The vast concourse of persons who demanded entrance into the city was composed of a heterogeneous mass of discontented men with different aims to forward and different grievances calling for redress. The poll tax, although it gave great dissatisfaction to the nation, was not the cause of the outbreak; the great object of the majority was to obtain the abolition of serfdom. Had this been the only demand the sympathies of the country would have been entirely with the insurgents, but, in order to increase the number of their followers, the leaders had gathered around them all the disaffected persons they were able to get together, and Wat Tyler, to enhance his importance, formulated a number of revolutionary and socialistic demands.
It is not necessary here to discuss these demands, for their number sufficiently condemns them. We may allow that the masses have a right to demonstrate and urge upon their rulers a change of so fundamental a nature as serfdom, which affected them all more or less, but an evil which the rulers were very remiss in attempting to redress. At the same time no government can exist if mob law is triumphant and if an irresponsible mass of people is allowed to demand changes which require much consideration by a legislative body, as Wat Tyler’s followers did. It is instructive to find that although the demands were first agreed to by the King, and then the promise revoked, the serfs were gradually freed while the other demands were quite overlooked. Serfdom was out of date, and the change could no longer be postponed.
Richard II., a boy of ten years, came to the throne in 1377, and few sovereigns have had to take up a more troubled inheritance. The whole country was distressed, and the agricultural population had been driven to the verge of rebellion. Revolutionary views, supported from the writings of Wyclyf and Langland, had taken root among large masses of the people. Doubtless the reformer and the poet had great influence on the people, and although they were not themselves sowers of sedition, their burning words were quoted with effect by the leaders of the revolutionary movement. John Ball’s democratic preaching caused the insurrection, but he gave way to the more practical Wat Tyler, as the leader of the rebels.
The area of the risings extended over part of the Midlands south of Yorkshire, and the whole of the South. There was a reign of terror on all sides. The manor houses were broken open and sacked by mobs, and it was said that every attorney’s house in the line of march was destroyed. Lawyers were exposed to the special hatred of the rebels, who exhibited an ignorant hatred of legal documents. The University of Cambridge suffered severely from the lawlessness of the mob. The University chest was robbed, and a large number of documents were ruthlessly destroyed. Many of the colleges also suffered.
The mob that marched on London and besieged it were mostly from Kent and Essex, and their march was marked by murder and pillage. The authorities were paralysed, and when the mob arrived at the walls of London no preparations had been made, save the strengthening of the gates, so the King and the Court were cut off from communication with all outside London. It is remarkable that we are able to record the daily proceedings of the mob which took place more than six centuries ago; still we can be fairly certain that the events which dovetail into one another are to a great extent correctly reported. The chief difficulty arises when we consider the speeches of the several actors. Chroniclers like John Stow are very picturesque in their descriptions, and often put words into the mouths of their puppets which are evidently written for the purposes of effect. Even when the words are probably historical there is some doubt as to whether they have not been attributed to the wrong persons.
On Monday, June 10th, Canterbury had been overrun, and on Wednesday, the 12th, the main body of the rebels from Kent were crowded together on Blackheath. John Ball preached to them from the text which has come down to us in the familiar couplet—
‘Whan Adam dalf and Eve span,
Wo was thanne a gentilman,’
and he kept his audience enthralled with his eloquence.
Messengers were sent by the King to demand the cause of the rising, and brought back the answer that the Commons were gathered together for the King’s safety. The King’s mother—Joan, Princess of Wales, and widow of Edward, the Black Prince, who had been on a pilgrimage to the shrines of Kent—was allowed by the rebels to enter the city.
Mr. Trevelyan tells us how a conference was proposed: ‘The rebels invited the King to cross the river and confer with them at Blackheath. He was rowed across in a barge accompanied by his principal nobles. At Rotherhithe, a deputation from the camp on the moor above was waiting on the bank to receive them. At the last moment prudence prevailed, and Richard was persuaded not to trust himself on shore. The rebels, shouting their demands across the water, professed their loyalty to Richard, but required the heads of John of Gaunt, Sudbury, Hales, and several other ministers, some of whom were at that moment in the boat. The royal barge put back to the Tower.’[40]