240 History of the Ejiglish Landed Interest. 



fited by the revolt ; but long before the ink of those thirty 

 clerks employed in copying the charter was dry, excesses had 

 been perpetrated and precious blood spilled which no royal 

 clemency could possibly condone. And yet even then no less 

 than three charters were submitted to the Tyler only to be 

 rejected with ignorant scorn. The demands of the insurgents 

 increased in proportion as they mistook their unchecked 

 violence for power. The total repeal of the forest laws, and 

 the liberty for the poor to hunt or fish on the warrens, parks, 

 woods and waters of private sportsmen, in other words, the 

 old popular rights of the Ager Publicus were added to their 

 former demands. The Government, thus forced to resist, soon 

 found itself able to crush out a rebellion undertaken by undis- 

 ciplined mobs, armed for the most part with sticks only. Wat 

 the Tj-ler was killed, the crowds dispersed, 1,800 of their ring- 

 leaders hanged, and in a few days the sheriffs were proclaiming 

 the charters of manumission null and void in every county 

 throughout England. 



If now we compare the results of the contest which occurred 

 betwixt King and People in John's reign with those of the 

 insurrection just related, we shall be better able to understand 

 the incidence of taxation during the period now before us. In 

 the scene at Eunnymeade we have dej)icted the success of a 

 capitalists' revolution, in that at Smithfield the failure of a 

 labourers' rebelhon. Accordingly, from the fall of the Tyler 

 onwards, we may expect to find but little relaxation of those 

 fiscal calls which the State had hitherto demanded of the 

 producer. Grants of wool were made as often as the English 

 kings wanted supplies. The disposal of produce and labour 

 continued to be restricted by statute law ; and poll taxes, hearth 

 pence, and even the percentage dues from personalty, weighed 

 heavily on the farmer at a period of English history when 

 agriculture was the principal, almost the only national indus- 

 try of importance, and the rural classes composed two-thirds of 

 the national population. 



Setting aside, however, the comparison between the taxation 

 incident on capital and that incident on labour, let us next con- 

 trast fiscal demands on commerce, with those on land. If we 



