hen Adam delv'd and Eve span,
Where was then the gentleman?

The imposition of three groats a head had been farmed out to
tax-gatherers in each county, who levied the money on the people with
rigor; and the clause, of making the rich ease their poorer neighbors
of some share of the burden, being so vague and undeterminate, had
doubtless occasioned many partialities, and made the people more
sensible of the unequal lot which Fortune had assigned them in
the distribution of her favors. The first disorder was raised by a
blacksmith in a village of Essex. The tax-gatherers came to this man's
shop while he was at work, and they demanded payment for his daughter,
whom he asserted to be below the age assigned by the statute. One of
these fellows offered to produce a very indecent proof to the contrary,
and at the same time laid hold of the maid; which the father resenting,
immediately knocked out the ruffian's brains with his hammer. The
bystanders applauded the action, and exclaimed, that it was full time
for the people to take vengeance on their tyrants, and to vindicate
their native liberty. They immediately flew to arms: the whole
neighborhood joined in the sedition: the flame spread in an instant over
the county: it soon propagated itself into that of Kent, of Hertford,
Surrey, Sussex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridge, and Lincoln. Before the
government had the least warning of the danger, the disorder had grown
beyond control or opposition: the populace had shaken off all regard
to their former masters; and being headed by the most audacious and
criminal of their associates, who assumed the feigned names of Wat
Tyler, Jack Straw, Hob Carter, and Tom Miller, by which they were fond
of denoting their mean origin, they committed every where the most
outrageous violence on such of the gentry or nobility as had the
misfortune to fall into their hands.

The mutinous populace, amounting to a hundred thousand men, assembled on
Blackheath under their leaders, Tyler and Straw; and as the princess
of Wales, the king's mother, returning from a pilgrimage to Canterbury,
passed through the midst of them, they insulted her attendants, and some
of the most insolent among them, to show their purpose of levelling all
mankind, forced kisses from her; but they allowed her to continue her
journey, without attempting any further injury.[*] They sent a message
to the king, who had taken shelter in the Tower; and they desired a
conferenc