Religion often made the pretext for rebellion.

CHAP. XVI

OF THE ATTEMPTS AND EFFECTS OF LE

VELLERS IN THESE KINGDOMS.

*"TH

"HAT all rebellions did ever be gin with the fairest pretences for reforming of fomewhat amifs in the government, is a truth fo clear, that there needs no manifestation thereof from example; nor were they ever observed to have greater fuccefs, than when the colours for religion did openly appear in the van of their armed forces; moft men being defirous to have it really thought (how bad and vile foever their practices are) that zeal to God's glory is no small part of their aim; which gilded bait hath been usually held forth to allure the vulgar by thofe, whose end and designs were nothing else, than to get into power, and fo to poffefs themselves of the eftate and fortune of their more opulent neighbours."

I do not undertake to write a full history of all the disturbances and infurrections, which

Dugdale's Preface to his Short View of the late Troubles in England.

Convulfions are

produced in the

have been raised against the government of this realm, but only to fubmit to the reflection of my countrymen fome of the convulfions in the ftate, which have been heretofore produced by the adoption and propa- ftate by levelgation of fuch levelling principles, as are ling principles. now fo frequently and fo boldly attempted to be maintained and circulated, in order that a premonitory review of paft fcenes may prevent the neceflity of corrective feverity in future.

protomartyr of

The first perfon, who appears in our chro- Wat Tyler the nicles to have acted openly upon this level- levellers in ing principle, was Walter Tyler; who England. having been flain in the most emphatical act of his calling, viz. that of levelling himself with his fovereign, may be properly called the protomartyr of levellers in England: In the fifth year of king Richard II. A. D. 1381, a collector of the poll tax, which was payable by every one above the age of fixteen years, took a very unwarrantable and indecent method of afcertaining whether the daughter of this Tyler were liable to the tax The father upon his return home, undertook Caufe of WatTyler's rebelto execute fummary justice upon the col- lion. lector for the indignity offered to his daugh ter, and murthered him with his lathing hammer. He was applauded and fupported

by

Difcontent at the Duke of

Lancafter, and at the poll tax.

by fome malcontents of the day; and from thence broke put the open rebellion, of which Speed gives the following account.

"Not long after the time of that Earles imployment into Spaine, there fell out accidents, which doe plainely conuince their error to be great, who thinke that any madneffe is like that of an armed and ungoverned multitude, whereof these times (by a kind of fate proper to childrens raigne) gaue a most dangerous document. The extreame hatred borné by the people to John Duke of Lancaster, calling himselfe king of Caftile and Leon, and the discontentment taken at an extraordinary taxe, leuied per pol upon all forts of people, who were aboue fixteene yeers of age, which (as all other the euils of the time) they imputed to the duke (the manner being to count them the authors of euils, who are fuppofed to haue the greatest power of doing them) mooued the enraged multitudes upon flight and fmall beginnings to runne together in fo fearefull a torrent, that it seemed the king and kingdome were fodainely falne under their most wicked fury. There were in this moft rebellious infurrection, the commons and bond-men (who afpiring by force to a

Speed's Chronicle, c. xiii. Mon. 50. p. 733, & feq,

free

free manumiffion) principally thofe of Kent and Effex, whofe example was followed in the neighbourfhires of Surrey, Suffolke, Norfolke, Cambridge, and other places, by incredible heards and droues of like qualified people, who (fpecially in Norfolke) forced fundry principall gentlemen to attend them. in their madding.

ters of London.

"They of Kent embattelled themfelues The rebels mafunder two banners of St. George, and about threefcore and tenné perfons upon Blackbeath by Greenwich, and from thence came to London, where the generality of people inclining to them, they are mafters. The priory of St. John's without Smithfield they kept burning for about feauen daies, and the goodly palace of the Sauoy belonging to the duke, with all the riches therein they confumed by fire in a kinde of holy outrage, for they threw one of their fellows into the flame, who had thrust a piece of ftolne plate into his bofom. The rebels of Effex came The archbishop to Lambeth, burnt all the archbishop's goods, records, and of Canterbury's and defaced all the writings, rowles, records, thofe of Chan and monuments of the Chancerie, as hauing a speciall hatred to the lawyers, little to their difgrace, for that they fhared herein with good men alfo, whom they hated. But their defperate wickedneffe extended itfelfe beyond

the

cery, burnt.

They murder

the archbishop

and treasurer.

the spoyle of houses and fubftance, laying bloudy hands upon the moft eminent and worthy men in the kingdome, for that they had diffwaded the king to put himselfe into their hands at Greenwich, where he talked with them out of his barge, and thereby had their maine defigne disappointed. Simon Tibald archbishoppe of Canterburie and of Canterbury, chancellour of England, a right worthy prelate, and Sir Robert Hales, a knight of high courage lord prior of St. Johns, and treafurer of England, with others they without respect to the majesty of the king, or priuilege of their most honourable dignities, most barbarously murthered by beheading them upon Tower Hill, among infernall fhoutes, and diuellifh yels. For the Tower itself (from whence they had haled them, the young king being there in perfon) was open to their execrable infolencies. Neither doth the authority of Folydore Virgil affirming, that they were not haled forth, but onely stayed by the rebels, to whom (hee faith they were fent) induce us rather to credite him, than authours liuing about those very times. There was no little store of other innocent bloud fhed by them in these tumults. Nor was the king's owne person without manifeft perill, against whofe life

they