In Our Time - The Peasants’ Revolt

Episode Date: November 16, 2006

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the Gentleman?" these are the opening words of a rousing sermon, said to be by John Ball, which fires a broadside at the deeply hierarchical nature of fourteenth century England. Ball, along with Wat Tyler, was one of the principal leaders of the Peasants’ Revolt – his sermon ends: "I exhort you to consider that now the time is come, appointed to us by God, in which ye may (if ye will) cast off the yoke of bondage, and recover liberty". The subsequent events of June 1381 represent a pivotal and thrilling moment in England’s history, characterised by murder and mayhem, beheadings and betrayal, a boy-King and his absent uncle, and a general riot of destruction and death. By most interpretations, the course of this sensational story threatened to undermine the very fabric of government as an awareness of deep injustice was awakened in the general populace.But who were the rebels and how close did they really come to upending the status quo? And just how exaggerated are claims that the Peasants’ Revolt laid the foundations of the long-standing English tradition of radical egalitarianism? With Miri Rubin, Professor of Early Modern History at Queen Mary, University of London; Caroline Barron, Professorial Research Fellow at Royal Holloway, University of London; Alastair Dunn, author of The Peasants’ Revolt - England’s Failed Revolution of 1381.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk forward slash radio four. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello, when Adam delved at Eve Span, who was then the gentleman? The opening words of a sermon set to be by John Ball,

which fired a broadside at the hierarchical nature of 14th century England. Ball, along with What Tyler, was one of the principal, leaders of the peasants' revolt. His sermon ends, I exhort you to consider that now the time is come appointed to us by God, in which you may, if you will, cast off the yoke of bondage and recover liberty. The subsequent events of June 1381 represent a pivotal and thrilling moment in England's history characterized by murder and mayhem, beheadings and betrayal, a boy king and his absent uncle and a general riot of destruction and death. By some interpretations,

the course of this sensational event threatened to undermine the fabric of government, as an awareness of deep injustice was awakened in the general populace. But who were the rebels, and how close did they really come to upending the status quo? And just how true are the claims that the Peasants' Revolt laid the foundations of the long-standing English tradition of radical egalitarianism? Joining me to discuss what's been termed as the greatest mass rebellion in English history are Caroline Barron, professorial research fellow at Royal Holloway University of London,

Alistair Dunn, teacher of history at Oakham School, and Mary Rubin, Professor of Early Modern History at Queen Mary, University of London. Mary Rubin, England, there was a wide range of economic and social difficulties towards the end of the 14th century. Can you just briskly block that in for us? Sure. Well, to understand 1381, we must go back about a generation. This is the world in England and in Europe, of course, after the Black Death.

The Black Death, 1348, 1349, which recurred in the 60s and in the 70s. Okay. Now, this is just such a dramatic restructuring of relations between man, land, authority. People became scarce. In some places, up to half the population perished. People became scarce. Labor became dear. Land was there in plenty because so many people working on the land had simply died. Now, the immediate aftermath of the Black Death, we're talking the late 40s, early 50s, meant confusion and disruption. prices of food were very dear. People were moving about, and it was not clear

how the economy will restructure itself and society and authority too. But patterns soon emerged, and the patterns were that with all the empty land and with fewer people around, some sort of new order will have to emerge. And in England, we're particularly well informed because England has such fantastic sources,

but this is true for the whole of Europe. What was clear was that those who own the land, those who own the vast, vast agrarian estates, with hundreds and thousands of serfs upon them, had to find a new order. Some of them went towards, okay, agrarian work is now maintaining manners as too expensive. We'll do something else with our land.

Maybe we'll turn it to pasture and have dairy herds, maybe not. But what's absolutely clear is that those who are in a position to offer labor are now in a stronger position. Those on the land, though, are tied to the land. They're serfs. They can't move freely. They can't marry freely and they can't charge for their labor according to its market value. Added to that, Parliament legislates and tries to enforce a system that keeps people in place, in fixed terms of employment and at regulated levels of wages. Now, all this creates extraordinary discontent. But the interesting thing is, probably those in the best position to act politically and economically are not actually the serfs, the lowest. of the low, the poorest population.

We'll come to that in a minute. But rather those who are active in their communities, Reeves, church wardens, substantial tenants. And as I understand, the government passed a statute of labourers in 1351, saying that despite the fact there are fewer of you and you'll have to work hard and there are more opportunities,

we're going to cap your wages. Yes. And so we've talked a little about the black death. Also running alongside this, we're very, very through these years, as a second half, 14th century and even before, was a very, very expensive, which proved to be over expensive for both countries, wars between England and France, which caused the government of the day to need more money, therefore, to go for more taxes.

Yes, they're going for more taxes and they're experimenting with forms of taxation. It's extremely creative period in that sense, administratively. How do you cap? How do you extract wealth and taxation out of the wealth of England? Edward III, who of course is the king during the black death and during most of this phase of the war, invents. new ways of taxation. But then Richard the second, of course, when he comes to the throne, he himself is not at all keen to pursue the war in France. But again, there are these expenses on fortification,

particularly in the late 70s and early 80s, what to do. And new forms of taxations are introduced. Before we go, I develop a taxation in one second. You mentioned it briefly in your opening remarks, me. Can you just give us, again, a brisk idea that this unrest wasn't confined to this country. There were the textile workers in. as I understand, it was something similar was happening in parts of France and parts of Germany.

So we have a, let's call it Europe for the sake of ease. We have a European, Western Europe movement going on here. That's absolutely true. And again, it's so interesting to see how in each country or each region, the discontent expresses itself in the appropriate local way. So, for example, as you mentioned, in Italian cities, it takes usually the form of activities in cities by workers, by workers who are paid by the day, who want to get organized and want the privileges of membership and guilds. In France, where, remember, parts of France are conquered. This is a land of conquest and war in the course of the 100 years' war.

There is terrible discontent, a population that feels absolutely let down and abandoned by its leadership. Caroline Byron, can we just go back to this poll tax? The third poll tax in a few years, there were three poll taxes in about four years, weren't there, towards the end of the 1370s? Can you take us through that and the effect that had? Well, the first poll tax was 1377, the next one in 1379, and the third one, the one that sparked off the revolt, was 1380. And the point about the pearl taxes was that they were a different way of taxing people,

it was a per capita tax. The first one was to be paid by everybody over the age of 14. They were to pay fourpence. The second one, they tried to make a kind of graduated tax to make it fairer, but it produced much less income. And so the third poll tax was back to the old CIS. and that was to be three groats, that is one shilling, 12 pence per head. And so that earned everybody over the age of 16.

Was this men and women? Everybody of the people. The poor were exempted and there was a general injunction that the rich should help the poor, which to us sounds a bit corny. But in fact, that was something that medieval society accepted that rich people should help poor people to carry their tax burden. Now can we tell people why, what happened as a consequence of that third? tax, which is trebled in three years, and how that could be said to have been a trigger of

igniting the bonfire that Mirri has outlined was ready to be lit? Well, it's worth making the point that actually, although there were three poll tax in those years, there were also two grants of other taxation as well. So they're not the only taxation in that very short period. So it was a period of very, very heavy taxation. There was, the third poll tax was a great deal of evasion. And so the money was not coming in, as it was supposed to do. sent commissions of inquiry in the spring of 1381

to particular areas where they felt evasion was prevalent. And it was those commissions of inquiry that seemed actually to have provoked the revolt, particularly in Essex. Is that because people just resented paying tax or because of the way the commissions of inquiry behaved themselves? Probably both. Yes.

But the stories about the way the commissions of inquiry behaved, of course, were developed and evolved later about, you know, that the tax inquirers, you know, looked inquisitively at young women to see whether they were of an age to pay the tax and that kind of thing. Whether that really happened is not, we don't know, but it's obviously something that was in the air. So you're fairly convinced that the initial trigger,

and the revolt gathered around this event and then other grievances came in train? Well, I am convinced that it was the trigger, but I think it has to be remembered that insofar as we know why the rebels rose. That is the statements and the demands they made to the king at Myland and then at Smithfield. The poll tax is not mentioned. Can we talk about the term the peasants revolt? Why do you consider it? Is it misleading? And if so, why? Well, if you're going to have a mass revolt in medieval England, it's going to contain peasants, rural workers,

because they are 90% of the population. It really was rural people. I think that the the chroniclers called them rustickey, people from the countryside. That was meant to be a pejorative term. But it was not only rustickey workers on the land, peasants. It included artisans. Of course, when it got to London, it included Londoners. It included men from the lower ranks of the clergy. It included actually some gentlemen, whether they were coerced

or whether they joined willingly, we don't really know. So that it was included a broad, spectrum of people in late medieval England, but not obviously the governing classes, except insofar as Miri says, people like Reeves and bailiffs and some of the local memorial officials seem to have joined in. So it's a touch of Middle England on the move after the poxed tax? Yes, absolutely, like the poll tax later. Alistair Dan, why were the rebels unable, let's call them rebels rather than peasants at the

moment, unable to exercise their minds in any other way? The reason for this is that Parliament is essentially representing those with the property, those who own land, those who have property in towns. And those people represented in Parliament are going to want a system of taxation that hits them the least heart. And of course, those poorer people who are now paying this 12 pence a head tax in 1380 don't really have any direct representation at all. And there is no proper legal way for them to express their discontent and anger. What other, I mentioned that, and Caroline saw decisively about the poll tax and so on, but other grievances came into play. Can you give us some idea of what they were?

Yes, for starters, England is not a particularly well-governed country between 377 and 1381. There has been a skip in the generation of kings. An elderly king has died. His adult son has died. The monarchy has passed to a teenage boy who's very reliant on the quality of advice from his government ministers. Not only are they making mistakes like bringing in this third poll tax, they're also managing the war with France particularly poorly as well. So there's a real sense that England is a

poorly governed country in those years running up to the poll tax. But what grievances they bring to bear in terms of improving their lot? The idea of the peasants' revolt, trying to throw off served in the introduction I talked about releasing yourself from bondage and liberty. Can I bring

that to bear if indeed it is to be brought to bear? Yes, absolutely. that many of those whose wages have been artificially depressed who are wanting to make the best out of their lives are effectively being prevented from doing so by the government. The government is being very aggressive at preventing people from actually trying to improve the quality of their lives. Is there any sense here inside the, let's keep calling it,

the Peasance Reveld because it is in the history book, that they are attempting to throw off hierarchical systems to go for a sort of liberty in a way in advance that liberty is claimed in later revolutions further down the centuries. Certainly the two almost manifestos that the rebels deliver to the king

on the 14th, 15th of June contained demands for the abolition of serfdom and the reform of the land-holding system. So there is that sense that there is a real demand for radical change. Can we talk briskly about the two most prominent persons on the in rebellion.

First of all, John Ball, who was, as I understand it, as the, most of the rebels that we're talking about came from the broad southeast. And on their way to, on their way towards London, they released John Ball from prison. He'd been in prison. He was a radical,

what's used to the word now, radical priest, who'd been in prison for his views. And he was a follower of John Wickley who attempted to, who translated it, and so on. So can you give us some? something about John Ball. Absolutely. John Ball is a man with effectively criminal form already. He has been prevented many times from making these radical sermons in the south of England. He has spent time in prison.

And his sermons have this unusual mix of almost a sort of millenarian quality of predicting radical change, of social egalitarianism. And these are a very dangerous cocktail to mix together, especially if you're preaching them directly to ordinary people. This is very much not the kind of preaching that the church is happy with, and they have made strenuous efforts to shut him down and prevent him from preaching. And, Karen, what Tyler? Can you tell us about what Tyler? Can I say something about John Ball? I just wanted to say that I don't think he actually was a follower of John Wickleff. I think that idea arose because the monastic chroniclers later wanted to associate John Wickle,

whom they disapproved of, with the rebellion. But I think, in fact, John Ball, although he shared many, and perhaps some of the attitudes of Wycliffe. I don't think he was a follower. Okay. Tyler is an interesting man because unlike Ball, he doesn't have a past history. We don't know anything really about Tyler. He's like a meteor. He comes into view at the end of May and he dies on the 15th of June.

And really, the whole of his life that we know about is in that short period. He seems to, we presume he was a Tyler, a craftsman, one of the people that Miri was describing who were wanting to have higher wages and to be able to move around in such work. He seemed to have come from Essex. He crossed the Medway and came into Kent and seems to have joined the Kentish rebels. And maybe qualities of his own personality and character

led him to the leadership. He seems to have been a disciplinarian. He seems to have been imposed a kind of restraint upon the rebels, not mass plunder, not mass killings, but some sort of constraint. And so he had qualities of leadership. Mary, can I come to the orchestration of this

because it's a lot of people moving, mostly on foot, I presume, along untrodden ways, as it were, in the England of that time, towards this great powerful city with its impregnable tower and the court and so on. Can you give us any idea what from what we know and how we know it, how it was orchestrated at this?

Because it seemed to happen, when you tell us when it was midsummer, it was a very good time for it to happen, no way. Yes, and it's really important. important to remember here that all these sort of people that were mentioning, be they popular millenarian preachers or Tiler's on the move plying their trade, Southeast England was a very mobile place. It's served by wonderful rivers. People normally travel a lot in East Anglia. It's also the most commercialized part of England. People constantly come from Norfolk, Suffolk, you know, and sell to the market, provide their work,

they go for periods of domestic work. For people to be moving around and for there to be modes of communication. You can get letters literally within a day between the furthest outposts of East Anglia to the action in Kent. So we shouldn't be surprised. People think of people in the Middle Age, is not moving. This is a very mobile, very sophisticated group.

Another important point is that these sort of guys we're talking about in the leadership was of men were also because they were these sort of local notables. They were involved in what we might call a sort of vernacular, an English language political culture. These are not

Neophytes. These are guys who turn up in Menorial Court. These are guys who helped collect taxes. These are not some sort of innocence taken from behind the plough. Although as Caroline said, surely plowmen also joined in. So we have a very sophisticated, savvy lower and local

government type of expertise. So to communicate, to send letters, to inform, to send emissaries and to say Londoners where we go, they have all the capabilities of organizing. It sort of reminds me just a tiny bit of the organisation

say of lorry drivers. I mean these aren't people who are normally active in the political scene but they have ways with their mobile phones or other phones of communication of creating a bulk over an issue that really matters to death. We really have very good records for that period. Well not very good records about not an enormous amount, not as much as we would want to but we do

have letters that circulated between them. We do know that letters went to Kent to activate people in Suffolk. For example, the group of men that ultimately landed and created mayhem in Barry St Edmins, which is the great privileged monastery in Suffolk, was activated by an order from the men of Kent.

So there clearly is communication. And remember, rivers connect people, they don't separate people. And also, of course, later, we'll know from the courts, but we'll come to that. Alison Dunn, the rebel took place during the first two weeks of June, 1381, and two rebel groups arrived in London on the 12th and 13th. Why was that a propitious time for it to happen? They come to London really at that time

because they have already started their demonstrations out of the countryside but they really want to get into the city to access those government ministers whom they are blaming for their difficulties and they think that that is really the time now to try and get hold of them. Are we any idea of the sort of numbers we're talking about here? This is one of the thorny things. questions. The chroniclers tend

to go for very big numbers. They say that maybe 60,000 people came to London. We have to really rather hedge our bets in the answers that we give to that. But there are certainly would have been thousands of people involved. And many Londoners possibly as well who have actually joined in with what the rebels are doing. I think it's worth remembering that the population of

London at this time was probably about 40,000 so the chances are it wasn't 60,000 that came, but as Alistair says, a thousand. It's perhaps worth pointing out that the day that they arrive in London is Thursday the 13th of June, which was the Feast of Corpus Christi. And the Feast of Corpus Christi was a day in which there were processions, there was a lot of public activity in parishes. So I think the network that Mary mentions of people in the Southeast, probably the word went

round, not by mobile phones, probably, but by some word of mouth or by some letters. Corpus Christi is the day we make for London. I think that would have been the rallying cry and that's why. It's not chance that they come to London on Thursday the 13th. And what's really exciting about Corpus Christi, which is, of course, the great late medieval summer feast celebrating the Eucharist, celebrating the Mass, celebrating Christ's offering of his body for the salvation of humanity. And this is the day in which you remember it with thanks. It's about sharing. It's about community. And this is exactly that sort of English, vernacular rhetoric that anyone would have understood.

I've understood. Sorry. Given that they were organised so quickly and they came together from, as it were, all over the place. And you have London. It seems terribly small to us now. But still, then, a great fortress city and fortresses for a long time. Before that, why couldn't they be contained better, Alistair? How did they get in?

Why were they allowed in? They turn up at Blackheath on the south side of London. And it seems that they managed to effectively negotiate their entry into the city. there seems to be some attempt by the alderman and the corporation to try and deter them from coming in. However, their numbers are fairly strong and they gain access really to the city from the south. And if I could just say,

I think there is a problem for the city. It's worth remembering that since 1376, just a few years before, the city has got a new form of government in which the mayor had always been elected annually, but from 1376 the aldermen are elected new, aldermen are elected every year, which means that the government of the city in 1381 is particularly vulnerable. They aren't a group of experienced men who've been doing this for a long time. And also what you were saying earlier about Corpus Christa being a great feast and great festival,

there could have been a feeling for a moment, oh, these people are coming to join in the great feast and the great festival day. Perhaps. But they don't normally come in those numbers. Or carry, bearing arms. And I think also... I suppose they did bear arms, or they went people those days, But they come to London Bridge. Remember, that's the main point of entry from the south. And I think, although later people tried to point the finger and say he let them in or these people connived with the rebels and so on, I think they were let in out of a kind of panic. If you were trying to keep the bridge, which only had a drawbridge,

and these masses of people were swarming across, and you didn't want the bridge destroyed. Remember, the bridge is absolutely crucial to the economy of London, so you didn't want them setting fire to it or damaging it. So in some ways, it was easier to let them in than to try to keep them out. But I don't think it was a result of collusion. I think it was panic. Well, let's bring the second big player into this now. Not as a person, but the court, the king, the authority.

We have a 14-year-old king, and he had three encounters with the rebels, let's call them, one at Blackheath, they assembled at Blackheath, but the two more important ones were, So let's talk about myelin first of all and then the great the Smithfield encounter. Well, by the 14th of June, the king has taken to the Tower of London. He has already spoken to the rebels briefly from his barge on the Thames, but doesn't actually meet them face to face. On the 14th of June, he takes the decision that he is going to meet them and hear their demands. Do we know that he took the decision or was he counseled to take the decision?

I think that Richard took the decision himself. And it's interesting that one of the consequences of the decision to meet the rebels is that he distances himself physically from his most unpopular ministers whom the rebels have already said that they want to deal with. So it might be a strategy of making himself a little bit safer and leaving these unpopular ministers behind in the tower. And at the same time, he's going to meet them at Milene. He talks them and promises them a few things. The rebels in the, what are they doing to London? This, this, can you? Well, they have been at loose in London

And I think one of the things to remember is they're not just marauding, pillaging, sacking everything. They're very selective in their targets. And there are two notable acts or three perhaps. Particularly they sack the Savoy Palace, the Palace, the great palace of John of Gaunt, who was the hated uncle of Richard II, held responsible for the various disasters and so on that people were upset about. But he, luckily for John of Gaunt, he's away in. Scotland at the time, otherwise I'm quite sure he might well have suffered. So they sack

his palace, but they don't loot it. They burn it. There's a great, we're not thieves. It's a very, a very different spirit, if you like. They also attack Lambeth Palace, the home of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Sudbury, the Chancellor, but there again

in the palace, they burn the records, all these documents that are associated with serfdom, with taxation with the things that they're distressed about. But they don't, for example, burn them monastic or the Archbishop's library. So they're not necessarily destructive of everything. And then they also attack the hospitalers, St. John at Clarkenwell,

which was the seat, if you like, where the treasurer of England, Robert Hales, was prior. And they got in the tower? Who's going to tell us how they got in the town, Alistair? This is intriguing how they get in the tower, because the king will have had some form of bodyguard with him. it seems that either they bluff their way in or threaten their way in or there may even have been some disloyalty on the part of the king's attendants. But while Richard is off at Mile End on the 14th of June,

the rebels do gain access to the tower and get the men that they wanted to get hold of. So the unpopular Sudbury and the treasurer of England, a man called Robert Hales, whose property Caroline was just telling us, has been attacked and destroyed by the rebels. And these men are subject to very swift justice by the rebels. Their heads are chopped off. Their heads are chopped off. But getting into the TAR was actually one of their greatest coup,

but they'd also already got into Rochester Castle, they'd got into the prison at Maidstone, they'd got into the Marshalcy Prison in Southwick, they'd got into Newgate Prison. So, in fact, their ability to get into what appear to be strongholds of Royal Authority is quite striking. So Richard goes to Mylan and promises them all sorts of things, but not enough, as it seems, for, as we may assume, for what Tyler, because they want another meeting the next day at Smithfield.

Remember that at my end was probably one group of rebels, perhaps not all the rebels, some of them. And it is interesting that Richard promised them freedom from serfdom. And we know that that night, the Friday night, a number of royal clerks actually wrote out charters of manumission of freedom. And some of these have survived, although they were all revoked later. But some of them have survived. So they actually put into practice. So this idea of buying them off with a charter of freedom and then they would go away.

And some of them did go away, but not all of them. It is interesting that there doesn't seem to be any thought of regicide around. They didn't want to kill the king. It's very, very important, isn't it? I mean, again, to use modern terminology, it's almost reformist rather than revolutionary. Who do we have but the king, as we've heard? They don't have representatives in parliament.

Who do they go to over and above the heads of the landlords that are the problem? And it's, again, deeply ingrained in this type of vernacular preaching. This is sacred kingship. This is God ordained. But he will be our help. We are his commons. He's our king. And at some point, one of the chronicles says, everybody now is a community. Everybody now is a common. Everybody wants representation and the help of the king, the source of justice.

I understand. They seem to have this bond with the king that the person right at the very top. It's a bit like the peasants during the Russian Revolution. They see the king as a protection. and as Marr said, there's no sense that they want to get rid of the king. In fact, their password that they exchange among each other is who do you hold with, and the answer to that is with King Richard and the True Commons. So they really identify with their boy king.

I wonder if it's something to do with his youth, possibly. Let's talk about this great encounter at Smithfield, where, well, why don't you talk about it, Caroline? I'm probably just going to quote from you anyway, without acknowledging it. Well, obviously they realized on the Saturday, the 15th, that the tactic had not worked in that only some of the rebels had dispersed from Ireland. And the king, it's interesting and worth remembering. I think it was Richard was obviously quite a brave chap.

Maybe that was because he didn't understand the danger he was in. But in fact, he is very brave, I think. But he goes first, before going to Smithfield, he goes to Westminster and consults with the... anchorite, a sort of priest, if you like, a special praying priest in the monastery there, before he rides out to Smithfield. He spends some time inside his grandfather's grave already. Well, probably the anchorite, yes, had a cell near in the chancel, yeah.

And then he goes to Smithfield and meets, and he has with him, his members of his household, obviously, though it looks as if some of them have already left. I mean, the one or two that you can see have scooted off. and he goes, and he meets Tyler at Smithfield, probably late in the afternoon, mid-afternoon, and he has this discussion. Tyler is summoned to speak to him, and Tyler, apparently, according to the chroniclers,

but then remember, a lot of the chroniclers are written by people who were not there, who only heard it from somebody, who heard it from somebody. And so they, Tyler makes demands which are more radical than the demands, insofar as we know what they were at Mile End, much more asking for disestablishment, as we would say, or disendowment of the church.

There was to be only one priest, one bishop, that everybody was to be free, there was to be no more serfdom. So it's a very millenniarist kind of view of society. And the king says, yes, you can have what you want, provided it's just, or saving my regality or some kind of equivocal phrase. Can we just really get a little bit more detail here because it's so interesting. Tyler would have a lot of his men there, Mary. with him, we presume, not everybody had gone away thinking,

you've got what we want. And who, what forces did the young Richard have? Because he didn't have a standing army. No, he didn't have a standing army. He would have a household guard. Yes. And then the mayor of one had brought together the thieves and vagabonds, isn't he on his side? Is that true? I'm just trying to provoke you.

No, absolutely. You're absolutely right, too, because so far we've concentrated on the institution of kingship. But this is a city that's being invaded. This is a city that is feeling the effect. And Caroline O'Brien mentioned the danger to the economy. economy to the fabric and so on. So clearly a mayor does not sit idle later to be blamed of complacency, the accused of complacency. And he is, as you say, organizing. And it's quite interesting. People think of the Middle Ages as violent. It's actually quite difficult to get

together a proper army of willing people to organize them, arm, to coordinate them within, we're talking 48, 72 hours, max. So in that sense, by the last appearance of the king, there is behind him known or unknown to him already a phalanx of sort of of bodyguards, of bother boys, whatever you might call them, of armed men who will act at the command of the mayor of London. Can we look at this climactic moment and I think it can be called out without too much. Where Tyler rides over, they're facing each other across a piece of land in Smithfield. and Tyler rides over, which I'm just on a small horse, rides over, summoned us, presumed by the king.

As Carolina said, demands more than he's ever demanded before. And just what happened in the next few minutes, Alistair. A scuffle breaks out. It seems that words are exchanged between Tyler and the king's attendants. We have various versions of that. But it seems that somehow Tyler has been riled by some of the words of the king's squires, or maybe William Warworth, the mayor, who's there at the time. time. And this results in

a scuffle, knives are drawn, and Tyler is struck by at least one knife, maybe more. And this is when there's the potential for there to be a real disaster on Smithfield, because the king is out there exposed in the middle of Smithfield. There are certainly these armed rebels on

the other side. It has the potential to go very badly wrong now. And Tyler actually, as he falls from his horse, wounded, apparently more or less instructs his army to shoot. because they have bows. And at that moment, Richard rides forward

and says, follow me, I am your leader. I will be your king, you know, giving them a kind of leadership. They've lost Tyler, but instead they have young Richard. And he leads them out to Clark & Well Fields. And it's a remarkable act of instinctive leadership.

Charisma. It's a charisma, as Mary says, yes. And in a sense, that has interesting consequences, because later I think Richard has a sense that he is a charismatic person, he is perhaps invalible, he's untouchable, he's protected by God, which I think has consequences for his kingship later. But at that moment, it is exactly the right thing to do. It diffuses the situation and the rebels follow him.

That's surprising in itself, isn't it? Just to give it a moment, because it's intrigued me. Tyler has been their charismatic figure. He's come out of as far as, not to put too far no way, nowhere as far as you historians are concerned. But he has led this more than not by any means of Ragged Army. He's a post-discipline on it. They've made a tremendous assault on London.

They've really attacked and secured key places. They've scared the living daylights. They've done all of that. And yet, and he is struck down and left for dead, and they turn away and leave him. Is it just the charisma of Richard? Which, of course, well, accepts that. But do they think they've got enough now or what's going on, Mary?

I would have thought that actually the day before was really the climax. They should have stopped there. I mean, that was the climax. And I think that, you know, that's a lot of people probably felt quite satisfied. That demands were satisfied. Absolutely. And also it was, I would have thought it was very scary. I mean, I thought it was quite scary that scene of the scuffle.

And people understood that this could become appalling. And also there was the London force. I mean, do we know the size of it? A few hundreds? that the mayor was able to summon. Yes. I mean, one of the difficulties for the mayor was that it's one thing, summoning a force, but if the streets are full of rebels,

it's not very easy to get your other alderman around London to get them to come together. But he does do that. As soon as Richard leads the rebels away to Clark & Wellfields, then the mayor goes back to the city and rounds up the force to go and deal with the rebels. And now, not to put a final point in and as you come to the last third, revenge sets in because Richard revokes all, he breaks all the promises he makes, completely breaks all the promises he makes, pursues the rebels and then what.

It revokes the pardons, no more freedom, and away we go. Yes, the pardons are a vote, and then a very aggressive clearing up operation is set in pace, not only in London, but also out in the counties, especially in East Anglia, where the rising is almost running along its own timetable, where the counties around London there have been sort of sympathetic revoke. and groups of knights and men-at-arms with judges are sent out in almost sort of like military-style tribunals to put on trial and effectively execute those rebels that they catch. And there is indeed some resistance. There are a few small-sized battles that are fought by the rebels who want to sort of hold on. Yes, and exactly.

While the rebels, some of the rebels were in London, others were doing the job in a way parallel, mirroring what's happening in the capital, making those demands on the ground. So they're going to, they seek out the justices who deal with the labour statute and enforce it, and they seek them out for their summary justice. They go and they burn archives and libraries. For example, the University of Cambridge has no sources from before 1381. Everything was burnt because the vice-chancellor's court in Cambridge was seen to be a privileged one. So all along, Barry St. Edmonds, St. Albans, in all these places where great institutions, great landowners, were seem to be holding people back. This was unfolding. But as you said, I mean, East Anglia was a

really scary place in 1382, 1383. We still get throughout the 80s, accounts of cases being brought against people who were suspected of action in 1381, but also, of course, government became very suspicious. So any, you know, people coming together suspected of treason are very, very quickly dealt with. And we have inventories of confiscated properties and so on. But are we talking about hundreds of people being hung I think in fact most of the chroniclers actually make a point that there were fewer people

actually executed than you might have expected. I think we're talking about hundreds, certainly not thousands. And I think one of the things the government came quickly to realize is that if you ask local juries to accuse their neighbours you get a great deal of

local grievance, grudges not everybody who is accused in indictments probably took part but it's a way of settling old scores. And I think they began to realize they couldn't disentangle who had really taken part in the revolt and who was merely the victim of neighbourly grievance. Is there any sense in which you can summarize what was gain and what was not gained by this revolt? They came, they stormed the city, they persuaded, forced, intimidated the king into giving them everything they wanted

and more than most of them had set out to want. And then they were turned on and pursued. What was left to start with you, Mary? What did... Well, it's one of these cases where, you know, looking backwards, we could be extremely wise, and they perhaps couldn't see what was happening right in front of them, because the institution of serfdom was in really serious decline already. The landlord simply could not hold on to those set of ancient, ancient controls of people's lives in an economy so volatile. And they themselves needed laborers. They themselves needed people to be mobile. I mean, for example, when the king has building done at Windsor, I mean, he breaches.

breaches the statute of labourers all over the place. You need workers, you need people. So in a way, the institution of serfdom was declining and what was coming in its place. A lot of the empty lands were then rented out, leased out, on lease, sort of contract that we would recognise without all the trappings of serfdom. And that's what happened to a lot of the land of England. So this sort of terminal decline well into the late 15th century of the institution. But obviously it wasn't obvious and it wasn't palpable. And the issue of representation, of course, will take Well, it'll take us into the 19th century. These people do not gain representation, do they?

So I'm sorry to be so simplistic about this, but on a simple level, did they achieve anything that they set out to achieve? Or were they knocked back in a way? Well, if we knew more clearly what they set out to achieve, we could answer that question more easily. But we as historians, looking back, can see some things very clearly that they achieved. For example, there were no more poll taxes.

Also, I think they did deliver a wake-up call to the governing classes of England, that there is a community out there, a group of people that may not be represented in Parliament directly, but whose interests have to be taken into account. You cannot simply impose on the mass of the British or English population without some measure, without thinking about the consequences. And I have to say that I think the fear that there might be another peasant's revolt,

mass-raising, was a very important corrective in the evolution of policy, whether royal or parliamentary. Richard himself responds to this really by trying to avoid fighting a war with France and ironically he gets into trouble for this with his inability and is one of the reasons why he's overthrown is that they want a war with France and yet he in a sense has learnt the lessons

of fighting expensive wars that need taxes so it does feed through do you think it feeds into what became one of the great maybe more certain extent of the certain realities that English thought that there was a long long route to radicalism in this country which stretched even way before the civil wars and so on

the idea of English liberty and so on or is that too romantic enough? Well, I think the French would argue that they have a long tradition of liberty and equality as well. One thing I think that is interesting is that I think it made the people who governed England aware that there was a class of people, a group of people, large group of people

who actually were much more able were more literate, had more skills than they had any realisation. And this is what really frightened the chroniclers and government. These people are able to organise something on this scale. And that was a really frightening. If I could just draw a quick parallel, I think the attack on the two towers in New York,

which made people realise, my goodness, these people can actually organise something as sophisticated and as devastating as this, has made the whole attitude to Islam, to radicalism in Islam, very different. was the same in 1381. Mary, you're against.

Just a link that I think is then very, very important, that because there are these English language preachers around the place, people who aren't licensed, this becomes the butt of attention by the government because from the 1380s and 90s on England is extremely repressive on the expression of religious opinion. It's as if the fear that religion excites the lower classes meant that religion became the butt, became the subject,

became the object of serious repression, and that continued well into the 19th century. And in the longer term, Tyler and Warworth, in a sense, become heroes to each side of the revolt. Tyler has a great posthumous history. It appears in lots of little books and pamphlets and plays. Warworth is very celebrated by the fishmongers company who adopt him as their hero,

and even have them in their pageants whenever there's a fishmonger's mayor. So everyone is able to take away something from the Peasants' Revolt, and take it as their symbol. Well, thank you very much, Caroline Barron, Mary Rubin and Alastair Dunn. And next week we'll be talking about altruism with Richard Dawkins, Miranda Fricker and John Dupre. Thank you very much for listening. We hope you've enjoyed this Radio 4 podcast.

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