22 PROBLEMS OF VILLAGE LIFE 



other knit the whole of France's democracy 

 together, and the wonderful successes achieved 

 by the raw troops of the Republic at Valmy 

 and Jemappes bestowed a security of tenure 

 and a civic status on the small owners of 

 France which they have never lost. 



While their brethren in other lands gained 

 partial or complete successes the English 

 peasants failed utterly and completely. In 

 the three desperate risings of 1381, 1450 and 

 1549, they showed no lack indeed of courage 

 and enthusiasm, but their ill-equipped forces 

 were ultimately crushed by the royal levies or 

 imported mercenaries. 1 Good men and true 

 like Tyler, Ball and Kett died in the midst of 

 manifest failure, seeing the promise of better 

 things from afar but not having attained unto 

 them. Contemporary chroniclers combined to 

 misrepresent and calumniate the peasants 

 and their leaders, and nowadays the children 

 of labourers in village schools are taught hi 

 current textbooks to ignore or condemn the 

 men who died in a vain attempt to secure 

 justice for the oppressed forefathers of the 

 hamlet. It is indeed a bitter piece of histori- 

 cal irony that the exploits of Elizabethan 

 buccaneers should be cherished while the very 



1 The Norfolk labourers were slaughtered at Dussindale 

 by Italian infantry and " Alleman Horse." 



