ON THE HEATH 27 



the November boughs, the incident shaped more 

 picturesquely than any other happening on this spot 

 that I can think of. 



As for Blackhcath, it seems that when, in older 

 days, people had assignations on the Dover Road, they 

 generally selected this place for the purpose ; whether 

 they were kings and emperors that met ; or ambas- 

 sadors, archbishops, rebels, or rival pretenders to the 

 crown, they each and all came here to shake hands 

 and interchange courtesies, or to speak with their 

 enemies in the gate. It is very impressive to find 

 Blackhcath thus and so frequently honoured by the 

 great ones of the earth ; but it is also not a little 

 embarrassing to the historian who wants to be getting 

 along down the road, and j^et desires to tell of all the 

 pageants that here befell, and how the high contending 

 parties variously saluted or sliced one another, as the 

 case might be. Indeed, to write the history of Black- 

 heath would be to despair of ever seeing JDover, and 

 so, instead of beginning with Aulus Plautius, or any of 

 the masterful Roman generals who doubtless had 

 something to say to those cerulean Britons on this 

 spot, I will skip the centuries, and only note the more 

 outstanding and interesting occasions on which the 

 heath has figured largely. Hie we then from the first 

 to the fourteenth century, when, in 1381, Wat, the 

 Tiler of Dartford, encamped here as leader of a hundred 

 thousand insurgents. The fount and origin of this 

 famous rebellion has ever been popularly sought in the 

 historic incident of Dartford, in which the tax- 

 gatherer lost his life ; but a discontent had long 

 been smouldering among the people, which needed 

 only an eloquent happening of this nature to be 

 fanned into a flame. The Poll Tax was one of the 

 greatest grievances of the time, and the high rent 

 of land was even more burdensome. The price of 

 land might, perhaps, have been borne with, for it 

 was of gradual growth, and regulated more or less 

 by the law of su))i)]y and demand, but the Poll Tax 



