PEASANTS’ REVOLT OR SOLDIERS’ INSURGENCY?
“When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?” This radical challenge to the social order was delivered by the priest John Ball as he preached to rebel leader Wat Tyler and his companions at Blackheath in June 1381 – and it has resonated ever since. What gave lords their rights to power and land, the insurgents asked. To hammer home the point, crowds of them marched on London.
“Commoners” from Essex, Kent and Hertfordshire rushed through the city gates on 13 June with support not only from the lower classes of Londoners – craftsmen, journeymen, labourers, servants and lower clergy – but also from richer citizens. Public order collapsed. The houses of ecclesiastical and secular dignitaries were broken into and plundered.
Amid the chaos, the young king, Richard II, and his advisers sheltered in the Tower of London. Just outside, on Tower Hill, an unbelievable drama unfolded as the rebels beheaded five men – among them Simon Sudbury, chancellor of England and archbishop of Canterbury, and Robert Hales, prior of the Knights Hospitaller and Treasurer of England – before displaying their heads on poles.
