The insurrectionists demanded of the King that villeinage (S113)
should be abolished, and that the rent of agricultural lands should be
fixed by Parliament at a uniform rate in money. They also insisted
that trade should be free, and that a general unconditional pardon
should be granted to all who had taken part in the rebellion.
Richard promised redress; but while negotiations were going on,
Walworth, mayor of London, struck down Wat Tyler with his dagger, and
with his death the whole movement collapsed almost as suddenly as it
arose. Parliament now began a series of merciless executions, and
refused to consider any of the claims to which Richard had shown a
disposition to listen. In their punishment of the rebels, the House
of Commons vied with the Lords in severity, few showing any sympathy
with the efforts of the peasants to obtain their freedom from feudal
bondage.
The uprising, however, was not in vain, for by it the old restrictions
were in some degree loosened, so that in the course of the next
century and a half, villeinage (S113) was gradually abolished, and the
English laborer acquired that greatest yet most perilous of all
rights, the complete ownership of himself.[1]
[1] In Scotland, villeinage lasted much longer, and as late as 1774,
in the reign of George III, men working in coal and salt mines were
held in a species of slavery, which was finally abolished the
following year.
So long as he was a serf, the peasant could claim assistance from his
master in sickness and old age; in attaining independence he had to
risk the danger of pauperism, which began with it,--this possibility
being part of the price which man must everywhere pay for the
inestimable privilege of freedom.