Within an hour the people of the town were in arms. As the story spread through the country, the people elsewhere rose and put themselves under the leadership of Wat Tyler. In Ess.e.x was another party in arms, under a priest called Jack Straw. Canterbury rose in rebellion, plundered the palace of the archbishop, and released John Ball from the prison to which this "mad" socialist had been consigned. The revolt spread like wildfire. County after county rose in insurrection. But the heart of the rebellion lay in Kent, and from that county marched a hundred thousand men, with Wat Tyler at their head, London their goal.
To Blackheath they came, the mult.i.tude swelling as it marched. Every lawyer they met was killed. The houses of the stewards were burned, and the records of the manor courts flung into the flames. A wild desire for liberty and equality animated the mob, yet they did no further harm. All travellers were stopped and made to swear that they would be true to King Richard and the people. The king"s mother fell into their hands, but all the harm done her was the being made to kiss a few rough-bearded men who vowed loyalty to her son.
The young king--then a boy of sixteen--addressed them from a boat in the river. But his council would not let him land, and the peasants, furious at his distrust, rushed upon London, uttering cries of "Treason!" The drawbridge of London Bridge had been raised, but the insurgents had friends in the city who lowered it, and quickly the capital was swarming with Wat Tyler"s infuriated men.
Soon the prisons were broken open, and their inmates had joined the insurgent ranks. The palace of the Duke of Lancaster, the Savoy, the most beautiful in England, was quickly in flames. That n.o.bleman, detested by the people, had fled in all haste to Scotland. The Temple, the head-quarters of the lawyers, was set on fire, and its books and doc.u.ments reduced to ashes. The houses of the foreign merchants were burned. There was "method in the madness" of the insurgents. They sought no indiscriminate ruin. The lawyers and the foreigners were their special detestation. Robbery was not permitted. One thief was seen with a silver vessel which he had stolen from the Savoy. He and his plunder were flung together into the flames. They were, as they boasted, "seekers of truth and justice, not thieves or robbers."
Thus pa.s.sed the first day of the peasant occupation of London, the people of the town in terror, the insurgents in subjection to their leaders, and still more so to their own ideas. Many of them were drunk, but no outrages were committed. The influence of one terrible example repressed all theft. Never had so orderly a mob held possession of so great a city.
On the second day, Wat Tyler and a band of his followers forced their way into the Tower. The knights of the garrison were panic-stricken, but no harm was done them. The peasants, in rough good humor, took them by the beards, and declared that they were now equals, and that in the time to come they would be good friends and comrades.
[Ill.u.s.tration: WAT TYLER"S COTTAGE. Copyright, 1904, by Henry Froth.]
But this rude jollity ceased when Archbishop Sudbury, who had been active in preventing the king from landing from the Thames, and the ministers who were concerned in the levy of the poll-tax, fell into their hands. Short shrift was given these detested officials. They were dragged to Tower Hill, and their heads struck off.
"King Richard and the people!" was the rallying cry of the insurgents.
It went ill with those who hesitated to subscribe to this sentiment. So evidently were the peasants friendly to the king that the youthful monarch fearlessly sought them at Mile End, and held a conference with sixty thousand of them who lay there encamped.
"I am your king and lord, good people," he boldly addressed them; "what will ye?"
"We will that you set us free forever," was the answer of the insurgents, "us and our lands; and that we be never named nor held for serfs."
"I grant it," said the king.
His words were received with shouts of joy. The conference then continued, the leaders of the peasants proposing four conditions, to all of which the king a.s.sented. These were, first, that neither they nor their descendants should ever be enslaved; second, that the rent of land should be paid in money at a fixed price, not in service; third, that they should be at liberty to buy and sell in market and elsewhere, like other free men; fourth, that they should be pardoned for past offences.
"I grant them all," said Richard. "Charters of freedom and pardon shall be at once issued. Go home and dwell in peace, and no harm shall come to you."
More than thirty clerks spent the rest of that day writing at all speed the pledges of amnesty promised by the king. These satisfied the bulk of the insurgents, who quietly left for their homes, placing all confidence in the smooth promises of the youthful monarch.
Some interesting scenes followed their return. The gates of the Abbey of St. Albans were forced open, and a throng of townsmen crowded in, led by one William Grindcobbe, who compelled the abbot to deliver up the charters which held the town in serf.a.ge to the abbey. Then they burst into the cloister, sought the millstones which the courts had declared should alone grind corn at St. Albans, and broke them into small pieces.
These were distributed among the peasants as visible emblems of their new-gained freedom.
Meanwhile, Wat Tyler had remained in London, with thirty thousand men at his back, to see that the kingly pledge was fulfilled. He had not been at Mile End during the conference with the king, and was not satisfied with the demands of the peasants. He asked, in addition, that the forest laws should be abolished, and the woods made free.
The next day came. Chance brought about a meeting between Wat and the king, and hot blood made it a tragedy. King Richard was riding with a train of some sixty gentlemen, among them William Walworth, the mayor of London, when, by ill hap, they came into contact with Wat and his followers.
"There is the king," said Wat. "I will go speak with him, and tell him what we want."
The bold leader of the peasants rode forward and confronted the monarch, who drew rein and waited to hear what he had to say.
"King Richard," said Wat, "dost thou see all my men there?"
"Ay," said the king. "Why?"
"Because," said Wat, "they are all at my command, and have sworn to do whatever I bid them."
What followed is not very clear. Some say that Wat laid his hand on the king"s bridle, others that he fingered his dagger threateningly.
Whatever the provocation, Walworth, the mayor, at that instant pressed forward, sword in hand, and stabbed the unprotected man in the throat before he could make a movement of defence. As he turned to rejoin his men he was struck a death-blow by one of the king"s followers.
This rash action was one full of danger. Only the ready wit and courage of the king saved the lives of his followers,--perhaps of himself.
"Kill! kill!" cried the furious peasants, "they have killed our captain."
Bows were bent, swords drawn, an ominous movement begun. The moment was a critical one. The young king proved himself equal to the occasion.
Spurring his horse, he rode boldly to the front of the mob.
"What need ye, my masters?" he cried. "That man is a traitor. I am your captain and your king. Follow me!"
His words touched their hearts. With loud shouts of loyalty they followed him to the Tower, where he was met by his mother with tears of joy.
"Rejoice and praise G.o.d," the young king said to her; "for I have recovered to-day my heritage which was lost, and the realm of England."
It was true; the revolt was at an end. The frightened n.o.bles had regained their courage, and six thousand knights were soon at the service of the king, pressing him to let them end the rebellion with sword and spear.
He refused. His word had been pa.s.sed, and he would live to it--at least, until the danger was pa.s.sed. The peasants still in London received their charters of freedom and dispersed to their homes. The city was freed of the low-born mult.i.tude who had held it in mortal terror.
Yet all was not over. Many of the peasants were still in arms. Those of St. Albans were emulated by those of St. Edmondsbury, where fifty thousand men broke their way into the abbey precincts, and forced the monks to grant a charter of freedom to the town. In Norwich a dyer, Littester by name, calling himself the King of the Commons, forced the n.o.bles captured by his followers to act as his meat-tasters, and serve him on their knees during his repasts. His reign did not last long. The Bishop of Norwich, with a following of knights and men-at-arms, fell on his camp and made short work of his majesty.
The king, soon forgetting his pledges, led an army of forty thousand men through Kent and Ess.e.x, and ruthlessly executed the peasant leaders.
Some fifteen hundred of them were put to death. The peasants resisted stubbornly, but they were put down. The jurors refused to bring the prisoners in guilty, until they were threatened with execution themselves. The king and council, in the end, seemed willing to compromise with the peasantry, but the land-owners refused compliance.
Their serfs were their property, they said, and could not be taken from them by king or parliament without their consent. "And this consent,"
they declared, "we have never given and never will give, were we all to die in one day."
Yet the revolt of the peasantry was not without its useful effect. From that time serfdom died rapidly. Wages continued to rise. A century after the Black Death, a laborer"s work in England "commanded twice the amount of the necessaries of life which could have been obtained for the wages paid under Edward the Third." In a century and a half serfdom had almost vanished.
Thus ended the greatest peasant outbreak that England ever knew. The outbreak of Jack Cade, which took place seventy years afterwards, was for political rather than industrial reform. During those seventy years the condition of the working-cla.s.ses had greatly improved, and the occasion for industrial revolt correspondingly decreased.
_THE WHITE ROSE OF ENGLAND._
The wars of the White and the Red Roses were at an end, Lancaster had triumphed over York, Richard III., the last of the Plantagenets, had died on Bosworth field, and the Red Rose candidate, Henry VII., was on the throne. It seemed fitting, indeed, that the party of the red should bear the banners of triumph, for the frightful war of white and red had deluged England with blood, and turned to crimson the green of many a fair field. Two of the White Rose claimants of the throne, the sons of Edward IV., had been imprisoned by Richard III. in the Tower of London, and, so said common report, had been strangled in their beds. But their fate was hidden in mystery, and there were those who believed that the princes of the Tower still lived.
One claimant to the throne, a scion of the White Rose kings, Edward, Earl of Warwick, was still locked up in the Tower, so closely kept from human sight and knowledge as to leave the field open to the claims of imposture. For suddenly a handsome youth appeared in Ireland declaring that he was the Earl of Warwick, escaped from the Tower, and asking aid to help him regain the throne, which he claimed as rightfully his. The story of this boy is a short one; the end of his career fortunately a comedy instead of a tragedy. In Ireland were many adherents of the house of York. The story of the handsome lad was believed; he was crowned at Dublin,--the crown being taken from the head of a statue of the Virgin Mary,--and was then carried home on the shoulders of a gigantic Irish chieftain, as was the custom in green Erin in those days.
The youthful claimant had entered Ireland with a following of two thousand German soldiers, provided by Margaret, d.u.c.h.ess of Burgundy, sister of Edward IV., who hated Henry VII. and all the party of Lancaster with an undying hatred. From Ireland he invaded England, with an Irish following added to his German. His small army was met by the king with an overpowering force, half of it killed, the rest scattered, and the young imposter taken captive.
Henry was almost the first king of Norman England who was not cruel by instinct. He could be cruel enough by calculation, but he was not disposed to take life for the mere pleasure of killing. He knew this boy to be an impostor, since Edward, Earl of Warwick, was still in the Tower. The astute king deemed it wiser to make him a laughing-stock than a martyr. He made inquiry as to his origin. The boy proved to be the son of a baker of Oxford, his true name Lambert Simnel. He had been tutored to play the prince by an ambitious priest named Simons. This priest was shut up in prison, and died there. As for his pupil, the king contemptuously sent him into his kitchen, and condemned him to the servile office of turnspit. Afterwards, as young Simnel showed some intelligence and loyalty, he was made one of the king"s falconers. And so ended the story of this sham Plantagenet.
[Ill.u.s.tration: BATTLE IN THE WAR OF THE ROSES.]
Hardly had this ambitious boy been set to the humble work of turning a spit in the king"s kitchen, when a new claimant of the crown appeared,--a far more dangerous one. It is his story to which that of Lambert Simnel serves as an amusing prelude.
On one fine day in the year 1492--Columbus being then on his way to the discovery of America--there landed at Cork, in a vessel hailing from Portugal, a young man very handsome in face, and very winning in manners, who lost no time in presenting himself to some of the leading Irish and telling them that he was Richard, Duke of York, the second son of Edward IV. This story some of his hearers were not ready to believe.
They had just pa.s.sed through an experience of the same kind.