Power and the People – The Peasants’ Revolt

Posted on March 30, 2024 by JuliaH

Image showing Richard II meeting peasants at St Catherine’s Wharf near the Tower of London on his barge – Froissart’s Chronicles.

England was not the only place to see its’ peasants revolt during the fourteenth century. The city-state of Florence had similar problems at about the same time.

In 1380, in England, the third poll tax in four years was levied. The poor were required to pay as much as the rich but somehow or other in 1380 there was large-scale tax avoidance.

In March 1381 commissions were sent to exact payment one way or an other – anyone who looked like they were over fifteen was expected to pay.

It wasn’t long before people began to make their feelings on the subject quite plain. By April, a poll tax collector in Oxfordshire was attacked and at the end of April tax collectors in Essex came under fire (of the bow and arrow kind).

30 May men from Fobbing in Essex joined with other protesters from Corringham and Stanford to attack a court in session at Brentwood. Sir Thomas Brampton, the poll tax collector for Essex, was chased out of town. Similar uprisings were reported across the river in Kent.

On 2 June – Bocking in Essex- Rebels swore ‘to destroy divers lieges of the king and his common laws and all lordship’. Sir Robert Belknap the chief justice for Essex and his men are attacked and two of the men are killed as they flee. It was as though someone had lit a touch paper. The rebellion spread through Essex, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. In North Kent the band of rebels swelled with each passing day.

7 June Wat Tyler is elected head of the rebels in Kent and John Ball is rescued from Maidstone prison.

9 June- The peasants march on Canterbury and the following day they ransack the town before beginning their journey to London. Groups of rebels stop at manors to destroy records. It means that the evidence of serfdom is destroyed.

12 June – Men from Kent arrive at Blackheath while rebels from Essex arrive at Mile End. There are approximately 30,000 very cross people on London’s doorstep.

13 June- King Richard II is taken to the Tower of London for safety. Simon of Sudbury and Richard Hales, both important ministers, have gone with him. The king talks to the rebels at St Catherine’s Wharf and War Tyler sends him a letter. The king agrees to meet the rebels at Rotherhithe. When he arrives be barge, he very sensibly refuses to get off, especially when the rebels demand that he have his principal advisors including John of Gaunt, who is on campaign in Scotland, executed.

14 June Wat Tyler and the king meet at Mile End outside London’s city walls. Tyler asks for an end to all feudal services and for pardon for any offences committed during the rebellion. Richard II immediately agrees and Tyler pushes for the execution of corrupt officials. Richard II announces that anyone found guilty by a court of corruption will be punished. He also hands out charters – signed by himself- to be given to serfs- confirming their freedom. The serfs who have got what they wanted clear off home. Inside London, the rebels have a number of supporters – one of them opens the town’s gates and let those that remain inside the city the same afternoon.

14 June pm. Radical rebels attack the Tower of London. The king’s ministers including Simon Sudbury and Robert Hales are murdered by the rebels in a display of summary justice or brutality depending upon your viewpoint. John of Gaunt’s Savoy Palace is burned to the ground – somewhat unfortunately a number of rebels who broke into the Savoy’s cellars, had become drunk and did not make their escape before the fire. The rebels target royal officials, churchmen and also wish to destroy evidence of their serfdom. Also targeted are records of land ownership and any debts.

15 June The mayor of London, William Walworth, raises an army of 5,000 men and Richard II arranges to meet Wat Tyler that evening at Smithfield. Tyler makes more demands including an end to tithes (the taxes that people have to pay to the church), the abolition of bishops (the Church’s equivalent of the barons), redistribution of wealth, equality before the law, and the freedom to kill the animals in the forest – because remember the Forest Laws are still in force.

William Walworth argues with Wat Tyler then stabs and kills him. it could have been nasty but Richard II, who is only 14, calls on the rebels to accept him as their rightful leader and sends them home.

22 June Richard II goes back on his word and cancels the charters that gave the serfs their freedom. On the 28 June the king’s army defeats the rebels at Billericay in Essex. many rebels are captured, tried and executed during the following weeks.

13 July John Ball is captured at Coventry. In addition to preaching that all men should be equal he also argued that the Church exploited the peasants. He and John Wycliff, the writer of the Bible in English, argue that men shouldn’t have to pay for indulgences for the pardon of sins. They also believe that its wrong that the church is as wealthy as it is.

15 July Ball is tried and executed at St Albans.

Government went on much as usual afterwards. The rebels did not target the king. They blamed his bad advisors. The rebel leaders were executed but longer term Parliament did stop trying to control wage increases. Some historians argue that there was no need for the rebellion and that it didn’t achieve much – feudalism was already declining. Others take the view that this was the first rebellion by ordinary people. It saw the first expression by ordinary men and women of the need for representation before taxation. It was also a warning to the rulers who came after Richard II about what a sufficiently disgruntled bunch of ordinary people might be capable of.

A G.C.S. E question worth 8 marks asks students to explain two ways in which the Peasants’ Revolt and the campaign for the People’s Charter were similar. So the next post but one will see us leaping forward 500 years. The next post will be about Froissart’s Chronicle and the illustrations it contains relating to the Peasants’ Revolt. For a start the king looks much older than a teenager and that before we get on to the peasants sneaking across the bridge or the fact that the outskirts of London are remarkably picturesque!

For those of you looking for more about the Peasants Revolt – A Summer of Blood by Dan Jones originally published in 2010 and Juliet Barker’s 1381 are good reads.

power and the people revolting peasants 2 – causations.

Posted on March 29, 2024 by JuliaH

In the last post, the Black Death killed off about one third of Britain’s population, although some sources put it at half the total number of people, resulting in famine, wage increases and if the sumptuary laws are to be believed, people who had no business looking good started to rock new fashion trends as well as to eat better food – disgraceful. It was a slow fuse – or a long-term causation to the Peasants Revolt. A more significant short term causation of the Peasants Revolt in 1381 was an increase in taxation caused by yet another Anglo-French war.

The Hundred Years War between France and England, started by King Edward III who had a claim to the throne through his mother Isabella of France (the clue being the of France part). It started in 1337 after Philip VI of France, who was Edward’s cousin, invaded parts of Aquitaine and Ponthieu. Edward refused to pay homage to the French. Instead, he announced that he was the only living person through his maternal grandfather with a claim to the French crown – and thus should be king rather than Philip. The French invoked the Salic law that said girls couldn’t rule and nor could their descendants make random claims to the throne. Not realising that the war would last quite so long, 116 years in total, Edward promptly invaded.

However, making wars costs rather a lot of money as King John and his son Henry III discovered. Parliament was not pleased. In 1340 Edward was forced by parliament to accept some limitations – as in money doesn’t grow on trees! Without going into a blow by blow account of the reign of Edward III who died in 1377 and his grandson King Richard II, the financial pressures of the Hundred Years War led to the introduction of various poll taxes. Nor were matters helped when by 1377 trade was badly disrupted. For instance, in that year the French invaded the Isle of Wight and destroyed the port of Rye.

Richard II’s uncle, John, Duke of Lancaster better known as John of Gaunt introduced a tax in 1377 of 4 pence per person – about two days pay for an ordinary citizen. A second poll tax was introduced in 1379 which many people simply avoided paying and then in 1381 every person over the age of 15, whether they were a baron, a knight, merchant or peasant, had to pay 1 shilling 4 pence per year to the king. This was a lot of money representing something like two weeks pay. Even worse, by then the English were losing the Hundred Years War (remember kings were supposed to win wars because it showed God was on their side) and the Statute of Labourers had been reinforced by King Richard II’s regents.

In 2021 the AQA GCSE History examination asked students:

Have ideas, such as equality and democracy, been the main reason for protest in Britain?
Explain your answer with reference to ideas and other factors.
Use a range of examples from across your study of Power and the people: c1170 to the
present day. [16 marks]

Interestingly, before the Peasants Revolted because they weren’t happy about the poll taxes, priests including John Ball had been preaching that everyone was equal in the eyes of God. He preached a sermon at Blackheath just before the peasants revolt took them into London. He asked the famous question – ‘When Adam delved and Eve span, Who then was the gentleman?’ Ball a Lollard (An early Protestant who ‘lolled’ or read the Bible in English – and no one read silently at that time) effectively became the first person to challenge the legitimacy of the hierarchy from the bottom up. – More on Ball in due course, but suffice it to say the authorities had him hanged, drawn and quartered for his cheek.

The Mad Priest of Kent

Posted on October 22, 2013 by JuliaH

John Ball was an English priest and one of the leaders of the Peasants Revolt of 1381. The revolt started in Essex at Brentwood. It was only when the revolt spread to Kent that John Ball became involved but he quickly, according to folk-lore and the chroniclers of the period, became one of the revolt’s leaders. He was certainly one of the most eloquent representatives of the Peasants Revolt.

Ball probably began his career in St Mary’s Abbey, York where he was ordained as a priest. He next appears in Colchester in 1366 when he was arrested for heretical preaching and forbidden from preaching. John Ball was not deterred. He attacked the wealth of the church and preached for equality between social classes. In 1376, he was arrested by the new archbishop of Canterbury, Simon of Sudbury because he preached that people need not pay their tithes to unworthy priests. Even more inflammatory he said that all property should be shared in common among all people.

He was in prison at the outbreak of the Peasants’ Revolt in June of 1381. He wrote many letters from prison to his supporters continuing to urge them to break free from social injustice. When the revolt reached Maidstone one of the first things that Wat Tyler did was to free Ball.

Ball gave a sermon at Blackheath saying “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?” The peasants were so inflamed by his words that they demanded the heads of King Richard II’s bad advisors— Richard returned to the Tower with the men who the commons wanted to kill and the next day the commons rampaged through London.

Ball survived the death of Wat Tyler, there is no further reference to him after the famous sermon speech at Blackheath “When Adam delved and Eve span – who then was then the gentleman?” He escaped London and went into hiding. He got as far as Coventry where he was discovered, captured and dragged back to face the king.

He was hanged, drawn and quartered on July 15 1381 at St Albans after judgment by Richard II. His head ended up on a spike on London Bridge. In the city itself people began to rebuild their homes and their lives where they could. Many Flemings and Lombards had been killed during the unrest and now the King and his council ordered Englishmen to leave London if there had not lived there for a year and a day.

It was said by chroniclers of the period that Ball was a supporter of Wycliff and the Lollards but it is thought that this was an attempt by the authorities to implicate them in the events of the revolt.