thing staff in his hand, and ran
reaking home; where, reasoning with the collector, who made him so bold,
the collector answered with stout words, and strake at the tyler; whereupon
the tyler, avoiding the blow, smote the collector with his lathing staff,
so that the brains flew out of his head. Wherethrough great noise arose in
the streets, and the poor people being glad, everyone prepared to support
the said John Tyler."

Now, with the fire of revolt in swift blaze, it was for the men of Kent to
see that it burned under some direction. Authority and discipline were
essential if the rising was not to become mob rule or mere anarchy, and if
positive and intolerable wrongs were to find remedies.

At Maidstone, on June 7th--after Rochester Castle had been stormed, its
prisoners set free and Sir John Newton its governor placed in safe
custody--Wat Tyler was chosen captain of the rebel hosts.

History tells us nothing of the antecedents of this remarkable man. For
eight days, and eight days only, he plays his part on the stage of national
events: commands with authority a vast concourse of men; meets the King
face to face, and wrests from sovereignty great promises of reform; orders
the execution of the chief ministers of the Crown, and then, in what seems
to be the hour of triumph, is struck to the ground, and goes to his death.

Under the accredited leadership of Wat Tyler the revolt at once took form.
Five days were spent in Kent before the peasant army marched on London. The
manor houses were attacked, and all rent rolls, legal documents, lists of
tenants and serfs destroyed. The rising was not a ferocious massacre like
the rising of the Jacquerie in France; there was no general massacre of
landlords, or reign of terror. The lawyers who managed the landowners'
estates were the enemy, and against them--against the instruments of
landlord tyranny--was the anger of the peasants directed. In the same way
John of Gaunt, and not the youthful King, was recognised as the evil
influence in government; and while a vow was taken by the men of Kent that
no man named "John" should be King of England, the popular cry was "King
Richard and the Commons," and all who joined in this were accounted friends
of the insurgent populace.

Blackheath was reached on the evening of June 12th, and early the following
morning, which was Corpus Christi Day, John Ball--released by a thousand
hands from his prison at Maidstone--preached to the mult