130 LAND REFORM 



could ignore laws altogether if it suited their purpose 

 to do so. 



After all, the excesses committed during the short 

 time the rebellion lasted — deplorable as they were — 

 cannot be placed in the same scale with the daily- 

 sufferings, the brandings, the hangings, and other 

 villainies, legal and illegal, inflicted on the peasantry 

 by the dominant class. ^ 



Most of the leading men who suffered at the hands 

 of the insurgents were those who had made them- 

 selves notorious for extortion and wrong-doing, or 

 obnoxious by their evil counsels to the king or by 

 their open and inveterate hostility to the people. 

 The beheading of Sir John de Cavendish — regarded 

 by some of the chroniclers with horror — was the result 

 of his known zeal in maltreating the peasantry. " He 

 had been granted an extra salary as a Justice for en- 

 forcing the Statute of Labourers in Essex." (Powell.) 



The present writer is no judge of an education 

 founded on the literature and history of ancient 

 nations ; of old " republics" which were only republic 

 in name; of "democratic" states in which the prin- 

 ciple of democracy never existed ; but he is convinced 

 of the advantages that would accrue to the young 

 from a closer study of the social and domestic history 

 of their own country. The study of the struggles, 

 continued for centuries, of the English peasantry ; of 

 their constant qualities and marvellous staying power 

 as recorded in the old chronicles, is a fascinating one. 

 Volumes have been written of the splendid deeds that 



' Tliough London and the counties around lay for a time at the mercy 

 of the insurgents, there is no case hinted at in which a woman was hurt. 

 Compare this with Froissart's account of the brutal doings of the "noble 

 order" of chivalry after the capture of Limoges. 



