THE END OF THE INSURRECTION.
A.D. 1381
Anxiety and embarrassment of the king.--Consultations in the
Tower.--Various counsels.--Mile-End.--A meeting appointed with
the rioters at Mile-End.--The king meets the insurgents at
Mile-End.--Parley with them.--The king accedes to their
demands.--Effect of the concessions.--Preparation of the
decrees.--Scenes in the night in and around London.--The next
morning.--The king meets the insurgents at Smithfield.--Another
parley.--Walter advances.--His orders to his men.--Doubt about
the fairness of the accounts.--Conversation between Walter and
the king.--Walter gets into a quarrel with the king's squire.--Walter
is at last assaulted and killed.--Excitement among his men.--Courage
and coolness of the king.--Alarm conveyed to London.--Troops brought
to the ground.--The insurgents surrender their banners and
disperse.--The king's interview with his mother.--Final results of
the rebellion.
In the mean time, within the Tower, where the king and his courtiers
now found themselves almost in a state of siege, there were continual
consultations held, and much perplexity and alarm prevailed. Some of
Richard's advisers recommended that the most decisive measures should
be adopted at once. The king had in the Tower with him a considerable
body of armed men. There were also in other parts of London and
vicinity many more, amounting in all to about four thousand. It was
recommended by some of the king's counselors that these men should all
be ordered to attack the insurgents the next morning, and kill them
without mercy. It is true that there were between fifty and one
hundred thousand of the insurgents; but they had no arms, and no
organization, and it was not to be expected, therefore, that they
could stand a moment, numerous as they were, against the king's
regular troops. They would be slaughtered, it was said, like sheep,
and the insurrection would be at once put down.
Others thought that this would be a very hazardous mode of proceeding,
and very uncertain as to its results.
"It is much better," said they, "that your majesty should appease
them, if possible, by fair words, and by a show of granting what they
ask; for if we once attempt to put them down by force, and should not
be able to go through with it, we shall only make matters a great deal
worse. The commonalty of London and of all England would then join
them, and the nobles and the government will be swept away entirely
from the land."
These counsels prevailed. It was decided not to attack the rioters
immediately, but to wait a little, and see what turn things would
take.
The next morning, as soon as the insurgents were in motion in the
great square, they began to be very turbulent and noisy, and to
threaten that they would attack the Tower itself if the king did not
open the gates to them. It was finally determined to yield in part to
their requests.
There was a certain place in the suburbs of London known by the name
of Mile-End--so called, perhaps, because it was at the end of a mile
from some place or other. At this place was an extended meadow, to
which the people of London were accustomed to resort on gala days for
parades and public amusements. The king sent out a messenger from the
Tower to the leaders of the insurgents with directions to say to them
that if they would all go to Mile-End, he would come out and meet them
there.
They took him at his word, and the whole immense mass began to set
itself in motion toward Mile-End.
They did not all go there, however. Those who really desired to have
an interview with the king, with a view to a redress of their
grievances, repaired to the appointed place of rendezvous. But of the
rest, a large party turned toward London, in hopes of pillage and
plunder. Others remained near the Tower. This last party, as soon as
the king and his attendants had gone to Mile-End, succeeded in forcing
their way in through the gates, which, it seems, had not been left
properly guarded, and thus gained possession of the Tower. They
ransacked the various apartments, and destroyed every thing which came
in their way that was at all obnoxious to them. They broke into the
chamber of the Princess of Wales, Richard's mother, and, though they
did not do the princess any personal injury, they terrified her so
much by their violence and noise that she fainted, and was borne away
apparently lifeless. Her attendants carried her down the
landing-stairs on the river side, and there put her into a covered
boat, and rowed her away to a place of safety.
The people in the Tower did not all get off so easily. The Archbishop
of Canterbury was there, and three other prelates of high rank. These
men were particularly obnoxious to the rioters, so they seized them,
and without any mercy dragged them into the court and cut off their
heads. The heads they put upon the ends of poles, and paraded them in
this way through the streets of London.
In the mean time, the king, followed by a numerous train of
attendants, had proceeded to Mile-End, and there met the insurgents,
who had assembled in a vast concourse to receive him. Several of the
attendants of the king were afraid to follow him into the danger to
which they thought he was exposing himself by going among such an
immense number of lawless and desperate men. Some of them deserted him
on the way to the place of meeting, and rode off in different
directions to places of safety. The king himself, however, though so
young--for he was now only about sixteen years of age--had no fear. As
soon as he came to the meadow at Mile-End, where the insurgents had
now assembled to the number of sixteen thousand, he rode forward
boldly into the midst of them, and opened the conference at once by
asking them what they desired.
The spokesman whom they had appointed for the occasion stated their
demands, which were that they should be made free. They had hitherto
been held as serfs, in a bondage which exposed them to all sorts of
cruelties and oppressions, since they were amenable, not to law, but
wholly to the caprice and arbitrary will of individual masters. They
demanded, therefore, that Richard should emancipate them from this
bondage, and make them free.
It was determined by Richard and his counselors that this demand
should be complied with, or, at least, that they should pretend to
comply with it, and that decrees of emancipation for the different
counties and districts which the various parties of insurgents had
come from should be immediately issued. This decision seemed to
satisfy them. The leaders, or at least a large portion of them, said
that it was all they wanted, and several parties immediately began to
set out on their return to their several homes.
But there were a great many who were not satisfied. An insurrection
like this, whatever may be the object and design of the original
movers in it, always brings out into prominence, and invests with
temporary power, vast numbers of desperate and violent men, whose
passions become inflamed by the excitement of movement and action, and
by sympathy with each other, and who are never satisfied to stop with
the attainment of the objects originally desired. Thus, in the present
instance, although a great number of the rebels were satisfied with
the promises made by the king at Mile-End, and so went home,
multitudes still remained. Large parties went to London to join those
who had already gone there in hopes of opportunities for pillage.
Others remained at their encampments, doubting whether the king would
really keep the promises which he had made them, and send the decrees.
Then, besides, fresh parties of insurgents were continually arriving
at London and its neighborhood, so that the danger seemed by no means
to have passed away.
The king immediately caused the decree to be prepared. Thirty
secretaries were employed at once to write the several copies
required. They were all of the same form. They were written, as was
customary with royal decrees in those times, in the Latin language,
were engrossed carefully upon parchment, signed by the king, and
sealed by his seal. The announcement that the secretaries were
preparing these decrees, when the work had been commenced, tended
greatly to satisfy the insurgents, and many more of them went home.
Still, vast numbers remained, and the excitement among them, and their
disposition for mischief, was evidently on the increase.
Such was the state of things during the night of Friday. The various
parties of the insurgents were encamped in and around London, the
glare of their fires flashing on the buildings and lighting up the
sky, and their shouts, sometimes of merriment and sometimes of anger,
filling the air. The peaceable inhabitants passed the night in great
alarm. Some of them endeavored to conciliate the good-will of the
insurgents by offering them food and wine. The wine, of course,
excited them, and made them more noisy than ever. Their numbers, too,
were all the time increasing, and no one could foresee how or when the
trouble would end.
The next morning, a grand consultation among the rebels was determined
upon. It was to be held in a great open space called Smithfield--a
space set apart as a cattle-market, at the outskirts of London, toward
the north. All the leaders who had not returned to their homes were
present at the consultation. Among them, and at the head of them,
indeed, was Wat Tyler.
The king that morning, it happened, having spent the night at the
private house down the river where his mother had sought refuge after
making her escape from the Tower, concluded to go to Westminster to
attend mass. His real motive for making this excursion was probably to
show the insurgents that he did not fear them, and also, perhaps, to
make observations in respect to their condition and movements, without
appearing to watch them.
He accordingly went to Westminster, accompanied and escorted by a
suitable cortege and guard. The mayor of the city of London was with
the party. After hearing mass at Westminster, the king set out on his
return home; but, instead of going back through the heart of London,
as he had come, he took a circuit to the northward by a road which, as
it happened, led through Smithfield, where a great body of the
insurgents had assembled, as has already been said. Thus the king came
upon them quite unexpectedly both to himself and to them. When he saw
them, he halted, and the horsemen who were with him halted too. There
were about sixty horsemen in his train.
Some of his officers thought it would be better to avoid a
re-encounter with so large a body of the insurgents--for there were
about twenty thousand on the field--and recommended that the king's
party should turn aside, and go home another way; but the king said
"No; he preferred to speak to them."
He would go, he said, and ascertain what it was that they wanted more.
He thought that by a friendly colloquy with them he could appease
them.
While the king and his party thus halted to consider what to do, the
attention of the leaders of the insurgents had been directed toward
them. They knew at once that it was the king.
"It is the king," said Walter. "I am going to meet him and speak with
him. All the rest of you are to remain here. You must not move from
this spot until I come back, unless you see me make this signal."
So saying, Walter made a certain gesture with his hand, which was to
be the signal for his men.
"When you see me make this signal," said he, "do you all rush forward
and kill every man in the troop except the king. You must not hurt the
king. We will take him and keep him. He is young, and we can make him
do whatever we say. We will put him at the head of our company, as if
he were our commander, and we were obeying his orders, and we will do
every thing in his name. In this way we can go wherever we please, all
over England, and do what we think best, and there will be no
opposition to us."
When I say that Walter gave these orders to his men, I mean that these
words were attributed to him by one of the historians of the time. As,
however, all the accounts which we have of these transactions were
written by persons who hated the insurgents, and wished to present
their case in the most unfavorable light possible, we can not depend
absolutely on the truth of their accounts, especially in cases like
this, when they could not have been present to hear or see.
At any rate, Walter rode up alone to meet the king. He advanced so
near to him that his horse's head touched the king's horse. While in
this position, a conversation ensued between him and the king. Walter
pointed to the vast concourse of men who were assembled in the field,
and told the king that they were all under his orders, and that what
he commanded them to do they would do. The king told him that if that
were the case, he would do well to recommend them all to go to their
respective homes. He had granted the petition, he said, which they had
offered the day before, and had ordered decrees to be prepared
emancipating them from their bondage. He asked Walter what more they
required.
Walter replied that they wanted the decrees to be delivered to _them_.
"We are not willing to depart till we get all the decrees," said he.
"There are all these men, and as many more besides in the city, and we
wish you to give us all the decrees, that we may take them home
ourselves to our several villages and towns."
The king said that the secretaries were preparing the decrees as fast
as they could, and the men might depend that those which had not yet
been delivered would be sent as soon as they were ready to the
villages and towns.
"Go back to your men," he added, "and tell them that they had better
return peaceably to their homes. The decrees will all arrive there in
due time."
But Walter did not seem at all inclined to go. He looked around upon
the king's attendants, and seeing one that he had known before, a
squire, who was in immediate attendance on the king's person, he said
to him,
"What! You here?"
This squire was the king's sword-bearer. In addition to the king's
sword, which it was his duty to carry, he was armed with a dagger of
his own.
Walter turned his horse toward the squire and said,
"Let me see that dagger that you have got."
"No," said the squire, drawing back.
"Yes," said the king, "let him take the dagger."
The king was not at all afraid of the rebel, and wished to let him see
that he was not afraid of him.
So the squire gave Walter the dagger. Walter took it and examined it
in all its parts very carefully, turning it over and over in his hands
as he sat upon his horse. It was very richly ornamented, and Walter
had probably never had the opportunity to examine closely any thing so
beautifully finished before.
After having satisfied himself with examining the dagger, he turned
again to the squire:
"And now," said he, "let me see your sword."
"No," said the squire, "this is the king's sword, and it is not going
into the hands of such a lowborn fellow as you. And, moreover," he
added, after pausing a moment and looking at Walter with an
expression of defiance, "if you and I had met somewhere alone, you
would not have dared to talk as you have done, not for a heap of gold
as high as this church."
There was a famous church, called the Church of St. Bartholomew, near
the place where the king and his party had halted.
"By the powers," said Walter, "I will not eat this day before I have
your head."
Seeing that a quarrel was impending, the mayor of London and a dozen
horsemen rode up and surrounded Walter and the squire.
"Scoundrel!" said the mayor, "how dare you utter such threats as
those?"
"What business is that of yours?" said Walter, turning fiercely toward
the mayor. "What have you to do with it?"
"Seize him!" said the king; for the king himself was now beginning to
lose his patience.
The mayor, encouraged by these words, and being already in a state of
boiling indignation and rage, immediately struck a tremendous blow
upon Walter's head with a cimeter which he had in his hand. The blow
stunned him, and he fell heavily from his horse to the ground. One of
the horsemen who had come up with the mayor--a man named John
Standwich--immediately dismounted, and thrust the body of Walter
through with his sword, killing him on the spot.
In the mean time, the crowd of the insurgents had remained where
Walter had left them, watching the proceedings. They had received
orders not to move from their position until Walter should make the
signal; but when they saw Walter struck down from his horse, and
stabbed as he lay on the ground, they cried out, "They have killed our
captain. Form the lines! form the lines! We will go and kill every one
of them."
So they hastily formed in array, and got their weapons ready, prepared
to charge upon the king's party; but Richard, who in all these
transactions evinced a degree of bravery and coolness very remarkable
for a young man of sixteen, rode forward alone, and boldly, to meet
them.
"Gentlemen," said he, "you have no leader but me. I am your king.
Remain quiet and peaceable."
The insurgents seemed not to know what to do on hearing these words.
Some began to move away, but the more violent and determined kept
their ground, and seemed still bent on mischief. The king went back to
his party, and asked them what they should do next. Some advised that
they should make for the open fields, and try to escape; but the mayor
of London advised that they should remain quietly where they were.
"It will be of no use," said he, "for us to try to make our escape,
but if we remain here we shall soon have help."
The mayor had already sent horsemen into London to summon help. These
messengers spread the cry in the city, "TO SMITHFIELD! TO SMITHFIELD!
THEY ARE KILLING THE KING!" This cry produced universal excitement and
alarm. The bands of armed men quartered in London were immediately
turned out, and great numbers of volunteers too, seizing such weapons
as they could find, made haste to march to Smithfield; and thus, in a
short time, the king found himself supported by a body of seven or
eight thousand men.
Some of his advisers then urged that the whole of this force should
fall at once upon the insurgents, and slaughter them without mercy.
This it was thought that they could easily do, although the insurgents
were far more numerous than they; for the king's party consisted, in
great measure, of well-armed and well-disciplined soldiers, while the
insurgents were comparatively a helpless and defenseless rabble.
The king, however, would not consent to this. Perhaps somebody advised
him what to do, or perhaps it was his own prudence and moderation
which suggested his course. He sent messengers forward to remonstrate
calmly with the men, and demand of them that they should give up their
banners. If they would do so, the messengers said that the king would
pardon them. So they gave up their banners. This seemed to be the
signal of disbanding, and large parties of the men began to separate
from the mass, and move away toward their homes.
Next, the king sent to demand that those who had received decrees of
emancipation should return them. They did so; and in this way a
considerable number of the decrees were given up. The king tore them
to pieces on the field, upon the plea that they were forfeited by the
men's having continued in rebellion after the decrees were granted.
The whole mass of the insurgents began now rapidly to get into
disorder. They had no head, no banners, and the army which was
gathering against them was increasing in strength and resolution every
moment. The dispersal went on faster and faster, until at last those
that remained threw down their weapons and fled to London.
The king then went home to his mother. She was overjoyed to see him
safely returning.
"My dear son," said she, "you can not conceive what pain and anguish I
have suffered for you this day."
"Yes, mother," said Richard, "I have no doubt you have suffered a
great deal. But it is all over now. Now you can rejoice and thank God,
for I have regained my inheritance, the kingdom of England, which I
had lost."
* * * * *
After this there was no farther serious trouble. The insurgents were
disheartened, and most of them were glad to make the best of their way
home. After the danger was past, Richard revoked all the decrees of
emancipation which he had issued, on the ground that they had been
extorted from him by violence and intimidation, and also that the
condition on which they had been granted, namely, that the men should
retire at once quietly to their homes, had not been complied with on
their part. He found it somewhat difficult to recover them all, but he
finally succeeded. He also sent commissions to all the towns and
villages which had been implicated in the rebellion, and caused great
numbers of persons to be tried and condemned to death. Many thousands
were thus executed. Indeed, the rebellion had extended far and wide;
for, besides the disturbances in and near London, there had been
risings in all parts of the kingdom, and great excesses committed
every where.
When the rebellion was thus quelled, things returned for a time into
substantially the same condition as before, and yet the bondage of the
people was never afterward so abject and hopeless as it had been. A
considerable general improvement was the result. Indeed, such
outbreaks as this against oppression are like the earthquakes of South
America, which, though they cause for the time great terror, and often
much destruction, still have the effect to raise the general level of
the land, and leave it forever afterward in a better condition than
before.
The cause of these rebels, moreover, badly as they managed it, was in
the main a just cause; and it is to precisely such convulsive
struggles as these, that have been made from time to time by the
common people of England in the course of their history, that their
descendants, the present commons of England and the people of America,
are indebted for the personal rights and liberties which they now
enjoy.