account. burned. The Archbishop of Canterbury, who, as king's chancellor, had proposed the poll tax, was beheaded, together with many lawyers and some unfortunate Flemings and Lombards. Meanwhile, the king and his counsellors, safely ensconced in the Tower, debated what might be done. Should they gather the nobles and their retainers, and, falling upon the rebels in the night, kill them "like flies"? This they dared not do for fear of the sympathetic populace. It was determined to treat with the enemy, and the king sent orders that the insurgents should retire to "a Froissart's handsome meadow at Mile-end,' where, in the summer, people go to amuse themselves." Arrived at the place, the young king rode forward bravely enough, saying: "My good people, I am your king and your lord; what is it that you want, and what do you wish to say to me?" Those who heard him answered: "We wish thou wouldest make us free forever, us, our heirs, and our lands, and that we should be no longer called slaves nor held in bondage." The king replied: "I grant your wish; now, therefore, return to your homes, leaving two or three men from each village . . . to whom I will order letters to be given, sealed with my seal . . . with every demand you have made fully granted." Thirty secretaries were immediately set to work to draw up the charters of manumission, and the greater part of the people departed for their homes, saying: "It is well said; we do not wish for more." Then the king's party threw off the mask of courtesy and good humor. Wat Tyler was foully murdered. Jack Straw, John Ball, and other ringleaders were seized and executed without form of trial; many serfs suffered death at the hands of their outraged masters. The villeins had no resource, since the landowners were all-influential in both houses of Parliament. The charters of manumission were revoked on the ground that they were granted by "compulsion, duress, and menace," and an act of pardon was passed, exempting from blame and penalty any lords and gentlemen who, in the 1 This is now one of the most densely populated districts of London. Cunningham, pp. 41-45. emergency, had taken the law into their own hands and inflicted bodily injury on their bondmen. So were the people outwitted and the insurrection crushed in blood. The dominant classes proved too strong to be withstood. It is quite probable that fear of another rising induced many a lord to abate his claims, but he would still enforce what he could, and in remote districts of England serf-labor persisted into the sixteenth century. The eventual emancipation of the serfs was due, not to insurrection or legislation, but to a change in industrial conditions that rendered serf-labor no longer profitable. 1 Queen Elizabeth enfranchised the bondmen on the royal estates in 1574. Important Events 185 Important Events REIGN OF EDWARD II, 1307-1327. The Ordinances, 1311. Battle of Bannockburn, 1314. REIGN OF EDWARD III, 1327-1377. The French Wars, 1336-1347, 1354-1360, 1368–1375. The Good Parliament, 1376. REIGN OF RICHARD II, 1377-1399. The French Wars, 1378-1389. The death of Wiclif, 1384. The Merciless Parliament, 1388. Richard assumes the government, 1389. The king's coup d'état, 1397. Deposition of the king, 1399. CHAPTER VII DYNASTIC WARS Books for Consultation SOURCES Walsingham, Historia Anglicana. Elham, Memorials of Henry the Fifth. Continuator of the Croyland Chronicle. Sir Thomas More, Edward V. The Paston Letters. Wright, Political Poems and Songs from Edward III to Richard III. SPECIAL AUTHORITIES Hasted, Life of Richard III. Blades, Caxton. Green, Town Life in Fifteenth Century. Oman, Warwick. Denton, The Fifteenth Century. IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE Shakespeare, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Richard III. Characteristics of the Epoch. The fair promise of the fourteenth century was destined to fail of fulfilment. The hopes and aspirations awakened in the good times of Edward I were undone by the great calamities which fell upon the land in the reign of his successors. War, pestilence, and famine wrought their hideous work, sapping the energies that should have gone into progress and expansion. The forward movement toward political, religious, and industrial freedom proved premature and abortive. In the |