90 SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS, AND THE 



cc servitude, as that they may have you before their eyes, and 

 C you may supply them with a perpetual ground for cursing 

 " and fearing you." But the rustics gained their freedom at 

 no distant date, if indeed, as appears likely, they were included 

 in the election statute of Henry the Fourth, under the head of 

 suitors in the county court. 



Ball was taken prisoner at Coventry, and condemned by 

 Tresilian. Seven years afterwards Tresilian was executed at 

 the instance of the Duke of Gloucester, and in the same year 

 Sir Simon Burley, who had imprisoned a Gravesend burgess in 

 Rochester castle on the plea of villenage, and provoked the 

 men of Kent and Essex to rebellion. 



Walsingham has preserved a singular rhyming letter of this 

 priest, copies of which were, it appears, circulated among the 

 Essex labourers : " John Schep, sometime St. Mary priest of 

 cc York, and now of Colchester, greeteth well John Nameless, 

 " and John the Miller, and John Carter, and biddeth them 

 " that they beware of guile in borough, and stand together in 

 " God's name, and biddeth Piers Plowman go to his work, 

 " and chastise well Hob the Robber, and take with you John 

 " Trueman and his fellows and no more. John the Miller 

 " hath ground small, small, small. The King's Son of heaven 

 " shall pay for all. Beware or be woe, know your friend 

 cc from your foe, have enough and say hoe. And so well and 

 cc better, and flee sin and seek peace and hold you therein, and 

 cc so biddeth John Trueman and his fellows." 



The insurrection was crushed by the unsparing execution of 

 all who had taken a leading part in fomenting and guiding it. 

 But the disaffection remained, and might hereafter produce 

 effects far more serious than those from which society had, 

 as by a miracle, escaped. Although a single week saw the 

 beginning and end of this servile war, it could not be forgotten 

 that the rioters were nearly successful ; that the combination, 

 of which the outbreak was but the expression, was thoroughly 

 organized, and that there could be no possibility of preventing 

 the spread of secret intelligence among those who were so 



