The Story of London. Henry B. Wheatley
than of deficiency. Of this population it has been estimated that those employed in agriculture were in proportion to townspeople as eleven to one, but, according to another estimate, it was as fifteen to one.
It is not easy to arrive at a satisfactory calculation of the approximate population of London at different periods. At the end of the twelfth century Peter of Blois, Archdeacon of London, in a letter to Pope Innocent III., calculates the population at 40,000, and this is a quite probable calculation, although Francis Drake maintains that London was less populous than York about the time of the Conquest. York, however, could not then have had anything like 10,000 inhabitants. Fitz-Stephen greatly exaggerated the population of London. He wrote: ‘The city is ennobled by her men, graced by her arms, and peopled by a multitude of inhabitants, so that in the wars under King Stephen there went out to a muster of armed horsemen, esteemed fit for war, twenty thousand, and of infantry sixty thousand.’ Hallam agrees generally with Peter of Blois’ calculation, for he supposes London to have had a population in John’s reign of at least 30,000 or 40,000.
In 1377 the population, reckoned by the poll tax, was 44,770; the number taxed (consisting of males and females above fourteen years of age) being 23,314. We see from these numbers how greatly the population of London was in excess of the other great towns. From the same source we find the population of the towns next in size were:—
| York, | 7248 | |
| Bristol, | 6345 | |
| Plymouth, | 4837 | |
| Coventry, | 4817 | |
| Norwich, | 3952 |
Londoners were fortunate in not having suffered from any severe attack upon their fortifications, and therefore we are unable to tell how London would have stood a prolonged siege. We know, however, that at some periods it was very insecure. The most portentous event in England during the Middle Ages in respect to the changed conditions of life caused by it was the Peasants’ Rising of 1381, the turning-point of which is entirely connected with the history of London. For four days the very existence of the city was in the direst peril. It is styled a rising, but it was really a revolution, and it is only lately that the full history of the movement has been presented to us in Mr. G. M. Trevelyan’s valuable book, England in the Age of Wycliffe (1899).
There are two particular incidents in the history of mediæval London which are of the first importance as illustrations of the life of the inhabitants of a walled city. They stand alone, for no other internal occurrences fraught with such possible evil consequences are to be found in our history; and it is well to compare their likenesses and distinguish their unlikenesses. For this purpose it is not necessary to enter at all fully into the respective causes and effects of Wat Tyler’s and Jack Cade’s Rebellions.
The consideration of these points belongs to the history of the country, but a fairly full account of the proceedings of the few days in which the city was given over to the lawless violence of the followers of Wat Tyler and Jack Cade respectively seems to be necessary here.
In both insurrections the mob had their own way entirely at the beginning of the outbreaks. The insurgents were allowed to enter the city through the sympathy of many of the citizens, and in both cases the insurgents were worsted in the end, one hardly knows how, except we explain the cause as due to the inherent weakness of an undisciplined mob. Both insurrections occurred owing to widespread discontent. In the case of Wat Tyler’s, from social ills of the most serious character; while in that of Jack Cade’s the evils complained of were purely political. Again the movement in the earlier rebellion came from below, while in the later one the prime movers were the squires.
In Wat Tyler’s Rebellion the King and Court were present at all the great events, but in Jack Cade’s the King marched off to Kenilworth and left the city to take care of itself. Other likenesses and unlikenesses will be evident in the notices of the respective insurrections.
In order to understand the doings in London from Wednesday, June 12th, to Saturday the 15th inst., 1381, it is necessary to take some measure of the movement as a whole. Most of the chroniclers naturally write in strongly condemnatory terms of Wat Tyler’s Rebellion, but Stow in his Chronicle attempts to be just, although he describes John Ball as ‘a wicked priest.’ He had the advantage of consulting a manuscript account of the Rising in 1381, written in Old French apparently by an eye-witness.[39]
The different descriptions are full, but they vary greatly in details, so that, though it is possible to make a complete record of events, we cannot be sure that we are altogether correct. At this distance of time from the occurrences we ought to be able to consider the sequence of events with a judicial mind. Both sides in the duel are to a great extent outside our sympathies. The rebels were exorbitant in their demands and violent in their methods, while the Court, being completely at the mercy of the mob, promised everything demanded, with no intention of carrying out their pledges. They had, however, this excuse, that the only way to save the city and its inhabitants was to get the mob into the open country by any possible means available.
The vast concourse of persons who demanded entrance into the city was composed of a heterogeneous mass of discontented men with different aims to forward and different grievances calling for redress. The poll tax, although it gave great dissatisfaction to the nation, was not the cause of the outbreak; the great object of the majority was to obtain the abolition of serfdom. Had this been the only demand the sympathies of the country would have been entirely with the insurgents, but, in order to increase the number of their followers, the leaders had gathered around them all the disaffected persons they were able to get together, and Wat Tyler, to enhance his importance, formulated a number of revolutionary and socialistic demands.
It is not necessary here to discuss these demands, for their number sufficiently condemns them. We may allow that the masses have a right to demonstrate and urge upon their rulers a change of so fundamental a nature as serfdom, which affected them all more or less, but an evil which the rulers were very remiss in attempting to redress. At the same time no government can exist if mob law is triumphant and if an irresponsible mass of people is allowed to demand changes which require much consideration by a legislative body, as Wat Tyler’s followers did. It is instructive to find that although the demands were first agreed to by the King, and then the promise revoked, the serfs were gradually freed while the other demands were quite overlooked. Serfdom was out of date, and the change could no longer be postponed.
Richard II., a boy of ten years, came to the throne in 1377, and few sovereigns have had to take up a more troubled inheritance. The whole country was distressed, and the agricultural population had been driven to the verge of rebellion. Revolutionary views, supported from the writings of Wyclyf and Langland, had taken root among large masses of the people. Doubtless the reformer and the poet had great influence on the people, and although they were not themselves sowers of sedition, their burning words were quoted with effect by the leaders of the revolutionary movement. John Ball’s democratic preaching caused the insurrection, but he gave way to the more practical Wat Tyler, as the leader of the rebels.
The area of the risings extended over part of the Midlands south of Yorkshire, and the whole of the South. There was a reign of terror on all sides. The manor houses were broken open and sacked by mobs, and it was said that every attorney’s house in the line of march was destroyed. Lawyers were exposed to the special hatred of the rebels, who exhibited an ignorant hatred of legal documents. The University of Cambridge suffered severely from the lawlessness of the mob. The University chest was robbed, and a large number of documents were ruthlessly destroyed. Many of the colleges also suffered.
The mob that marched on London and besieged it were mostly from Kent and Essex, and their march was marked by murder and pillage. The authorities were paralysed, and when the mob arrived at the walls of London no