A, D. 1380. 591 



About this time, according to the account of Zeno's voyage, with 

 Do6lor Forfter's geographical illuftration of it, the chief port of the 

 Orkney iflands was frequented by many veflels from Flanders, Bretagne, 

 England, Scotland, Norway, and Denmark, attracted by the vaft abund- 

 ance of fifh caught there, by means of which the inhabitants got great 

 wealth. {Forjler's Difcoveries in the North, pp. 183, 202, Engl, tranjl.'] 



1 38 1 — Capitation taxes, begun in the laft year of King Edward III, 

 now followed each other in rapid fucceffion. In the year 1379 thofe of 

 the higher ranks were made to pay for their titles as well as their pro- 

 perty ; for example, a duke or archbilhop £6 : 13:4, an earl, countefs 

 dowager, mayor of London, /^4 ; other mayors from 6/8 to 40/; merch- 

 ants from iJ6 to 2of, &c. and every perfon, male or female, above fix- 

 teen, 4<^. In 1380 a tax of twelve pennies was impofed upon every 

 perfon of either fex above the age of fifteen, except mere beggars. 

 IParliam. hijl. V. i,pp. 346, 358.] Thefe taxes were exacted with much 

 tyrannic rigour, indecency, and brutal infult, infinitely more galling 

 than the payment itfelf. The confequence was an infurredion of the 

 lower clafs of the people, whom the feverity of depreffion, and per- 

 haps fome faint glimpfe of the independence which commerce and ma- 

 nufadtui'es were deilined to confer upon their pofterity, difpofed to en- 

 gage in any defperate attempt to meliorate their condition. For fome 

 little time they carried all before them, and were, as may be fuppofed, 

 guilty of many atrocities. They obtained from the king charters for 

 the abolition of flavery, for freedom of trade, and for the fubftitution 

 of money rents for lands in place of oppreffive fervices. But Walter, 

 a Kentifti tiler, who was their leader, being killed by William Walworth 

 mayor of London (June 15'"), the unorganized multitude were imme- 

 diately difperfed: and fimilar tumults in other parts of the country were 

 alfo quelled. Then the king, or rather his counfelors, confidering the 

 charters of liberty as extorted, and ' prejudicial to the king, the nobles, 

 ' and the church,' revoked them, and ordered the villeins and others, 

 who were under feudal fubjedion to fuperiors, to return to the accufi:om- 

 ed duties and labours of their condition (July 2''). But thofe convul- 

 fions were not without beneficial confequences : they admonifhed the 

 feudal lords to be more moderate in the exadion of fervices, which had 

 no foundation in mutual agreement, and were not wan-anted by reci- 

 procal advantages ; they induced them to confent to the emancipation 

 of their villeins on moderate terms * ; and, though they were to all ap- 

 pearance completely fupprefl^ed, the remembrance of them infpired the 

 vaflals with a defire for the independence enjoyed by their brethren em- 

 ployed in trades in cities and burghs, and particularly in the woollen 



* Simon Burley demanded 300 pounds of filver and impn'fonment of the man, according to Stow, 

 for the freedom of one of his bondmen ; a price \_^iinales, p. 45 I ] provoked the infurredion in 

 perfeftlv equal to an abfolute denial : and his feizure Kent. 



