XVII. 1377. CHAP. answer to this petition: But another part of their application, that all the great officers should, during the King's minority, be appointed by Parliament, which seemed to require the concurrence of the Commons, as well as that of the Upper House, in the nomination, was not complied with: the Lords alone assumed the power of appointing these officers: The Commons tacitly acquiesced in the choice; and thought that, for the present, they themselves had proceeded a sufficient length, if they but advanced their pretensions, though rejected, of interposing in these more important matters of state. On this footing then the government stood. The administration was conducted entirely in the King's name: No regency was expressly appointed: The nine counsellors and the great officers, named by the peers, did their duty, each in his respective department: And the whole system was for some years kept together by the secret authority of the King's uncles, especially of the Duke of Lancaster, who was in reality the Regent. THE Parliament was dissolved, after the Commons had represented the necessity of their being reassembled once every year, as appointed by law; and after having elected two citizens as their treasurers, to receive and disburse the produce of two fifteenths and tenths, which they had voted to the crown. In the other parliaments called during the minority, the Commons still discover a strong spirit of freedom, and a sense of their own authority, which without breeding any disturbance, tended to secure their independence, and that of the people. с EDWARD had left his grandson involved in many dangerous wars. The pretensions of the Duke of Lancaster to the crown of Castile made that kingdom still persevere in hostilities against England. Scotland, whose throne was now filled by Robert C See note [A], at the end of the volume. 14 Stuart, CHAP. 1577. Stuart, nephew to David Bruce, and the first Prince of that family, maintained such close connections XVII. with France, that war with one Crown almost inevitably produced hostilities with the other. The French Monarch, whose prudent conduct acquired him the sirname of Wise, as he had already baffled all the experience and valour of the two Edwards, was likely to prove a dangerous enemy to a minor King: But his genius, which was not naturally enterprising, led him not, at present, to give any disturbance to his neighbours: And he laboured, besides, under many difficulties at home, which it was necessary for him to surmount before he could think of making conquests in a foreign country. England was master of Calais, Bourdeaux, and Bayonne; had lately acquired possession of Cherbourg from the cession of the King of Navarre, and of Brest from that of the Duke of Britany; and having thus an easy entrance into France from every quarter, was able, even in its present situation, to give disturbance to his government. Before Charles could remove the English from these important posts, he died in the flower of his age, and left his kingdom to a minor son, who bore the name of Charles VI. с MEANWHILE the war with France was carried on in a manner somewhat languid, and produced no enterprise of great lustre or renown. Sir Hugh Calverly, governor of Calais, making an inroad into Picardy with a detachment of the garrison, set fire to Boulogne. The Duke of Lancaster conducted an army into Britany, but returned without being able to perform any thing memorable. In a subsequent year the Duke of Glocester marched out of Calais with a body of 2000 cavalry, and 8000 infantry; and scrupled not, with his small army to enter into the heart of France, and to con 1 1378. 1380. ◄ Rymer, vol. vii. p. 190. Walsing. p. 209. B 3 tinue XVII. 1380. CHA P. tinue his ravages through Picardy, Champaigne, the Brie, the Beausse, the Gatinois, the Orleanois, till he reached his allies in the province of Britany. The Duke of Burgundy, at the head of a more considerable army, came within sight of him; but the French were so overawed by the former successes of the English, that no superiority of numbers could tempt them to venture a pitched battle with the troops of that nation. As the Duke of Britany, soon after the arrival of these succours, formed an accommodation with the court of France, this enterprise also proved in the issue unsuccessful, and made no durable impression upon the enemy. 1381. THE expences of these armaments, and the usual want of economy attending a minority, much exhausted the English treasury, and obliged the Parliament, besides making some alterations in the council, to impose a new and unusual tax of three groats on every person, male and female, above fifteen years of age; and they ordained that, in levying that tax, the opulent should relieve the poor by an equitable compensation. This imposition produced a mutiny, which was singular in its circumstances. All history abounds with examples where the great tyrannise over the meaner sort: But here the lowest populace rose against their rulers, committed the most cruel ravages upon them, and took vengeance for all former oppressions. THE faint dawn of the arts and of good government in that age had excited the minds of the populace in different states of Europe, to wish for a better condition, and to murmur against those chains which the laws, enacted by the haughty nobility and gentry, had so long imposed upon them. The commotions of the people in Flanders, the mutiny of the peasants in France, were the natural effects of this growing spirit of independence; and f Froissard, liv. ii. chap. 50, 51. Walsing. p. 239. the 1381. the report of these events being brought into Eng- CHA P. land, where personal slavery, as we learn from XVII. Froissard, was more general than in any other country in Europe, had prepared the minds of the multitude for an insurrection. One John Ball also, a seditious preacher, who affected low popularity, went about the country, and inculcated on his audience the principles of the first origin of mankind from one common stock, their equal right to liberty and to all the goods of nature, the tyranny of artificial distinctions, and the abuses which had arisen from the degradation of the more considerable part of the species, and the aggrandisement of a few insolent rulers. " These doctrines, so agreeable to the populace, and so conformable to the ideas of primitive equality which are engraven in the hearts of all men, were greedily received by the multitude; and scattered the sparks of that sedition, which the present tax raised into a conflagration. i the com THE imposition of three groats a head had been Insurrecfarmed out to tax-gatherers in each county, who tions of levied the money on the people with rigour; and mon peothe clause of making the rich ease their poorer ple. neighbours of some share of the burden, being so vague and indeterminate, had, doubtless, occasioned many partialities, and made the people more sensible of the unequal lot which fortune had assigned them in the distribution of her favours. The first disorder was raised by a blacksmith in a village of Essex. The tax-gatherers came to this man's shop while he was at work, and they demanded payment for his daughter, whom he asserted to be below the age assigned by the statute. One of these fellows Liv. ii. chap. 74. Walsingham, p. 275. h Froissard, liv. ii. chap. 74 There were two verses at that time in the mouths of all the common people, which, in spite of prejudice, one cannot but regard with some degree of approbation: When Adam delv'd and Eve span, offered XVII. 1381. CHA P. offered to produce a very indecent proof to the contrary, and at the same time laid hold of the maid: Which the father resenting, immediately knocked out the ruffian's brains with his hammer. The bystanders applauded the action, and exclaimed, that it was full time for the people to take vengeance on their tyrants, and to vindicate their native liberty. They immediately flew to arms: The whole neighbourhood joined in the sedition: The flame spread in an instant over the country: It soon propagated itself into that of Kent, of Hertford, Surry, Sussex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridge, and Lincoln. Before the government had the least warning of the danger, the disorder had grown beyond control or opposition: The populace had shaken off all regard to their former masters: And being headed by the most audacious and criminal of their associates, who assumed the feigned names of Wat Tyler, Jack Straw, Hob Carter, and Tom Miller, by which they were fond of denoting their mean origin, they committed every where the most outrageous violence on such of the gentry or nobility as had the misfortune to fall into their hands. 12th June. THE mutinous populace amounting to a hundred thousand men, assembled on Blackheath, under their leaders Tyler and Straw; and as the Princess of Wales, the King's mother, returning from a pilgrimage to Canterbury, passed through the midst of them, they insulted her attendants; and some of the most insolent among them, to shew their purpose of levelling all mankind, forced kisses from her; but they allowed her to continue her journey, without attempting any farther injury.' They sent a message to the King, who had taken shelter in the Tower; and they desired a conference with him. Richard sailed down the river in a barge for that purpose; but on his approaching the shore, he saw 1 Froissard, liv. ii. chap. 74. such |