every day - and advanced into the uninhabited Auvergne, where there could be found neither provisions for the men nor fodder for the horses; accordingly considerable numbers of his army perished there from hunger and pestilence, while the horses were nearly all lost. At last, sick at heart from his misfortune, he entered Aquitaine, and so arrived at Bordeaux. For, whereas, when he entered France at Calais he had had more than thirty thousand horses with him, now he brought very few alive with him into Bordeaux; and there might be seen a sorry sight — soldiers of name and birth, once dainty and rich in English lands, now with their men and baggage lost, begging their bread; and there was no man to give them. For, indeed, the land had been ravaged before their arrival by the French, and so had remained untilled till then.

148. The

V. THE POLITICAL AND THE SOCIAL STRUGGLE

Such fruitless and inglorious campaigns as that just described, along with much mismanagement and corrup tion at home, roused the people to demand reforms, some of which were attained, at least temporarily, in the “Good Parliament." This is described in an anonymous history, known as the Chronicon Angliae.

In the year of grace 1376, which was the fiftieth year of Good Parlia- King Edward, the third from the Conquest, in the beginning ment (1376) of the month of May, King Edward caused a great parliament to be called at Westminster; at which, in accordance with his usual custom, he asked from the people that a certain subsidy be granted to him for the defense of the kingdom. In replying to him they said that they were frequently worried in various ways by such impositions, and they said truly that they could not bear such burdens without the greatest loss. For it was clearly evident to them that the king had sufficient for the defense of his kingdom, if the kingdom were ruled prudently and faithfully, but as long as there was such government in the kingdom as was then being carried on by the

wicked officials, the kingdom would never abound in resources or wealth. They offered to prove this clearly, and if after this proof it should be found that the king needed anything, they would aid him according to their ability. In the progress of events many things were said about the favorites of the king, his various other officers, and especially Lord Latimer, his chancellor, who influenced the king in the worst way.

Wherefore, the duke of Lancaster, Lord Latimer, and several other officers of the king were removed and others substituted in their places. Likewise, at the petition of the community, it was ordained that certain bishops and earls of praiseworthy lives should rule the king and kingdom for the rest. This had to be done, as the king was already verging on senility and needed helpers of this kind. But this change lasted scarcely three months, inasmuch as it was hindered by those who had been removed from the king, as was mentioned above. Likewise, the knights in parliament complained seriously of a certain shameless woman, Alice Perrers, by name, who was much too intimate with the lord King Edward. They accused her of very many evil deeds, committed by her and her favorers in the kingdom, for she far exceeded womanly modesty. Forgetful of her sex and weakness, now by remaining with the justiciars of the king, now by collecting about her the doctors in the ecclesiastical courts, she did not fear to urge them to a defense of cases, and to even demand decisions contrary to the laws. On account of the scandal and serious dishonor which was coming from this to King Edward, not only in this country, but even in foreign lands, the knights begged that she should be entirely removed from him.

Likewise, in this parliament, certain notable ill doings were brought to light on the part of Richard Lyons and Adam de Bury, citizens and merchants of London. The former of these, by means of money, very wisely and prudently escaped from a deserved punishment; the latter, overcome by the fine placed upon him, fled straightway to Flanders in order to save himself there.

Notwithstanding this opposition to the advisers of Edward III, parliament was ready, in the first year of

149. The

his successor, to grant a new tax, the first of the famous poll taxes, as shown in the following statute.

The noble lords and the Commons assembled in this parliafirst poll tax ment, perceiving clearly the great charges and the very griev(1377) ous and insupportable expenses which our lord the king makes and still must needs make more and more every day, as well, that is to say, in the maintenance of the war and the defense of the realm of England, as otherwise; of their common assent and free will have granted to our said lord the king, in maintenance of his said wars, fourpence to be taken of the goods of each person of the said realm, as well males as females, above the age of fourteen years; excepting only genuine mendicants, without fraud. Praying most humbly to their said liege lord that it will please him to excuse them because they are not now able to grant a greater subsidy; for they would have been most willing to do this if it had not been that they had been so impoverished in the past, as well by great losses on the sea, as otherwise by bad years which have befallen them so that they are not able to do more at present.

Ball

If the middle and upper classes were dissatisfied with the government, the lower classes were still more deeply discontented both with the government and with those above them. There are many indications of this, one of which is the kind of communistic doctrines preached by such men as John Ball, as told by Froissart.

150. A ser- Of this imagination was a foolish priest in the county of mon of John Kent called John Ball, who, for his foolish words, had been three times in the archbishop of Canterbury's prison; for this priest used oftentimes, on the Sundays after mass, when the people were going out of the minster, to go into the cloister and preach, and made the people to assemble about him, and would say thus, "Ah, ye good people, the matter goeth not well to pass in England, nor shall not do so till everything be common, and that there be no villains nor gentlemen, but that we may be all united together, and that the lords be no greater

masters than we be. What have we deserved, or why should we be kept thus in serfdom? We be all come from one father and one mother, Adam and Eve; whereby can they say or shew that they be greater lords than we be, saving by that they cause us to win and labor for what they dispend? They are clothed in velvet and camlet furred with grise, and we be vestured with poor cloth; they have their wines, spices, and good bread, and we have the drawing out of the chaff and drink water; they dwell in fair houses and we have the pain and travail, rain and wind in the fields; and by what cometh of our labors they keep and maintain their estates: we be called their bondmen, and without we do readily them service, we be beaten; and we have no sovereign to whom we may complain, nor that will hear us and do us right. Let us

go to the king, he is young, - and shew him what serfage we An appeal to be in, and shew him how we will have it otherwise, or else we will King Richard provide us with some remedy, either by fairness or otherwise." Thus John Ball said on Sundays, when the people issued out of the churches in the villages; wherefore many of the mean people loved him, and such as intended to no goodness said how he said truth; and so they would murmur one with another in the fields and in the ways as they went together, affirming how John Ball said truth.

Very full accounts of the Peasants' Rebellion are left by a number of the chroniclers. One of the best is that by Henry Knighton, extracts from which follow, describing especially the events at London.

Rebellion

In the year 1381, the second of the reign of King Richard 151. The Second, during the month of May, on Wednesday, the fourth Peasants' day after the feast of Trinity, that impious band began to assemble from Kent, from Surrey, and from many other surrounding places. Apprentices also, leaving their masters, rushed to join these. And so they gathered on Blackheath, where, forgetting themselves in their multitude, and neither contented with their former cause nor appeased by smaller crimes, they unmercifully planned greater and worse evils and determined not

to desist from their wicked undertaking until they should have entirely extirpated the nobles and great men of the kingdom. Liberation of So at first they directed their course of iniquity to a certain John Ball town of the archbishop of Canterbury called Maidstone, in which there was a jail of the said archbishop, and in the said jail was a certain John Ball, a chaplain who was considered among the laity to be a very famous preacher; many times in the past he had foolishly spread abroad the word of God, by mixing tares with wheat, too pleasing to the laity and extremely dangerous to the liberty of ecclesiastical law and order, execrably introducing into the church of Christ many errors among the clergy and laymen. For this reason he had been tried as a clerk and convicted in accordance with the law, being seized and assigned to this same jail for his permanent abiding place. On the Wednesday before the feast of the Consecration they came into Surrey to the jail of the king at Marshalsea, where they broke the jail without delay, forcing all imprisoned there to come with them to help them; and whomsoever they met, whether pilgrims or others of whatever condition, they forced to go with them.

On the Friday following the feast of the Consecration they came over the bridge to London; here no one resisted them, although, as was said, the citizens of London knew of their advance a long time before; and so they directed their way to the Tower where the king was surrounded by a great throng of knights, esquires, and others. It was said that there were in the Tower about one hundred and fifty knights together with one hundred and eighty others, with the mother of the king, the duchess of Britanny, and many other ladies; and there was present, also, Henry, earl of Derby, son of John, duke of Lancaster, who was still a youth; so, too, Simon of Sudbury, archbishop of Canterbury and chancellor of England, and brother Robert de Hales, prior of the Hospital of England and treasurer of the king.

John Leg and a certain John, a Minorite, a man active in warlike deeds, skilled in natural sciences, an intimate friend of Lord John, duke of Lancaster, hastened with three others to the Tower for refuge, intending to hide themselves under