The Last Plantagenets (12 page)

His captors were beyond any fear of interdict or Pope. The old man was ordered to lay his head on the improvised block. This he did with no signs of fear.

The nervous hand of the volunteer headsman was so lacking in precision that the first bow did no more than inflict a deep wound in the prelate’s neck. The aged man could not repress a cry of anguish.

“Ah! Ah!
Manus domini est!
”

Instinctively he raised a hand to the wound, and the ax, falling for the second time, amputated some of his fingers. The victim gave no further signs of his terrible suffering, even though it took eight blows in all to sever his head.

Later the man Starling stalked about London, with the ax suspended around his neck, boasting loudly that his had been the hand which killed the archbishop. When, inevitably, he was brought to the gallows, he continued to exult in the part he had played.

Blood ran freely all through the hours of this terrible day. Treasurer Hales, a Franciscan friar named William Apuldore, who served as the king’s confessor, and John Legge, collector-in-chief of the poll tax, died on Tower Hill after the venerable churchman. One hundred and fifty Flemish residents were dragged from their homes or from the churches where they had sought sanctuary and killed without mercy or delay. Many lawyers shared their fate. Houses were looted and burned.

This was not the work exclusively of the peasants. The city had fallen into an anarchy in which people paid off grudges by killing those who had offended them or by bringing false witness against them. Some debtors killed their creditors, thinking their culpability would go undetected in these mad and bloody hours. The undisciplined apprentices took revenge in the killing of their masters. The criminals of the city were everywhere, taking the major share of the rewards from the rape of London.

It was stated in the
Anonimalle
Chronicle that everything had been planned and that the peasant leaders urged the intoxicated mobs to slay and burn; and this has been solemnly affirmed by many historians. But it is inconceivable that it was part of a concerted plan. Most of the peasants asked for nothing better than the chance to get their wrongs righted in an orderly way and then march home to their families and their work in the fields as quickly as possible. It was the dregs who remained, the men who had lost sight of the issues, who led the revolt.

It seems certain, nonetheless, that much of the madness and the destruction can be traced to the megalomania of Wat the Tyler. He and his group of leaders seem to have conducted their part of the talks at Mile End in a reasonably rational way. Perhaps he was surprised by the wide scope of the king’s concessions. Perhaps, on returning to the city, he drank with the rank and file in an exuberance of triumph. Whatever the reason, the power he wielded went to the head of the leader. Visions of personal grandeur filled his mind as he hobnobbed with his followers, these once humble men who had been roused to assert their rights and who now saw themselves as masters of the realm.

On this fateful Friday night, after the meeting with the king, Wat the Tyler behaved like a new-made dictator. Although the large party of the peasantry, the better part, had taken their charters and their banners and were tramping with weary feet the long road home, he continued to lord it in town among the baser elements and the more subservient of his followers.

“I will go wherever I please,” he announced, gesturing in a grand manner. “There are twenty thousand of my stout fellows to go with me and help enforce my will. As for those who would oppose me, I shall shave their beards for them!”

The boast won loud plaudits, for what he meant was that he would cut off the heads of those who stood in his way.

“There will be no laws in England,” he ranted, “saving those I declare. With my own mouth shall I declare them!”

The following day was marked by a diminishing of violence and a tendency to make excursions into territory close to the city in search of loot and victims. London still cringed, nevertheless, under the reign of terror. The shutters of all shops and homes remained bolted.

During the afternoon an unexpected message was received by Wat from the royal council, in which it was suggested that, inasmuch as the insurgents were not sufficiently content to accept the promises of the king by departing for their homes, a further conference be held. They were invited to meet the king before nightfall.

What sudden weakening on the part of the king’s councilors had led to this pusillanimous attitude can be no more than a matter of conjecture.
It may have been due to the conditions they encountered on returning from Mile End and the fears they felt as they sat in the turrets of the Tower and looked down on the seething streets and the fires which burned in all directions. It might be their heads which would roll in the dust the following day unless the fury of the mobs could be appeased.

And so one king had spoken to another; the delicate and dandified boy had found it necessary to approach the powerful head of the peasantry of England. He, Wat the Tyler, would go to this meeting and be much more demanding. In the meantime he spluttered and declaimed his greatness to those about him.

No other explanation can be given for the strange turn events took on that day.

U
NDER the wall near Aldgate stood the hospital of St. Bartholomew and a short distance farther into the open fields was the priory. The hospital was a venerable institution which had been founded by Rahere, the court jester of Henry I. The pay of royal buffoons was small enough, but they generally had the ear of the king and so had opportunities to make fortunes for themselves. Rahere had applied his perquisites to a noble purpose. Beyond these buildings that he had raised stretched the plains of Smithfield, famous for its fairs and markets. Every Friday there was a cattle sale which drew large crowds.

This historic suburb served another purpose which drew even greater crowds. It was the place of execution. Tyburn would take that distinction from it in the following reign, but Smithfield had already witnessed many of the saddest events in English history. The end of the road for so many men, and women, was in the Elms which lay between a horse pool and Tunmill Brook. The first champion of the rights of the common people during the Norman period had died here, William FitzOsbert, popularly known as Longbeard. Most distressing of all had been the bitter day when Scotland’s peerless leader, William Wallace, was taken from the Tower and dragged at the heels of horses to Smithfield, to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, the inhuman method of execution first used in the reign of Edward I, by which the disemboweling was done while the victim still lived.

It was reserved for Smithfield to bear the notoriety of the religious burnings, first in the reign of Henry VIII and, then, in that of his neurotic daughter, Mary. Here died an unsung martyr named John Badby, who was chained in a tun lined with tar, which burned much more fiercely than wooden faggots; here also the end came for one of the most
beautiful and brave of women, gentle Anne Askew. Here the stout bishops were brought to be chained to the stake and burned for the constancy of their faith.

The most grueling exhibition occurred in the time of that kindly ruler, Burly King Harry, when two people convicted as poisoners were boiled alive while thousands watched in fascinated horror.

It was Smithfield that Richard had selected for his final parley with the insurgents.

The appointed time was the hour of vespers. Before taking to horse, the young king spent some time with a confessor and received absolution. Those who were to go with him filed through the Shrine of the Confessor for the same consolations. Then the party, 200 strong, wearing armor concealed under their cloaks and tabards, rode eastward through the city. None had any confidence they would come through this ordeal alive.

The knights took their stations on the east side of the wide plain in front of the walls of St. Bartholomew, a venerable pile, discolored by time and lack of care. On the other side, some distance away, were such of the peasants as still remained, many thousands nonetheless. They were drawn up in some pretense of military order.

An unwonted silence settled over the field, quite different from the usual noisiness of the place, the lowing of cattle, the loud hum of commerce, or, on tragic occasions, the agonized cries which came from the flaming stakes. The king’s men were too apprehensive to indulge in talk and far across the fields the peasants were strangely mute, waiting, no doubt, for direction from their leaders. Finally two figures on horseback detached themselves from the dull green of the rebel ranks, one riding a small hackney. This was, of course, Wat Tyler, and behind him a banner bearer. Arriving within speaking distance of the king, the leader dismounted and bowed. Then he took a liberty which caused much boiling of irate blood in the baronial ranks. He seized the royal hand and shook it vigorously.

“Sir king,” he said, “within a fortnight you shall enjoy the thanks and loyalty of all true Commons.”

Richard made no protest but contented himself with demanding why the peasants had not returned to their homes. “All that you have asked has been conceded,” he added.

The leader of the insurgents answered that there were many points
still to be discussed. There is much difference of opinion among contemporary historians as to the nature of the demands made during this unprecedented discussion between king and artisan, but the best authorities agree as to the sweeping nature of Tyler’s proposals. He raised a point of the relationship between lords and Commons which seems vague in the light of later examination. No one, he contended, should hold the privilege of lordship except
civilly.
Then he went far afield and raised issues which were later made the basis of charges against the Lollard priests, who were believed to have instilled such thoughts in the minds of the common people. The lands held by the church should be confiscated and returned to lay ownership. There should be one bishop only in the land, presumably the archbishop. One report has it that a demand was made for the abolition of the forest laws. In the end they came back to Ball’s appeal that there should be no distinction in rank and privilege among men, “save the king alone.”

It must have been clear to the leaders of the peasantry that they were demanding the impossible, unless they had taken literally the bluster and boasting of Wat Tyler and believed themselves in a position of national mastery. It is probable the demands were made for the purpose of marking time. To disband now and go home would be to surrender the upper hand. There must be a pretext for remaining under arms and keeping control of London.

The king replied briefly that such changes would require much thought and earnest discussion, adding that he would grant all that he had the right to concede, “saving the regalities of my crown,” a phrase which would be used on many historic occasions later when the people of England were at odds with their rulers.

A silence fell at this point. Tyler had spoken at considerable length and so he waited for something further from the king. When the silence became difficult, he called for a drink of ale. One of his men obliged by carrying a flagon across the open space and the leader tossed it off in thirsty gulps. Then he stared truculently around the set and angry faces of the king’s men and sprang into the saddle. His intention was to return to the far side of the plain where his followers stood in long lines, so far out of earshot that they had no means of knowing how things were progressing. The conference might very well have ended there, and what the final outcome would have been can only be surmised. But, as so often happens, a minor actor in the drama chose this moment to intrude himself.

A voice from the ranks behind the king spoke up.

“I recognize this fellow. He’s a notorious highwayman and robber.”

This stung the inflamed pride of Wat the Tyler. He swung his horse around and gave the lie to his accuser. The latter repeated the charge.

Wat kicked the flank of his mount and rode head on into the ranks about the king. Walworth acted with equal dispatch, planting his horse in the rebel’s path and crying that he was under arrest. The dagger in Wat’s hand cut a deep rent in the mayor’s tabard but slipped harmlessly off the armor plate beneath. Walworth’s sword was surer, wounding the peasant leader in the head and neck and forcing him to try blindly to escape. The hackney had galloped only a short distance into the open space when he fell out of the saddle.

The peasants were too far away to hear, but they saw what had happened. Their ranks broke and they began to race across the fields, many of them fitting feathered bolts into the notch as they ran. “Kill! Kill!” was the shout they raised. A moment’s delay in facing the situation would have resulted in a flight of arrows and the annihilation of the king’s party.

Richard rose to the occasion with true Plantagenet courage. Not waiting for the support of his followers, he touched the flank of his horse and rode out to face the angry mob charging across the plains. Never again in the course of his stormy career would the boy king show to such advantage.

“What need ye, my masters?” he cried. “Ye seek a leader? I am your captain and your king. Follow me!”

The angry men of Kent and Essex came to a halt. Hands were withdrawn from taut bows. They stared in wonder at this youth who faced them alone. For the moment they forgot that the body of their leader, pierced with many sword wounds, lay motionless on the ground while his riderless horse galloped off the field.

Then these men from the soil, who had started out honestly to claim the right to be free, demonstrated it had been a sincere loyalty which inspired the oath, “For Richard and the True Commons.” They returned to the positions they had held before, the king riding with them. They began to ask him questions. Would he grant them the reforms they believed necessary to make life bearable? Could they return to their homes in full confidence that the promises would be carried out?