After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - Peasants' Revolt: Murder in the Tower of London

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

(2/2) A boy King, a rebel army, and the first ever execution at Tower Hill. Maddy Pelling tells Anthony Delaney the days in the summer of 1381 when rebels took control of London and King Richard II, only fourteen, restored a world turned upside down.Edited by Tomos Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal is a History Hit podcast.

Hi, we're your hosts, Anthony Delaney and Maddie Pelling. And if you would like after dark myths, misdeeds and the paranormal ad free and get early access, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries with top history presenters and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. At the heart of the story of the Peasants' Revolt is the ruler and the mob, the king and the rebels. We met the rebels in our last episode. Now it's time to meet the king, or rather, the boy king, Richard II.

Richard is only 14 years old in 1381, but it's him the rebels want to deal with. They want no intermediary, and no king but him. Perhaps young Richard likes the sound of that. It's the morning of Thursday the 13th of June 1381, and the King's counsellors have been struck dumb by the speed of the rebels' advance. Out of options, they have agreed that the King will meet the rebels at Rotherhide, on the banks of the Thames. So now, Richard II and his advisors are on the river's choppy waters, being rowed the short distance from the Tower of London to Rotherhide itself. They are expecting to meet Watt Tyler and the other rebel leaders for a private meeting.

But as they near the banks, they gradually realise that there are thousands of people waiting for them there. It seems like the whole horde from Blackheath has come to meet their king. The king and his already rattled advisors are panicked now, unsure what to do. On the muddy banks of Rotherhide, what Tyler and the rebels watch the king's boat slow, Bob on the waves caught in indecision, then turn around and flee back to the tower. When they see this, the rebels explode. If the king will not share words with them, they will take action and London will fall. By the afternoon, the men and women from Blackheath are through the city gates, across the river

and into the heart of the capital. They meet their fellow rebels from Essex inside. Do not picture, though, a wild rampage, or a mob looting and pillaging while good citizens cower. The rebels are organised and they're targeted, but they will not be timid. By the end of the day, the houses and headquarters of the great oppressors in the land will be up in flames. Hello and welcome to After Dark. My name is Anthony. And I'm Maddie. And in this episode, we are going right back to the 14th century of which Maddie and I

are well versed experts. But this time we are arriving in London, we're talking about the Peasants' Revolt. And this is the second episode in this instalment. So if you haven't listened to the first and you want that back history as to how we got here, then please go back and listen to that episode first. The rebels have now burned and protested their way through Essex and Kent, and they're now converging on the capital. So things are really starting to ramp up, I suppose. And as we heard in the opening there, the young King Richard the second is forced to face them. Now that's so weird isn't it that they insist on the kingly presence. That's not weird, but the fact that the king is a child is

kind of interesting and that makes for an interesting dynamic. Anyway, so that's where we are in this history. Anthony, would you be on the side of the rebels at this stage? So I can't remember the exact amount of greats, but one of my great great great great great great grandfathers was involved in a very much much smaller scale uprising in my local area where the local farmers were being thrown off their land because they couldn't financially keep it. And so they're being thrown off their land and he along with some other local farmers in the area that you know they all banded together and stopped the evictions that were going on.

So I would like to think my legacy would say that I would be in the march with the people who are on that side. I guess that's the kind of Irish thing in me. And we do class systems very differently than you guys do it over here. So I think, yeah, I think, although as you say, Maddie, I'm not the biggest one for going on marches. It gets very cold and stuff like that. But I mean, if I'm honest, I sort of feel like you would be the king. So I feel like that's what you would choose in this scenario. Give me the comfort of the king, but give me the radical politics of the peasant. Yes. Thank you. There.

I don't know how they sit side by side, But I guess that makes me some kind of weird champagne socialist, doesn't it? No comment here. Let's head in to 14th century London because it's a city that is very radically different from the city that we know and love today. It is at this point in the 14th century an economic and trade centre though. It is the capital city. So it has a population of around 80,000 people and most of the government infrastructure, the royal infrastructure, which of course the peasants have come to challenge or to at least threaten, is centred around Westminster, very much as it is as our government is today. The streets of the city though are very close. This isn't sort of big wide boulevards that we see coming in in the late 17th, 18th century in the decades after the Great Fire of London. This is the

city prior to that destruction. This is very much a medieval city. Fresh water in this city is taken from the Thames itself. It's a city of close quarters, crowded, rudimentary levels of hygiene. It's also a very religious city, so we've got, as you might expect, parish churches that designate different areas of the city, but there's also monasteries and hospitals that are dotted across this place. So the poor would be familiar with sites like St Thomas's and St Bartholomew's, which still exist today. This is though a city that like the rest of England has been absolutely ravaged by the Black Death and this is so eerie. In the mid-century, the years directly after the Black Death,

huge areas within the city walls, so in the centre of the city itself, huge areas remained uninhabited, and there were houses that stood empty until they collapsed because people had died there. And what does that do psychologically to a population to have those absences, that loss, ripped so large in the urban landscape that you exist in, that you live and work in every day, and to see that loss. It's really haunting. I think it's really dark to think about. The other thing to say about this city is just a nice little aside, is that among its many, many merchants living and working there is one Richard Whittington, who is a silk and velvet merchant and he's going to go on to become

the mayor of the city in a few years. Oh no, he isn't. Oh yes he is. There you go. Well done. It is, of course, Dick Whittington of pantomime fame. So that's the 14th century that we're dealing with. There is somebody at the heart of this now, who we've been missing in the previous episode, in the previous stages of this. That's the King Richard II. And that's interesting enough in itself, but we have a teenager and I just find it so interesting the expectation that is placed on the position as well as the individual, which, you know, they didn't really make that great a

distinction between those two things necessarily in the 14th century and not even in the 15th or 16th century, it's not until later still. But who is he? How is this convalescing around him and what has his reign been like? MS So he's the final boss in this pyramid of peasants, nobles and monarch that we've already debunked. I think Witch of the Second is fascinating. And I went down several rabbit holes reading about him in preparation for this. He had been king since he was 10 years old. Not only does that seem, from a modern perspective, staggering in terms of a child having to take on

that responsibility and to be that figurehead in a very human context, but also you have to think about the fact that if you are anointed king, and you know, this is still a ritual that goes on today with our monarchy in Britain, but certainly in the 14th century, when you're anointed, you are transformed and set above other men. You are God's chosen representative. You are spiritually different. You are almost magical. You're other. You are not just a human. You've transcended that. I'm sort of fascinated by what that does to the psychology of a child age 10. We know that he wasn't alone in this. He was advised by a whole circle of counsellors, which included his uncles, which is not unusual, I suppose,

to find people close to the monarch who are connected by familial bonds, or whether through marriage or whatever it is. But it was particularly unpopular in this period because it was thought that obviously these uncles, amongst them the most important was John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, and it was kind of believed that they were the ones pulling the strings, you know, that Richard, age 10 or age 14 as he is by the time we get to this history, you know, is very much the puppet for these grown men who are sort of ruling him. And Richard's age is more fascinating when you think of the demands that these rebels have for him. So what they eventually want, from what I remember you saying previously the demands that these rebels have for him. So what they eventually want, from what I remember you saying previously, is that they want to have

a face-to-face where they can put their grievances and demands to him. And it's just so interesting that they think, what's this child going to do? And I mean, of course, a lot, potentially a lot because he's the king, but it's just this tension is interesting. Do we know what they make of him? Do we know what they make of him? Do we know what they expect of him? N. I think from their perspective, they probably see him as a figurehead, as someone they need to speak to. I don't know if his age would necessarily have come into it, because don't forget, he is the appointed representative of the divine on Earth. So that he's a teenager

is sort of almost an anachronistic concern for us, maybe, I think. They do want to meet with him if they can and they want to put their concerns to him. They don't want to challenge his rule, importantly. They want to change the way government is run and the way that taxes are collected and they want to root out corrupt officials, but they aren't threatening the king himself. I think this is really fascinating. before we get to the point where the king is going in the barge to rather hide for this meeting that he then chickens out of, or rather his advisors do, and they're like, look how many people there are, you're going to get torn to shreds. Let's go back to the Tower of Linden where it's safe. Before we get to that point, the rebels, as we know, arrive

on Blackheath. Now with them, they have brought several prisoners, including Sir John Newington. Now Sir John Newington was the constable of Rochester Castle, one of the properties that they have torn through, attacked, taken prisoners from as they've gone through Kent. They now see John Newington as a suitable intermediary to send to the King, partly because of his, I guess, his position of authority. But I suppose also, you know, there's a sort of show of strength, look who we've captured, and now we're using him as our puppet, you know, from the rebel side. So they send Ewington to the king at the Tower of London. And they say, the peasants still respect the king as the rightful ruler, but they

have real serious issues with how they're being taxed, how they're being governed, and they need this change. Now, one of the people they have a real problem with, and I think this is interesting because this starts then, the route of the campaign that the rebels are fighting for just start to shift a little bit, because one of the people they have a problem with is Sir Simon Subbry, who is the Archbishop of Canterbury. So of course, you've got the monarchy, you've got the monarch, but you've also got the enormous power of the church in this period. And don't forget, the church already collects the tithe taxes and has had a hand in instigating the poll taxes as well. So, and if you are lost on the taxes, go back to

episode one where we do discuss them in detail. The rebels also have a problem with John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, who is Richard's uncle, who is seen as, I mean, he's incredibly rich, he's overly ambitious, it's seen that he's overextended himself in terms of influence on the king. So the rebels start to voice their complaints about these individuals, not just how the system is run, but it becomes clear that individuals are being targeted. I think it's really interesting because it tells us a lot about who's joined this rebellion as it's gone on. These are not, as we've previously said, just peasants, the poorest of the poor coming from the fields with complaints that are limited in scope

to the parish that they live in. People who just can't pay that 12 pence tax, or who feel that the 10% tithe tax on top of the poles just takes everything from them, and they're struggling to survive. These are people who now are aware and can name those people in government at the highest levels next to the king and want them out. This has become political in a different way now, I think, which is super interesting. Now, John of Gauntlet at the time, interestingly, is not in London. He's actually up near Scotland, near the border, dealing with other issues, other tensions in the country. But his family are still in London and all of his property is there. So there is a real threat and nobody

really knows as these demands are being laid out what the rebels are going to do. We know that they've burned places in Essex and Kent, we know that they've attacked Canterbury and destroyed homes and property as well as documentation relating to the taxes. And there's a nervousness in London now about who is going to be targeted and if people are going to lose their lives as well. Is this going to turn incredibly violent? This is the moment when the king really needs to answer their complaints and that's the moment when he decides to take the royal barge out to Rotherhide. But in that barge with him is Sir Simon Subbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury. And when Sir Simon sees the crowd, he's the one who supposedly turns to the king and is like, absolutely not, let's go. We're all

going to be killed. We need to go back. And that is a huge mistake and one that will make Sir Simon Sudbury incredibly unpopular even more so, but that's going to cost the king several attempts to quell this now. If you're like me and you love history, but in particular you love the smutty, salacious, gossipy history, then do I have the perfect podcast for you. If you fancy finding out about the slippery origins of lube or how Vikings linked sex and magic together, then listen no further. Join me, Kate Lister, on Betwixt the Sheets where I delve into the most outrageous, the most taboo, and the downright sexiest parts of our history. It's the kind of history that you probably wouldn't bring up at a

family lunch, but you might bring it up down the pub. From the history of swear words to answering important questions like, just how incestuous were Neanderthals? And so much more. Listen every Tuesday and Friday wherever it is that you get your podcasts. A podcast by HistoryHit. In turning his back on his people gathered on the banks of the Thames there, it's not looking good for him. And I have an image of this moment that I would like you to describe in proper after dark fashion. I think it's fascinating and we don't often have medieval images on here. Is this from the 14th century?

So this is from slightly later, it's from a French manuscript by a man called Jean Froissard. And it depicts this moment of the Royal Barge coming to the banks of what's meant to be the Thames. I mean- No, it looks like, it looks like Brittany or something, but anyway, yeah. It looks like Carcassonne in the background in the South of France, doesn't it? All the turrets, but let's have a little description, please. Okay. So this looks like a Disney cartoon. It's got those Disney turrets in the background

over a river, which is, I guess, supposed to be the Thames or whatever. And then there are you know what looks like stereotypical medieval knights kind of littered here and there guarding different parts of the castle. Oh and fighting in different parts of the castle actually. So there's the blues against the reds now I'm seeing as I look at it more closely. Then gathered on the right hand side of the picture as you look at it there are what look like thousands of little tadpoles, but actually it's supposed to be soldiers' helmets and you can see some pikes as well. And so thousands of these rebels, I suppose this is supposed to signify. And then on the left hand

side, bizarrely parked on the land, it looks like, oh no, no, they are in the water. They're just, okay, I see it now, is the king in his royal barge and the rule barge looks very impressive if a little dinky. I will say one thing I'm noticing is the rebels are tiny tiny tiny little people and the royal cohort is much much bigger. I'll also say that Richard the second is depicted with a pretty healthy five o'clock shadow and I'm guessing at 14 he probably didn't have that much of a thing but it's just interesting to see what they're doing in terms of his manhood and masculinity. Yeah he's a very tall 14 year old isn't he?

He is and looks very weather beaten but there you go that's that. You're seeing all the Royal insignia on the Royal barge, the landscape looks very green and verdant and very nice and the weather looks remarkably not English as say, this very much is giving France. So that's interesting. I didn't realize it was from a French source, but it's actually very beautiful. It's very, very beautiful and very colorful and very, very vibrant. It doesn't look like the most violent scene in the entire world. It actually actually looks very kind of rural and bucolic. But obviously, this is supposed to be demonstrating some of these tensions. There's also at one point in the barge, there's a couple of men trying to speak with the soldiers over the river as if they're trying to plead with them and go, lads, look,

just go back to wherever you came from. I'll send you a telegram. I'll send you an email in the next few days and in the next five to 10 working days. And we can take it from there. But yeah, there's it seems to be that they're they're reasoning. So it's a lovely image. Yeah, I think the scale of it is the crucial thing, isn't it? The Royal Barge takes up a huge portion of this image. And it's really given precedence, you know, Richard's power and his, his, as you say, kind of manhood. He's got this really boxy golden jacket on as well and a crown on his head. You know, it's very clear who the king is. And in comparison with that, yeah, the rebels are kind of anonymized, aren't they? They

just become a sea of tiny little helmets. Interestingly, they look quite professional. They look like an army. You know, they've got, as you say, kind of pikes and proper weaponry and they look organized. In this image, though, the people on the barge who are leaning into talk to the rebels, the suggestion I suppose is that they're trying to reason with them. The barge isn't turning around in fear. They're trying to reason with these unreasonable rebels. And as you say, in the background, some of the rebels are actually breaking into the French Chateau that is meant to be London behind the back of this peaceful negotiation that's going on. So they're kind of shown as being, I suppose, untrustworthy and unreasonable. But yeah, it's a really, really, really crucial moment that

happens. But the fact that Richard turns away is going to change everything. So he goes back to the Tower of London, which of course, we know from many, many episodes as a place of imprisonment and punishment, but it is also the royal residence. It's a fortified place of safety and it's back to there that he now rushes. Now, the rebels are absolutely incensed by this. Their king will not see them and they head into the city. Now, they destroy the Savoy Palace, which is the residence of John O'Gaunt, who, remember, is up in Scotland. They destroy other buildings like the headquarters of the Hospitallers at Clark and well. These are big pieces of infrastructure of church and government power, monarchical power. This is systematic destruction now until they are heard.

This is absolute protest. It's violent. It is threatening to life as well when they get to the Savoy Palace, which is one of the grandest houses in medieval London. Interestingly there is fear for his wife and children's lives, but actually what the rebels do when they get there, and I think this is again so staid, so controlled, so clear in terms of the message they're trying to give, they don't steal his possessions, they just destroy them. They take all of his gold and all of his silver and they throw it into the Thames. This is a protest about wealth inequality, about power inequality, specifically, interestingly, targeting specific individuals, particular people who are objected to by the peasants, by, I mean, who is objecting, who knows who John of Gaunt is,

who are the people pulling the strings of this protest at this point is a kind of interesting question. There's chaos London is now fully under attack. I've seen a name that I am not familiar with at all. Maybe people who've grown up with this history are a little bit more familiar, but I am intrigued. Joanna Ferrer is leading this attack. Maddie, tell me more about her. Yes, I think there's been a lot of research on her by the 1381 project that we mentioned in the last episode. And she is one of the women who is involved in this rebellion. So

she comes from Rochester, don't forget the castle there was attacked. And Sir John Newington, the constable has been brought with the rebels. And we have documentation relating to her supposed crimes, her protest while she's in the city. And do you want to read us these words? Because they're absolutely fascinating. OK, she went as the chief perpetrator and leader of a great society of rebellious wrongdoers from Kent on Thursday, the 13th of June 1381 to the Savoy in the county of Middlesex and as an enemy of the king burned

the said manor. She seized a chest containing one thousand pounds, oh my gosh, and more belonging to John Duke of Lancaster. And then she put the said chest into a boat on the Thames and made off with it all the way to Southwark where she divided the gold between herself and the others. That is fascinating. CHARLEYY And it's so interesting that in this account, she is being accused of taking the money and in other accounts, the suggestion is they throw it into the Thames. So we're starting to see these different versions of the history come into play. So this is an official legal indictment. Isn't that so? I mean, a thousand pounds is a fortune

at this time, you know, that's unthinkable amounts of money. And you know, a thousand pounds from one of the if not the most powerful man in England at this time, the uncle of the king, the person who advises this 14 year old on the throne. By the way, she is going to be prosecuted later on in the story for this. This is, as you say, a legal document, so spoilers, some of these peasants are going to be caught and punished. But there's a sense of different narratives of blame being apportioned, of guilt and sort of bad behaviour being sketched here. And the reality of the situation is quite hard to dig to, I think. It is because I mean, sorry, I know I keep dwelling on these details are just so remarkable

about about Joanna Ferrer in particular. Just think about what they're saying she did. By the way, the Savoy Palace that's in question here is basically in and around the same general area where the Savoy Hotel is in London now, and that's where the Savoy Hotel gets its name from that patch of land. And it's so interesting because it says that she burned the said manor, she seized the chest herself, well, I mean, the implication is that it was either herself or people under her command. She put the said chest into a boat on the Thames and made off with it. Now, she's not doing all of that on her own. There's absolutely no way. But that means she's potentially commanding a squadron of these rebels, which is fascinating as well. I've never come across this person before. She does have a Wikipedia

page because I very quickly done a Google, but that's fascinating. Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? And it, again, it's challenging what we think we know about the peasants revolt that it's these, you know, grubby, earth coloured, male labourers taking up their pitchforks to fight against the elites. That's not necessarily the case. There are women in here, there are more powerful people, there are people within a completely nuanced structure and hierarchy of sort of social levels and different kinds of, you know, merchants and landowners and ex military men. There are all kinds of people within here. And it's so fascinating that a woman in this moment is rising to a position like this and that people are following her essentially, you

know, into battle, certainly into protest. What happens next, Maddy? We're in this point now where it's tensions are really high, London is being attacked, the rebels really have a foothold, John Gaunt is out of London, which is a problem in itself because that's one of the most powerful men in England right now, so we could probably do with him being there if we're trying to defend it. What's coming next? Throughout Thursday the 13th of June, King Richard and his councillors took refuge inside the Tower of London. They tried to get the rebels to disperse by promising universal pardons, but the rebels paid no heed. What they wanted was to talk directly with their king.

By the following morning, Friday the 14th, his advisors were spent forces. And so Richard did what the rebels asked, and rode out to meet them. He travelled two miles east, through the streets and suburbs of his unruly capital, this boy king leaving behind him the great counsellors and princes who dare not show themselves to the people. With him were his guards, chief military advisors, and his mother. We know that the rebels were waiting for him at their camp in Mile End, a pleasant meadow outside the city at that time. We know these men and women of tumult and turmoil knelt down to him when he arrived, and that what Tyler, the rebel leader, stepped forward to greet Richard the Second. Tantalizingly little is recorded of what was said

between the king and Tyler in that pleasant meadow on that June day. What we do know is remarkable. The king agreed in writing to the rebels demands, all of them, to hand over the traitors, to abolish serfdom. Henceforth no one should serve anyone else except if they choose to do so and on terms freely agreed. As a symbol of his good faith, Richard gave the rebels banners bearing the royal arms and told them that they would be pardoned. Yet, even as Richard and Watt Tyler stood at this moment of still accord in the centre of the storm, blood was being let in the Tower of London. To this day, it's a mystery how some of the rebels managed to enter that fortress,

whether through lies or threats or collusion, but enter it they did, and once inside they hunted down those councillors who had been too afraid to show their faces on the streets. Archbishop Sudbury was caught in a Norman chapel built by William the Conqueror. He was dragged outside the tower and executed on Tower Hill, christening the ground with his blood. His head was put on a spike on London Bridge, just like any other traitor to England. London now was in their hands and more besides. All across England's pleasant acres, the peasants

had risen. Suffolk, Cambridge, Norfolk, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Somerset. What a summer this must have been. that. What a summer this must have been. Well, as I was listening to in that narrative, I was like, oh, this is not how I expected this to when you're talking about the Richard II stuff. I was like, this is not how I expected this to pan out. I was like, how, how interesting that this is such a big thing and it was resolved in such an amicable way. And then you were like, oh, but wait, the scene at the tower is slightly more chaotic. And when I say slightly, I mean, quite a bit. Yeah, I feel like they didn't have a management meeting that morning. They didn't sit down and go, right, guys, the King's coming. This is what we're going to do. Here's the bullet pointed

agenda. Nope. We've been talking about organization quite a bit, especially in episode one, we were like, you know, these are these guys were relatively well organized. And we can see proof of that, you know, in those early stages, that organization seems to be letting them down here. I think it speaks as well to the disparate claims and problems that they're raising, right, that some of them want literally just to see their king who they recognize and say, we don't want to be serfs anymore. We don't want to be taxed. We want a bit more fairness and equality, please. And that's happening on one side of this struggle. But then there are other

people within this revolt who specifically want to take out people in charge, particular figures like Sudbury, like John of Gaunt, who miraculously isn't in the city in this moment, but obviously whose palace has been completely trashed. The fact that there isn't a unified message, there's not necessarily a unified plan here, and we start to see it coming apart. And interestingly, this is all happening within this really complex landscape of a city with these different edgelands and these different gathering meeting places. And then you've got at its heart, Westminster, you know, as a sort of seat of power, but then the Tower of London itself as this still today, this symbol of English power

of, you know, sort of the absolute resilience and might. This is the safest fortress. The crown jewels are still kept there. You know, this is really an impenetrable fortress. And yet that happens. Interesting fact for you, Sudbury is supposedly the first person to be executed on Tower Hill. That's interesting. It's a pretty long legacy thereafter. Yeah. It's not a great thing that you want to be remembered for. Yeah, it's so interesting to me that the king goes out there to meet what Tyler and to have that conversation and agrees to everything. I mean, again, I don't know where this is going. But I would imagine that as soon as they find out about what's happened at the tower, that's all going to go out the window. But I mean, you know, keep that you knew you know the answer, but let me know as soon as we kind of get there. But it's just so interesting that he goes there because it seems... It's problem solving, right? Like he's brave, he wants to fix it. And his main advisor, Jon of Gaunt, is in the North. He's not present. He's listened on the first instance when they go out to Brother Hyde to his other advisors, Sudbury among them. And they said, no, no, no, let's all go back to the tower and hide and I think it shows great Naus on the king's side that he has kind of discounted that he's gone do you know what they want to meet me and I think as well

it speaks to the fact that he becomes king age 10 and his identity his psychology is all about the fact that he is the king, he is different, he is special and powerful and divine. And so I think in his head, he's like, it'll be fine, guys. I'm the king. God's chosen me. They're not going to hurt me. They will fall to their knees when they see me because I am that important. And then on the flip side, we have the fact that the Tower of London is taken and strategically and symbolically, that's then a snub to the King really, because what it's saying is indirectly, you could even read it as saying we've essentially toppled power.

This is almost bordering on revolution to a certain extent. I mean, it's not quite, because it's not overturning the government or anything. But they've captured the strategic point in the capital and that's really, really important and an actual threat now to the king, this other faction. LX So I think when the rebels get into the tower, it's a real moment that can change the course of English history. Yes, they kill Sudbury, but they do other things. It's really interesting. They do things like they let John of Gaunt's son, who by the way is the future King Henry IV, go free. This is a future

King of England. It's an incredible moment where history could change. It feels disorganised. It feels like they don't have a united front, a united aim at this point. The killing is chaotic. Even though it is efficient and brutal, the way in which these people are executed without any kind of trial or anything is terrible and fascinating. But it's a real moment when I suppose it's a crossroads, there are so many different options of English history at that point that could happen. As those troops break into the Tower of London, it could go any which way. And the way that we have is just one version, the version that happened. But at this point, as we heard in

the narrative there, England is now burning. This is not just in London, Kent and Essex. This has spread north, it's spread west, it's happening in Somerset, in Derbyshire and Yorkshire. These rebellions, this revolt is taking shape now. The king absolutely needs to calm it down. He's lost the Tower of London, he can't go back there now it's not safe for him. He's out at Mile End. So where does he run to? The Great Wardrobe. Well, hiding in the closet. Yeah, I mean, literally. So this is a place out at Blackfriars and this is, you know,

sort of place of supply and ceremony. He goes there, he takes refuge there and he kind of regroups. Maybe there's an outfit change. He appoints military leaders, the ones that are still surviving and he fills the gaps that are now missing in his cabinet, essentially, you know, Sudbury among them and John of Gaunt. He looks for new advisors, and he makes a really interesting decision. I think again, it just speaks to either his complete foolhardiness that he really believes he's so powerful, people will just slot into line once they've seen a glimpse of him, or whether he really understands that this needs to get sorted and he

is the only person who can do it. But on the 15th of June, he rides out to meet the rebels for a third time. He's gone again, yeah. Yeah. This is an absolute tour of the periphery, what was then the periphery of London, because this time he goes to Smithfield. He sees the rebels again. This time, by the way, he's come back with 200 soldiers, 200 men at arms. He is not taking any risks now. And the message from the King needs to be a little bit firmer than it's been before. He really has to set out the parameters of what's happening and the fact that he's in charge. What Tyler approaches him, don't forget they've already met, what Tyler is now kind of being,

you know, he's sort of the King of the rebels, right? He's been elevated to this position, this legendary position of leader and he's coming face to face with the so-called real representative god on earth, the actual King. They sit down to talk and what Tyler makes, according to the chroniclers, a little bit of a relations error in that he is completely over familiar with the King. He calls him his brother, he says we can be brothers, he wants to be equals, he wants to be pals. This enrages the royal servants, so a skirmish essentially happens. Tyler makes some kind of gesture towards the king and the mayor of London, a man called William Woolworth, basically is not having it. He arrests Tyler,

Tyler resists, there's fighting, Woolworth pulls out his sword and stabs Tyler. And another man joins in, another man called Ralph Standish. And they're basically just hacking at what Tyler at this point, the rebels obviously see this happening. They all draw their bows and arrows and they're fully ready and prepared to send a volley of arrows down on the king as he's trying to have this discussion with what Tyler, who's now being hacked to death, the King, again, fascinating insight, rides towards the rebels. You'd think this is the point sensibly where you need to get out of there. They're all literally pointing their weapons at you. He rides towards them and he says, follow me, follow me. I am your

leader. I'm going to take you away from here. And they follow him. Like actually or apocryphally, if you know what I mean. Like, is this real? Like, this seems so unlikely that a 14 year old is like, guys, in we go. Yeah, it seems sort of religious, doesn't it? It seems it's quite Christ-like that, you know, Richard steps out and is like, I am now, you know, come with me and I will lead you to safety kind of thing. He rides to Clark and well with his people and they just sort of disperse. It's so fascinating. Tyler's obviously dead at this point. His head is cut from his body and carried on a pole back to the city as evidence to the rebels that are still at the Tower of London, that are still causing problems in the city. So it's over, the king sorted it all out, he's dispersed everything, he's calmed everything down, and it all kind of peters out and I just, it's such a weird moment and surely it didn't happen like that.

All these people who have come from their homes in different surrounding counties, different villages and towns from far away, they've all converged on London, fired up, ready to fight for what they believe in, ready to try and ask the king politely, all with force for a better life and to be treated better. And the king steps out and it's like, it's okay, I'm just a 14 year old, I understand what you're saying, but like, calm. And then it all just disintegrates. Come on. Yeah, there's something a bit weird there, isn't there? Yeah.

So now we have this kind of the bubbles burst slightly, it seems. But, you know, people have died and people in authority have died. And if we know anything about that, that's not going to go unpunished. So how does this end? What are the repercussions for? Is this is this just it now? It seems a bit like Niamh It's really unsatisfying, isn't it? Toby Yes, exactly that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Niamh So in the weeks that followed, the king initially says, your complaints will all be heard, reforms

will follow, we understand what your issues are. But once the rebels have dispersed and gone back to their homes, back to their lives, he retracts all of that. And not only this, but royal forces then head out to scoop up the leaders, they're captured and many, many are executed. And many peasants who were involved who weren't the leaders but who did take part in this are punished as well. So it's a kind of brutal reckoning really. I mean, I'm not surprised, this is the 14th century after all, but it's such a frustrating end to such an interesting moment in history where the masses unite against, you know, the majority, the many unite against the few and do have an effect. They take the Tower of London,

they call the King out to the edge of the city, they get the King to sit down with their appointed leaders and initially at least they get him to abolish serfdom. He retracts that. It does take decades to decline in the following centuries. But it speaks to I think a turning point in terms of the English character, how people understand England and its hierarchies. You mentioned there that Ireland has very different sort of class system and Britain now is very known around the world for its class system and you know Britain now is very you know known around the world for its class system and how we understand and uphold class and how it oppresses and has shaped so many stories that we talk about in history and I think this is such an interesting

moment where that almost changes so early on and it's quashed and pushed back down. But it's so fascinating. AC Yeah, it speaks to something of that English underdog narrative as well, doesn't it? That persists. Although I will say that narrative is always kind of quashed. Even when we have, because like, you know, so you have someone like Watt Tyler emerging here, who's I would imagine in English parlance a bit of a folk hero even now. I'm guessing because I'm not familiar with him, but he seems to be like somebody who would be lauded for that kind of role and for speaking up about equality and trying to speak to the king as an equal, which is fascinating for the

14th century. But all of those things always seem to be battered away again and order even if it's somewhat changed is always restored. This is an interesting stepping stone in a long history of English revolt when we're talking about the people of the lower classes who are put in a position where they feel they have no choice but to push back. And that continues today, I think. But listen, thank you for joining us again on After Dark. If you've enjoyed these two episodes, please leave us a five star review. Wherever you get your podcasts, it helps other people to discover us too.

If medieval history is your thing and why wouldn't it be? Then why don't you check out Gone Medieval with Matt Lewis and Eleanor Yonaga? There is loads there and an ending treasure trove of medieval history for you to enjoy. Maddy and I will be back again next time with more tales from the dark side of history. Until then, happy listening.