The Land Burdens of the Ei'a. 239 



But wlien a king in his nonage succeeded to the vacant 

 throne, and the run of military luck had at last ceased, almost 

 anything sufficed to fire the combustible nature of the Com- 

 mons' discontent. The new poll tax of itself was perhaps in- 

 sufficient, but the coarse methods employed to test the validity 

 of excuses on the ground of age, aroused their righteous indig- 

 nation. 



The outrage on Wat Tyler's daughter was an incident which 

 not only fired the train of smouldering passion, but produced a 

 determined and justly furious leader, both able and willing to 

 direct the fierce flame of revolt which leaped up in Kent and 

 united itself with the fires already aglow in Essex. 



The forces of Jack Straw, the riotous priest, and those of 

 Walter, the maddened tyler, joined hands. The emancipation 

 of the serf had long formed the theme for ecclesiastical oratory, 

 and the addition of John Ball to the insurgent ranks gave an 

 impression to the uneducated that Heaven itself favoured the 

 rising. 



There was nothing very immoderate at the outset of the 

 revolt. In order to test their claims of social equality, they 

 kissed the ci-devant Fair Maid of Kent -once or twice, and 

 butchered a few especially obnoxious magnates, but their four 

 simple demands were neither absurd nor impossible. Tradition 

 must have reminded them that originally their claims on the 

 English soil were far more substantial than any that they at 

 present possessed. Now that their proprietary rights had 

 dwindled down to a mere shadow, they began to agitate for a 

 release from the lord's proprietary rights over themselves. 

 Legislation had recently limited their labour profits and 

 powers of barter ; so to legislation they now naturally turned 

 to limit their rents, and free their powers to buy and sell. 

 'id. an acre was not an extravagant limitation to place on 

 the letting value of even the best land, nor was free trade a 

 demand with which any enlightened economist of to-day can 

 find fault. These, together with the abolition of slavery and a 

 free pardon, were the four clauses which the king showed no 

 reluctance to confirm b}'- charter. 



Had matters rested thus, the entire nation would have bene- 



