xij Johannes Ballard et
uxor
ius ij
Willelmus Colham . . xij Johannes Gcriard et uxor
eius xx
Laborarii
Johannes filius Thome
Hicche. ...
xij Isabella tilia Thome
Hirthe xij
e
Johannes le Ryr et u*or . Robertus I'haumberleyn et uxor'' us . . h
■ .arjus Cl a'jmar Willelmus Man et uxor :ius . .
Johanne
Everard " uxir eius .
Willelmus
Bakhouse fc uxor eius .
Robertus
Stevene et uxor i ‘ius , .
Vlargareta
Ilerstede . Rogerus Coo. . .
K
iterina Tussy . . Johanna Talbot . . Johannes famulus eius Ricardi’s-
Plowwrithe e uxor eius Johannes Cook et uxo :ius
Johannes Wyte
ohannes Whichele IX' > eiua - li. micus Cherchehall Johannes Tresacher
Johannes famulus Vicari de Bumstede . .
<,4
llndus Clek . . Walterus Wendene Margareta Spycer . Margareta Aleyn .
Alicia Aleyn
. .
J ohannes Powney
. Ricardus Spyrman uxor eius . . . Johannes Chippeman Johannes [ owt
■ ■ hanno-i stunner . Thomas Joie .
. m MS.
e
et
ij vj
xij
viij
XI]
XI]
Xlj
XIJ
XII
vj
vj
Xlj
XIJ
Xlj
xij
Xlj
vj
Xlj
xij
viij
xij
Xll
xij
xij
xij
Willelmus Serjannt et uxor eiu- . . .
Johannes Halton et nxor
»ins
Johannes Dtarkyn et uxor eius ......
ignes
Westmenster . . Amicia’ Hunte ....
Johannes
Webbu . Ricardus Wtbbe et uxor
eius
Johannes
Asschindon et uxor eiu-* . . . Johannes Trois junior et
.xtjr eii . ... Johannes Yooges er uxor
eius
Rogerus Holdeborough et
ixor eius
Jofcam.es rfoldeborwgh’ et uxor eiu.’ . , Simon Godefray et uxor
eius
Ricardus Huthe et uxoi
eius
Ricardus <’ote .... Johannes Whyte1 et uxor
Mus
\licia filia eius .... Johannes Fynch . . . lo.i.innes Mociwe . . .
Katerina uxoi eius . . Thomas filius eius , . Johannes Troys senior et
nxor eius
Johannes Sneihauk et -1X0;- eiu - .... Robertas Somenor . rhouas Martyn
et uxor eius . . ....
5 ft
xij
vj.
XI]
XI-
XIJ
xij
vj
111]
xij
xij
xij
X.*
viij
xij
viij
xij
x-j
ij vj
ij vj xij
Rt ibertus Martyn . . . Willelmui Bn.i" .
Agnes
Walkelyn . . .
Henricus Warvn et uxoi
eius .
Rogetus Molesfeld’ et jxor eius . . . . .
Katerina Howi e . . . Radulphus Coo et uxor
eius , ..... 1) ttir ardus Derekyn . . vj ’ Johannes Bayli ... vj Margareta
Cokkow . . vj Walterus Hende et uxor
eius ij
Thomas
Asschindone . . xij Cristiana uxor Thoiae
Yonge ...... vj
J< hannes nlius Johannis
Hynde viij
Gonnora uxor Roberti
Somonor vj
Sctssores ri iomas Yunge .... xij Willelmus Penne ... xij Willflmus Rede et uxor
eius . ij
Juhanr.es Mahew . . . xij
Fubri
Willelmus t.eweneth et
"xor flius ij vj
Nicholas Fyr
et uxor eius i j Proxin*a Summa persona- rum cxlv Summa vijfi x'5.1
F
rankrlyn Edmundus Helpistone Christina uxor tius .
Liberi
tenentss Vi iltei us Horstede Alicia uxo ‘ius Johannes Stevene Matilda uxor
eras Robertus Stase . Matilda uxor
eius Rogei as Prat . Katerina uxor eius
:U
*
• *
ij * ij vj
* I J :|ij
Stephanus
Clement Alicia uxor eius . * . j ij vj Johannes Chabbac Margereta uxor eius
Walterus Edwyne .
Cecilia uxor
eius .
Nicholas Hedwene et uxor
eius *
Willelmus Blacston et
uxor eius . , . ♦ * xviij Ricardus Herny ... xij Johannes Drane
senior et uxor eius • • ♦ • « ij
* Hole in MS.
1
The total stated is 145 persons, but only 143 are named—presumably a married
pair has dropped out.
Galfridus Teffryn et uxor is (1
eius . ij
Thomas Coke et uxoi
eius . ij
Johannes Coke et uxor
eius . ij
Johannes Sponer et uxor eius ........ ij
Walteiu- OxenDy ... xij Thomas Steph’de et axor eius ij
Nativu. tentr.s Walterus Reman et uxor eius *
u
Laboratii Ricardus Pra t . , . , \luia uxor eius . . Willelmus a*te
Mille . . Ricardus de Lenne et
uxor eius ij
\licia terviens rfuo . . Johannes Wode et uxor
eius ij
Stephanus Serjaunt et
uxor eiu ij
Thomas Herny ....
Xl' 1 rdus Lymonp . , Phillipus Skeyt et uxor
eiu > . ij
Willelmus Drane . . . Joharnes Drane junior . Galfridus Drane et uxor
< iu > ij
Galfridus Ker et uxor
eius . ij
Johannes Ker junior . . Robertus Ke- et uxor
■ms , ij
Willelmus Schache . . Johannes TTyde . . . Johannes Swe*hey
. . Johan >e«Stpph’de junior lilias Holies , . . Walterus Oxenby et uxor
eius ij
Jacobus
Lymuges et uxor
»ius
. ij
Johannes
Lymuges . . ' rhomas St ~vene . . . JohannesJacop . . . Ricardus Frenssch et
ixor
eius ij
Ricardus Wryhte et uxor
eius ij
Rogerus Clement et uxor
«us . ij
Johannes Carter . . .
X!J
xi]
Xlj
XIJ
xij
xij
xij
x!i
x:j
x?i
XIJ
xij
XIJ.
Vllj
XIJ
XIJ
XIJ
Robertus A.ttebregge et % uxor eius ij
Jouannes Attenoke . . ohannes Bret junior et
nxor eiu- ij
Johannes Bret senior et
uxor
eiu-> ij
Thomas Crek
....
J ohannes < rarlonde . . Willelmus Bygge et uxor eius
. . . ij
Robertui (
ard ;r ... x Johannes Oxenhey . . x I ohannes Wode ... xij Johanns serviens
Ste-
I hani
Striaunl ... vj Ki oeitus Harwerd . * Nicholas Prat .... iiij Nicholas Edwvne
... x Ricardus Edwyne ... xij
Carpentaria
: ohannes Bel . . . . j Christina uxor eius . . . ij l'homas Seward ... xn
Margareta Srward ... xij W'illelmu-> Hedwvne et
uxor eius ij
Johannes Smyth et uxoi
eius ij
Johannes Wryhte et uxor eius . , . . . . ij Stephanus Herlowe . . xij
Johannes Herlowe et uxor
eius ij
Matilda Bollis .... xij Katerina B nso . . x’i Johanne s Peche ... Xj|
SlMores Jthannes Beney-t et uxoi
eius xvii
Johannes Beuchamp . . xij Johannes Bouth et uxor eius ... ij
;i _ on Smyth eT uxor eius ij Willelmus
'■'halke et uxor
< us ij
W'illelmu* Reiman , . xij Henrico* Reynold et uxor
eitts ij
Margareta Sutor ... xij Heniicus J)ale senior . . xij Henric is I)aie
junior . . viij Alicia Swetyng ... xij
Fabri
Willelmus Frensch et uxor eius ..... ij
xij Rgidius
Smvth Holes in MS.
xij
a
xi]
xij
xvj
Johannes Skynnei Johannes t'oodsoule et
uxor eius ij
Tliomas Reynyr . . .
Thomas Sa coward et uxor
eius ij
Thomas Brounyng et uxor eiuo . , . . Willtlmus Fuller et uxoi eius ij
Fit lie t
Johannes Canyl et uxor eius ij
Drapsres Johannes Kent e* uxor
fius ij
Johannes
Bernard ... xij
Sellitrius
Alexander Steph’de senior xij
I tmifices Johannes Bocher et uxor eius ij
Johannes Arch
. . . , Johannes Tyler . . . Robertas Alevn . Robertus Attewode .
Emma
Attegoter . ,
Lora Brounyng
....
Pardoxatores
Johannes Swetyng. . .
I jhannes
Rovitl . Radulphus Peche senior et uxor eius . . . . ij
T txtores Jotannes Lynlyf . . . Johannes S wet .... Proxima Summa Perso-
narum clxv Summa viijli vS.
if
xij
XI]
xij
xij
vj
xij
XI]
xij
Sutores Johannc? Wystok et uxor
eius ij
Agnes Arnold .... xi]
XI]
xij
I
ibtri tenentes Willelmus Coleman Mugareta uxor eius Gal frid us Spryngold
Alicia uxor 1 ’us . Johannes Hulde . iVlargareta uxoi eius Thomafe Revel et
uxor
eius
Nicholas
Conspol et uxor
.ius
Willelmus Colbayn et uxor eius . Willelmus Shaldeforde et
ixor era*
Ricardus Bulmpr et uxor
tiius
Walterus Carter et uxor
eras
Robertus Roys et uxor eius ....
Robertas Huril et uxor *inj - . . . ... Willelmus Hundy"*wode et uxor eius .... Wj
'terus Revel et uxor ‘ius . ....
Willelmus Parkyr et uxor
eius
Robertus Wehbe , . . Johannes Stonham . -
»J vj ij vj ij vj «j
ij vj ij
ij vj ij vj ij
ij vj ij ij
ij vj
ij vj 'J
XI]
Johannes Kent et uxor
eius ij
Johannes Houte et uxor
eius ij
Margareta Huut< ... xij Robertas Reys junior et
uxor eiu' . . xi
Johannes Goodrycli , xij
Jonannes Fostyr et uxor
eius , xviij
\gnes Brokhole ... xij Jc. aunes Wetyn et uxoi eius . , . i
Johanna
Caketone et
uxor
eius i
Johannes Huberd et uxor
eius i]
Johannes Botoner ... xij Johannes Ilfot et uxor
eius xv]
Ricardus Stebbyng et
uxor eius xviij
Albanus Mortymyr et uxor eius . , . . ij
I.ahorarri Tohf ines Caterel et uxor eius . ... xviij
Thomas Recok et uxor
eiut- ...... ij vj
Ricardus Hulde ... vj
Johannes Chouk . . . Johannes Smyth et uxoi
ejus
Sabina Re\ el ... Johannes Meller . . . Johannes
Aloys at uxoi ejus . . , . . Thomas Cuntone et uxor
eius . . .... WilMmus Meller et uxor eiu.s . .... Willelmus Hundene et uxor
eius ... . Johannes Blakes et uxor
f ius
Petronilla Fostyr . . . Johannes I’age et uxor ius . ...
Hicai dus Tetford et uxor
eius
Johannes Spelman et uxor eius .... Alicia Cartel .... Gilbertus Hed et
uxor
•ms
Galfridus
Webbe et uxor
-:us
Wil»elmus Olyve et uxor eius . ....
Willelmu* Oborne et uxor eius . . . .
Jot intes Sweyth et uxor eiuj . .
Gilbertus Cnevet et uxor eius . ..... Robertas Coke et uxor
'"IUS
Gilbertus Geiham et uxor
(ius
Johannes Horde et uxor
eius
Willolmui famulus Wil lelmi Colbayn et uxor eius . . , . . JoL, nnes
Clerk et uxor eius , .
1 humai Herdewode et
uxor eius
\gnes Aempe , , . . *...??.. ermanus apu<’ CokefielJ . . . *. Beloi?e
. . . . I .ucia Speleman . . . Robertus Bernerewe . . Sabina 1 ’iccat ....
\gnes Kent . . . , Thomas brewer et uxor eins
5 a
vj
ij . Vllj
xviij
‘j
ij ij ij
ij ij
ij ij ij ij ij ij
xij ij vj xij
XIJ
xij
VJ.
XI]
v]
XVII
XI)
xij
x‘j
XI]
xij
rnj
Xij
xij * Hole in
Galfridus Oborne * *
Johannes Carter et uxor
eius . . . , v]
Robertus Driver et uxoi * * eius . .
, . xvii
Johannn Derky rij
JE^et uxor eius ....... i]
Sutores Radulfus Hemy et uxor
eius ij
Willelmus Bermerowe et
uxor eius ..... i] vj Willelmus Colyn et uxoi
“ius . ij
Johp.nnes Jeman et uxoi eius , . .
ij
Johannes Jemau junior . xi] Petrus Conspol et uxor
eius ij
Robertus Cox .... xi]
Scissorts Johannes Blaicr , . xij Thomas Brond et uxor
eius ij
Ricardus Stedeman et -xur eius . . . . ij Johannes Hulde ... vj Hugo Lyng’
et uxor eius a n: ?' :ardus Bromleye . . xij Walterus Cokat et uxor
eiu~ ij
Ri.ardus Bacon et uxor eius ij
Ca>p ntarius Robertus Stunhard et uxor eius ij
Pistor
Gilbertus Coir man et uxor
eius ij vj
} 'aslorci rhf-mas Blake et uxor eius ... . ij Johannes Peselond et uxor
eius ij
Fabri
Johannes Kyng et uxor eius , . .
ij
Johannes
Frentys . . .
.
-ies Low* ij v]
Johannes (;ok et uxor eius ....... ij
Simon atte Grove et. uxor eius ij
MS.
Johannes D ore ward et 5
uxor eius ij
Johannes Kent et uxor
eius ij vj
Johannes Walle et uxor
eius ....... ij vj
Walterus Coo et uxor
eius . ij vj
Ricardus Tyele et uxor S
eius . ij
Johannes Pete et uxor eius i} Johannes Cranschauke et ^
uxor eius ij
Proxima sumraa persona- rum clxxvii Summa viiiC xviiS
d
vj
VILL’ DE GELHAM PARVA [now YELDHAM].
Liberi tenentes Johannes Sybyle et uxor
eius ij
Robertus Pecoc et uxor
eius ij
Thomas Cok et uxor eius ij Johannes Haale et uxor eius ....... ij
Johannes Godyng et uxor
eius iij
Johannes Godfrey ... xij Johannes Robet et uxor eius . * ij
Laborarii Thomas Sybile et uxor
eius ij
Ricardus de Potton’ et uxor eius ij
Johannes famulus eius . Willelmus Haale et uxor eius
Famuli Margeria Rekedon’ . . Johannes Haale et uxor eius
Robertus Robet . . . Ricardus Raff rex et uxor eius .......
Rogerus Roger et uxor
eius
Robertus Godfrey et uxor
eius
Proxima Summa persona- rum xxx Summa xxxl.
A rmiger Ricardus de Lyon . . x Antiochaf?) u::oi Willei-
rni de (
otgyshal . iij iiij Johanna de Shoidelowe . xt.
£ rmikeleyn J onannes Haukwode et Maiyareta uxor eius. . x
l.iberi tenentes Alicia C.hiltere .... ij(?) v_ Willelmus atte. 3igynge .
ij(?) v Emma Tongewode . . xij Johannes Flechyr et uxor
eius ij
Johannes Geray et uxor
eius ij '
Robertus Attestrete et
uxor eius ij
Thomas Heyward et uxor
eius ij
Johannes * . .. na . . . Johannes * .. leyr . .
vj
XI]
xij
Johannes Birde et uxor eius
Johannes Belcham et 11x01 eius
Johannes William et uxor eius . ...
Robertus Peritun et uxor
^iUS
W'lelmus
Bayly , .
WilleLiuus
Bernerowe .
Ricardus
Cotte et uxor eius . . .
Johannes Hanckoc et uxor eius
Laborarii
Jankyn Holder .
Johannes Sprenger .
Mai 1 a.- -• a serviens do-- n une de Coggishale .
Vlit ia Bloy
Johannes Sirnorid . . .
Johannes Tussent et uxoi eius
XI]
xij
xij
xij
XV]
xij
vj
xij
xij
XI]
»*:
iiij
XI]
XI]
5 6
Galfridus Smyth et uxor
eius ij
Laur.-ntius Capper et uxor eius . . . . ij Johannes Atttstrete et
ixor
siu- . xij
Alicia hlia
Willelmi Byg-
ynge vj
JoKanntjs
Spensvr et uxor ciu" . . ij
Walt»ius Taylor et uxoi
eius ij
Willelmus Abot et uxor
eius xvj
Famuli fcihannes Peyton et uxor
eius ij
Johannes Benteleye et uxor eius - . . . ij Willelmus Ttmpemoyse et uxor
eius . . . . ij A-iuia serviens Johann's
Haukwo. e xij
Johannes Bygynge . . ij Johannes Carter ... xij Johannes Wriyte et uxor
eius ij
ignesBestr, .... iiij
Ricardus Chylterne . . vj Stephanus Geray . . . viij
Liberi lenmtes Johannes Dier et uxor
‘.US . . .... XX
Gilhertus Cole et uxor
eius xx
Johannes OnwyD et uxoi
eius
. . . , xx
Johannes
Hemy or uxor '■ius , . . . xx
Nicholas Dauenant et
. .xoreiu iij
Gllbertus Strcyk et uxor eius . .
. ij
Johannes
Med we et uxor fiius . ij vj
Ji 'iana
Combwell . . . xviij Willelmus Kempe et uxor
eiue
. , , , . ij vj Thomas Kentissch et uxor eius iij
Lxbararti Johannes Carter et uxor eius . , . . ij vj Johannes Tyler et
uxor eius ij vj
Walterus Nithelane et 3 1
■ ■xor eius viij
Johannes Palmer et uxor t-ius . . .
. ij
Johannes Randulf et uxor
eius . ij
fCicardus Boton’ et uxor •nus . .
. . .• ij
Editha tuia eius ... xij Alicia hlia eius .... xi; J ohannes Aylewyn et
uxor eius . . . . ij
Famuli f t I.aborarii Johannes Brokat et uxor eius ....... ij
Willelmus Calch et uxor
eius . ij
Johannes H “nkyn et uxor •jus ....... ij
Johannes Chambre et uxor eius . . . . ij J ohannes Pak^man et
xor eius ij
WiUolmu* Hunte ... xij Margareta < hilterne . . x ohannes Chambyrleyn
. xij ohannc s Cok .... xi] Iroxima Summa persona-
XX
rum iiij xiiij Summa iiijfi xiiij 5.
Willelmus in y Aldris et
uxor eius ij
j 1 hannes t.lius eius . . xij Willelmus famulus eius . xij Agnes Peuer’
.... xi] Johannes Portyr et uxoi
eius
. ... xij
Robertus
Boket ... xr Johannes Waryn junior et
uxor
eiun , , . xvj W illelmus Boton’ et uxoi eius ij
Famuli
et labor aril Ricardus Rich et uxor eius ij Willelmus Seward et uxor eius . IJ
Nigellus
Red et uxor eius ij Emma filia eius ... xij Willelmus Combwell . . xii Johannes
Combwel . xii
Margareta Combwell . . xij Johannes Lyr’ et uxoi
“ius . ij
Johannes Tylet et uxoi
eius xx
Johannes Tyler Crekys (?) £ d et uxor eius . . . . ij Henricus Tyler
.... xij J ohannes May hew et uxor
eius xij
Henricus filius eius . « xij Johannes famulus eius . xij Agnes Morise
.... xij Johannes Hankyn et uxor
eius . . ij
Johanna Meller . ... xij Johannes Sparchance et
uxor eius ij
Walterus Wriyte et uxor
eius ij
Thomas Badekyn ... xij Johannes Lord et uxor
eius xviij
Johannes Tofte et uxor
eius ij
Johannes Hille et uxor
eius ij
Willelmus Polsted et uxor
eius ij
Johannes
Walton ... xij Ricardus Upholder et
uxor eius ij
Johannes Peyton’ et uxor
eius ij
Ricardus Honewyk et
uxor eius ij
Johannes Webbe et uxor
eius ij
Katerina Grey .... xij Walterus Brokat et uxor
eius xvj
Margareta Jemes , . . xij Johannes Godiskot et
uxor eius ij
Emma Hunte .... xij Alicia Crowe .... xij Willelmus Lizefot et uxor
eius ij
Willelmus Smyth et uxor
eius ij
Johannes Peyton et uxor
eius . ij
Willelmus Dikyrt et uxor
eius ij vj
Walterus filius eius . . xij
Willelmus Baker et uxor eius ....... ij
Johannes Undal et uxor eius ....... ij
Willelmus Herny et uxor
eius ij
Walterus Brag’ et uxor
eius . ij
Ricardus Heyward et uxor eius ij
WAT TYLER
Ricardus Clap et uxor 5 5 eius ....... ij
Johannes Scubbard et
uxor eius ij
Thomas filius eius . , . xtj Johannes Bornard . . xij Ricardus Bornard
et uxor
eius ij
Johannes Moun et uxor
eius ij
Willelmus Cokkot et uxor
eius ij
Andreas Wyeyn
et uxor eius . . ..... ij Juliana filia eius . . * xij Willelmus Northfolk et
uxor
eius ij
Johannes
Parkyr et uxor
eius ij
Ricardus Fippe et uxor
eius ij
Adam Bloy et uxor eius . ij Johannes Speyney et uxor eius ..... ij
Petrus Alselot et uxor
eius ij
Gilbertus Orgon et uxor
eius ij
Willelmus Storeys et uxor
eius ij
Ricardus atte Hoi et uxor
eius . ij
Willelmus Botyld et uxor
eius ij
Johannes With
ye co(?)et
uxor eius ij
Johannes Clop ton et uxor
eius ij
Willelmus Aleyn et uxor
eius ij
Willelmus Wyeyn et uxor
eius ij
Walterus With y® co(?)et
uxor eius ij
Willelmus Cole et uxor
eius xvj
Johannes Batayle senior et uxor eius . . . . ij Johannes Cok et uxor
eius ij
Johannes Batayle junior et uxor eius . . . . ij Willelmus Comb well et
uxor eius ij
Johannes Clap et uxor
eius ij
Thomas Sowter et uxor
eius xvj
Henricus Fowtrer et uxor
eius ij iiij
Johannes Symor et uxor * <1
eius ij iiij
Simon Wytene et nxor
lius ij
WilMmus Larke et uxor eius . . . .
ij
Johannes Wyeyn ... xij Johannes Heyward . . xij
Fuller.
Johannes Rich et uxor
eius xij
7 r °ulatat Johannes Tyler senior et uxor eius ij
Pastons
Johannes Pikot . . xij
Robertus 1 'iKot ... xij
J >hannes Helder xij
Johannes Gemes ...
xij
Scittortt Walterus Dereman et
uxor eius ij
Johannes Smyth junior et uxor eius . . . . ij Matilda atte Brok
> . xij Willelmus Spelyng , . xviij
Willelmus Clerk et uxor
eius
Johannes Smyth senior et uxor eius . . _
Johannes Bassch et nxor eius. . ...
Johannes IIon*iwyk et uxor eiuo . . . Johannes Bidon et uxor
eius
Johannes Fot famuluseius RaJulphus Mot et uxor eius
D/aperes Johannes Cook et uxor
eius
.Viargareta Reve . . .
C atpentarn Johannes Medwe et uxor •ius . . . . .
Johannes filius eius . .
Fabrt
Johannes Ferour *-t uxor eiu - .......
Proxima Summa
persona- rum ccxiiij Summa xfi xiiij S,
Ric-j-dus Gylot et uxor
ius ij
Johannes Bery .... xij lohannf s Setyle ... xij Svenus Lyon .... xij
Johannes
Lowelon.i
uxor
eius
Proxima Summa persi ma- rum vij Summa vijS.
Ubt 1: tenentes Nicholas Clerk et uxor » ius . . . .
Ricardus Clerk et uxor
■ Ills ,
Johannes Buntjmg . Thomas Gernevs et uxor eius . , . .
Willelmu= Gemeys et
uxor eius
Willelmus Reve ct uxor
eius . . , . , Stephanus Gemeys et uxor eius .
Simon Dereby et nxor eius ... ... Johannes Olyver . . . -hannes
Dawnce junior. oharnes Crysalt senior -t uxoi tsiu& . , . ,
|
*3 |
V] |
|
ij |
vj |
|
|
x
uj |
|
ij |
vj |
|
i‘j |
iiij |
|
ij ij |
vj |
|
ij |
xviij |
|
|
xij |
|
ij |
vj |
et
Reginaldus Promet’ et ixor eius .
.
Labor
at ii Johannes Dawnce senior et uxor eius . . Thomas Reve et uxor eius
Famuli ct Laborarii Johannes Bret et uxor
eius
Johannes ’'■Miypp . . Willelmus Kylat . . Robertus A ton .
Johanner 0(l)eval , . Johanna Kokeber’ . Johannes Stoktnn ,
. Alargareta Reve , . Johannes Thomas et uxor eius .......
xvl
iiij
xij
xij
XI'
IJ VJ
Xij
XX
2
XI]
vj
V
?!
>■}
xij
ROLL OF
HINCKFORD HUNDRED d
Johi.nnes Grey et uxor 3 eius i]
Johannes Clerk et uxor
eius ij
Walterus Plante et uxor
eius . xij
Johannes Propechant’ . xij J oh mnes Robac et uxor
eius .... xviij Alargaiera Bontyng . xij I'homar Crisal et uxor c ius
xxi j
Joh?nnc«
famulus Willtl- mi Gorneys . . . Johannes Galor . . .
Textorei
Johannes Cnsaie . . . Prox'n..' Summa Persona- rum 1 proxima Sum- ma IiU
i
xj
xj
XIJ
1 ’ J DI SALYNG MAGNA.
Frat.kelyn
Willelmus Attepark tt .'•nr eiu-: . .
. ij
Galfridus
Goide et uxor
riUS ij
Johannes Aukier et uxor f ius . . 1]
Johannes Brok et uxoi eius ....... ij
Laborarii
Stephan us Pigott et uxoi
eius ij
Christina
Pno'ir ... xij Galfridus Brok et jxor eiu; . , . . . ij Willelmus Wolpot et
uxoi
eius ij
Johannes
Wodeman et uxc r eius .... ij Willelmus Row hey et uxor eius ij
}
,mma Sian-1- s . . . . xij Johannes Hilke et nxor eius ... . . ij
/ohannes atte
Med we et uxor eius ..... ij
Cat
penta.ni Johannes Wrihte et uxoi <.uu.s . ,
. . ij
Ricardus Peote et uxor
eius i£
Johannes Howe et uxoi eius ij
Sctssorei
Johannes Stameris . . xij Johannes Gunnyl et uxor eiu« ... . . . ij Proxima
Summa Perso- narum xxxiij Summa xxxiij 3
Domina de Wanton’ . . iiij
Famuli Elisabeth serviens eius . Thomas famulus eius . .
Liberi tenentes Robert us Skene et uxor
eius iij
Johannes Holtes et uxor
eius iij
Andreas Nase et uxor eius ij Willelmus Pyrye et uxor
eius ij
Robertus Ylger et uxor ' eius ij
xij
xij
VJ
Stephanus Frankeleyn et
uxor eius ij
Ricardus Cuppere et uxor
eius ij
Ricardus Broun* et uxor
eius ij
Andreas Gy et uxor eius . ij Robertus Putyng et uxor
eius
Simond Swetyng et uxor
eius . ij
Ro^er Fyssch et uxor eius
, ij
Nativi tenentes Willelmus Pyrie et uxor eius . * iij
* MS. torn. N 2
Vj
XX
vj
Johmnts
Fulburn’ et S {t uxor eiu- . . iij
Johannes Wyot et uxor eius . . . . . ij Johannes Potter et uxor
eius ij
Henrigu: Brenstede et uxor eius .... ij . Johannes Pleyh^lle et
uxor eius ij *
Willelmus Ewat’ et uxor
-■ms ij
*
Johannes Clerk et uxor
eius ij
Willelmus Keng' et uxoi
t-ius ij
Ricardus Clerl et uxor
:ius .... . ij vj Ri„ardu? Ram et uxor
eius ij vj
Robertas Lyttle et uxor
-.’is ij *
Willelmus Kempe et uxor
eius . . . . x* Ricardus Ricun’ et uxor
eius xvj
lohannes Reve et uxor eius . ....
xij
Kohertus Ynde ... xi] Johannes Martyr . . xij
Laborarii Johannes Theccher et
uxor eiu- .... iiij I ohannes Bumstede et
uxor eius xvj
WiUelmu Punii cd et
uxor eiu- vj
Ricaidus Reng’ et uxor
eius iiij
Thomas Lyttle et uxor
eius . . ... viij \VilIelmus Sore] . . x Henricus iJrane et uxor
eius . ij
Johannes Mjnteney . . xn Willelmus Leyr’ ... xij W il.elmus Thorgod . .
xij Willelmus Blake ... xij Johannes Polco et uxor
eius ij
A.gnes Alard .... xij Johfiunes Lyttle , ■ . xij Matilda Ram ....
xij Johannes Bruer et uxor
eius ij
Johannes Koc’ .... xij Johannes Col .... xij
* MS,
B
rcarii 5 3 Willelm-is Kocston et
uxor eius . . . . iij Johannes
Tanner et uxoi
eius . . ... jij
Scittorts Clemens Wynd et uxor
eius ij
Johannes Pole et uxor eius ij vj Willelmus Ewant juworet
uxor eius ij
Thomas Taylor et uxor
eius . ij
Johannes Fonkes . xij Wi'lelmus I-onde’ et uxor eius ij
Textorcs Johanno V'lemyng et ixor eius . .
. ij
Johannes Hastiler et uxor
iv ij
Willelmus Webbe et uxor
eius ij
JoLannts Moyn et uxor
■:ius> . ij
Johannes London et uxor
eius ij
Johannes Blakdene et
ixor eius ij
Kicardus Wyseden et uxor eiua . . . . . ij
Caipentai it Nicholas Pape et uxor eius ij * Johannes Britteman et
uxor eius . . . ij vj
Johannes Kocston et uxor
eius ij >uj
Draperes Johannes Wryth et uxor
ius iiij
Johannes Dier et uxor
eius xij
Ricardrs Taylor . - iiij
Agnes Culond . . . . ij
Molcndinarius Johannes Miller et uxor
eius .... . . xvj
Cainifires Edmunrtus Koc’ et uxor
.■’us . ij *
Walterus Coding et uxor eius ... ... iij
torn.
Fuileies i f
Willelmus Crakebon et
uxor eius viij
Sulores Willelmus Wylie et uxor pius . .
. . ij
Johannes Ponu’* ... . xij
Fabri
Stephanus Smyth er uxor
ius xij
Henricus Alard et nxor eius ij
PJllpatii Johannes Skynner . . iiij Roger Traj-e .... iiij
I 'amuli serviens Willelmi VViile . rferviens Walteri Gi Jvng Serviens
Vicarii Ecciesiat de Rtebbing Johannes famulus Johan nis Felburn . . Heiiricu.-
Pyrye . . Eleanor be aoh . . . Galfridus Rrighteman uxor Willelmi P-kenot' uxor
Johannis Partrik Tegulatotes Hugo Tyle. et uxor eius Roger Tye .... Proxima
Summa persona rara civ San-ma vijfi xv 3.
Lay
Subs. Roll. Essex. VILL’ DE STURMER’.
No. VY-.
l.iheri
U nenleo Willelmus Bern et nxor
e:us ij, vj
T
'omas Bret et .ixor eius ij vj Willelmus Toller et uxor
iius
iij
Jchannes
Longe et nxor eiu‘ ... iij
Vgnes filia eius ... xi: Robertas utte Welle . . xi] J ohannes
Maysttr et uxor eius . . .... iij Johannes atte Hel et uxor ius , ... iij
Willi imiis Bret et uxor
eius . ij
Margareta
filia eius . xij Thomas b'omast . xrj
Willelmus
atte Thorj et
uxor eius
..... ij vj
Lxlorarii
Johannf- Bret juniii . Alicia fiha i home Bret \gnes filia Willelmi Bern’
Johannes Deynys et uxor
“i
as ij
Willelmus
filius Thomt Honrtr et nxoi eius . ij v\uf terns Mustard . . . Willelmus Pirpayn . Johannes Foie et uxor
eius
Willelmus Chapmai- Edmundus Casse -t uxoi eius
v]
rnj
iiij
XI]
XVllj
XIJ
xviij
* aw,
[«
XI]
xij
iiij
XI]
xij
X!]
xij
Xi]
XI]
Hugo Shepherd et uxoi eius . . . ij
Gilbertus Drugge et uxor eius . ...
Johannes Sturii et uxor
' »jus ij
Johannes Soo’\ . , Heincus Rande et uxor
eius
ij
Thon'as
Morse .
VUcia Grey
Johannes »tte Welle et
ixcr eius
\micia soror
eius . . . Thomas (aunt .... Margareta fiarwe . . .
Jol - 'ni.es Hogoun et uxor
:ius
Jol nnes Coppayl et uxor
eiu1; .
Henricus Mayster . . . Robeitus Bok et uxor
eius ij
Robertus Morse et uxoi eius ......
Willelmus Chapman et
■ixor eius
Johannes Pottrryle et ixor eius . . . . ij Edtnnndus link et uxor
eius ij
i.£nes Casse
Johannes Scheldrake et ixoi eius ... ij Willelir us Hyrde et axoi
eius . »-....
ij vj torn.
x:j
XI]
Xij
x
vi
v,
XI]
Xlj
XI]
xrj
V]
XI]
xij
xij
Jotiannes Caunt et uxor 5
gius vj
Johannes Rande . . . *}
Fabri
Roger Smyth . . . . ij Thomas famulus eius . . x'j A.ucia serviens eius
. . xij Johannes Smyth et uxor
■aus ij vj
Johannes Bemuud et ui.or
eius . ij vj
Robertus Hunter et uxoi
eius , ■ ij vj
Fulleres Galtridus Fu'ler et uxor
eius
Johannes Chon’ et uxoi
eius
Johannes Fullor et uxor :ius . . .
.
J ohannes Mustard et uxor ;ius .... . . „ Johannes suus socics . . xij
Catpen’arii Radulphus Wrihte. . . xij
Johannes Wrihte et uxor % 3
eius ij
J-.'hannes Hog et uxoi plus . . . . . ij Robertas Heyward . . xviij
Johannes Bfji^yth et uxor eius . .
ij
Roger Folke et uxor eius. ij
Sutores Johannes Wagge et uxor »ius .
. .
k oliertusi lilius eius . . •simon Kot et uxor eius .
Ricardus Bog et uxoi eius
Carutarii Johanne: Haligod . . . Thomas Pat; et uxoi eius
I] vj xij 1] vj ij
xij
XVJ
Scissor Robertus Mayster et uxor
eius xij
Summa persona’ nm cxiij Summa vlxiiiS.
N.B.—The
reader should note the enormous proportion oi artisans in some ot the villages.
The smiths in Alhamston, Felstede, Fynchyngfelde, and Sturmer, the weavers in
Stebbyng, the: tailors in Felstede, Fyn< hyngfelde, and Hythingham Sibili,
the carpenters in Felstede and Sturmer seem out of proportion to all looal
needs. The figures suggest that these places were small industrial centres in
these trades.
Note also
that only Felstede and Stebbyng return nativi tenentes-. Presumably
land-holding villeins in the other villages must be mixed wjth the laborarii.
Felstede,
Gosfeld, and Salyng Magna alone show resident * frankeleyns ’, distinguished
irom liberi tenentes. Felstede enrolls three innkeepers: no other village shows
them, though large places like Hythingham Sibill and Bumstede must have owned
some.
Observe that
in the whole 1.300 persons enrolled, we find only thirteen cases of ‘ filia
eius ’ and one of ‘ soror eius ’ resident with a householder
APPENDIX IV.
WRIT OF INQUIRY AS TO THE FRAUDULENT LEVYING OF THE POLL-TAX
L. T. R.
Originalia, 4 Rich. II, m. 12. Norfolkia De inquirendo pro Rege.
Rex vicec
omiti Norfolkiae, Stephano de Hale? chivaler, Hugom Fastolf, Nicholao de Massy
ngham, Willelmo Wenlok clerico, Johanni de F.llerton servienti suo ad aima
salutem. Satis patet per veras et notabiles evidencias quod taxatores et 'jollectores
subsidii trium grossarum, quod nobis in ultimo parliamcnto nostro apud
Northampton per dominos magnates et communitates regni nostri, in salvacionem
et defensionem ejusdem regni nostri de quahbet persona laica ejusdem regni
levandum, concessum luit, in comitatu predicto per commissiones nostras nuper
as- signati, parcentes pluribus personis dicti comitatus, quasdam voluntarie et
quasdam negiigenter vel favorabiliter omiserunt, sic quod ma.gna pars ejusdem
subsidii in comitatu predicto per negligentiam et defectum ipsorum Taxatorum et
Collectorum a nobis est cancellata et detenta, quae ad opus nostrum levare
deberent si bene et fideliter taxata et assessa fuisset, quod non solum in
nostri et dicti regni nostri grave prejudicium verum eriam in ordinacionum per
nos et consilium nostrum pro «alutacione et honore ejusdem regni nostri et
subditorum nostrorum factarum et tractafum retardacionem et finalem
turbacionem, nisi cicius in hac parte emendetur. dinoscitur redundare. nos
volentes cum toto effectu hujusmodi periculis obviare, et de subsidio predicto
juxta concessionem ejusdem fideliter respondere. de avisamento consilii nostri
ordinavimus et assignavimus vos, quatuor tres et duos vestrum, ad supervidendum
et inspiciendum omnes et singulas indenturas inter dictos Collectors et
Constabularies ac alias gentes quarumcumque villarum et burgoram dicti
Comitatus de taxa- cione et collectionc dicti subsidii confectas, vel veras
copias earun- dem taxaciones ac numeram et nomina omnium personarum pej ipsos
Taxatores et subtaxatores suos ad dictum subsidium asses- sarum continentes, ac
ad perscrutandum et oxaminandum nume- rurr quarumcumque personarum laicarum tam
hominum quan-
feminanim
Comitatus predicti tam infra libertates quam extra, que etatem quindecim annoram
excedunt, veris mendicantibus et de elemosina solomodo viventibus dumtaxat
exceptis, et ad vos informandum tam per sacramentum Constabulariorum et
Ballivorum singularum villarum et burgorum ac aliorum prol >orum et legalium
hominum de quolibet loco Comitatus predicti tam infra libertates quam extra,
ubi necesse fuerit, quam aliis viis et modis.prout vobis magis
expediensvidebitur, de omnibus etsinguli= personis laicis quarumcumque villarum
dicti Comitatus per dicto? Taxatores et Collectores
omissis vel concelatis, que hujusmodi subsidium solvere debuerunt, et ad
numerum et nomina earun- dem redigendum in scriptis, et ea prefatis Taxatoribus
et Col- lectoribus lib(randum per indenturam inde inter vos et ipsos Taxatores
et Collectores debite conficiendam, pro collectione et levacione dicti subsidii
juxta formam concessionis ejusdem pe: eos fideliter faciendum, ac eciam ad
conficiendum inter vos et Constabularios et duos alios homines cujuslibet
villae dicti Comitatus indenturam de toto numero omnium personarum que in
qualibel villarum predictarum inveniri poterunt, et que dictum subsidium
secundam forr>am concessionis ejusdem solvere debent vel tenentur. II a quod
aliqua persona laica ejusdem Comitatus contra formam dictae concessionis
nullatenus pretermittatur, et ad Thesaurarium et Barones de scaccario nostro de
numero et rto mini bus ac singuhs personis que sic inveneritis in qualibet
villa et parochia cum omni celeritate possibili certifirandum, et ad paites
indenturarum vestrarum predictarum ibidem deferendum. et ad omnes ill os quos
in premissis seu aliquo premissorum con- trarios inveneritis seu rebelles
arestandum et capiendum et eos prisonis nostris mancipandum, in eisdem
moraturos quousque de eorum punicione aliter duxerimus ordinandum. Et ideo vobis
super fide et ligeancia quibus nobis tenemini, et sub fonsfactun omaum que
nobis forisfacere poteritis, injungimus et mandamus quod omnibus aliis
premissis, et exoneracione quacumque ces- sante, vos quatuor tres vel duo
vestrum de villa ad villarn et loco ad locum infra Comitatum predictum tam
infra libertates quam extra personaliter divertentes, hujusmodi persrrutacionem
et examinacionem faciatis, et intormacxonem predictam viis et modis quibus
melius poteritis capiatis, et premissa et omnia alia et smguia faciatis et
expleatis in forma predicta. Mandavimus enim pre- latis Collectoribus quod ipsi
indenturas suas predictas vel veras
copias earundem vobis, quatuor tribus vel duo bus vestrum, liberent
indilate, et subsidium predictum de suis personis hujusmodi, quas eis per
indenturas ve stras sic certificaveritis, cum omni celeritate levari et colligi
iaciant, et nobis inde respondent ad scaccarium supradictum. Damus autem
universis et singulis Ducibus Comi- tibus Baronibus miliubus Mai cad bus
Ballivis Ministris. et quibus- cumque aliis ligeis et fidelibus nostns
Comitatus predicti tarn infra libertates quam extra, tenc.re presencium
firmiter in preceptis, quod ipsi et eorum (juilibet super fide et ligeancia
quibus nobis tenentui, vobis, quatuor tribus et duobus vestrum, in premissis et
quolibet premissoium diligenttr intendentes, sint consulentes obedientes et
auxiliantes: et tu prefatus vicecomes omnes et singu- los qui in solucione
subsidii predicti sen in aliquo picmissorum rebelles vel contrarii fuerint capias,
et in prisona nostra salvo custodiri facias in forma predicta. Et venire tacias
coram vobis, quatuor tribus vel duobus vestrum, ad dies et loca quos ad hoc
provided tis vel pioviderint, quatuor tres vel duo vestrum, tam Constabularios
et Ballivos quam alios probos et legales homines de quahbet villa seu parochia
Comitatus predict: tam infra libertates quam extra de locis, ubi indigerint per
quos etc. et inquiri (sic). In cujus etc. Teste Rege apud
Westmonasterium xvj die March Eodem modo assignantur subscript! in Comitatu
subscripto in forma predicta sub eadem dal a videlicet.
N.B.- Similar
writs, varying only in the names of the commissioners in the first paragraph,
are directed to fourteen shires of the South ard East, and to the West Riding
of Yorkshire, see p. 30, supra.
By the kind
permission of Mr. G M. Trevelyan, who discovered and transcribed this
invaluable chronicle, ot Dr Poole who caused it to be inserted in the English
Historical Review, Part 51 (1898), and of Messrs. Longmans, the proprietors of
that admirable magazine, I am allowed to reproduce the document here. I have
ventured to translate it, because the extraordinary jargon of corrupt
Anglo-French in which it is written makes it extremely hard to follow. The
author possessed a very poor vocabulary, and a wretched cramped quasi- legal
style. His sentences wander about in the most illogical fashion, with clauses
loosely connected by ‘pour ceo que ’ or ‘ par quel encheson' or ‘en quel
temps’. They are often ungrammatical, lacking an apodosis, or a principal verb.
I have had to break up a very large number of his sentences into two or three,
in order to be intelligible. In three or four places the phrases are clearly
incomplete, by reason of words having dropped ou* in the copy made by Francis
Thynne, in or about 1592, the sole surviving text. But if the literary merit of
the piece is nil, its historical value is enormous. It contains far more
detailed facts about the rising than any other single chronicle, and a large
proportion of them art; unrecorded elsewhere. It is clearly the work of a
contemporary, and in some parts ot an eyewitness. I have followed it so closely
in certain sections of my narrative that I thought it well to append it here.
The back-file of the English Historical Review is hard to obtain outside great
public libraries, and the general reader, if he ever glances at the original,
w’U appreciate my reasons for translating the chronicle, instead of merely
reprinting Mr Trevelyan’s text.
‘Because in
the year 1380 the subsidies were over lightly granted1 at the
Parliament of Northampton and because it seemed to divers Lords and to the
Commons that the said subsidies were not honestly levied, but commonly exacted
from the
1 I
do not pretend to be sure of whaf exactly the chronicler means by ‘ leper- mcnt
grants presumably ‘ granted without due consideration of details ot
difficulties of levying
poor and not
from the rich, to the great profit and advantage of the tax-collectors, and to
the. deception ot the King and the Commons, the Council of the King ordained
certain commissions to make inquiry 111 every township how the tax had been
levied. Among these commissions, one1 for Essex was sent to one
Thomas Bampton, senechal of a certain lord, who was regarded in that countrj as
a king or great magnate for the state that he kept. And before Whitsuntide he
held a court at Brentwood in Essex, to make inquisition, and showed the
commission that had been sent him to raise the money which was in default, and
to inquire how the collectors had levied the aforesaid subsidy. He had summoned
before him the townships of a neighbouring hundred, and wished to have from
them new contributions, commanding the people of those townships to make
diligent inquiry, and give their answers, and pay their due. Among these
townships was Fobbmg, whose people made answer that they would not pay a penny
more, because they already had a receipt from himself tor the said subsidy. On
which the said Thomas threatened them angrily, and he had with him two
.->ergeants-at-arms of our Lord the King. And tor fear of his malice the
folks of Fobbing took counsel with the folk« of Corringham, and the folks of
these two places made levies and assemblies, and sent messages to the men of
Stanford to bid them rise with them, for their common profit. Then the people
ot these three townships came together to the number of a hundred or more, and
with one assent went to die said Thomas Bampton, and roundly gave him answer
that they would have no traffic with him, nor give him a pennj. On which the
said Thomas commanded his sergeants-at-arms to arrest these folks, and put them
in prison But the commons made insurrection against him, and would not be
arrested, and went about to kill the said Thomas and the said se rgeants. On
this Thomas fled towards London to the King’s Council; but the commons took to
the woods, for fear that they had ot hi? malice. And they hid there some time,
till they were almost famished, md afterwards they went from place to place to
stir up other people to rise against the lords and great folk of the country.
And because of these occurrences Sir Robert Belknap, Chief Justice of the
King’s Bench, was sent into the county, with a commission of Trailbaston, and
indictments against divers persons were laid before him, and the folks of the
countryside were in
such fear
that they were proposing to abandon their homes. Wherefore the commons rose
against him, and came before him, and told him that he was a traitoi to the
King, and that it was of pure malice that he would put them in default, by
means of false inquests made before him. And they took him, and made him swear
on the Bible that never again would he hold such a session, nor act as a
justice in such inquests. And they made him give them a list of the names of
all the jurors, and. they took all the jurors they could catch, and cut off
their heads, and cast their houses to the ground. So the said Sir Robert took
his way home without delay. And afterwards the said commons assembled together,
before Whitsunday, to the number of some 50,000, and they went to the manors
and townships of those who would not rise with them, and cast their houses to
the ground or set fire to them. At this time they caught three clerks of Thomas
Bampton, and cut off their heads, and carried the heads about with them for
several days stuck on poles as an example to others. Foi it was their purpose
to slay all lawyers, and all jurors, and all the servants of the King whom they
could find. Meanwhile the great lords of that country and other people of substance
fled towards London, or to other counties where they might be safe. Then the
commons sent divers letters to Kent and Suffolk and Norfolk that they should
rise with them, and when they were assembled they went about in many bands
doing great mischief in all the countryside.
Now on Whit
Monday a Knight of the household of our Loid the King named Sir Simon Burley,
having in his company two sergeants-at-arms, came to Gravesend, and challenged
a man there of being his bom serf s and the good folks of the town came to him
to make a bargain for the man, because of their respect for the king: but Sir
Simon would take nothing less than £$00, which sum would have undone the said
man. And the good folks prayed him to mitigate his demand, but could not come
to terms nor induce him to take a smaller sum, though they said to Sir Simon
that the man was a good Christian and of good disposition. and in short that
he ought not to be so undone. But the said Sir Simon was of an irritable and
angry temper, and greatly despised these good folk, and for haughtiness of
heart he bade his .sergeants bind the said man, and to take him to Rochester
Castle, to be kept m custody there: from which there came later
great evil
and mischief. And after his departure the commons commenced to rise, gathering
in to them the men of many townships of Kent. And at this moment a justice was
assigned by the King and Council to go into Kent with a commission of
Trailbaston, as had been done before in Essex, and with him went a
sergeant-at-arm,s of our Lord the King, named Master John Legge, bearing with
him a great number of indictments against folks of that district, tQ make
ihe.Kiogjafih. And they would have held session at Canterbury, but they were turned
back by the commons.
And after
this the commons of Kent gathered together in great numbers day after day,
without a head or a chieftain, and the Friday after Whit Sunday came to
Dartford. And there they took counsel, and made proclamation that none who
dwelt near the sea in any place for the space of twelve leagues, should come
out with them, but should remain to deiend the coasts of the sea from public
enemies, saying among themselves that they were more kings than one (?)and they
would not suffer or endure any other king but King Richard. At this same time
the commons of Kent came to Maidstone, and nit off the head of one of the best
men of the town, and cast to the ground divers houses and tenements of folks
who would not rise with them, as had been done before in Essex. And, on the
next Friday after, they came to Rochester and there met a great number of the
commons of Essex. And because of the man of Gravesend they laid siege to
Rochester Castle, to deliver their friend from Gravesend, whom the aforesaid
Sir Simon had imprisoned. They laid strong siege to the Castle, and the
constable defended himself vigorously for half a day, but at length for fear
that he had of such tumult, and because of the multitude of folks without
reason from Essex and Kent, he delivered up the Castle to them. And the commons
entered, and took theii companion, and all the other prisoners out of the
prison. Then the men of Gravesend repaired home with their fellow in great joy,
without doing more. But those who came from Maidstone took their way with the
rest of the commons through the countryside. And there they made chief over
them Wat "I eghler of Maidstone, to maintain them and be their councillor.
And on the Monday next after Trinity Sunday they came to
1 The text is obscure here, < dissant parentre eux
que ils fuerent pluseurs roys que un, et il ne voyderont autre roy forsque roy
Richart sufferer ne aver \
Canterbury,
before the hour of noon; and 4,000 ot them entering into the Minster at the
time ot High Mass, there made a reverence and cried with one voice to the monks
to prepare to choose a monk for Archbishop of Canterbury, * for he who is
Archbishop now is a traitor, and shall be decapitated for his iniquity’, And so
he was within five days after ! And when they had done this, they went into the
town to their fellows, and with one assent they summoned the Mayor, the
bailiff.% and the commons of the said town, and examined them whether they
would with good will swear to be iaithful and loyal to King Richard and to the
true Commons of England nr no. Then the mayor answe red that they would do so
willingly, and they made their oath to that effect Then they (the rebels) asked
them if they had any traitors among them, and the townsfolk said that there
were three, and named their names. These three the commons dragged out of their
houses and cut off their heads, And afterwards they took 500 men of the town
with them to London, but left the rest to guard the town.
At this time
the commons had as their councillor a chaplain of evil disposition named Sir
John Ball, which Sir John advised them to get rid of all the lords, and of the
archbishop and bishops, and abbots, and priors, and most of the monks and
canons, saying that there should be no bishop in England save one archbishop
only, and tliai he himself would be that prelate, and they would have no monks
or canons in religious houses save two. and that their possessions should be
distributed among the laity. For which sayings he was esteemed among the
commons as a prophet, and laboured with them day by day to strengthen them in
their malice- -and a fit reward he got, when he was hung, drawn, and quartered,
and beheaded as a traitor. After this the said commons went to many places, and
raised all the folk, some willingly and some unwillingly, till they were
gathered together full 60,000. And in going towards London they met divers men
of law, and twelve knights of that country', and made them swear to support
them, or otherwise they should have been beheaded They wrought much damage in
Kent, and notably to Thomas Haselden, a servant of the Puke of Lancaster,
because of the hate that they bore to the said duke. They cast his manors to
the ground and all his houses, and sold his beasts—his horses, his good cows,
his sheep, and his pigs—and all his store of com, at
a cheap
price. And they desired every day to have his head, and the head of Sir Thomas
Orgrave. Clerk of Receipt and subTreasurer of England.
When the King
heard of their doings he sent his messengers to them, on Tuesday after Trinity
Sunday, asking why they were behaving in'tins"fashion, and for what cause
they were making insurrection in his land. And they sent back by his messengers
ihe answer that they had risen to deliver him, and to destroy traitors to him
and his kingdom. The King sent again to them bidding them cease their doings,
in reverence for him. till he could !>peak with them, and he would make,
according to their will, reasonable amendment of all that was ill-done in the
realm. And the commons, out of good feeling to him, sent back word by his’
messengers that they wished to see him and speak with him at Blackheath.1
And the King sent again the third time to say that he would come willingly the
next day, at the hour of Prime, to hear their puipo.se. At this time the King
was at Windsor, but he removed with all the haste he could to London : and the
Mayor and the good folks of Ixindon came to meet him, and conducted him in
safety to the Tower of London. Thert; all the Council assembled and all the
lords of the land round about, that is to say. the Archbishop of Canterbury,
Chancellor of England, the Bishop of London, and the Master of the Hospital of
St. Johns, Clerkenwell, who was then Treasurer of England, and the Earls ot
Buckingham - and Kent, Arundel, Warwick, Suffolk, Oxford, and Salisbury, and
others to the numl ier of boo. -
And on the
vigil of Corpus Christi Day the commons oi Kent came to Blackheath, three
leagues from London, to the number of 50,00c, to wait for the King, and they
displayed two banners of St George and forty pennons. And the commons of Essex
came on the other side of the water to the number of 60,000 to aid them, and to
have their answer from the King And on the Wednesday, th< King being in the
Tower of London, thinking to settle the business, had his barge go t ready, and
took with him in his barge the Archbishop, and the Treasurer, and certain
others
1 The text seems corrupt, f Et les
dist comons pur amites a luy, par ses raes- sageurs que il se vodroit veer et
parler ovesque eux al Blackeheathe \ A verb is missing, and presumably the text
should run, ‘ respondirent que ils vodroient veer et parler ovesque luy \
* An error. Buckingham was in Wales at the
moment.
of his
Council, and four other barges for his train, and got him to Greenwich, which
is three leagues from London. But there the Chancellor and the Treasurer said
to the King that it would be too great lolly to trust himself among the
commons, for they were men without reason and had not the sense to behave
properly. But the commons ot Kent, since the King would not come to them
because he was dissuaded by his Chancellor and Treasurer, sent him a jietition,
requiring that he should grant them the head of the Duke of Lancaster, and the
heads of fifteen other lords, of whom fourteen (three?) were bishops,1
who were present with him in the Tower of London. And these were their names :
Sir Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbuiy, Chancellor of England, Sir Robert
Hales, Prior of the Hospital ot St. John s, Treasure! of England, the Bishop ol
London, Sir John Fordham, Bishop- elect of Durham and Clerk of the Privy Seal,
Sir Robert Belknap, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, Sir Ralph Ferrers, Sir
Robert Plessington, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, John Legge, Sergeant- at-arms
of the King, and Thomas Bampion aforesaid. This the King would not grant them,
wherefore they sent to him again a yeoman, praying that he would come and speak
with them : and he said that he would gladly do so, but the said Chancellor and
Treasurer gave him contrary counsel, bidding him tell them that if they would
come to Windsor on the next Monday they should there have a suitable answer.
And the said
commons had among themselves a watchword in English, “ With who me haldes you ?
”; and the answer was, “With kinge Richarde and the true comons ” ; and those
who could not or would not so answer were beheaded and put to death.
And at this
time there came a knight with all the haste that he could, crying to the King
to wait; and the King, startled at this, awaited his approach to hear what he
would say. And the said knight came to the King telling him that he had heard
from his servant, who had been in the hands of the rebels on that day,’ that if
he came to them all the land should be lost, for they would never let him loose,
but would take him with them al] round England, and that they would make him
grant them all their demands, and that their purpose wa-~ to slay all the lords
and
1
The figure fourteen is unintelligible—only three bishops are cited in the list
—the Primate,
Courtenay of London, and Fordham elect of Durham.
3
Text is possibly corrupt here.
ladies of
great renown, and all the archbishops, bishops, abbots and priors, monks and
canons, parsons and vicars, by the advice and counsel of the aforesaid Sir John
Wraw (Ball).1
Therefore the
King returned towards London as fast as he could, and came to the Tower at the
hour of Tierce. And at this time the yeoman who has been mentioned above
hastened to Black- heath, t rying to his fellows that the King was departed, and
that it would be good for them to go on to London and carry out. their purpose
that same Wednesday. And before the hour of Vespers the commons of Kent came,
to the number of 60,000, to Southwark, where was the Marshalsea. And they
broke and threw down all the houses in the Marshalsea, and took out of prison
all the prisoners who were imprisoned for debt or for felony. And they levelled
to the ground a fine house belonging to John Imworth, then Marshal of the
Marshalsea ot the King’s Bench, and warden of the prisoners ot the said place,
and all the dwellings of the jurors and questmongers 2 belonging to
the Marshalsea during that night. But at the same time, the commons of Essex
oame to Lambeth near London, a manor of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and entered
into the buildings and destroyed many of the goods of the said Archbishop, and
burnt all the books of register, and rules of remembrances belonging to the
Chancellor, whicn they found there
And the next
day. Thursday, which was the feast of Corpus C-hristi, the 13th day of June,
with the Dominical Letter F, the said commons of Essex went in the morning * to
Highbury, two leagues north of London, a very fine manor belonging to the
Master of the Hospitallers. They set it on fire, to the great damage and loss
of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John. Then some of them returned to London,
but others remained in the >pen fields aE that night. And this same day of
Corpus Christi, m the morning, the commons of Kent cast down a certain house
1 Ball mast be meant. Wraw is not yet t
avandit \ being only named on the last page of the Chronicle. The story agrees
with the advice ascribed to Ball on the preceding page.
3
Questmongers. Dr. Murray comments thus on these people: 1 they are
generally mentioned along with jurors or false jurors, and seem to have been
persons who made it their business and profit to give information, and cause
judicial enquiries to be made against others, so as to get a share of the
fines/
3
Date certainly wrong. There is ample proof that Highbury was burnt on Friday.
See page 70.
WAT
TYLER O
of ill-fame
near London Bridge, which was in the hands of Flemish women, and they had the
said house to rent from the Mayor of London. And then they went on to the
Bridge to pass into the City, but the Mayor was ready before them, and had the
chains drawn up, and the drawbridge lifted, to prevent their passage. \nd the
commons of Southwark rose with them and cried to the custodians of the bridge
to lower the drawbridge and let them in, or otherwise they should be undone.
And tor fear that they had of their lives, the custodians let them entei, much
against ,thejr will. At this time all the religious and the parsons and vicars
of London were going devoutly in procession to pray God for peace. At this same
time the commons took their way through the middle of I-ondon, and did no harm
or damage till they canif to Fleet Street. [And at this time, as it was said,
the mob of London set fire to and burnt the fine manor of the Savoy, before the
arrival of the country folk.] And in Fleet Street the men of Kent broke open
the prison of the Fleet, and turned out all the prisoners, and let them go
whither they would. Then they stopped, and cast down to the ground and burnt
the shop of a certain chandler, and another shop belonging to a blacksmith, in
the middle of the said street. And, as is supposed, there shall never be houses
there again, defacing the beauty of that street. And then they went to the
Temple, to destroy the tenants of the said Temple, and they cast the houses to
the ground and threw off all the tiles, and left the roofing in a bad way (?)'.
They went into the Temple church and took all the books and rolls and
remembrances, that lay in their cupboards in the Temple, which belonged to the lawyers,
and they carried them into the highway and burnt them there. And on their way
to the Savoy they destroyed all the houses which belonged to the Master of the
Hospital of St. John. And then they went to the house of the Bishop of Chester,
near the Church of St. Mary-le-Strand, where was dwelling John Fordham,
Bishop-elect of Durham and clerk of the Privy Seal. And they rolled barrels of
wine out of his cellar, and drunk their fill, and departed without doing
further damage. And then they went toward the Savoy, and set fire to divers
houses of divers unpopular persons on the Western side*: and at last they
1 * E
avaiglerent toutz les tughleSj issint que il fueront converture en male araye.’
I
do not quite understand this phrase.
2 Gentz a que est maugr^s de! parte le
West.
came to the
Savoy, and broke open the gates, and entered mto the place and came to the
wardrobe. And they took all the torches they could find, and lighted them, and
burnt all the sheets and coverlets and beds and head-boards of great worth, for
then whole value was estimated at 1,000 marks. And all the napery and other
things that they could discover they earned to the hall and set on fire with
their torches. Anri they burnt the hall, and the chambers, and all the
buildings within the gates of the said palace or manor, which the commons of
London had left un- bumt. And, as is said, they found three barrels of
gunpowder, and thought it was gold cr silver, and cast it into the fire, and
the powder exploded, and set the hall in a greater blaze thar .f* ‘ belore, to
the great loss and damage of the Duke of Lancaster.
And the
commons of Kent got the credit of the arson, but some
tsay that the
Londoners were really the guilty parties, for then hatred to the said Duke.
Then one part
of them went toward? Westminster, and set on fin. a house belonging to John
Butterwick, Under-sheriff of Middlesex, and other houses of di\ ers people, and
broke open Westminster prison, and let loose all the prisoners condemned by the
law. And afterwards they returned to I ondon by way of Holborn, and in front of
St. Sepulchre’s Chur oh they set on fire the house of Simon Hosteler, and
several other houses, and broke open Newgate Prison, and let loose all the
prisoners, for whatever cause they had been imprisoned. This same Thursday the
commons camt: to St. Martin’s-le-Grand, and tore away 11 om the high altar a
certain . V ■ t -r-*- Roger Legett, a great ‘assizer’1, and
took him into Cheapside and his head was cut off. On that same day eighteen
more persons were decapitated in divers comers of the town.
At this same
time a great body 01 the commons went to the Tower to speak with the King and
could not get speech with him, wherefore they laid siege to the Tower from the
side of St.
Catherine’s,
towards the south. And another part of the com mons, who were in the City,
went to the Hospital of St. John’s,
Clerkenwell,
and on the way they burnt the dwelling and houses of Roger Legett, the
questmonger, who had bren beheaded in Cheapside, and also all the rented houses
and tenements of the
1 {Grand
cisorer/ I can find no better explanation for ctsorer. Professor Ker suggests
that it is a corrupt form of sisour or cisour, an * assizer \ Roger Legett is
called a 1 questmonger and sisor' by Stow, Annalst
286.
O 2
Hospital of
St. John, and afterwards they came to the beautiful pnory of the said Hospital,
and set on fire several fine and delectable houses within the priory, a great
and horrible piece of damage for all time to come. They then returned to
London, to rest or to do more mischief.
At this time
the King was in a turret of the great Tower of London, and could see the manor
of the Savoy and the Hospital of Clerkenwell, and the house of Simon Hosteler
near Newgate, and John Butterwick’s place, all on fire at once. Anti he called
all his lords about him to his chamber, and asked counsel what they should do
in such necessity. And none of them could or would give him any counsel,
wherefore the young Kin>? said that he would send to the Mayor of the City,
to bid him order the sheriffs and aldermen to have it cried round their wards
that every man between the age of fifteen and sixty, on pain of life and members,
should go next morning (which was Friday) to Mile End, and meet him there at
seven o’clock. He did this in order that all the commons who were encamped
around the Tower might be 'nduced to abandon the siege, and come to Mile End to
see him and hear him, so that those who were in the Tower could get off safely
whither they would, and save themselves. But it came to nought, for some of
them did not get the good iortune to be preserved. And on that Thursday, the
said feast of Corpus Christi, the King, being in the Tower very sad and sorry,
mounted up into a little turret towards St. Catherine's, where were lying a
great number of the commons, and had proclamation made to them that they all
should go peaceably to then homes, and he would pardon +hein all manner of
their trespasses. But all cried with one voice that they would not go before
they had captured the traitors who lay in the Tower, nor until they had got
charters to free them from al! manner of serfdom, and had got certain other
points which they wished to demand. And the King l>enevolent]y granted all,
and made a clerk write a bill in their presence in these terms: “ Richard. Kins
of England and France, gives great thanks to his good commons, for that they
have so great a desire to see and to keep their king, and grants them pardon
for all manner of trespasses and misprision? and felonies done up to this hour,
and will- and commands that every one should now return to his own home, and
wills and commands that each should put his grievances in writing, and have
them sent to
him ; and he
will provide, with the aid ol hus loyal lords and his good council, such remedy
as .'•hall be prohtable both to him and to them, and to all the kingdom.” On
this document he sealed his signet in presence ot them all, and sent out the
said bill by the hands of two of his knights to the folks betore St. Catherine
s. And he caused it to be read to them, and the knight who read it stood up on
an old ;hair1 before the others so that all could heai All this time
the King was in the Tower in great distress of mind And when the commons had
heard the Bill, they said that this was nothing but trifles and mockery,
Therefore they returned to London and had it cried around the City that all
lawyers, and all the clerks of the Chancery and the Exchequer and every man wbo
could write a brief or a letter should be beheaded, whenever they could be found.
At this time they burnt several more houses ir> the City, and the King
himself ascended to a high garret ot the Tower and watched the fares. Then he
came down ag. in, and sent for the lords to have their counsel, but they knew
not how they should counsel him, and cdl were wondrous abashed.
And next day,
Friday, the commons of the countryside and the commons of London assembled in
fearful strength, to the number of 100,000 or more, besides some four score who
remained on Tower Hill to watch those who were in the Tower. And some went to
Mile End, on the Brentwood Road, to wait for the coming of the King, because of
the proclamation that he had made, But some came to Tower Hill, and when the
King knew that they were there, he sent them orders by messenger to join their
friends at Mile End, saying that he would come to them very soon. And at this
hour oi the morning he advised the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the others
who were in the Tower, to go down to the. Little Water-gate, and take a boat
and save themselves. And the Archbishop did so, but a wicked woman_ raised a
cry against him, and he had to turn back to the Tower, to his confusion
And by seven
o’clock the King came to Mile End, and with him his mother in a whirlecote a,
and also the Earls of Buckinghams, Kent, Warwick, and Oxtord, and
Sir Thomas Percy, and Sir
1 Or an old pulpit (chaire) (?).
2 This is certainly a mistake. The Princess
of Wales was left in the Tower according to the consensus of Chron. Angl.f
Froissart, and the other chronicles. This is the only one which brings her to
Mile End. A whirlecote is the fourteenth-century wheeled carriage.
3 A mistake : Buckingham, as stated before,
was in Wales.
Robert
Knolles, a I'd the Mayor of London, and many knights and squires ; and Sir
Aubrey de Vere carried the sword of state. And when he was come the commons all
knelt down to him, saying “ Welcome our Lord King Richard, if it pleases you,
and we will not have any other king hut you And Wat Tighter, their leader and
chief, prayed in the name of the commons that he would suffer them to take and
deal with all the traitors against him and the law, and the King ^.ranted that
they should have at their disposition all who were traitors, and could be
proved to be traitors by process of law. The said Walter and the commons were
carrying two banners, and many pennons and pennoncels. while they made their
petition to the King. And they required that for the future no man should be in
serfdom, nor make any manner of homage or suit to any lord, but should give a
rent of 4d. an acre for his land. They asked also that no one should serve any
man except by his own good will, and on terms of regular covenant.
And at this
time the King made the commons draw themselves out in two lines, and proclaimed
to them that he would confirm and gram it that they should be free, and
generally should have their will, and that they might go through all the realm
of England and catch all traitors and bring them to him in safety, and then he
would deal with them as the law demanded.
Under colour
of this grant Wat Tighler and [some of] the commons took theii v/av to the
Tower, to seize the Archbishop, while the rest remained at Mile End. During
this time the Archbishop sang his mass devoutly in the Tower, and shrived the
Prior of the Hospitallers and others, and then he heard two masses or three,
and chanted the Commendaciune, and the Placebo, and the Dirige, and the Seven
Psalms, and a Litany, and when he was at the words “Omnes sancti orate pro
nobis”, the commons burst in. and dragged him out of the chapel of the Tower,
and struck and hustled him rudely, as they did also the others w'ho were with
him, and dragged them to Tower Hill. There they cut off the heads of Master
Simon Sudbury, -Archbishop of Canterbury, and of Sir Robert Hales, Prior of the
Hospital of St John’s, Treasurer of England, and of Sir William Appleton, a
great lawyer and sargeon, and one who had much power (?) with 1 the
king and the Duke of Lancaster. And some time after they beheaded John
1
Grant maester ovesque Ie roy : but I suspect that this means * chief physician
to the king, &c.J
Legge, the
King’s Sergeant-at-arms, and with him a certain juror. And at the same time the
commons made proclamation that whoever could catch any Fleming or other alien
of any nation, might cut off his head, and so they did after this. Then they
took the heads of the Archbishop and of the others and put them on wooden
poles, and carried them before them in procession, as tar as the shrine of
Westminster Abbey, in despite of them and of God and Holy Church: and vengeance
descended on them no long time after. Then they returned to London Bridge and
set the head of the Archbishop above the gate, with eight other heads of those
they had murdered, so that all could see them who passed over the bridge. This
done, they went to the Church of St. Martin’s in the Vintry, and found therein
thirty-five Flemings, whom they dragged out and beheaded in the street. On that
day there were beheaded in all some 140 or ibo persons. T hen they took their
waj to the houses of Lombards and other aliens, and broke into their dwelLngs,
and robbed them of all their goods that they could lay hands on. This went on
for ail that day and the night following, with hideous cries and horrid
tumult.
At this time,
because the Chancelloi had been beheaded, the King made the Earl of Arundel
Chancellor for the day, and gave him the Great Seal; and all that day he caused
many clerks to write out charter.';, and patents, and petitions, granted to the
commons touching the matters before, mentioned, without taking any fines for
wealing or description.
The next
morning, Saturday, great numbers of the commons camc into Westminster Abbey at
the ho-ir of Tierce, and there they found J ohr. Imwcrth, Marshal ot the
Marshalsea anil warden of the prisoners, a tormentor without pity : he was at
the. shrine of St. Edward, embracing a marble pillar, to crave aid and succour
from the saint to preserve him Irom his enemies. But the commons wrenched his
arms away from the pillai of the shrine, and dragged him away to Cheapside, and
there beheaded him. And at the same time they took from Bread Street a valet
named John Greenfield, mertlv because he had spoken well of Friar William
Appleton, and of other murdered persons, and brought him to Cheapside and
beheaded him. All this time the King was causing a proclamation to be made
round the City, that every one should go peaceably to his own country and his
own house, with ■ out doing more mischief; but to this the commons gave
no heed
And on this
same day, at three in the afternoon, the King came to the Abbey of Westminster,
and some 200 persons with him; and the abbot and monks of the said Abbey, and
the canons and vicars of St. Stephen’s Chapel, came to meet Mm in procession
clothed iD their copes and their feet naked, half-way to Charing Cross. And
they brought him to the Abbey, and then to the High Altar of the church, and
the King made his prayer devoutly, and left an offering for the altar and the
relics. And afterwards he spoke with the anchorite, and confessed to him, ana
remained with him some time. Then the King caused a proclamation to be made
that all the commons of the country who were still in London should rome to
Smithfield, to meet him there ; and so they did.
And when the
King and his train had arrived there they turned into the Eastern meadow in
front of St. Bartholomew’s, which is a house of canons : and the commons
arrayed themselves on the west side in great battles. At this moment the Mayor
of London, Wilhan? Walworth, came up. and the King bade him go to the commons,
and make their chieftain come to him. And when he was summoned by the Mayor, by
the name of Wat Tighter of Maidstone, he came to the King with great
confidence, mounted on a little horse, that the commons might see him. And he
dismounted, holding in his hand a dagger which he had taken from another man,
and when he had dismounted he half bent his knee, and then took the King by the
hand, and shook his arm forcibly and roughly, saying to him, “ Brother, be of
good comfort arid joyful, lor you shall have, in the fortnight that is to come,
praise from the commons even more than you have yet had, arid we shall be good
companions And the King said to Walter, “Why will you not go back to your own
country?”: Bat the other answered, with a great oath, that neither he nor his
fellows would depart until they had got their charter such as they wished to
have it, and had certain points rehearsed, and added to their charter which
they wished to demand. And he said in a threatening fashion that the lords of
the realm would rue it bitterly if these points were not settled to their
pleasure. Then the King a^ked him what were the points winch he wished to have
revised, and he should have them freely, without contradiction, written out and
sealed. Thereupon the said Waiter rehearsed the points which were to be
demanded ; and he asked that there should be no law within the realm save the
law of Winchester, and that
from
henceforth there should be no outlawry n any process ot law, and that no lord
should have lordship save civilly,1 and that there should be
equality (?) among all people save only the King, and that the goods ot Holy
Church should not remain in the hands ot the religious, nor of parsons and
vicars, and other churchmen , but that clergy already in possession should have
a sufficient sustenance from the endowments, and the rest of the goods should
be divided among the people of the parish. And he demanded that there should be
only one bishop in England and only one prelate, and all the lands and
tenements now held by them should be confiscated, and divided among the
commons, only reserving for them a reasonable sustenance. And he demanded that
there should be no more villeins in England, and no serfdom or villeinage, but
that all men should be free and of one condition. To this the King gave an easy
answer, and said that he should have all that he could fairly grant, reserving
only for himself the regality of his crown. And then he bade him go back to his
home, without making further delay.
During all
this time that the King was speaking, no lord or counsellor dared or wished to
give answer to the commons in any place save the King himself. Presently Wat
Tighler, in the presence of tne King, sent tor a flagon of water to rinse hi-
mouth, because of the great heat that he was in, anil when it was brought he
rinsed his mouth in a very rude and disgusting fashion before the King’s face.
And then he made them bring him a jug of beer, and drank a great draught, and
then, in the presence of the King, climbed on his horse again. At this time a
certain valet from Kent, who was among the King s retinue, asked that the said
Walter, the chief of the commons, might be pointed out to him. And when he saw
him, he said aloud that he knew him for the greatest thief and robber in all
Kent. Watt heard these words, and bade him come out to him, wagging his head at
him in sign of malice; but the valet refused to approach, for fear that he had
of the mob. But at last the lords made, him go out to him, to see what he
[Watt] would do before the King. And when Watt saw him he ordered one of his
followers, who was riding behind him carrying his banner displayed, to dismount
and behead
1 ‘ Et que nul seigneur de ore en avant averoyt
seigneurie, fors sivilement, ester proportione entre toutz gentz fors tant
seulement le roy.’ A word seems to have slipped out.
the said
valet But the valet answered that he had done nothing worthy ot death, for what
he had said was true, and he would not deny it, but he could not lawfully make
debate in the presence of his liege lord, without leave, except in his own
defence: but that he could do without reproof; for if he was struck he would
strike back again. And for these words Watt tried to strike him with his
dagger, and would have slain him in the King’s presence ; but because he strove
so to do, the Mayor of London, William Walworth, reasoned with the said Watt
for his violen' behavioui and despite, done in the King’s presence, and
arrested him. And because he arrested him, the said Watt stabbed the Mayor with
his dagger in the stomach m great wrath. But, as it pleased God, the Mayor was
wearing armour and took no haim. but like a hardy and vigorous lLan drew his
cutlass, and struck back at the said Watt, and gave him a deep cut on the neck,
and then a great cut on the head. And during this scuffle one of the King’s
household drew his sword, and ran Watt two or three times through the body,
mortally wounding him, And he spurred his horse, crying to the commons to
avenge him, and the horse carried him some four score paces, and then he fell
to the ground half dead And when the commons saw him fall, and knew not how for
certain it was, they began to bend their bows and to shoot, wherefore the King
himself spurred his horse, and rode out to them, commanding them that they
should all come to him to Clerkenwell Fields.
Meanwhile the
Mayor of London rode as hastily as he could back to the City, and commanded
those who were in charge of the twenty-foui wards to mak» proclamation round
their wards, that every man should arm himself as quickly as he could, and come
to the King in St, John’s Fields, where were the commons, i o aid the King, for
he was in great trouble and necessity. But at this time most of the knights and
squires of the King’s household, and many others, for fear that they had of
this affray, left their lord and went each one his way. And afterwards, when
the King had reached the open fields, he made the commons array themselves on
the west side of the fields. And presently tht aldermen came to him in a body,
bringing with ’hem their warden's, and the wards arrayed in bands, a fine
company of well-armed folks in great strength. And they enveloped the commons
like sheep within a pen, and after that the Mayor had set the warden•
of the city
on their way to the King, he returned with a company of lances to SmithfieM, to
make an end of the captain of the commons. And when he came to Smithfield he
found not there the said captain Watt Tighler, at which he marvelled much, and
asked what was become of the traitor. And it was told him that lie had been
carried by some of the commons to the hospital for poor folks by St.
Bartholomew’s, and was put to bed in the chamber of the master of the hospital.
And the Mayor wen1; thither and found him, and had him carried out
to the middle of Smithheld, in presence of his fellows, and there beheaded. And
thus ended his wretched life. But the Mayor had his head set on a pole and bome
before him to the King, who still abode in the Fields. And when the King saw
the head he had it brought near him to abash the c< immons, and thanked the
Mayor greatly for what he had done. And when the commons saw that their
chieftain, Watt Tyler, was dead in such a manner, they fell to the ground there
among the wheat, like beaten men, imploring the King for merry for their
misdeeds. And the King benevolently granted their, mercy, and most of them look
to flight. But the King ordained twc knights to conduct the rest of them,
namely the Kentishmen, through London, and over London Bridge, without doing
them harm, so that tach of them could go to his own home. Then the King ordered
the Mayor to put a helmet on his head because of what was to happen, and the
Mayor asked for what reason he was to do so, and the King told him that he wa?
much obliged to him, and that for this he was to receive the order of
knighthood. And the Mayor answered that he was not worthy or able to have or to
spend a knight's estate, for he was but a merchant and had to live by traffic:
but finally the King made him put on the helmet, and took a sword in both his
hands and dubbed hirr kmght with great good will. The same day he made three
other knights from among the citizens of London on that same spot, and these
are their names—John Philpott, and Nicholas Bramber, and [blank in the MS.]1:
and the King gave Sir William Walworth £100 in land, and each of the others £40
in land, for them and their heirs. And after this the King took his wav to
London to the Wardrobe to ease him of his great toils.
Meanwhile a
party of the commons took their way toward Huntingdon to pass towards the
north, to ravage the land and
1 The third person war John Standwyche. See
Daq;e 79
I
destroy the
people : there- they were turned back and could nu1 pass the bridge of that
town, by reason that William Wighmaj. Spigornel ot Chancery, and Walter Rudham,
and other good foil of the town of Huntingdon and the country round, met them
a' the said bridge and gave them battle, and slew two or three o: them. The
rest were glad to fly, and went to Ramsey to pas. thereby, and took shelter in
the town, and sent to the abbot foi victuals to refresh them. And the abbot
sent them out bread wine, beer, and other victuals, in great abundance, for he
dan not do otherwise. So they ate and drank to satiety, and after wards slept
deep into the morning, to their confusion, Fo meanwhile the men of Huntingdon
rose, and gathered to then other folks of the country-side, and suddenly fell
upon the com mons at Ramsey and killed some twenty-four ot them. Thi others
took to headlong flight, and many of them were slaii as they went through the
countryside, and their heads set 01 high trees as an example to others.
A1 this same
time the commons had risen in Suffolk in grea numbers, and had as their chief
Sir John Wraw, who brough with him more than 10,000 men. And they robbed many
guo< folks, and cast their houses to the ground. And the said Sir Johi [to
get] gold and silver [for his own profit ?’], came to Cambridge There they did
great damage by burning houses, and then the; went to Bury, and found in that
town a justice, Sir John Caver dish, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, and
brought him to th pillory, and cut off his head and set it on the pillory. And
aftei wards they dragged to the pillory the Prior of that abbey, a got"
man and wise, and an accomplished singer, and a certain moi> with him, and
cut off their heads. And they set them on pole before the pillory, that all who
passed down that street might se them. This Sir John Wraw their leader was afterwards
take as a traitor, and brought to London and condemned to death, ani hanged,
drawn, and quartered, and beheaded.
At the same
time there we.re great levies in Norfolk, and th rebels did great harm
throughout the countryside, for which tea son the Bishop of Norwich, Sir Henrv
Despenser, sent letters t
1 A son opes demesne. Professor Ker
suggests that opes is an error for oyes an inaccurate spelling of oes, i
need * or * profit *.
2 Almost certainly a mistake for Cavendish,
The gold and silver was th spoil taken in the church there. See p. 105.
the said
commons, to bid them cease their malice and go to their homes, without doing
any more mischief. But they would not, and went through the land destroying and
spoiling many townships, and houses of divers folk. During this time they mei
a hardy and vigorous knight named Sir Robert Hall [Salle |, but he was a great
wrangler and robber, and they cut off his head. Wherefore the said Bishop,
gathering in to himself many men-at- arms and archers, assailed them at several
places, wherover he could find them, and < aptured many of them. And the
Bishop first confessed them and then beheaded them. So the said commons
wandered all round the countryside, for default and mischief, and for the fear
that they had of the King and the lords, and took to flight like beasts that
run to their earths.1
Afterwards
the K'.ng sent out his messengers into divers parts, to capture the malefactors
and put them to death. And many were taken and hanged at London, and they set
up many gallows around the City of London, and in other cities and boroughs ot
the south country. At last, as it pleased God, the King seeing that too many of
his liege subjects would be undone, and too much blood spilt, took prty in his
heart, and granted them all pardon, on condition that they should never rise,
again, under pam of losing life or members, and that each of them should get
his charter of pardon, and pay the King as fee for his seal twenty shillings,
to make him rich. And so finished this wicked war.’ ,
1
The Taxis/one of the MS. is a mistake for tapison, a term of venery used of
beasts running to earth, like foxes or rabbits.
APPENDIX VI
DOINGS OF THE TRAITOR-ALDERMEN
The following is the report of the sheriffs and
jurors of London in reply to a royal letter bidding them inquire into the
opening of London to the rebels. It is dated November 20, 1383.
‘ Dicunt
super sacramentum suum quod tempcre male insur- reccionis et rebellionis
comumum Kancie et Essexie, videlicet anno regni regis Ricardi secundi post
conquestum quarto, Wil- idmus Walleworth, tunc major civitatis Londoniarum,
inde ceitio- iatus, toto suo animo eis resistere, et ingressum civitatis
negare, ac civitatem in pace com ervare sategens (corr.: satagens), cum
avisiamento communis consilii civitatis predicte, ordinavit Johan- nem Horn,
Adan.' Carlylle, et Johannem Ffresch, cives et alder- ■nannos civitatis
predicte, nuncios et legatos ad obviandum eisdem populis sic congregatis contra
fidem et ligeanceam suam dicto domino regi debitas, et eisdem nunciis sive
legatis dedit specialiter in mandatis quod ipsi eundem pr.pulum malivolum
tractarent, et ex parte regis et tocius civitatis eis dicerent quod ipsi ad
civitatem non appropmquarent, in affraiamentum et perturbacionem xegis,
aliorum dominorum et dominarum, et civitatis predicte, set quod ipsi ditto
domino regi in omnibus obedirent et reveren- ciam preberent, ut deberent. Qui
vero Johannes, Adam et Johannes nuncium suum non dixerunt prout in mandatis
habuerunt, et dicunt quod predirtus Johanm s Horn ex assensu predicti Adt. non
obstante majoris sui mandato supradicto, exceders suum nuncium ac mandatum, cum
principalibus insurrectnribus con- spiravit, et predictum populum maleficum
pulcris sermonibus versus dictam ci\itatem vertere fecit, ubi prius in
proposito tue- runt ad hospicia sua revertendi, et eisdem maleficis et
principalibus- insurrectoribus dixit, ex[c jitando el procurando, quod ad
civitatem cum turmis suis vemrent, asserens quod tota civitas Londoniarum fuit
in eodem proposito sicut et ipsi fuerunt, et quod ipsi deberent in eadem
civitate ita amicabiliter esse, recepti, sicut pater cum
filio et amicus cum amieo. Qui quidem malefactores et rebelles, causa
nuncn nredicti per predictos Johannem Horn, Adam Car- lvlle et Johannem Ffresch
eis sic false et male facri, hillares devenerunt, et ob hoc tam obstinati in
suis malefactis fuerunt, quod fines civitatis statim appropinquaverunt,
videlicet die mer- curii in vigiKa festi Corporis Christi anno quarto,1
et carcetem domim regis vocatum le Marchalsye ffregerunt. Et eadem nocte
predictus Johannes Horn duxit secum Londonias plures princi- pales
insurrectores, et aliorum malefactorum ductores, videlicet Thomam Hawke,
Willehhum Newman, Johannwn Sterlyng et alios qui, ex hoc postea convicti, judicium
mortis susceperunt, et (. um eo tota ilia nocte in hospiciuns suum recepti
luerurt felonice et proditorie. Et idem Johannes Horn, eadem nocte, dixit
majori civitatis predicte quod ipsi insurrectores venirent Londonias, unde
majori ex hoc maxime perturbato idem Johannes Horn sibi (sic) dixit et
manucepit quod sub periculo capitis srn nullum dampnum in civitate nec in ejus
finibua facer ent. Mane autem facto in festo Corporis Christi,;
predictus Johannes Horn venit ad quen- dam Johannem Marchaunt, unum clericorum
civitatis predicte, dicens eidem clerico verba sequencia vel similia : Major
frecepit quud tu debercs michi querere unum standardum de armis domini regis.
Qui quidem clericus tale ptandardum post longum scruti- neum eidem J ohanm Hom
deliberavit, ipso clerico omnino nescio quid idem Johannes Horn inde faceret;
et idem Johannes Hom predictum standardum in duas partes divisit equales,
quarum unam partem ligavit cuidam lancie, et aliam partem dedit garcioni suo
custodiendam, et sic cum tali vexillo displicato equitavit usque ad Blakeheth,
per se nullum onus nuncii sive legauoms illo die habens, set solummodo ad
complendum promissa eisdem niale- factoribus per ipsum prius facta, et ad
provocandum eos to to nisu suo ad civitatem venire felonice et proditorie,
sciens expresse perturbacionem et magnum afflictum domino regi, aliis magna-
tibus et civitatis predicte civibus, in adventu predictorum insur- rectorum et
domini regis proditorum, adesse. Et dicunt quod eidem Johanni Horn sic
equitando versus le Blakeheth appro- pinquabat qtiidam Johannes Blyton, qui
missus fuit per dominurp regem et consilium suum eisdem malefactoribus ut ad
civitatem non appropinquarent, et dixit eidem Johanni Hom ista verba vel
similia: Domine, velletn scire nuncium vestrum, si aliquod habetis ex
1 June ia, 1381. 3
June 13, 1381.
■parte civitatis istis imurrectoribus dicendum, ita quod nunoium
meum quod haben ex parte domini regis eisdem, et nmtciwm vestrum, quod hdbetis
ex parte civitatis, poterunt concnrdare Qui statim, ira< undo vultu eum
aspiciens, dixit: Nolo de nuncio tuo nec tu debes de meo illiquid intrmnittere
; ego dicam eis quod ntihi placet, et die tu sicut tihi placet. Et posstquam
predictus nuncius regis cito eqiiitando eisdem rebellibus ex parte regis suum
nunrium exposuisset, predictus Johannes Horn venit et, contrariando nunrium
domini regis predictum, in contemptum ejusdem domini regis, felonice, false et
proditone contra ligeanceam Miam, dixit eisdem : VeniU Lnndo- rias, quia
unanimes facti sumus amid et parati facere vobiscum que proposuistis, et in
omnibus que vobis necessaria sunt favorem et obsequium prestare, sciens regis
voluntatem et majoris sui manda- tum suis dictis contraria fore. Et sic, per
verba premissa, excita- eionem et procurationem illius Johannis Horn, habentis
de suis coniva, consilio et conspiracione precogitatis Walterum Sybyle,
predicti malefartores et domini regis proditore? sic, ut supradicitur,
conjuncti, cum Waltero Tyler, Alano Thedre, Willelmo Hawk, Johanne Stakpull,
principalibus ductoribus et aliis regis prodi- toribus, venerunt Londonias,
cuirendo et clamando per vicos civitatis : Ad Savoye, ad Savoye, et sic per
predictum Johannem Horn et Walterum Sybyle predicti felones et proditores
domini regis introducti fuerunt in cmtatem; ob quam causam carcera (sic) domini
regis de Newgate fracta fuit, arsiones tenementorum, prostraciones domonim,
decapitaciones anhiepiscopi et aliorum facte fuerunt, et alia plura mala prius
inaudita perpetrata per ipsos tunc fuerunt. Et dicunt quod predictus Johannes
Horn, cum eisdem turmis malls et omnino maledictis deambulans per vicos
rivitatis, quesivit si aliquis vellet monstrare et sibi proponere aliquam
injuriam sibi factam. promittens eis festinam justiciam I>er ipsum et suos
inde faciendam, ob quod venit quedam Matilda Toky coram Johanne Horn,
conquerendo versus Ricardum Toky, grossarium, de eo quod idem Ricardus injuste
detinebat rectam hereditatem ijisius Matilde, ut ipsa tunc dixit, super quo
predictus Johannes Horn, in magna societate rybaldorum et rebellium pre-
dictorum, cum eadem Matilda accessit ad quoddam tenementum predicti Ricardi
Toky in Lumbardstrete, Londoniis, et ibidem idem Johannes Horn, capiens super
se regalem potestatem, dedit judicium aperte quod predicta Matilda predictum
tenementum haberet, et adjudica\it eidem Matilde habenda omnia bora et
catalla xn eodom tenemento mventa pro dampnis suis, et sic fecit super
predictum Ricardum Toky disiseisinam et predacionem felo- nice et contra pacem
et legem domini regis, in enervacionem regie corone et, in quantum in ipso
fuit, adnuUacionem regie dignitatis ac legis terre ac pacis regis, et regni
destrucc.ionem manitestam. Ac eciam dicunt quod idem Juhannes Horn, cum
predictis turmi: malis et filirs imqurtatis, quamplures de dicta civitate magms
mynis vite et membrorum se redimere coegit, inter quos fecit felonice quemdam
Robeitum Nortoun, taillour, facere tmem et redempcionem cuidam Johanni Pecche,
ffisshmonger. de decent libris sterlingorum, pro quibus bene et fideliter
solvendis idem Robertus Nortoun plura jocalia posuit in vadium, et si idem
Robertus taliter non fecisset, predictus Johannes Horn juravit quod eundem
Robertum turmis suis traderet decapitandum, et sic idem Johannes Horn fuit unus
pnncipalium insurrectorum contra regem et pnncipalis eorum maloium consihator,
ita ut pei ipsum et per predicturn Walterum Sybyle felonice et proditorie
malefactores prenonunati excitati et procurati tuerunt veniendi Londonias, et
in eandem civitatem per ipsum et per predictum Walterum Sybyle proditorie
introducti fuerant, per quod omnia mala predicta in dicta civitate et in
cunctis locis uidem adjacenti- bus facta fuerant et perpetrata, non obstante
quod iidem Walterus Sybyle et Johannes Horn de officio suo aldermanie ad pacem
domini regis ibidem conservandam fuerunt spedalius per sacra- mentum suum
astricti.
Item, dicunt predicti jurati suj>er sacramentum suum quod, ubi
predirtus Willelmus Walleworth, major, cum deliberacione predicti communis
consilii civitatis predicte, ordinavit ut omnes aldermanni ejusdem civitatis ad
custodiendum civitatem deb[er]ent esse parati in amis, cum aliis concivibus
suis, ad resistendum maletactoribus supradictis, et ad negandum eis ingressum,
et ad defendendum tam portas quam alios ingretsus civitatis predicte, predictus
Walterus Sybyle, tunc aldermannus, sciens et videns predictum popnlum ferocem
et malevolum in Suthwerk tot mala facere et fecisse, die jo vis supradicto,
supra pontem Londoniarum in armis stetit, parvum vel nullum sibi adquirens
adjuvamen, set plures volentes eundem Walterum Sybyle adjuvasse in resi.stendo
eisdem ’dem Walterus Sybyle repulit, verbis reprobis et contu- meliosis, et eos
omnino recusavit, dicens aperte: Isti Kentenses sunt amid nostri et regis. Et
sic dedit eisdern proditoribus supra •
WAT TYLER P
nominates cum turmis suis liberum introitum et egressum felonice et
proditorie, ubi hoc impedivissu debuit et de farili potuit, et quando idem
Walterus Sybyle premunitus fuit per aliquos quo- modo predicti proditores et
rebelles fregerunt carceres regis, fecerunt decapitaciones hominum et
prostraverunt quoddam tene- mentum1 juxta pontem Londomarum, idem
Walterus Sybyle omni? mala predicta parvipendens, dixit: Quid ex hoc ? Dignum
est et dignum fuit everti per viginti annos elapsos. Et dicunt quod ubi Thomas
Cornt-wavles, dicto die jovis, in magna comitiva arma- torum renit et optulit
se ad succurrendum eidem Waltero, et ad cus- todiendum introitum pontis, et ad
ibidem restitendum {sic) pro- ditoribus predictis, sub omm forisfact ura quod
forisfacere potuit, idem Walterus Sybyle felonice et proditorie illoium
adjuvamen recu.-.avit et eos non permisit aliquam custodiam seu restitenciam
contra predictos malefactores ibidem facere, set fane custodia reliquit portas
civitatis apertas. Et sic, per maliriam ipsius Wal- teri Sybyle, conyvam et
conspiracior.em inter ipsum Walterum Sybyle et Johannnm Horn precogitatas, alie
porte civitatis aperte tuerunt, et omni clausura caruerunt, unde supradicti
malefactores uominati, et alii eisdem consimiles cum turmis suis, per easdem
porta s liberum introitum et exitum pro libito Labuerunt, false, telonice et
proditorie, et, quod pessimum irnt, ex hoc dominus rex et tota civitas cum toto
regno fuerunt in aperto penculo ultimate destruccionis.
Item, dicunt predicti jurati quod, quando dominus noster rex et major
civitatis predicte in maximo periculo constituti Tuerunt, in Smetbefeld, inter
turmas malefactorum, -lie sabbati proximo past festum Corporis Xti, predictus
Walterus recenter recessit ab eisdem, equitando in civitatem per vicos de
Aldrichegate et de Westchepe, et clamavit aperte : Claudite portas vestras et
custodite muros vestros, quoniam jam totum perditum est. Et dicunt quod
Walterus Sybyle et Johannes Horn fecerunt portam de Aldriches- gate claudi
felonice et proditorie, et. in quantum in ipsis fuit, impedsverunt homines ad
succurrendum domino regi et majori, seientes Ulos in tali penculo constitutos,
contra ligeanciam et •idem suas doimno regi debitas, cui debuissent omm nisu
adherere, et eurn succurrere, et, omnibus aliis rebus postpositis, defendere,
et, si ciT'es civitatis festinancius se non expedivissent, ausilium
1
Clearly the house of ill fame mentioned or. pp. 193- j.
domino regi et majori minus tarde advenisset, causa verborum et factorum
predicti Waited Sybyle et Johannis Horn.
Item, dicunt super sacramentum quod quidam Thomas Ffain- don, tempore
principii insurreccionis predicte, ivit ex proprio suo capite felonice ad
malefactores de comitatu Essexie, et eis conquerondo di fit quod per reverendum
militem priorem Hnspi- talis Sanct; Johannis Jherusalem a recta sua
hereditate injuste expulsus fuit. ob quam causam male tar tores supradicti
indigna- cionem et magnum rancorem habuerunt erga predictum priorem, unde plura
dampna et ruinam suis placiis et tenementis in comitatu Essexie fecerunt. Et
prtdjctus Thomas Ffamdon, die jovis in festo Corporis Christi supradicto, cum
predictis ins.urectoribus, ut unus eorum capitaneus, venit Londonias, ducens
retro se ma- gn?m turbam, et eorum ductor fuit usque tenementum predicti
prioris vocatum le Temple, in Ffletestrete, felonice et proditorie, et ibi eis
signum fecit ita quod statim eadem tenementa prostra- verunt. et cum eis ivit
usque ad manerium de Savoye, quousque plene funditum fuit et crematum. Deinde
damans socios suos, eos duxit usque ad prioralum de Clerkenwell, et ibidem
predavit et spoliavit prioratum predictum et igne succensit. Accessitque ultra
cum eisdem turmis in civitatem Londoniarum et ibidem pernoctabat, et recepit
secum noctanter plures principales insur- rectores, videlicet Robertum de la
Warde et alios, ymaginando ilia nocte et cum aliis sociis suis conspiiando
nomina diversoruni civium, que fecit scribi in quadam cedula, quos vellet
decapitare et enrum tenementa prostrare. Mane autem facto, die veneris proximo
post festum Corporis Christipredjctus Thomas cum pluribus complicibus suis ivit
usque ad Hybery et ibidem nobile manerium predicti prioris ad nichilum igne
perverterunt. Deinde. aceessit cum maledictis malefactoribus usque ad le
Milende, ob- viando domino nostro [regi], et ibidem ffrenum equi regis nostn
felonice, proditorie et irreverenter in manu sua cepit, et sic dorm- num regem
detinendo, dicebat ista verba vel consimilia : Vindica me de illo faho
proditore priorc, quia tenementa mea false et ffraudi- lentcr de me. arripuit:
fac michi rcctam justiciam, et tenementa mea rnihi restaur are digneris, quia
aWer satis fortis sum facere finchimet justiciam, et in eis reintrare et
habere. Cui rex instanter inquit: Hahebis quod justurn est Deinde idem Thomas,
semper continuan- do suam maliciam, ivit apud Turrim Londoniarum, et felonice 1
June id, 1381.
et proditorie ibidem mtravit, et noluit cessare quousque tarn
archiepiscopus quam predictus prior decapitati fuerunt, et deinde circuivit
civitatem, querens quos potuit per cohercionem vite et membroium facere se
redimere, et quorum tenementa voluit pro- strare. Et tempore quo idem Thomas
fuit circa prostracionem tenementi Johannis Knot in Stanynglane, captus fuit et
prisone deliberate, et idem Thomas primus fuit omuium prin< ipalium
insurrectorum de comitatu Essexie. Et dicunt quod predictus Thomas Ffamdon, a
die lune in septimana Pentecostes *, anno quarto supradicto, usque diem sue
capcionis, continuavit maliciam ^uam in coligendo et congregando predictos
insurrectores, et in prosequendo mortem predicti prioris false, felomce et
proditorie, contra fidem et ligeanciam suam, in adnullacionem status sui regis
et pervercionem regis et regni.
Dicunt edam predicti jurati quod, postquam Willelmus Walle- worth, major
supradictus, portam de Algate in vigilia iesti Corporis Christi supradicti2
noctanter claudebat, ne malefactores de comi- tatu Essexie ibidem ingressum
haberent, quidam Willelmus Tonge portam illam male aperuit et communes ibidem
intrare peimisit contra voluntatem dicti majoris.
Item, dicunt quod Adam atte Welle et Rogerus Harry, bocheres, per
quatuordecim dies ante adventum dictorum insurrectorum de comitatu Essexie
Londoniis, ipsos insurrectores ad veniendum ad dictam civitatem excitaverunt et
procuraverunt, et multa super hoc eis promiserunt, et postea, die jovis in
festo Corporis Christi \ in eandem civitatem ipsos insurrectores proditorie
introduxerunt, et ulterius eos in magna multitudine ad manerium domini ducis
Lancastrie, dictum Savoye, eodem die perduxerunt, et ad arsuram et
depredacionem ejusdem manerii, ut eorum ductores et princi- pales
consiliatores, provocaverunt, et exinde plura jocalia, et alia bona, et {con.:
ad) valorem et precium viginta librarum.felonice asportaverunt. Et, die veneris
proxime sequenti *, predictus Adam queindam Nicholaum Wyght, in parochia Sancti
Xicholai, ad macellas, caput suum pro viginti solidis felonice redimere fecit.’
In another
inquest dated Nov. 4, 1382, the sheriffs and jurors write as follows. * Item,
dicunt supra sacramentum suum quod quidam Willelmus Tonge, tunc aldermannus,
predicto die mercurii5, portam de Aldgate per predictum majorem
1
June 3. ' June is. s June 13.
4 June 14. 8 June 12.
pro inimicis excludendis clausam, videlicet turbis de comitatu Essexie
contra pacem domini regis ex coniva Kentensium levatis, idem Willelmus Tonge
ipsam portam de nocte aperuit, et easdem turbas per predictam portam intrare
permisit; qui, statim ut infra civitatem fuerunt, malefactoribus predictis de
comitatu Kancie se immiscuerunt; et omnia mala predicta simul cum illis et eis
adherentibus peregerunt. Set si idem Willelmus Tonge dicte porte apercionem
fecerit ex sua malicia propria, vel ex coniva predictorum Johannis Horn et
Waited Sybyle, vel ex metu et minis predictorum malefactorum de comitatu Kancie
infra civitatem tunc existencium, omnino ignorant ad presens.’
N.B.—I am
allowed to reprint these documents from Andre Reville's copies from the
originals in the Record Office, by the kindness of the Soci£t6 de l’Ecole des
Chartes, to whom the copyright of M. Reville’s collections belongs.
WAT TYLER