s protests
against the wealth and sluggishness of the clergy, and we can hardly doubt
that in the general turmoil their denunciation of ecclesiastical wealth
passed often into more general denunciations of the proprietary classes.

[Sidenote: John Ball]

As the spring went by quaint rimes passed through the country, and served
as a summons to revolt. "John Ball," ran one, "greeteth you all, and doth
for to understand he hath rung your bell. Now right and might, will and
skill, God speed every dele." "Help truth," ran another, "and truth shall
help you! Now reigneth pride in price, and covetise is counted wise, and
lechery withouten shame, and gluttony withouten blame. Envy reigneth with
treason, and sloth is take in great season. God do bote, for now is tyme!"
We recognize Ball's hand in the yet more stirring missives of "Jack the
Miller" and "Jack the Carter." "Jack Miller asketh help to turn his mill
aright. He hath grounden small, small: the King's Son of Heaven he shall
pay for all. Look thy mill go aright with the four sailes, and the post
stand with steadfastness. With right and with might, with skill and with
will; let might help right, and skill go before will, and right before
might, so goeth our mill aright." "Jack Carter," ran the companion missive,
"prays you all that ye make a good end of that ye have begun, and do well,
and aye better and better: for at the even men heareth the day." "Falseness
and guile," sang Jack Trewman, "have reigned too long, and truth hath been
set under a lock, and falseness and guile reigneth in every stock. No man
may come truth to, but if he sing 'si dedero.' True love is away that was
so good, and clerks for wealth work them woe. God do bote, for now is
time." In the rude jingle of these lines began for England the literature
of political controversy: they are the first predecessors of the pamphlets
of Milton and of Burke. Rough as they are, they express clearly enough the
mingled passions which met in the revolt of the peasants: their longing for
a right rule, for plain and simple justice; their scorn of the immorality
of the nobles and the infamy of the court; their resentment at the
perversion of the law to the cause of oppression.

[Sidenote: The Peasant Rising]

From the eastern and midland counties the restlessness spread to all
England south of the Thames. But the grounds of discontent varied with
every district. The actual outbreak began on the 5th of June at Dart