I20 LAND REFORM 



John Ball declared that the priests had no such 

 rio^hts. The town-folk of St. Albans resisted. 

 Grindecobbe, one of their number, a constant man, 

 encouraged and led them on, assuring them that they 

 would not lack support in the town, and that the 

 people of the villages around would come to their 

 assistance. The charges formulated against the 

 abbot and monks of St. Albans were, "(i) injustice 

 and tyranny against the peasantry, (2) oppression of 

 the Commons, (3) retention of the wages of the poor 

 and the enslaved." The leaders of the outbreak 

 were arrested and would have been dealt with in the 

 usual way, but the people of St. Albans issued a 

 declaration that "if any of the men arrested were put 

 to death one hundred of their opponents should be 

 killed for each one of their friends so executed."^ 



This state of things at St. Albans is referred to 

 here to show how impossible it was for Walsingham — 

 himself one of the monks of the abbey — to take 

 anything but a partisan view of the proceedings he 

 recorded ; and therefore the views of the later chroni- 

 clers who adopted so largely Walsingham's account, 

 should be regarded in this light.^ 



classes, for which object a considerable portion of the monastic revenues 

 were set aside. St. Albans and one or two other religious com- 

 munities seem to have been an exception to this rule. One at least 

 of these was attacked by the insurgents on the avowed grounds that 

 the monks had inclosed, and were inclosing, land belonging to the 

 commoners. 



^ Walsingham's " Chronicles." 



" At the trials of the prisoners at St. Albans, after the rebellion, no 

 lawful jury could be found to convict, and it was only by severe threats 

 and infamous jury-packing that convictions could be secured at all. 

 Even then, writes Walsingham, " They would have preferred to give a 

 false verdict." He evidently regarded any verdict, except that of guilty, 

 as a false one. 



