[375] “Gleanings from the Public Records,” by Mr. H. Hewlett, in the “Antiquary,” March, 1882, vol. v. p. 99. Concerning ill-treatment inflicted on prisoners, see a petition of the Commons, 1 Ed. III, A.D. 1326–7, “Rolls of Parliament,” vol. ii. pp. 9, 12.
[376] See, besides the plates here, representations of these instruments of punishment in, e.g. Foxe’s “Actes and Monuments.” London, 1563, fol. pp. 390, 1272, etc., and in Butler’s “Hudibras, adorned with cutts designed and engraved by Mr. Hogarth,” London 1761; at p. 140, the knight and his squire, “check by joul,” says the poet, in the stocks.
[377] 12 Rich. II, cap. 7.
[378] 12 Rich. II, cap. 7. Cf. above, p. [236].
[379] On which see, e.g. André Réville and Ch. Petit-Dutaillis, “Le soulèvement des travailleurs d’Angleterre en 1381,” Paris, 1898; G. M. Trevelyan, “England in the age of Wycliffe,” chapters vi and vii; “The Peasants’ rising and the Lollards, a collection of unpublished documents,” edited by E. Powell and G. M. Trevelyan, London 1899, with data not only on the great rising, but on some later troubles (1392, 1398) of lesser magnitude, but important as signs; C. Oman, “The Great Revolt of 1381,” Oxford, 1906.
[380] Statute 3 Ed. I, stat. 1, cap. 34, A.D. 1275.
[381] Statute 2 Rich. II, chap. 5.
[382] Document published (but only in an English translation) by W. E. Flaherty: “Sequel to the great rebellion in Kent, of 1381,” “Archæologia Cantiana,” vol. iv. pp. 67 ff. The author interprets peregrini, at one place by strangers, at another by pilgrims; the latter is the real meaning.
Some traces of kindness to his tenants, on the part of John of Gaunt are found in his Registers. He orders wood and charcoal to be carried to the castle of Tutbury where his wife was to spend the winter, and insists that the work be done in summer, so that his tenants and bondmen be not grieved by the carrying thereof in the bad season. . . “Si voullons et vous mandons que vous faces faire et carier à nostre dit chastel ccc quarters de carbons, et aussint vous faces carier tout la boys abatuz par vent que vous bonement pourrez en nostre dit chastel pur fuaille, et que ce soit fait toute voies en ceste saison d’estée, issint que noz tenantz et bondes ne soient pas tariez ne grevez ove la cariage d’ycelle en temps de yver.” “John of Gaunt’s Register,” ed. S. A. Smith, 1911, vol. ii. p. 203, year 1373.
[383] And they said it in the most peremptory language, highly approving of the king’s breaking his word and revoking the sweeping manumissions (“manumisimus universos ligeos et singulos subditos nostros,” Walsingham, ii. 467, Rolls) he had granted out of fear; the lords and the commons answer: “à une voice qe cele repele fuist ben faite, adjoustant que tiele manumission ou franchise des neifs ne poast estre fait sanz lour assent q’ont le greindre interesse: a quoy ils n’assentèrent unques de lour bone grée, n’autrement, ne jamais ne ferroient pur vivre et murrir touz en un jour.” “Rolls of Parliament,” iii. p. 100; year 1381. So they would rather die, all of them in a day, than assent to a freedom granted “without the assent of those most interested”: and it never occurred to them that those most interested could possibly be the villeins themselves and not the villeins’ masters.