their mouth-piece in John Ball, "a mad priest of Kent," as Froissart
calls him. Mad his words must have seemed to the nobles of the land.
"Good people," he declared, "things will never go well in England so
long as goods be not in common, and so long as there be villains and
gentlemen. By what right are they whom we call lords greater folk than
we? On what grounds have they deserved it? Why do they hold us in
serfage? If we all came of the same father and mother, of Adam and Eve,
how can they say or prove that they are better than we, if it be not
that they make us gain for them by our toil what they spend in their
pride? They are clothed in velvet, and warm in their furs and their
ermines, while we are covered with rags. They have wine and spices and
fair bread; and we have oat-cake and straw, and water to drink. They
have leisure and fine houses; we have pain and labor, the rain and the
wind in the fields. And yet it is of us and of our toil that these men
hold their state."
So spoke this early socialist. So spoke his hearers in the popular rhyme
of the day:
"When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?"
So things went on for years, growing worse year by year, the fire of
discontent smouldering, ready at a moment to burst into flame.
At length the occasion came. Edward the Third died, but he left an ugly
heritage of debt behind him. His useless wars in France had beggared
the crown. New money must be raised. Parliament laid a poll-tax on every
person in the realm, the poorest to pay as much as the wealthiest.
Here was an application of the doctrine of equality of which the people
did not approve. The land was quickly on fire from sea to sea. Crowds of
peasants gathered and drove the tax-gatherers with clubs from their
homes. Rude rhymes passed from lip to lip, full of the spirit of revolt.
All over southern England spread the sentiment of rebellion.
The incident which set flame to the fuel was this. At Dartford, in Kent,
lived one Wat Tyler, a hardy soldier who had served in the French wars.
To his house, in his absence, came a tax-collector, and demanded the tax
on his daughter. The mother declared that she was not taxable, being
under fourteen years of age. The collector thereupon seized the child in
an insulting manner, so frightening her that her screams reached the
ears of her father, who was at work not far off. Wat flew to the spot,
struck one blow, and the villanous collector lay dead at his feet.
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 Essex 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 multitude 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 nobleman,
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
documents 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 passed 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.
[Illustration: 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 assented. 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 serfage 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 God," 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 nobles 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 passed, and he would live to it--at least,
until the danger was passed. The peasants still in London received their
charters of freedom and dispersed to their homes. The city was freed of
the low-born multitude 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
nobles 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 Essex, 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-classes 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, Duchess 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.
[Illustration: 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 passed through an experience of the same kind.
"That cannot be," they said: "the sons of King Edward were murdered by
their uncle in the Tower."
"People think so, I admit," said the young stranger. "My brother _was_
murdered there, foully killed in that dark prison. But I escaped, and
for seven years have been wandering."
The boy had an easy and engaging manner, a fluent tongue, and told so
well-devised and probable a story of the manner of his escape, that he
had little difficulty in persuading his credulous hearers that he was
indeed Prince Richard. Soon he had a party at his back, Cork shouted
itself hoarse in his favor, there was banqueting and drinking, and in
this humble fashion the cause of the White Rose was resuscitated, the
banners of York were again flung to the winds.
We have begun our story in the middle. We must go back to its beginning.
Margaret of Burgundy, whose hatred for the Lancastrian king was intense,
had spread far and wide the rumor that Richard, Duke of York, was still
alive. The story was that the villains employed by Richard III. to
murder the princes in the Tower, had killed the elder only. Remorse had
stricken their hardened souls, and compassion induced them to spare the
younger, and privately to set him at liberty, he being bidden on peril
of life not to divulge who he really was. This seed well sown, the
astute duchess laid her plans to bring it to fruitage. A handsome youth
was brought into her presence, a quick-witted, intelligent, crafty lad,
with nimble tongue and unusually taking manners. Such, at least, was the
story set afloat by Henry VII., which goes on to say that the duchess
kept her protégé concealed until she had taught him thoroughly the whole
story of the murdered prince, instructed him in behavior suitable to his
assumed birth, and filled his memory with details of the boy's life and
certain secrets he would be likely to know, while advising him how to
avoid certain awkward questions that might be asked. The boy was quick
to learn his lesson, the hope of becoming king of England inciting his
naturally keen wit. This done, the duchess sent him privately to
Portugal, knowing well that if his advent could be traced to her house
suspicion would be aroused.
This is the narrative that has been transmitted to us, but it is one
which, it must be acknowledged, has come through suspicious channels, as
will appear in the sequel. But whatever be the facts, it is certain that
about this time Henry VII. declared war against France, and that the war
had not made much progress before the youth described sailed from
Portugal and landed in Cork, where he claimed to be Richard, Duke of
York, and the true heir of the English throne.
And now began a most romantic and adventurous career. The story of the
advent of a prince of the house of York in Ireland made its way through
England and France. Henry VII. was just then too busy with his French
war to attend to his new rival; but Charles VIII. of France saw here an
opportunity of annoying his enemy. He accordingly sent envoys to Cork,
with an invitation to the youth to seek his court, where he would be
acknowledged as the true heir to the royal crown of England.
The astute young man lost no time in accepting the invitation. Charles
received him with as much honor as though he were indeed a king,
appointed him a body-guard, and spread far and wide the statement that
the Duke of York, the rightful heir of the English crown, was at his
court, and that he would sustain his claim. What might have come of
this, had the war continued, we cannot say. A number of noble
Englishmen, friends of York, made their way to Paris, and became
believers in the story of the young adventurer. But the hopes of the
aspirant in this quarter came to an end with the ending of the war.
Charles's secret purpose had been to force Henry to conclude a peace,
and in this he succeeded. He had now no further use for his young
protégé. He had sufficient honor not to deliver him into Henry's hands,
as he was asked to do; but he set him adrift from his own court, bidding
him to seek his fortune elsewhere.
From France the young aspirant made his way into Flanders, and presented
himself at the court of the Duchess of Burgundy, with every appearance
of never having been there before. He sought her, he said, as his aunt.
The duchess received him with an air of doubt and suspicion. He was, she
acknowledged, the image of her dear departed brother, but more evidence
was needed. She questioned him, therefore, closely, before the members
of her court, making searching inquiries into his earlier life and
recollections. These he answered so satisfactorily that the duchess
declared herself transported with astonishment and joy, and vowed that
he was indeed her nephew, miraculously delivered from prison, brought
from death to life, wonderfully preserved by destiny for some great
fortune. She was not alone in this belief. All who heard his answers
agreed with her, many of them borne away by his grace of person and
manner and the fascination of his address. The duchess declared his
identity beyond doubt, did him honor as a born prince, gave him a
body-guard of thirty halberdiers, who were clad in a livery of murrey
and blue, and called him by the taking title of the "White Rose of
England." He seemed, indeed, like one risen from the grave to set afloat
once more the banners of the White Rose of York.
The tidings of what was doing in Flanders quickly reached England, where
a party in favor of the aspirant's pretensions slowly grew up. Several
noblemen joined it, discontent having been caused by certain unpopular
acts of the king. Sir Robert Clifford sailed to Flanders, visited
Margaret's court, and wrote back to England that there was no doubt that
the young man was the Duke of York, whose person he knew as he knew his
own.
While these events were fomenting, secretly and openly, King Henry was
at work, secretly and openly, to disconcert his foes. He set a guard
upon the English ports, that no suspicious person should enter or leave
the kingdom, and then put his wits to task to prove the falsity of the
whole neatly-wrought tale. Two of those concerned in the murder of the
princes were still alive,--Sir James Tirrel and John Dighton. Sir James
claimed to have stood at the stair-foot, while Dighton and another did
the murder, smothering the princes in their bed. To this they both
testified, though the king, for reasons unexplained, did not publish
their testimony.
Henry also sent spies abroad, to search into the truth concerning the
assumed adventurer. These, being well supplied with money, and bidden to
trace every movement of the youth, at length declared that they had
discovered that he was the son of a Flemish merchant, of the city of
Tournay, his name Perkin Warbeck, his knowledge of the language and
manners of England having been derived from the English traders in
Flanders. This information, with much to support it, was set afloat in
England, and the king then demanded of the Archduke Philip, sovereign of
Burgundy, that he should give up this pretender, or banish him from his
court. Philip replied that Burgundy was the domain of the duchess, who
was mistress in her own land. In revenge, Henry closed all commercial
communication between the two countries, taking from Antwerp its
profitable market in English cloth.
Now tragedy followed comedy. Sir Robert Clifford, who had declared the
boy to be undoubtedly the Duke of York, suffered the king to convince
him that he was mistaken, and denounced several noblemen as being
secretly friends to Perkin Warbeck. These were arrested, and three of
them beheaded, one of them, Sir William Stanley, having saved Henry's
life on Bosworth Field. But he was rich, and a seizure of his estate
would swell the royal coffers. With Henry VII. gold weighed heavier than
gratitude.