Flame of Freedom

“Who would ever have believed that such rustics, and most inferior ones at that, would dare to enter the chamber of the king and of his mother with their filthy sticks, and, undeterred by any of the soldiers, to stroke and lay their uncouth and sordid hands on the beards of several most noble knights. The rebels, who had formerly belonged to the most lowly condition of serf, went in and out like lords.” - Thomas Walsingham 


In June of 1381, 20,000 peasants and townsmen from Kent and Essex stormed  London.

The Peasants' Revolt occurred in 1381 against Richard the 2nd and the names of some of its leaders, John Ball, Wat Tyler and Jack Straw, are still familiar to us today. 14th century England was a harsh place if you lived at the bottom of society. Lords of the Manor had control of every aspect of the peasants’ lives. A rigid social code was enforced that stipulated even what clothes a serf could wear and what food they could be eat. The feudal state was a three-headed Hydra: the Church provided ideological legitimacy; the Nobles acted as law enforcement; and the King sat on the throne, often unseen,  above and behind it all. Consequently whilst peasant resentment was aimed at the church and landowners, the king was generally seen as some sort of champion of justice for the common people – an illusion was ultimately to prove the undoing of the revolt.



The immediate causes was the imposition of a poll- tax upon the poor but also as a consequence of the Black Death there was a labour shortage and the settled and structured country life of the Middle Ages was disrupted with discontent rife amongst the poor. The survivors could demand higher wages and less hours of work, and even their freedom from serfdom. An embryonic urban working class was created by peasants leaving their villages and taking up trades in the towns, and there were the first glimpses of a new kind of economic system springing up around the wool trade. A statute attempted to curb the demands for better terms of employment by pegging wages to pre-plague levels and restricting the mobility of labour was introduced and strictly enforced. So the peasantry were faced with higher taxation and lower wages.

The Church was a major landowner, and the abbots and bishops sided with the barons against the peasants. John Ball, an itinerant Lollard priest, preached a sermon featuring the famous question that has echoed down the centuries: "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?" John Ball had been preaching for years and much of what he was saying began to make sense to the poor. In the beginning weren’t we all created equal, all descended from Adam and Eve so what reasons can the nobles give to why they should be  the masters? Servitude of man to man was introduced by the unjust dealings of the wicked and is contrary to God's will. For if God had intended some to be serfs and others lords, He would have made a distinction between them at the beginning. He preached of society’s inequality "They are clothed in velvet, and are warm in their furs and ermine while we are covered in rags. They have wine and spices and fair bread, and we eat oat-cake, and have water to drink. They have leisure and fine houses; we have pain and labour, the wind and the rain in the fields. And yet it is of us and our toil that these men hold their state…" At Blackheath, he held out hope for the future “My good friends, things can not go well in England, nor ever will until everything shall be in common... when lords shall be no more masters than ourselves. If we stand together all manner of people now in bondage will follow us and be made free. We will have some remedy, either by fairness, or otherwise.” Ball openly preached the doctrines of a form of communism

The revolt began in Essex when attempts to collect the poll-tax was resisted and it spread to Kent whereupon rebels from both counties marched on London with their respective leaders at the head, Jack Straw and Wat Tyler. The Kent peasants camped at Blackheath, and the Essex peasants at Mile End, north of the River Thames. All the Crown’s armies were away fighting in other lands; for the moment, London - the seat of power - was in the rebels’ hands.

Wat Tyler put forward the peasants demands to the king:
-land rents were to be reduced to reasonable levels.
-the Poll Tax was to be abolished.
-free pardons for all rebels.
-charters would be given to the peasants laying down rights and privileges.

Meanwhile a breakaway group of rebels led by Johanna Ferrour stormed the Tower of London and summarily executed  Simon of Sudbury who was both Lord Chancellor and the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was particularly associated with the poll tax, and the Lord Treasurer,Robert de Hales, who was also the Grand Prior of the Knights Hospitallers of England. Elsewhere in London  the equally unpopular financier Richard Lyons was  captured and beheaded. Lawyers, those orchestrators of unjust laws, were also special targets. Savoy Palace of the king's hated uncle John of Gaunt (the Duke of Lancaster) who had promoted the poll tax was destroyed by the rioters. But otherwise little looting.

Satisfied that their demands had been met by the king many of the peasant army returned home
 But this was only a ploy to buy time for the king and his court. They later met again at Smithfield, then a large open space west of the City wall and site of a weekly horse and cattle market, to gain further concessions.  Wat Tyler demanded that there should be no law within the realm save the law of Winchester (traditionally thought as popular laws) and that the powers of the nobles be restricted with equality among all people save only the King, and that the goods and lands of Holy Church should not remain in the hands of the religious order but should be divided among the people of the parish and most radical of all he demanded that there should be no more villeins in England, and no serfdom but that all men should be free and of one condition.

 An argument was provoked and unknown to his rebel force, Wat Tyler was killed by the Lord Mayor of London. The king managed to take advantage of their ignorance to permit the mobilisation of a loyalist militia. Wat Tyler's head was presented to the betrayed peasants who quickly dispersed

The aftermath of the Peasants’ rebellion resulted in brutal repression. John Ball was captured and hung, drawn and quartered. The King declaring to those daring to say he broke his promise of reforms:
 "The most vile by land and sea, you who are not worthy to live when compared with the lords whom ye have attacked… Villeins you were and villeins you are. In bondage you shall abide, and that not your old bondage, but a worse!"

Although the revolt was a failure it marked the beginning of the end for serfdom in medieval England. Parliament no longer tried to impose controls on the wages the landowners paid their peasants and it was not until Thatcher that another poll tax was re-introduced. It too led to a rebellion albeit a lot less bloody. More importantly a torch had been lit -  ideas of freedom and liberty for all the people and not for only the privileged. John Ball’s rallying cry was to inspire the Diggers and Levellers and  later radicals the Victorian socialist William Morris. Make no mistake about the cause for which Wat Tyler and John Ball fell; they were fighting in an early battle between the exploiters and exploited, a war that continues today. As Karl Marx has put it, all history is indeed the history of class struggle.

It was their coming together in a great mass which had changed the peasants. Alone and isolated they were helpless but merged into one vast body they had changed. Unity had changed the previously submissive serf into a fighting man (and woman). Against the might of that combined force all that was powerful became powerless.

There are no monuments to Wat Tyler and others of the Peasants Revolt, as far as SOYMB is aware - despite it being one of the key moments of English history. Too close a shave for the privileged class care to remember, perhaps? However SOYMB blog  honours Wat Tyler, John Ball, Jack Straw, and others who were involved in the peasant revolts. We also should remember the fate the peasant rebels who allowed themselves to place their movement into the trust of Richard II, who promised “relief” and brought it by hanging them from the gallows. Placing faith in leaders and depending upon others makes it downfall almost certain. We know that movements make men, but men make movements. Movements cannot exist unless they are carried on by men. In the last analysis it is the human hand and the human brain that serve as the instruments of revolutions