THE PEASANTS’ REVOLT OF 1381. 17 
property, forgetting the superior rights of their fellow-men to 
personal liberty and equal justice. As early as possible in the 
session, the treasurer, Sir Hugh Seagrave, explained the course 
taken by the king, admitted that the granting of the manumissions 
was contrary to good faith and the law of the land, stated that the 
policy had been justified by its success, and that the charters had 
been revoked as soon as it was safe to do so. The king, however, 
he said, was willing that the bondsmen should be enfranchised in 
a proper and legal manner if the three estates of the realm desired 
that it should be so. In the reply there was no appearance of a 
desire to smooth matters by a compromise, but the king was 
informed that Parliament viewed with satisfaction the revoking of 
the manumissions, that the serfs were their goods, and the king 
could not take their goods from them without their own consent. 
‘“This consent we have never given,” they added, ‘‘and never 
will give.” This uncompromising attitude was only possible, 
because the common danger had caused the propertied classes, 
both lay and clerical, to place on one side their differences, and 
to combine for their common safety. In spite of the declaration 
of the propertied classes in Parliament to stand on their rights, 
the cause of the peasants was really won. No one desired to see 
a second revolt, and it became evident that service unwillingly 
rendered was too expensive to be maintained. Eventually, 
though gradually, all was granted; money rent was accepted 
universally in lieu of labour rent, and no further attempt was 
made to degrade the free labourer to the position of a slave. 
Here I must bring my paper to a close. The picture I have 
had to draw has been a gloomy one, the tale I have told has been 
one of gross oppression on the part of the privileged classes, lead- 
ing eventually, as all tyranny unredressed naturally does lead, to 
an ungovernable outbreak of popular fury. No lesson would 
appear to have been sufficient to teach the governing classes in 
the latter half of the fourteenth century that the poor had rights 
as well as duties. Had they been less selfish they might have 
learnt the terrible consequences of driving men to extremities by 
the frightful enormities perpetrated by the Jacquerie in France 
