BATTLE OF BOSSENDEN 179 



tainment, encouragement, and monetary contributions 

 attended on their belief. 



Matters came to a crisis toward the end of May. 

 Courtenay had marched the country round with 

 agricultural labourers and others who had left their 

 work in the fields to follow the Lord, and the farmers 

 who thus saAv their fields remaining untilled grew 

 anxious. One, bolder than the rest, applied to the 

 magistrate for the detention of his men who had thus 

 left their employment ; and, with a local constable 

 named Mears and two others, he came up with 

 Courtenay's band on the morning of May 31st. 



Ever since the 28th of that month, Courtenay had 

 been tramping the roads and lanes with a band of 

 about one hundred rustics. Starting from Boughton 

 on that day, they had bought bread, and, placing 

 half a loaf on a pole, above a blue-and-white flag bearing 

 a lion rampant, had marched through Goodnestone, 

 Hernhill, and Dargate Common, where they all fell 

 down on their knees while Courtenay prayed. Then 

 they proceeded to Bossenden Farm, where they supped 

 and slept in a barn. Leaving Bossenden at three 

 o'clock the next morning, their leader took them to 

 Sittingbourne, where he procured breakfast for the 

 whole party at a cost of 25s. The rest of the day was 

 spent in parading the country round Boughton, and 

 the next evening was spent again at Bossenden Farm. 

 The following morning, Mears the constable, with his 

 l)arty of three, came up with them in a meadow, and 

 demanded the surrender of the farmers' men. The men 

 refused to leave, and Courtenay shot the constable dead 

 on the spot. Alarmed at this, the others rode off 

 hastily to Canterbury for military assistance, while 

 Courtenay administered the sacrament to his men 

 in bread-and-water. All knelt down and worshipped 

 him, and a farmer, one Alexander Foad, kneeling, 

 asked '' should he follow him in body or in heart ? " 

 " In the body," replied Courtenay ; whereupon Foad 

 sprang up, exclaiming, " Oh ! be joyful, be joyful ! 



