GENERAL DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 91 



profoundly discontented at their social condition. The harsh- 

 ness with which the rioters were punished did not, I conceive, 

 at that time, as it never has at any other time, break the 

 spirit of the people, or render them tamely submissive to 

 authority, still less acquiescent in that which they believed 

 to be a wrong. 



General pardons were granted to such persons as had com- 

 mitted breaches of the peace, or had inflicted summary punish- 

 ment on the rioters during the continuance of the insurrection. 

 Immediately, too, after the suppression of the outbreak, a list 

 was published containing the names of those who had been 

 prominent leaders of the rebels, with a view to indictments 

 being immediately preferred against them. The names are 

 contained in the Rolls of Parliament. Seventeen are set down 

 to Norfolk, twenty to Suffolk, four of whom are beneficed 

 clergy, four to Cambridge, eleven to Essex, four to Herts, 

 twenty-three to Middlesex, one hundred and fifty-one to 

 London, eight to Winchester, twenty to Kent, eight to Sussex, 

 eleven to Somerset, and eight to Canterbury. Most of the 

 rioters in London were craftsmen, such as glovers, carpenters, 

 and the like. 



There is a singular contrast to the severity with which the 

 villains were treated immediately on the suppression of their 

 rebellion in the lenity with which the authorities of Cambridge 

 were handled after an audacious breach of the peace, com- 

 mitted a few weeks before the insurrection of the peasantry. 

 On the goth of April, 1381, the Mayor of Cambridge, one 

 Lystere, and four of the bailiffs, Herries, Candesby, Cote and 

 Bloutesham, among other excesses, constrained the scholars 

 of the University to deliver up all charters conferring fran- 

 chises and privileges upon the students, which they burnt on 

 the spot, compelling the academics at the same time to give, 

 under their common seal, a formal renunciation of all their 

 privileges. The citizens were fined a hundred and one marks. 

 The justice executed on these municipal rioters was com- 

 paratively scanty; but we may gather from the transaction, 



