Remembering Wat Tyler

The Black Death swept the country and it is estimated that between one half and one third of the population died. Large areas were depopulated; over the following decades this shortage of
labour pushed up both wages and prices. To counter this the State in 1351 passed legislation - ‘The Statute of Labourers’ - to impose the earliest known example of a wage freeze. The English armies were suffering defeat after defeat in what came to be known as ‘The Hundred Years War’ with France. All the Crown’s armies were away fighting in other lands. French armies were raiding the English coast and the country was bankrupt - even the crown jewels had been pawned.  The desperate need of the State to raise funds resulted in a Poll Tax being levied on all persons over 14 years of age. The architect of this tax was believed to be John of Gaunt. This was a blatant tax on the labouring classes, with preferential discounts for the rich. There was simmering unrest across town and country.

Country folk marched on London, one force from Essex and another from Kent. There were 60,000 of them, more than the population of London.  The gates of the city were opened and there was sympathy between the lower classes of London and the incoming insurgents who after several days sleeping in the open, hungry and thirsty, were treated with hospitality. Wat Tyler, was a leader of the eventual Peasant’s Revolt which broke out until he was murdered on June 15, 1381. Tyler united the heterogeneous collection of rebel bands, and marched with them from Blackheath to Southwark across the river to the Tower and by Friday to Mile End. Wat Tyler followers freed the prisoners at the Fleet prison while the Savoy Palace in the Strand, home of John of Gaunt, architect of the Poll Tax was ransacked. The Peasant Army evacuated the servants, then systematically destroyed everything of wealth in the Palace (one of the grandest in Europe), which was full with plunder from Gaunt’s adventures abroad. Mortars and pestles to use for grinding diamonds and other precious stones to dust. They then burnt the building.  the Priory of the Order of St John. The Priory burned for several days, the mob preventing all attempts to put out the flames. The Order was by this time hated by the poor for the great wealth they had accumulated through the patronage of royalty and the aristocracy. But the main reason it was targeted was because the Prior at the time was Sir Robert Hales, also Lord High Treasurer of England, and so responsible for collecting the hated Tax. He fled to the Tower of London; there the mob found ‘Hob the Robber’, as they had nicknamed him, with the Archbishop of Canterbury and other cowering members of the ruling class. They were dragged to Tower Hill and beheaded. The rebels also destroyed all the legal documents they could find, burnt the prisons and freed the inmates.

 The rebels petitioned the king that all preserves of water, parks, and woods should be made common to all: so that throughout the kingdom the poor as well as the rich should be free to take game in water, fish ponds, woods and forests as well as to hunt hares in the fields – and to do these and many other things without impediment. Under the pretext of negotiation, Tyler was drawn away from his army and lured into a trap. An argument was provoked, and he was murdered. There then followed a country-wide reign of terror to re-impose the authority of the crown and the nobility.

 There is no monument, not even a blue plaque, to remember Wat Tyler who had the audacity to call the King “brother” and demand emancipation from serfdom, nor for any other deserving participants such as John Ball or Jack Straw.

However, what is said to be the assassination  dagger is proudly on display in the guild hall of the Fishmongers. Despite denials it is also that the sword depicted on the City of London flag and coat of arms represents that murderous dagger.