Source.—Stow's Survey, p. 222.
It hath also been, and is now grown to a common opinion, that in reward of this service done, by the said William Walworth against the rebel, King Richard added to the arms of this City, (which was argent, a plain cross gules) a sword or dagger, (for so they term it) whereof I have read no such record, but to the contrary. I find that in the fourth year of Richard the second in a full assembly made in the upper chamber of the Guildhall, summoned by this William Walworth, then Mayor, as well of Aldermen as of the common Council in every ward, for certain affairs concerning the king, it was there by common consent agreed and ordained, that the old seal of the office of the Mayoralty of the city being very small, old, unsuitable, and uncomely for the honour of the city, should be broken, and one other new should be had, which the said Mayor commanded to be made artificially, and honourable for the exercise of the said office thereafter in place of the other: in which new Seal, besides the images of Peter, and Paul, which of old were rudely engraven, there should be under the feet of the said images, a shield of the arms of the said City perfectly graved, with two lions supporting the same with two sergeants of arms, on either part one, and two tabernacles, in which above should stand two Angels, between whom above the said images of Peter and Paul, shall be set the glorious virgin: this being done, the old seal of the office was delivered to Richard Odiham Chamberlain, who brake it, and in place thereof, was delivered the new seal to the said Mayor to use in his office of Mayoralty, as occasion should require. This new seal seemeth to be made before William Walworth was knighted, for he is not here entitled Sir, as afterwards he was: and certain it is that the same new seal then made, is now in use and none other in that office of the Mayoralty, which may suffice to answer the former fable, without shewing of any evidence sealed with the old seal, which was the Cross, and sword of Saint Paul, and not the dagger of William Walworth.
WAT TYLER IN LONDON (1381).
Froissart's description of the Peasants' Revolt is one of our main sources of information concerning this important event, and seems likely to be fairly accurate. He himself was, of course, an aristocrat, and was in no way disposed to be favourable to the "wicked rebels"; but he seems anxious to represent their case as fairly as possible, although he is plainly out of sympathy with the ideas and arguments of the rebels. It is noteworthy that the rising was almost simultaneous in many parts of the country, but its chief headquarters were in Kent, one of the most prosperous counties in the kingdom, where actual distress was least likely to be prevalent; and it is probable that the peasants in this county had benefited to no small extent by the economic changes which succeeded the Pestilence of 1349, and had improved both their material conditions and their intellectual outlook. The ideas of liberty which formed the motive of the revolt were somewhat vague, but were strengthened by numerous concrete instances of injustice and injury; and the concentration of the insurgents upon London forms one of a long series of indications of the importance of the city as the determining factor in vital issues.
Source.—Froissart's Chroniques.
In the mean season there fell in England great mischief and rebellion of the common people, by which deed England was at a point to have been lost without recovery....
It was a marvellous thing, and of poor foundation, that this mischief began in England, and to give ensample to all manner of people, I will speak thereof as it was done, as I was informed, and of the incidents thereof. There was an usage in England, and yet is in divers countries, that the noblemen have great franchises over the commons, and keep them in servage, that is to say, their tenants ought by custom to labour their lords' lands, to gather and bring home their corn, and some to thresh and to fan, and by servage to make their hay and to hew their wood and bring it home. All these things they ought to do by servage, and there be more of these people in England than in any other realm. Thus the noblemen and prelates are served by them, and specially in the counties of Kent, Essex, Sussex, and Bedford. These unhappy people of these said counties began to stir, because they said they were being kept in great servage, and in the beginning of the world, they said, there were no bondmen, wherefore they maintained that none ought to be bond, without he did treason to his lord, as Lucifer did to God.... And of this imagination was a foolish priest in the county of Kent, called John Ball, for which foolish words he had been three times in the Bishop of Canterbury's prison: for this priest used oftentimes on the Sundays, after mass, when the people were going out of the minster, to go into the cloister and preach, and made the people to assemble about him, and would say thus: "Ah, ye good people, the matters goeth not well to pass in England, nor shall not do till everything be common, and that there be no villains nor gentlemen, but that we may be all united together, and that the lords be no greater masters than we be. What have we deserved, or why should we be kept thus in servage? We be all come from one father and from one mother, Adam and Eve: whereby can they say or show that they be greater lords than we be, saving by that they cause us to win and labour for that they dispend.
"They are clothed in velvet and camlet furred with grise, and we be vestured with poor cloth: they have their wines, spices, and good bread, and we have the rye, the bran, and the straw, and drink water: they dwell in fair houses, and we have pain and travail, rain and wind in the fields: and by that that cometh of our labours they keep and maintain their estates: we be all called their bondmen, and, without we do readily them service, we be beaten: and we have no sovereign to whom we may complain, nor that will hear us, nor do us right. Let us go to the king, he is young, and show him what servage we be in, and show him how we will have it otherwise, or else we will provide us of some remedy; and if we go together, all manner of people that be now in any bondage will follow us to the intent to be made free; and when the king seeth us, we shall have some remedy, either by fairness or otherwise."
Thus John Ball said on Sundays, when the people issued out of the churches in the villages: wherefore many of the mean people loved him, and such as intended to no goodness said, how true; and so they would murmur one with another in the fields, and in the ways as they went together, affirming how John Ball said truth.
Of his words and deeds there was much people in London informed, such as had great envy at them that were rich and such as were noble; and then they began to speak among them, and said how the realm of England was right evil governed, and how that gold and silver was taken from them by them that were named noblemen: so thus these unhappy men of London began to rebel, and assembled them together, and sent word to the foresaid counties that they should come to London, and bring their people with them, promising them how they should find London open to receive them, and the commons of the city to be of the same accord, saying how they would do so much to the king that there should not be one bondman in all England.