AGRARIAN REVOLUTIONS OF THE PAST 23 



imaginations had become inflamed by bloodshed. 

 These consisted of the abolition of market tolls, the 

 commutation of all manorial services into a fixed 

 maximum rent per acre, the cessation of all menial 

 offices, and the seigniorial surrender of game rights. 

 In their anxiety to annul their bargain with the land- 

 lords, they destroyed the manor rolls whenever they 

 could get hold of them, and, on their march to Black- 

 heath, killed all the land-stewards who fell in their 

 way." 6 



The revolt started in the eastern and midland 

 counties and rapidly spread to all England south of 

 the Thames. "But the growth of discontent," says 

 Green, "varied with every district." Hume in his 

 History of England says: "Before the government 

 had the least warning of the danger, the disorder had 

 grown beyond control or opposition; the populace 

 had shaken off all regard to their former masters; 

 and being headed by the most audacious and crimi- 

 nal of their associates, who assumed the feigned 

 names of Wat Tyler, Jack Straw, Hob Carter, and 

 Tom Miller, by which they were fond of denoting 

 their mean origin, they committed everywhere the 

 most outrageous violence on such of the gentry or 

 nobility as had the misfortune to fall into their 

 hands." 



The young King, Richard II, was compelled to 

 retreat before his rebellious subjects. We are told 



Annals of the British Peasantry (1895), Chapter V, pp. 59 

 and 60. 



