50 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH RURAL HISTORY 



of prisoners were taken, and two special commissions were 

 appointed to try them. It is recorded that " three hundred 

 prisoners lay in the gaol at Winchester, and when the Court 

 met they were brought in batches of twenty at a time, 

 and every one had sentence of death recorded against 

 him." Some of the leaders were actually hanged, and 

 several hundred men and boys, in all, were transported. 

 The heartlessness of this treatment is still remembered in 

 many corners of rural England. Thus was the Last 

 Labourers' Revolt crushed with heartless rigour, and the 

 toilers on the soil were driven back into a silent poverty. 



