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Conflagration: The Peasants' Revolt |
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In Part 3: The Flames Consume Reason, we examined the actions taken by the rebels in the capital. This week we'll discover the outcome of those actions and the ultimate fate of the rebels.
Once again King Richard went out with his retinue to meet with the rebels. This time the demands put forward by Wat Tyler were extreme. There was to be total abolishment of all rank and status under the king. Church holdings were to be taken and divided up among the people. The Church hierarchy was also to be abolished, leaving only one bishop in England. There was to be "no law within the realm save the law of Winchester, and ... no outlawry in any process of law."1
This unreasonable program was undoubtedly designed to provoke Richard into a refusal and give Tyler an excuse for seizing the king. But the plan was foiled when Richard again agreed to everything. What happened next is likely to remain always unclear; accounts are highly colored by the passions of those who recorded the event.
Still hoping to provoke trouble, Tyler may have behaved with extreme vulgarity, spitting in front of the king and swilling a beer before climbing back on his horse. At this point he was either loudly insulted by one of the king's retinue or picked the quarrel himself. Tyler drew his dagger to attack the valet, and might have succeeded were it not for the intercession of William Walworth, Mayor of London.
Walworth (possibly by command of the king) seized and arrested Tyler, who tried to stab him in the stomach but met instead with the mayor's armor. In return, Walworth drew his cutlass and dealt Tyler a pair of nasty head wounds. A member of the king's retinue then ran the rebel leader through with his sword; Tyler rode several yards away, screaming for vengeance, before falling from his horse to the ground. The death of Wat Tyler was at hand; whether he died immediately or was taken from the battlefield is also a matter of which chronicle tells the tale.
In the chaos that followed, many peasants drew their bows and some arrows were even let fly. The mayor rode with all haste back to the city to summon the armed force raised by Robert Knollys. In an act of supreme bravery, King Richard rode forward alone, ordering no one to follow him, and faced the rebels. "Sirs, what aileth you?" he is reported to have said. "Ye shall have no captain but me: I am your king: be all in rest and peace."2
As Richard was speaking to the confused and frightened insurgents, Knollys and his force arrived and surrounded them, weapons prominently displayed, in their blatantly impervious armor. Tyler's severed head was raised up on a lance and brought to the king; and at the grisly sight of their leader's remains, the rebel force deflated. One more time Richard promised the rebels that their wrongs were to be redressed; and true to the design of these hollow vows, the peasants dispersed.
Most of the rebels were allowed to go home unmolested, but the more outspoken leaders such as John Ball were hanged with all due speed. The king then set about punishing the insurgents; throughout Kent and eastern England, instigators of the riots were sought out, at times betrayed by their own co-conspirators, and executed.
Parliament decreed that the promises the king had given were made under duress and without consent of the government; the charters were summarily revoked. When a few brave delegates from Essex reminded the young king that he had promised to abolish villeinage, his curt response was, "Villeins ye are, and villeins ye shall remain."3
Did the villeins really remain trapped in the English feudal system? These particular peasants did. Yet the economic forces that would eventually lead to the demise of feudal bondage had been set in motion before the revolt. If the English government had not tried so desperately to stop this trend, the rebellion may not have happened; but the end of villeinage would more than likely have occurred whether or not there had been any outbreaks of violence.
The immediate effects of the revolt were disheartening to all who had supported the peasants' goals. The quick suppression of the rebellion and the failure of the villeins to achieve any immediate change served to make the upper classes even more complacent, and in some cases more cruel. The Church grew more rigid in its resistance to reform, and corruption flourished. Both the upper classes and the Church saw drastic change in the centuries to come, but those who lived through the revolt remained unaffected.
In terms of personal loss, the Peasants' Revolt had been a stark tragedy. In the end, as violence is wont to do, it seems to have done more harm than good to the cause of freedom.
What do you think? Please feel free to visit our bulletin board and post your opinion on the short- and long-term effects of the Peasants' Revolt.
The links below will take you to mySimon, where you can compare prices at booksellers across the web. More in-depth info about each book may be found by clicking the "buy" button to go on to one of the online merchants.
1Anominalle Chronicle by Jean Froissart;
translated by Geoffrey Brereton. back
2Chronicles by Jean Froissart; translated by Geoffrey Brereton. back
3A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman. back
See also:
Peasants and Landlords in Later Medieval England by E. B. Fryde.
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