LONDON HAS FALLEN: PEASANT REBELS TAKE LONDON, June 12-14, 1381

In May 1381, a series of highly unpopular poll taxes designed to help pay for the war against France triggered a peasant’s revolt. England was already exhausted by the Black Plague’s deaths on a massive scale and by crippling taxes. The rebels marched on London to oppose the institution of the poll tax and to demand economic and social reforms. There was no Royal army to defend the capital. 

On June 12, rebels from Kent and Essex led by Wat Tyler and Jack Straw merged their forces. They were armed with weapons including sticks, battle axes, old swords and bows. On the 14th, the rebels, who were looting and killing, destroyed John of Gaunt's Savoy Palace and stormed the Tower of London. They caught and beheaded Archbishop Simon Sudbury, and also Robert Hales, Lord High Treasurer whom the peasants hated most of all. Boy-King Richard II of Bordeaux (who was only 14 at the time) met the rebel leaders to defuse the situation. Reforms such as fair rents and the abolition of serfdom were proclaimed by the King in an attempt to gain time. 

Illustration by Cecil Langley Doughty for Look and Learn of August 12, 1967.

 

During further negotiations, rebel leader Wat Tyler was murdered by the King's entourage. Noble forces subsequently overpower the rebel army, the rebel leaders were captured and executed. Richard revoked his concessions at once. 

 

The Townspeople of Cambridge then sacked the buildings of the University. Towards the end of June – beginning of July, revolts spread to St Albans and East Anglia, but they were quickly suppressed. The Norfolk rebels were defeated at the Battle of North Walsham (25 or 26 June). That effectively ended the revolt. 

 

On the 15th of July, “radical” priest John Ball was hanged, drawn and quartered in the presence of the King at St Albans for his part in the Peasants' Revolt. His head was displayed stuck on a pike on London Bridge, and the quarters of his body were displayed at four different towns. In response to the Peasants' Revolt, Parliament then passed the Treason Act making the starting of a riot high treason.