asked him to have pity upon them. But Edward only looked at them angrily, and ordered their heads to be cut off. All the knights who stood round begged him to show them mercy, but Edward paid no heed to their wishes. At last Queen Philippa fell on her knees before him, and said with tears, "Ah, gentle sir, since I have crossed the sea with great danger to see you, I have never asked you one favour; now I most humbly ask as a gift for the sake of the Son of the blessed Mary, and for your love to me, that you will be merciful to these six men." The King looked at her for some time in silence, and then said, "Ah, lady, I wish you had been anywhere else than here; you have asked in such a way that I cannot refuse you; I therefore give them to you to do as you please with them." Then every one was glad, and the Queen led the six citizens to her apartments, and bade the halters be taken from their necks, and gave them new clothes and a plentiful dinner. After she had given each of them some money, she had them led out of the camp in safety.

The siege of Calais had lasted a year. Edward III. now ordered all the inhabitants to be sent out of the town after they had given up their arms. The castle was got ready for him and the Queen to lodge in, and they entered the town to the sound of trumpets and drums. Edward afterwards sent English merchants to live in Calais, and it soon became a busy town again, and was of great use to English trade. It remained in the hands of the English for two hundred years, till the reign of Mary.

XXV.

RICHARD II. AND THE REBEL PEASANTS.

A.D. 1381.

A FEW years after Richard II., the grandson of Edward III., began to reign, when he was still only a lad of sixteen, the land was troubled by a revolt of the peasants. The country had been left very poor after the wars of Edward III. There were many reasons which made the peasants discontented. They had to pay heavy taxes, and the great lords tried to keep up old customs, according to which the peasants were hardly treated and obliged to stay on the land where they had been born. At best they led a dreary life. They had little change of food; for more than half the year they lived on salt meat; they had neither potatoes nor carrots. cost so much that they could not afford to buy it. too were so dear that they had to do without them and spend the long winter nights in darkness, except for the dim light of the fire that burned on the hearth, which had no chimney, so that the smoke had to escape as best it could; and whilst they lived miserably the king and his nobles spent great sums of money in feasting and fine clothes and all kinds of idle amusements. The peasants were led to think of their unhappy state by wandering priests, themselves men of the people, who travelled about the country and preached. One of these

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preachers, John Ball, taught that God had made all men equal, and pointed out how the rich trampled on the poor. "They are clothed in velvet and rich stuffs ornamented with ermine and other furs," he said, "while we are forced to wear poor cloth. They have wines, spices, and fine bread, when we have only rye and the refuse of straw, and if we drink, it must be water. They have handsome seats and manors when we must brave the wind and rain in our labours in the field; but it is from our labour they have wherewith to support their pomp." Thinking about their wrongs made the people more and more discontented, and at last they made up their minds to rise against the nobles and try and get the heavy taxes and the old customs done away with. Their leader was a man of the people himself, Wat the Tyler, who lived in Essex. The Archbishop of Canterbury had put John Ball in prison because of his preaching, so Wat Tyler and his followers entered Canterbury, where the people welcomed them gladly, and plundered the Archbishop's palace, and took John Ball out of prison. Then they marched towards London, their numbers growing as they went. On their way they plundered and burned the houses of the gentry, passing over the country like a tempest. When they reached Blackheath, near London, they were a hundred thousand in number, and there, as they gathered on the heath, John Ball preached to them, taking for his text the rhyme

"When Adam delved and Eve span

Who was then the gentleman?"

At Blackheath they fell in with the Princess of Wales,

H