That very night Walworth and Standish were knighted for what they had done, and in the morning Wat Tyler’s head stared horribly from London Bridge.
“My son, what sorrow I have suffered for thee this day,” cried the king’s mother, when Richard came to the Wardrobe.
“I know it well, madam,” answered the king; “but rejoice with me now, and thank God that I have this day won back my heritage of England, so nearly lost.”
The great uprising was over. Wat Tyler had fallen, as it seemed, in the very hour of victory.
By Walworth’s orders, Jack Straw and two prominent men of Kent were hanged on the night of June 15th, without the formality of trial. Jack Straw, an itinerant priest sharing John Ball’s views, it is said, explained before he died what had been in the minds of the leaders of the revolt. They had meant to get rid of the supremacy of the landlords altogether, and to substitute for the established clergy a voluntary ministry of mendicant friars; the boy-king was to be enlisted in the cause of the revolution before the monarchy was finally abolished; and in place of parliament and royal council each county was to enjoy self-government.[68]
No longer in the presence of danger, the king and his ministers struck fiercely at the rebels.
On June 18th a general proclamation was issued ordering the arrest of all malefactors and the dispersal of all unruly gatherings. On June 22nd, Chief Justice Sir Robert Tressilian went on assize, and “showed mercy to none and made great havock.” John Ball was taken at Coventry and, with Grindcobbe, hanged at St. Albans on July 15th.
The Earl of Suffolk went down to Suffolk with 500 lances on June 23rd, and John Wraw, with twenty others, including four beneficed clergy, was quickly taken and hanged. Henry Despenser, Bishop of Norwich, grandson of Edward III.’s minister, suppressed the rising in Norfolk, and walked beside Litster to the gallows.
At least a thousand peasant lives were sacrificed to the law under Tressilian’s sentence.
At Waltham a deputation came to Richard to ask if it were true that the royal promises and charters were annulled, and the king’s answer left no room for doubt, for it breathed all the hatred and contempt of the commons that Tyler had striven to end: