[63] “Tyler, according to Walsingham, was a man of ready ability and good sense. Save in some excesses, which, perhaps, were politic, possibly unavoidable, and certainly exaggerated, the rebels under him are admitted to have kept good order, and to have readily submitted to discipline.”—Thorold Rogers. To Froissart Tyler appears merely as “a bad man, and a great enemy of the nobility.”
[64] “Fearful lest their voyage should be prevented, or that the populace should attack them, they heaved their anchors and with some difficulty left the harbour, for the wind was against them, and put to sea, when they cast anchor for a wind.”—Froissart.
[65] Two names at least have been preserved—Squire Bertram Wilmington of Wye and John Corehurst of Lamberhurst.
[66] Seven years later this Earl of Salisbury, fleeing from Henry Bolingbroke, was hanged in the streets of Cirencester at the hands of the people.
[67] This law of Winchester was the statute of Edward I., 1285, which authorised local authorities to appoint constables and preserve the peace. Tyler’s aim was to strengthen local government in the counties, making them as far as possible self-governing communes.
[68] “It was in the preaching of John Ball that England first listened to the knell of feudalism, and the declaration of the rights of man.”—J. R. Green.
[69] “Observe how fortunate matters turned out, for had the rebels succeeded in their intentions they would have destroyed the whole nobility of England, and after their success other countries would have rebelled.”—Froissart.
[70] See Durrant Cooper—John Cade’s Followers in Kent.
[71] “These two bishops were wonder covetous men, evil beloved among the common people and holden suspect of many defaults; assenting and willing to the death of the Duke of Gloucester, as it were said.”—(A Chronicle of Henry VI). According to Gasgoigne—Loci e Libro Veritatum—the people said of Ayscough: “He always kept with the king and was his confessor, and did not reside in his own diocese of Sarum with us, nor maintain hospitality.”
[72] “He himself asserted that he had been a captain under the Duke of York, and that his real name was Mortimer, which may possibly have been true, for there were several illegitimate branches of the house of March.”—Professor Oman, Political History of England.