114 LAND REFORM 



classes.^ More money was wanted, and a poll tax was 

 decreed of a groat (fourpence) per head to be paid by- 

 all persons above the age of fifteen. No doubt this 

 fresh extortion added fuel to the flames ; but the 

 cause of the revolt lay far deeper. Indeed, it is 

 questionable if the incident of the killing of the tax- 

 collector had anything to do with Wat Tyler. The 

 matter is immaterial, but Stow in his "Chronicles" 

 describes the occurrence as follows : " One of the Col- 

 lectors of the grotes coming to the house of one John 

 Tylar in Dartford (Wat Tyler belonged to Maidstone) 

 demanded a grote from Tylar's wife, for herself, hus- 

 band, servants and her daughter. She was willing to 

 pay for all except her daughter, who, she said, was a 

 child and not a woman." The collector denied this 

 and committed an indecent assault on the girl, as it is 

 stated he had done in other cases. " Thereupon," the 

 chronicler continues, "great tumult ensued and the 

 Tylar met the collector and killed him with his 

 lathing staffe and everyone supported the said John 

 Tylar," etc. 



As to the subsequent proceedings of the " rebels " 

 all the chroniclers are in oreneral agreement. The 

 extraordinary rapidity with which the rebellion spread 

 throughout the English counties after the first out- 

 break at Dartford (5 June, 1381) shows how well 



1 Among the thirteen volumes of ancient documents — interesting in 

 almost every page — which Lord Somers collected, is to be found a remon- 

 strance bearing on this point addressed to Richard II. "The Com- 

 mons of this realm have poured out goods and innumerable sums of 

 money . . . have undergone such heavy taxes towards the maintenance 

 of wars that they are reduced to such incredible poverty that they cannot 

 so much as pay the rent for their farms, &:c., &c. . . . All these mischiefs 

 happen by reason of the King's evil ministers who have hitherto mis- 

 governed both King and Kingdom, &c." " Somers Tracts," Vol. I. 



