The Story of London. Henry B. Wheatley
he would suffer them to take and have all traitors that were against the King and the law.’ The demands are recited as follows in the manuscript:—
‘That no man should be a serf by birth, nor do homage or any manner of suit to any lord.
‘No man should be a serf to any man except by his own will, and by covenant duly indentured.
‘To give fourpence for an acre of land.’
Stow gives the demands in fuller detail:—
‘The first, that all men should be free from servitude and bondage, so as from thenceforth there should be no bondmen.
‘The second, that he should pardon all men of what estate soever, all manner actions and insurrections committed, and all manner treasons, fellonies, transgressions and extortions by any of them done, and to grant them peace.
‘The third, that all men from thenceforth might be enfranchised to buy and sell in every country, city, borough town, fair, market and other place within the realm of England.
‘The fourth, that no acre of land holden in bondage or service should be holden but for fourpence, and if it had been holden for less aforetime, it should not hereafter be enhanced.’
Stow adds: ‘These and many other things they required. Moreover, they told him [the King] he had been evilly governed till that day, but from that time he must be governed otherwise.’
After consultation with his courtiers the King conceded everything asked by Wat Tyler. They agreed that serfage should be abolished, and that all servile dues should be commuted for a rent of fourpence per acre, and a general pardon was pronounced on all. Clerks were set to work to draw up charters of liberation and pardon in proper legal form for every village and manor, as well as for every shire.[43]
While these arrangements were going on, the soldiers, who could have kept the Tower with ease, were ordered or at least permitted, to let in the mob. This appears to have been part of the agreement, and we cannot but brand it as a wicked compact, as it was clearly the duty of the Court to protect its servants.
The unfortunate Leg, the farmer of the poll tax, was murdered, and a learned friar, the friend and adviser of John of Gaunt, was torn in pieces as a substitute for his patron. In the chapel, Archbishop Sudbury and Hales were torn from the altar and hurried to Tower Hill, where their heads were struck off and straightway placed on London Bridge.
John Ball was said to be among the first who entered the Tower, and to have directed the outrages. The mob suffered the Princess of Wales to escape by boat, when she went to the Queen’s Wardrobe, which had been given to Queen Philippa, and was afterwards called the Tower Royal in the Vintry Ward. In some accounts it is said that she went to the Wardrobe in Carter Lane, but this is a mistake. The King, after his return from Mile End, joined his mother at the Queen’s Wardrobe.
On Friday and Saturday, as they received their charters, the bulk of the insurgents left London and returned to their homes, leaving the residue and more dangerous masses behind them.
Mr. Trevelyan relates how the King and his nobles rode out from the Queen’s Wardrobe through Ludgate and Temple Bar, passed along the Strand by the smouldering ruins of the Savoy to Westminster. This was on Saturday the 15th of June. The royal party was met at the doors of the Abbey by a sorrowful procession of monks in penitential garb, bearing the Cross before them. The King dismounted and kissed the Cross. The nobles, the courtiers and men-at-arms entered the church and performed with unusual fervour the acts of piety. The reason why the monks were in this subdued condition was owing to the fact that a violation of sanctuary had just occurred.[44]
The insurgents had marched on Westminster, broken open the Exchequer, destroyed the books and records, and violated the sanctuary. Richard or John Inworth, warden of the Marshalsea, after the destruction of that prison, had fled for refuge to Westminster Abbey. On their arrival the mob found him at the shrine of Edward the Confessor, and having torn him away carried him back to the city, where his head was struck off on the block in Cheapside.
Stow gives a vivid account of the King’s visit to the Abbey: ‘The same day (June 15), after dinner, about two of the clock, the King went from the Wardrobe called the Royal, in London, toward Westminster, attended only by the number of 200 persons, to visit Saint Edward’s shrine, and to see if the Commons had done any mischief there. The abbot and convent of that Abbey, with the chanons and vicars of Saint Stephen’s Chappell, met him in rich copes with procession, and led him by the charnel-house into the Abbey, then to the church, and so to the high altar, where he devoutly prayed and offered. After which he spake with the anchore [anchoret], to whom he confessed himself; then he went to the chapel called Our Lady in the Pewe, where he made his prayers.’ Froissart tells us that the figure of the Virgin in this chapel was renowned for its many virtues, and that the Kings of England had much faith in the miracles performed at this shrine. When Richard left Westminster he ‘made proclamation that all the Commons of the country that were in London should meet him in Smithfield.’[45]
In the Stowe MS. there is a very full and clear record of the subsequent proceedings: The King went to the house of the canons of Saint Bartholomew, ‘and then the Mayor of London, William Walworth, came to the King, who commanded him to go to the Commons to make their chieftain come to him, and when he was called by the Mayor, Wat Tighler of Maidstone by name, he came to the King with great countenance mounted on a small horse, so as to be seen by the Commons, and dismounted, carrying a dagger in his hand, which he had taken from another man; and when he was dismounted he took the King by the hand, half kneeling, and shook his arm sharply and strongly, saying to him: “Brother, be of good comfort,” … and the King said to the said Wat, “Why will you not go to your country?” and the other replied with a great oath, that he and his companions would not go unless they had their charter such as they wished to have.’[46]
The points are then set forth in fuller particularity than they were in the previous meeting at Mile End. Such demands as were not mentioned previously are as follows:—
‘That there should be no law outside the law of Winchester.
‘That no outlawry should be by any process of law made henceforth.
‘That the goods of Holy Church should not be in the hands of men of religion, nor of the parsons and vicars, nor of others of Holy Church, but the “avantés” should have their sustenance easily, and the remainder of the goods should be divided among the parishioners, and no bishop should be in England except one … and all the lands and tenements of the possessors should be taken from them and parted among the Commons, saving to them their reasonable sustenance.
‘To this the King replied easily, and said that he [Wat] should have all this that he [the King] could properly grant, saving to him the rights of his crown, commanding him [Wat] to go to his hold without more delay.’
From this point there are differences in the accounts, and it is difficult to be quite certain about the sequence of events which bought about Wat Tyler’s death. Stow accuses the leader of a deep-laid scheme for which there does not appear to be any special authority. He writes: ‘Wat Tyler being a crafty fellow, of excellent wit, but lacking grace, answered that peace be offered, but with conditions to his liking, minding to feed the King with fair words till the next day, that he might in the night have compassed his perverse purpose, for they thought the same night to have spoiled the city, the King first being slain, and the great lords that cleaved to him, to have burnt the city by setting fire in four parts thereof.’[47]
We have now to co-ordinate the different accounts of the end of Wat Tyler. Some of these take no notice of the causes that led to Walworth’s action, but Stow’s description seems in the main to make the whole scene clear, although he does not produce a consecutive narrative, but rather relates incidents out of their proper order.
The great open space of Smithfield, the favourite meeting-place on the north of London, and the chosen site for the tournaments and jousts, was crowded on all sides. Near the gate of St. Bartholomew’s Priory were the King and his Court, and farther to the west were the ranks of the Commons set in order of battle. There