When Medieval Peasants Attacked London

In 1381, thousands of ordinary people rose up against the Crown, marched on London, and came close to bringing England’s political establishment to its knees... In this episode, Anthony and Maddy are joined by our very own Matt Lewis to discuss the Peasants’ Revolt: why it happened, who led it, and what this extraordinary uprising tells us about life in medieval England. This episode was edited by Anna Brant. Produced by Tomos Delargy and McKenna Fernandez. The senior producer was Freddy Chick. UK listeners: voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards! Click to place your vote on the Spotify mobile app: https://open.spotify.com/s/xhg6PJa Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener surveyhere https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK. All music from Epidemic Sounds. After Dark is a History Hit podcast. History Hit is part of Little Dot Studios, a Certified B Corp™ Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards. Click to place your vote on the Spotify mobile app: https://open.spotify.com/s/xhg6PJa Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hello After Darkers. Now brace yourselves for a public service announcement.

• 0:04Anthony Delaney?

  History Hit, the production company behind After Dark, also makes documentaries. And I'm talking beautifully shot, fantastically told, immersive histories on screen. There's hundreds and hundreds available to watch right now, online at historyhit.com, with a new release each week.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  There's a lot to digest there, but guys, take a deep breath because there is more. Anthony and I have made two new History Hit TV documentaries. I have recently made one about London's most notorious haunting, the Cock Lane Ghost, based on my new book Hoax, that is releasing for Halloween.

• 0:36Anthony Delaney?

  And I've got one following that, about the Great Irish Famine, which is coming soon.

• 0:41Speaker 00

  To see what's on offer and to subscribe, visit historyhit.com/subscribe to start exploring the past. London, 1381. A teenage king sits behind the walls of the Tower of London. Outside, thousands of rebels have flooded into the capital. They've burned records, stormed prisons, and have executed several members of the king's inner circle. Their demands are simple: freedom, justice, and an end to the taxes and feudal obligations that have bound them for generations. At their head stands Wat Tyler, a man who, just weeks earlier, was virtually unknown.

• 1:22Speaker 00

  Now, he's leading a rebellion that threatens the kingdom itself. From the chaotic mess that is medieval England, welcome to After Dark.

• 1:39Speaker 00

  Hello and welcome to After Dark. I'm Maddie.

• 1:41Anthony Delaney?

  And I'm Anthony. We are taking you back to 1381 in today's episode, where thousands of ordinary people rose up against the crown, marched on London, and came close to bringing England's political establishment to its knees. Today, we're exploring the Peasants' Revolt: Why It Happened, Who Led It, and what this extraordinary uprising tells us about life in medieval England.

• 2:05Speaker 00

  Today's guest is none other than History Hit's very own Matt Lewis, our resident expert on all things medieval history. Listeners have caught him, can catch him, will catch him on our sister show Gone Medieval, as well as Echoes of History. You're a bit greedy, Matt, with your two podcasts.

• 2:21Anthony Delaney?

  Yeah, you're the only one, right?

• 2:23Speaker 02

  I'm literally all over the place and figuratively all over the place.

• 2:25Speaker 00

  We love that for you.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  Peasants' Revolt, there's a film about to come out. How are you feeling about it?

• 2:31Anthony Delaney?

  I'm excited to see it. I mean, I've only seen the trailer at this point. It looks traditionally medieval, grey, muddy, and miserable.

• 2:40Speaker 00

  It was all grayscale in the medieval period. I'm surprised you don't know that as a medieval historian.

• 2:45Anthony Delaney?

  That bothers me slightly. It looks like it's just going to be a big violent historical epic, which I'm here for. I wonder whether it's going to be another Braveheart to bookend the century with, but we'll find out.

• 2:56Speaker 00

  Oh, interesting. Can't beat a Braveheart, too.

• 3:00Anthony Delaney?

  I love Braveheart. It's atrocious history, but it's a brilliant film.

• 3:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, it is. Apart from the whole, I hate the dead wife, so I go for vengeance trope, which is just, like, so frustrating. But yes.

• 3:12Anthony Delaney?

  Would you not look for vengeance if someone killed your wife? I'm not challenging you. I haven't seen it, so I don't know.

• 3:17Speaker 00

  No, I would, but it's just, she was an interesting character. Could we not have kept her in?

• 3:22Anthony Delaney?

  Oh, I see, I see, I see, I see, I see. I should probably watch it. I haven't seen it.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  You need to watch Braveheart.

• 3:27Anthony Delaney?

  I need to watch more films, I think.

• 3:29Speaker 00

  You've not seen Braveheart?

• 3:30Anthony Delaney?

  No. And we discovered during lunch break, I haven't seen, what is it?

• 3:33Speaker 00

  Indiana Jones.

• 3:34Speaker 02

  Any Indiana Jones films?

• 3:35Anthony Delaney?

  Any Indiana Jones.

• 3:36Speaker 00

  Not a single one, even though he's dressed as Indiana Jones.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  I had a high opinion of you before today started. You were wrong.

• 3:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, you're cancelled. You're cancelled now. Let's do some history, Matt. We are in the 14th century. Medieval England in this time, it's not a great century, is it? There's a lot going on. There's death and destruction everywhere we look. Talk us through some of that sad destruction.

• 4:01Anthony Delaney?

  It is a fairly horrific century. It's been positioned as the worst century in history to have been alive.

• 4:05Speaker 00

  I think that might be fair, actually.

• 4:08Anthony Delaney?

  There is a lot that goes on. It starts off around 1315 with the Great Famine. Does exactly what it says on the tin.

• 4:15Speaker 00

  Great start.

• 4:15Anthony Delaney?

  Crops fail for about four years in a row, so everybody is starving to death. There is talk of cannibalism. Edward II can't get enough bread for his household. So even the king, even the king is struggling to get food during the Great Famine.

• 4:28Speaker 00

  It's quite hard to imagine the scale of that, actually, isn't it?

• 4:31Anthony Delaney?

  It is, I think. Today, when, you know, we've got tins of stuff in the cupboards and things like that, the idea that nobody can even get a loaf of bread.

• 4:40Speaker 00

  So what caused the Great Famine, do we know?

• 4:42Anthony Delaney?

  Just climate shifts. So we're moving out of the medieval warm period into the Little Ice Age here. So there is a big shift in the climate.

• 4:50Speaker 00

  Climate change isn't good, kids.

• 4:51Anthony Delaney?

  Rivers are flooding everywhere. It's not going very well.

• 4:55Speaker 00

  So we have that. Then we've got, just, you know, if you're sat at home hungry without your bread, we've then got some sickness and disease coming our way as well.

• 5:04Anthony Delaney?

  A little touch of the Black Death. There is a school of thought. So we don't know the why pestis that causes the Black Death has been around for thousands and thousands of years. What we don't know is quite why it causes this humongous problem in the middle of the 14th century. And some people have suggested that it might link back to the Great Famine, that there was this base malnutrition in people who had gone for years in their youth without enough food, that caused something that allowed

• 5:32Speaker 00

  That's so fascinating.

• 5:33Anthony Delaney?

  to take hold and suddenly cause this massive mortality. So we get the Black Death begins to spread its way across the world. We quite often think about how it affects Europe. We forget how it affects North Africa, the Near East, and into China and places like that, too.

• 5:49Speaker 00

  And that's largely because of trade networks, right?

• 5:51Anthony Delaney?

  This is because we've got thriving trade. The Silk routes are in full flow. We've got the Pax Mongolica, the peace of the Mongols, so that everything is settled. Trade is flowing really freely, usually a great thing. Not so good when there's a pathogen trying to find hosts to take it further and further away. Finds its way into Europe, hits England in 1348, and wipes out, estimates vary, up to half the population of Europe is wiped out. Some people suggest maybe half the population of the world, if you add it across. We don't know how far it goes into Sub-Saharan Africa. It becomes really difficult to tell how far it reaches down there.

• 6:33Anthony Delaney?

  But it's everywhere, and if you get it, you are probably going to die from it.

• 6:38Speaker 00

  And this must have been, for people living in this moment, you talked about, you know, people living with malnutrition for most of their life with the famine, and, you know, this lasting years and years, and then you've got the Black Death.

• 6:49Speaker 00

  What would that do to the mentality of people in the 14th century? You know, I mean, we think, and I know it's a comparison that is, like, slightly anachronistic and not particularly useful, but just to think back to Covid and, like, how our mentality as a society changed so much and the psychological effect it had on us as a group, but also individually in our households, all of that. What is this doing to how people view the world? You know, the medieval period is obsessed with the apocalypse at the best of times, let alone during this moment. Is it, you know, are they just trying to survive? Are they looking around them and thinking, this is punishment from God? Are they seeing this moment as particularly extraordinary?

• 7:32Speaker 00

  Or are we looking back with a historian's eye and going, blimey, the 14th century was rough?

• 7:37Anthony Delaney?

  They are seeing this as apocalyptic. You know, there were lots of schools of thought that the year 1000 was going to be the end of the universe. So there's a sense in which they feel like they're living on borrowed time already. So by the time you get to the mid 14th century and you've got the Black Death coming, it's actually doing, I mean, this is a really, really interesting question. It's doing two big things. It's destroying trust in the church and it's destroying trust in the state. And if both of those are happening at the same time, in a medieval world that revolves around the church and is held together by the state, you've got real problems. Because the two things that are going on is, people think, well, why is this pandemic happening? Why do bad things happen in the world? They happen because God is annoyed with us. Because we've sinned, we're not doing things properly.

• 8:22Anthony Delaney?

  Therefore, we need to put this right. And the church is saying, you know, you need to pray more. You need to live better lives. There are sermons that are preached in, I think it's a bishop of Rochester, who's telling everyone that their shirts are too tight and their skirts are too short, and that's why they're all getting the Black Death. So you improve your life and this will go away. People try and improve their lives, and it doesn't go away. So all of these promises that the church has made them, their reliance on the church is now beginning to feel misplaced.

• 8:52Anthony Delaney?

  The other sort of spine of what they have is the state. The feudal system, and I'm going to say feudal, we can debate whether feudal system exists or not. I'm going to say the feudal.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  We can't, because we're not medievalists, but you can in the comments.

• 9:03Anthony Delaney?

  People will. Um. The feudal system relies on a contract. We often think about power just flowing up. But there is an element of it that comes back down because you work on your lord's land, you pay him taxes and everything like that. And he's supposed to provide you with protections. It's a big mafia protection racket, basically. What happens during the Black Death is that the government brings in, so people are dying left, right and centre. Ordinary people are inheriting more land from wider members of their family than they could ever have imagined. They're actually becoming wealthier. If you survive the Black Death, you're, you could become quite rich. And so they're then also, labour is short in the field. There's no one to bring the crops in. So they're thinking, well,

• 9:45Anthony Delaney?

  you used to pay me a penny a day for doing this. How about you pay me two pence or three pence? There's no one to do it. How about you pay me five pence and I'll bring it all in? And the, the elites are like, hang on, we can't be having this. I know, I know half the population's dead. You can't be earning more money than you were before. And so the government brings in ordinances of labourers the year after the Black Death hits, and then they enshrine this in statute a couple of years later, that set wages at pre-pandemic levels. So they essentially say, if you were earning a penny a day for this before the Black Death, it's illegal for you to be paid more than a penny a day for it afterwards.

• 10:19Speaker 00

  For doing maybe triple the work, quadruple the work, yeah.

• 10:22Anthony Delaney?

  There, you can't run away from the land that you're tied to as a serf. So even if you've managed to inherit from some distant cousins, you've got a big patch of land over there. You can't go to it because you're required to stay on this piece of land and work it for your lord. Because if you go, how's your lord going to get this land worked?

• 10:40Anthony Delaney?

  And so all of that, if you survive the Black Death, opportunity is presenting itself to you amidst the tragedy. And the government is immediately cutting all of that off. You can't have that. I mean, it reaches the point, they're still legislating for this in the thirteen sixties. The plague comes back several times over the decades that follow. They're still re-legislating this to the point where they now, in the thirteen sixties, say that if you run away from the land that you're on and you're caught, you'll have an F for false word branded into the middle of your forehead, so that people know you've tried to run away.

• 11:15Anthony Delaney?

  It's, it's horrific. And so for medieval people who've survived the Black Death and all of the tragedies that have gone with that, the church hasn't helped you and the state has actually hindered you.

• 11:25Speaker 00

  So it's a bit of a tinderbox really waiting to go up. And then obviously we have the Hundred Years' War as well. So there's, you know, there's just that in the background as well, cracking on. So that, you know, there's, there's sort of an obviously money going to the war effort as well. So as well as having, you know, a lack of support from the state, the church prompting you things that don't materialise. The state now need to levy new taxes, right? Partly to pay for the war effort, partly because I suppose everything's gone to shit in England. How is this gonna go down, Matt? Are these people who are stuck on the wages they were before the plague and are, you know, faced starvation and exhaustion and all have Fs branded into the forehead?

• 12:04Anthony Delaney?

  Yeah, I mean, imagine the government saying you can't possibly earn any more money, but we'd like you to pay more taxation from all of the money that we're imagining you have. It's not going to go down incredibly well. So taxation is, is kind of the straw that breaks the camel's back with the peasants revolt. So we've got these, these problems, these societal problems bubbling away over the decades that precede it. Taxation in the Middle Ages usually takes the form of a fractional tax in England. So if you live in the town, you will pay a tenth of the value of your movable goods. So that's everything but your house. So all of the property that you own, apart from your house, add it all up, divide it by

• 12:38Speaker 00

  So is someone literally coming into your house and saying, okay, Matt, you've got four mugs and a wooden chest and a coffee table and a duvet?

• 12:48Anthony Delaney?

  Not generally.

• 12:48Speaker 00

  Before you come in the comments.

• 12:50Anthony Delaney?

  Not generally, and that's part of the problem. So there's been an assessment of tax that gives you kind of a rough idea of what people should be paying. So in a town, you pay a tenth, in the countryside, you pay a fifteenth. So you pay a bit less if you live in the countryside. These tend to raise around about thirty eight thousand pounds for every round of taxation that takes place. In thirteen seventy one, so the government becomes convinced there's more money out there than they're raising. There hasn't been a reassessment of those valuations for, for quite a while. They're convinced everyone is rich despite all of the legislation to stop them being rich. And so in thirteen seventy one, they invent the parish tax and they levy an amount of money for every parish in England to raise more than that thirty eight thousand pounds for them to get it. When they get the money in, it's a fraction of what they're hoping it would be.

• 13:35Anthony Delaney?

  And it turns out someone has done the maths wrong. They've accounted for forty five thousand parishes in England and there's eight thousand parishes in England.

• 13:42Speaker 02

  Wait, they said, they said there was forty five thousand, but in reality there was eight thousand.

• 13:48Anthony Delaney?

  They just got it wrong.

• 13:51Anthony Delaney?

  Big wrong.

• 13:51Speaker 00

  That's the kind of maths I would do wrong.

• 13:55Speaker 00

  Okay, I mean, that's, that's wild. Who is paying tax? Who is eligible to pay tax in this society?

• 14:04Anthony Delaney?

  Everybody, and they vary this around this period. So through the thirteen seventies, we get more rounds of taxation. And it's worth pointing out that while the Hundred Years' War had been going well, they'd gone for fourteen years with no government taxation. Not once. So people aren't really used to paying tax because the war, success in the war is funding the government. So all of a sudden, they're getting hit with round after round of taxation. And by the time we get to thirteen seventy seven, they're inventing something called a poll tax.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  I've heard of it.

• 14:29Anthony Delaney?

  It's a flat fee for everybody. Everybody pays four pence, no matter how much money you've got or haven't got. Everyone over the age of fourteen pays four pence.

• 14:37Speaker 00

  Over the age of fourteen?

• 14:39Anthony Delaney?

  Because you should be working.

• 14:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course, sorry.

• 14:41Speaker 02

  You'll be dead by the time you're twenty eight.

• 14:44Anthony Delaney?

  You've got all that tax money to contribute. Get in the field and get working.

• 14:49Anthony Delaney?

  Doesn't raise anywhere near as much as, as they want. So in the same year, they put out a double subsidy of a fractional tax as well.

• 14:57Speaker 02

  A double subsidy? Okay, right.

• 14:59Anthony Delaney?

  So you're paying two tenths or two fifteenths. In a taxation.

• 15:02Speaker 00

  This is making me feel super anxious about filling in my own tax, tax self-assessment.

• 15:09Anthony Delaney?

  And then they managed, so thirteen seventy nine, they tried the second poll tax. And this is actually a massively progressive taxation. So they create thirty three levels of payment because the first poll tax had been four pence for everybody. But some rich members of the clergy had said, oh, I'll pay a bit more, I can afford it. And someone in the government had gone, ooh. There's, there's rich people who could pay more than that. And all of a sudden, they create exemptions for the poorest married couples. So it's four pence again for, for the lowest rate. But if you're a poor married couple, you can just pay one lot of four pence for the two of you. There are genuine exemptions for, for people like beggars and all of this kind of thing. And so they're, they're trying to be progressive, thirty three levels, up to dukes who are paying huge amounts of money and archbishops. Seems incredibly fair, doesn't it?

• 15:54Speaker 02

  There's a but.

• 15:55Anthony Delaney?

  There's a but. It doesn't raise as much money as they want it to.

• 15:59Anthony Delaney?

  In spite of the fact that this feels like

• 16:00Speaker 00

  Is it because the majority of the population are poor, Matt?

• 16:03Anthony Delaney?

  It might well be the fact that there aren't that many dukes and archbishops to be paying the massive whack of money. So in thirteen eighty, they fall back on what is the third poll tax, and this is the problematic one. This is the one that causes trouble. Third poll tax, war in France isn't going very well. We really need money. We're not raising as much as we need to every time. How about a flat rate of twelve pence?

• 16:24Speaker 02

  What? It's gone from four to twelve in how many years?

• 16:29Anthony Delaney?

  So the first poll tax is thirteen seventy seven. So three years, it's trebled.

• 16:34Speaker 00

  So if you're that poor married couple who were paying four pence between you, you're just screwed.

• 16:40Anthony Delaney?

  There's no married couples exemption this time either.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, so all those thirty three thingies are gone.

• 16:44Anthony Delaney?

  Yeah. If you were paying four pence for a poor married couple, you're now paying twenty four pence.

• 16:50Speaker 00

  That's, I mean, that's not, okay, so that's not doable. That's not a viable option.

• 16:53Anthony Delaney?

  It's not, it's not feasible. And surprise, surprise, they get the, the returns into the exchequer, nowhere near as much money as they thought. And now the government is thinking, someone is, is taking the mickie here.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, they are.

• 17:07Anthony Delaney?

  They can't see that. They think somebody else is. So thirteen eighty one, they send tax inspectors back out into the country to reassess everything. And this is the point where people are going into people's homes to see what they've got. And value it. And this is a real invasion that medieval people don't expect from the government.

• 17:22Speaker 00

  And this is a system that's open to all kinds of, you know, power-hungry abusers essentially, isn't it?

• 17:27Anthony Delaney?

  Absolutely. But the first thing, interestingly, the first thing that they do find is that thousands, tens of thousands of people in England have vanished.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  What? Oh, they were never there.

• 17:38Anthony Delaney?

  No, they, they were there. Since the last tax returns, in Essex, seventeen thousand people have disappeared. In Kent, thirteen thousand have disappeared.

• 17:47Speaker 00

  Are they just going to stand in the woods while the tax collectors come around?

• 17:50Anthony Delaney?

  In Suffolk, twenty seven thousand people have disappeared. Norfolk goes full in at thirty thousand people less.

• 17:56Speaker 02

  Fair play.

• 17:57Anthony Delaney?

  Communities are just hiding their poorest members.

• 17:59Speaker 02

  Stuff.

• 18:00Anthony Delaney?

  From the tax inspectors.

• 18:01Speaker 00

  Couldn't do this stage and I'll see now, could you?

• 18:03Anthony Delaney?

  So they're not being registered for taxation. So when they go and levy this twelve pence on everybody, there are tens of thousands of people who simply don't exist on the tax register anymore because their communities are hiding them because they know they can't afford it.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  That's kind of nice of the communities.

• 18:18Speaker 00

  Well, and it shows you just how impossible it was to pay if people literally had to go and hide. I mean, that's extraordinary. Just talking about the, the tax collectors or the tax assessors.

• 18:29Speaker 00

  I have here in my notes, is this true about that the there were certain tax collectors who became very notorious for you know, assessing who was responsible for paying tax. And you mentioned earlier that people as young as four, children as young as 14 upwards would have to pay tax. And in some cases, you know, you'd have people who were, yeah, essentially abusers and would be sort of checking for how old people were, sometimes sexually assaulting them. You know, it's a real frightening abuse of power from people who have been imbued with the authority from the state to go into these communities and not only take money off people, but also, you know, that that kind of violation as well as the.

• 19:09Anthony Delaney?

  This is, this is a really interesting aspect of it. It's difficult to be sure about what's going on. The story emerges that some tax collectors are sexually assaulting young girls in order to assess whether they think they're 14 and should be paying taxation. But there is absolutely zero contemporary evidence that this was happening.

• 19:32Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 19:32Anthony Delaney?

  There are stories that emerge in later centuries, most notably the 16th century, when chroniclers start to talk about tax collectors doing this. You get a story that Wat Tyler's daughter is one of those who is affected by this. And that that's a driver for him to join the rebellion.

• 19:47Speaker 00

  Well, we were talking about Braveheart and the sort of female violation, abuse, vengeance narrative. And, and you know, there's the hero's motivation and not to say that this didn't, I mean, this has been happening since time immemorial to women and girls, but it's interesting that that, and you say the 16th century, it appears as like, it's more of a narrative, right?

• 20:07Anthony Delaney?

  Yeah. And so whether, whether the new film will lean into that as part of Wat Tyler's motivations, I don't know. But in the 16th century, you also get broader stories that this was a practice from tax collectors. They come up with a couple of names of tax collectors from, you know, 150 years earlier that they're saying were doing these things.

• 20:27Anthony Delaney?

  It's really hard to know whether that is a cultural memory that's not written down until the 16th century. Or whether it's simply lascivious information that 16th century chroniclers are thinking, oh, it might well have been this.

• 20:40Speaker 00

  Right.

• 20:40Anthony Delaney?

  It's a detail I can add to make it salacious. It's hard to know. We have no contemporary evidence. No one is ever charged with doing this. There is a huge amount of litigation after the peasants revolt. None of which revolves around sexual assault by tax inspectors.

• 20:55Speaker 00

  Can I ask though, sexual assault in the 14th century, is this something that, that you could accuse someone of? And what would the outcome be? Is that even something that is like legislated against in this?

• 21:07Anthony Delaney?

  It is something that is legislated against, difficult to prove. Again, what's new?

• 21:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:13Anthony Delaney?

  It's one of those things that has always been hard to prove. But particularly 14 year old girls, unmarried girls, there's no such thing as rape within marriage during the medieval period, well, until fairly recently. So medieval society does not accept sexual assault. It's not part of everyday life. It is legislated against.

• 21:31Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 21:32Anthony Delaney?

  But it's, it's difficult to prove. If you're a 14 year old girl, how do you bring a case against a local government official?

• 21:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're not going to. Yeah. Okay. So, so there's all that going on. People are unable to pay their tax. They're going to hide when the tax collectors are coming around.

• 21:51Speaker 00

  You know, the potentially, these tax collectors are enjoying other privileges and abuses along the way, although you know, we talked about the, the evidence for that in this particular moment.

• 22:05Speaker 00

  When does this, when does the tension break then? And who are the people at the centre of what becomes the peasants revolt? Who are the, are we calling the rebels at this point in the story? I don't know. Who are the people who, who turn against this system and decide enough is enough?

• 22:22Anthony Delaney?

  Yeah, I, I think they would struggle to characterize themselves as rebels as throughout this process, they will position themselves as utterly loyal to the king, who at this point is 14 year old Richard the second.

• 22:32Speaker 00

  Right.

• 22:33Anthony Delaney?

  This is never about challenging the king and his royal authority. It's about challenging the authority of the people between them and the king, who they're blaming for all of this abuse. It kicks off in May 1381 in Brentwood in Essex.

• 22:48Anthony Delaney?

  And the tax inspectors roll into town. There's a couple of tax inspectors who've been beaten up around Oxfordshire by this point already. But they roll into, into Brentwood and announce that they're there to reassess the taxation. Yeah, we're going to come into your house, count all of your stuff and work out how much money you owe. And a man named Thomas Baker, who we otherwise don't really hear about in the peasant revolt, he's not one of the famous names. But he is the first one to step forward and say to these tax collectors, we've paid our share and we're not paying anymore.

• 23:15Speaker 00

  Oh, wow. I mean, that must have been a huge moment to, to witness that. And you'd be like, Thomas, what are you doing?

• 23:20Anthony Delaney?

  I think so. It's got to be an indication of how far they've been pushed and just how done with all of this they are. The, the royal representatives around the tax collector kind of draw their swords. All of the men of Brentwood string their bows. There's a bit of a standoff, turns into a bit of a scuffle. The tax collectors are chased out of Brentwood. But the people of Brentwood must have known, there's no way that's the end of it.

• 23:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:44Anthony Delaney?

  So they hold this meeting on the 2nd of June in a nearby village called Bocking. And they call for anyone who's willing to make a stand at this point to come forward. And they appear to be utterly shocked by the amount of people who turn up to this meeting. There is clearly a very strong sense that everybody has had enough now. And part of the effects of the, the Hundred Years' War going on and compulsory training with the bow on a Sunday and everything else like that, is you've got a hugely militarised society. So many men in England have fought in France at some point. They know how to organise stuff like this. They know how to coordinate. They know how to send messages. They know how to set musters and stuff like that.

• 24:24Anthony Delaney?

  They create a series of passwords that they use on roads and things like that. The, the main one that we know of is that they would stop people and say, with whom do you hold? And the correct answer was with the king and his commons. And if you didn't know that, you weren't part of the rebellion and quite possibly in trouble. So it's a really sophisticated movement that they begin out of this meeting. A few days later, on the 4th of June, we get a guy called Abel Kerr, who again, not particularly well known, but perhaps better known than Thomas Baker. He attacks an abbey in Dartford. And this is a really good early indication of what the rebels are, are really after.

• 25:02Anthony Delaney?

  The government will later try to position this as a violent outburst by a bunch of uneducated peasants who don't know any better. What Abel Kerr does, he breaks into this abbey. He gets into their strongbox that contains all of their records and he burns it.

• 25:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:20Anthony Delaney?

  And this is what they're really, really after because they are held, people in medieval England at this point are held to the land by documents of court records that say you belong to this lord and this piece of land. If you destroy that legal record, there's no way for it to be enforced.

• 25:37Speaker 00

  And of course, it's a very lopsided system in that the peasants who are governed by these, these manuscripts, by these pieces of paper or vellum, I suppose, cannot generally read or write. So it's, they, they, the only thing they can do is to burn them because they can't refute them or overwrite them or present their own version of them. It's simply destruction as, as a way forward.

• 26:00Anthony Delaney?

  Yeah. And so the, the key motivation for the peasants revolt, it's sparked by this push against the taxation. But their motivation is to do away with serfdom in England. The idea that you're tied to a piece of land, that you're forced to work for, for a lord, they want that done away with. And that's a key plank of what they're trying to get. You know, I really want people to remember when we get through everything else that's happening. This, all the evidence we have is that this is what they're really after. This is what they're aiming for. That's not to say this isn't violent. They do beat people up. They do cause a lot of destruction as well. But it's in pursuit of this aim.

• 26:36Speaker 00

  So getting rid of serfdom, I mean, this is a, a society built on the labour of these people who are tied to the land. And you've already spoken about the penalties for, for trying to leave, trying to, as the state would see it, shirk the responsibilities of, of working that land, et cetera. What percentage of the population were serfs though? How many? How significant is this to try and put an end to this system? I mean, is this catastrophic for the whole formation of society?

• 27:04Anthony Delaney?

  It pretty much is, you know, up to, it's, again, it's really hard to be sure around numbers, but up to half the population of England are, are tied to a piece of land during this period. It, it changes over time, but it won't be until the 16th century, towards the end of the 16th century, that serfdom actually vanishes from England altogether. You know, during the Tudor reign, people are still being treated like this, which may be a bit of a spoiler that this doesn't work. This is a huge deal. And what they're essentially saying is all of these layers of bureaucracy, of nobility between us and the king, what if we just did away with all of that? What if we were all just loyal to the king and there was none of this, this middle management?

• 27:44Anthony Delaney?

  We're too heavy on the middle management. We need to get rid of them. They're all corrupt. They're what's destroying everything. And part of the thing as well is that when we get to, to the bit of this that happens in London, we've got to remember we've got a 14 year old king. So you imagine a fourteen.

• 27:58Speaker 00

  Old enough to pay his own tax.

• 27:59Anthony Delaney?

  Exactly. But you imagine a 14 year old, I mean, you set a 14 year old down and say, everyone in this country worships you. They will absolutely love you. And they'd love to worship you more if you'll let them, you know, would you give them permission to, to think you're even better than they already think? I mean, imagine the ego trip that this 14 year old is going on.

• 28:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:20Anthony Delaney?

  Through all of this as well, because I think that's another key element that's at play here, because he thinks this is a great idea. That sounds fantastic. But the people who don't think it's a great idea is everyone in between him and these ordinary people.

• 28:35Speaker 02

  And is there a, a form of regency in place because of his age, the king's age?

• 28:41Anthony Delaney?

  So he's been king since he was nine and there has been a variety of councils that have governed on his behalf. His uncles, who include people like John of Gaunt, have also been involved in government. John of Gaunt is particularly unpopular at this point, which might be quite unfair, the amount of hatred that he gets. But he's blamed for a lot of the things that are going wrong as the senior uncle of the king, senior representative of the royal family, apart from the king.

• 29:07Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, it certainly seems like the young king isn't getting the best advice, shall we say. Let's move to, I think arguably the most famous rebel of all in this, in this rising, which is of course Wat Tyler. You mentioned a couple of names before and the fact that they appear very briefly in the written record and then sort of disappear. How much information do we actually have about Wat Tyler? And why is he the name that has, has survived the longest?

• 29:37Anthony Delaney?

  Absolutely nothing. Next question. We know nothing about him.

• 29:42Speaker 00

  Interesting.

• 29:43Anthony Delaney?

  Is his surname Tyler because that's his job? Is Wat short for Walter? Probably. We don't know. We have nothing to, to pin on this guy whatsoever. What we know is that by the 10th of June. So a few days before this, the rebels have been in Rochester. They've captured Rochester Castle. They've taken the Constable of Rochester Castle prisoner. They've burned all of the records.

• 30:06Speaker 00

  Things are escalating quite a lot then, yeah.

• 30:08Anthony Delaney?

  They're having bonfires of these records in Rochester and in Canterbury and places like that. By the 10th of June, a few days after this, Wat Tyler has emerged as the leader of the Rebels of Kent. We have no idea why. But he is now being positioned in all of the records that we have as the man who is leading those rebels.

• 30:27Speaker 00

  Is it maybe fair to potentially surmise that he has seen action in France?

• 30:32Anthony Delaney?

  It's likely, I think, that he is some kind of soldier. Perhaps he's been a captain in France, that he is used to leading men, that he is used to coordinating these kinds of efforts. He at least seems to be somebody that the rest of them are willing to look to as a leader and accept as a leader. There is a belief that someone else who is closely associated with this is Jack Straw, who becomes an equivalent leader of the Rebels in Essex. But there's no record of Jack Straw.

• 31:01Speaker 02

  It's all very confusing because it does lead you to go, well, how much of this persona is invented? And when we come back after this break, we're going to try and pin down some of the historical details of this person.

• 31:18Anthony Delaney?

  Terry Cottle died by suicide, but his heart lived on, transplanted into Sonny Graham. Years later, Sonny died the exact same way, same heart, same fate. But that wasn't the strangest connection between them. Sonny also married Terry's widow. Hosted by Karen Kilgariff, this is Heart, an Apple original podcast produced by Plan B and Blanchard House. New episodes are available Mondays and Apple TV subscribers get special early access to the entire season. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.

• 31:58Speaker 03

  Hi there, I'm Dan, host of Dan Snow's History Podcast. And I can imagine on these dark winter nights, all you're going to do is curl up with a cup of tea and get lost in an amazing story. Well, I can help you with that. Twice a week, I tell you the most dramatic and extraordinary stories from history with details I can guarantee you've never heard before. Feel the frostbite of that grisly failed American invasion of Canada in the dead of winter. Imagine every clash and blow at the Battle of Bosworth. Follow Eleanor of Accretaine, one of the most powerful women in the medieval world, as she goes on crusade to the Holy Land with 300 handmaidens in tow.

• 32:36Speaker 04

  She leads her own army. Everyone goes gaga for Eleanor.

• 32:39Speaker 03

  And trace the voyage of the first Vikings as they arrive on Iceland's lonely shores. For the best historical stories to get lost in, check out Dan Snow's History.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  Matt, we were talking about Wat and what we know about Wat. You had mentioned already June 10th, there's a contingent of Kentish rebels. We're marching on Canterbury. Whatever about him, we know that happened.

• 33:11Anthony Delaney?

  Yes.

• 33:12Speaker 02

  So take us through what that looks like and what that means for Wat and those rebels.

• 33:17Anthony Delaney?

  We know as they're moving through places like Rochester and Canterbury, they're focusing on, you know, they're breaking into Canterbury Cathedral, into the treasure room, they are targeting these documents. They are trying to be very careful not to position themselves as thieves. They're not stealing money and goods. They're collecting as many of these documents as they can, often in town squares and having a bonfire of all of these documents.

• 33:43Anthony Delaney?

  And they seem to just be gaining support all the way through. There are local landowners in particular who are targeted for violence, whose homes are ransacked in the search for these documents, but you know, they're destroying property in the process. Several of them are at least beaten up, a couple are killed during these times as well. So the rebels aren't shy of using violence to try and achieve their aims. But within that, they do seem fairly well disciplined, which again might hint back at this militarisation of the sense that someone like Wat Tyler is needed as a focal point, as a leader who is making the decisions for all of these people, and that he is in some way capable and competent of doing that,

• 34:26Anthony Delaney?

  perhaps because he served in the wars in France.

• 34:31Anthony Delaney?

  But these groups seem to be moving in from various parts. And it's important as well, this doesn't only happen in Kent and Essex. This is happening all across the country. We know it's happening in the Midlands, we know it's happening in the South West. There are cases that are brought after the peasants revolt as far north as Yorkshire against people for involvement.

• 34:49Speaker 00

  And do they, is it the case that these pockets of rebellion are hearing about rebellion that's first happening in places like Essex and Kent? And then they're like, oh, we should do that too. Or is this something that organically just sort of erupts at the same time?

• 35:03Anthony Delaney?

  They must be hearing about what's happening. And one of the key things is when we get a little bit further into stories, one of the things that happens in London has a real national impact. People act on the basis of that impact without realising that the government have already changed their minds and not told anybody. So the things that they're doing on the basis of the legal document that they have in their hand are now illegal. So all of those people are then being prosecuted in court, which means we get lots of court records of what was happening to those people.

• 35:28Speaker 00

  Great for us as historians, not great for them. Okay, so you mentioned, you know, we have famously the rebels in Essex, the rebels in Kent. They're joining forces now and they are going to, let's go to London, they're going to march to London on the 12th of June. So what's that, just two days after they've gone to Canterbury? They're at Blackheath. What scale is the rebellion here at this point? How many people are marching on the capital city now?

• 35:53Anthony Delaney?

  The sources, numbers in medieval sources, really, really tricky, really difficult to believe.

• 35:57Speaker 00

  Give or take thousands.

• 35:58Anthony Delaney?

  Tens of thousands of people, perhaps 50,000 people are gathering on Blackheath. This is absolutely immense.

• 36:06Speaker 00

  I mean, that's, if you're a medieval peasant, you, what's the biggest gathering of human bodies you've seen in one place? Maybe a battle, if you fought in France, but otherwise, I mean, other than the congregation, a church on Sunday. Like, what, 100 people maximum if you live in a relatively big town? I mean, what on earth are people going to make of 50, 60,000 people marching on London? And what are the people in London going to make of watching them come over the hill?

• 36:36Anthony Delaney?

  All of these people gathering together on Blackheath, you know, to the south of London. They've probably, the crowd have never seen anything as big as what they're gathering into.

• 36:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:46Anthony Delaney?

  And London is aware of this group of people gathered there, maybe not quite knowing exactly what their motives are at this point. It's got to be slightly frightening for everybody.

• 36:56Speaker 00

  And just to be in that kind of, that mass of people, you know, it's, we all know what it's like to be in like a stadium at a concert or a football match or something and to feel like the power of just that many people gathered in one place, focused on the same thing and feeling the same emotions in the same moment, that it's so volatile.

• 37:14Anthony Delaney?

  Yeah.

• 37:14Speaker 00

  And you know, that's from our modern perspective, when thankfully everything's safe and there's all security and you know, all of that. But it must have been so electric and just to feel so kind of powerful but unpredictable about the direction that this was going to take.

• 37:30Anthony Delaney?

  And the intoxication of knowing that you're there to change the world you live in. You know, that's literally the reason you're here.

• 37:36Speaker 00

  Having lived your life with no power.

• 37:37Anthony Delaney?

  Yeah, you want the world to change and all of these people who are gathered around you want the same thing. It must have increased the belief that they might actually be able to do this. And we get, I mean, all of those legal records give us some interesting insights. There's a guy called John Stakepole who is beheaded, he's executed shortly after the peasants revolt because he's identified as one of the principal insurgents amongst it. But as a result of this, all of his goods are inventoried. So we know that he owned a red gown, a cloak made of red and green cloth, three hoods, a pair of worn out stockings, a pair of worn out thigh boots, a worn out earthenware pots, but he also owned a harp and a gittern. Like a gittern is like a medieval version of a guitar kind of thing. And so people have said, you know, is this guy some kind of protest singer?

• 38:21Anthony Delaney?

  Is he entertaining all of these crowds that are gathered there? You know, is he writing songs to remind them why they've all come here to keep their spirits up and keep everything on track? So there is very quickly this kind of community that seems to be emerging out of all of this. We know there are also women there. There are several women who will become prominent in the course of the peasants revolt. We also know that this isn't just serfs that are gathering there. It's people who are free as well, who aren't serfs, but believe serfdom should be done away with. So there is a real sense of, of social responsibility amongst those who aren't necessarily affected by this, but they're willing to risk everything they have for their belief in it. We call it the peasants revolt, but peasant isn't the word that anybody used for people during this period.

• 39:05Anthony Delaney?

  They called them rustics. And rustics means anyone who doesn't live in a city. It doesn't reflect your social rank. So we know that there is landed gentry who are involved in the peasants revolt on the side of the rebels. Again, because they live in the countryside, they see the problems and the oppression, and they're willing to march on London with their neighbours in support of what they're trying to achieve. So although we call it the peasants revolt, it doesn't mean that this is only the lowest members of society who are getting involved.

• 39:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a really inaccurate title actually, for what it's far more.

• 39:37Anthony Delaney?

  At the time, they called it either the Great Insurrection or the Great Hurling or something like that. No one called it the peasants revolt then.

• 39:42Speaker 00

  The Great Hurling.

• 39:43Speaker 02

  The Great Hurling is the peasants, well, not who, but when did that come in?

• 39:46Anthony Delaney?

  I'm not sure entirely when it emerged, but the government could well be.

• 39:49Speaker 00

  Well, let's blame the Victorians as usual, yeah.

• 39:52Speaker 02

  Just blame them. Can I just ask now, because we're going to go to a break, but before we do, if you can tell us where at this point, they're at Blackheath, there's potentially up to 50,000 of them, where do they think they're going? Or do they know?

• 40:07Anthony Delaney?

  Well, we know, we know what they want because on the 12th of June, when they arrive at Blackheath, the first thing that they do is send the Constable of Rochester Castle, who they captured, to the Tower of London to see the king.

• 40:19Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 40:20Anthony Delaney?

  And to reassure the king of their good intentions, but tell the king that they'd like a word.

• 40:26Speaker 00

  Knock, knock.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  Right, so we have a messenger sent to the king. We're about to take a break and when we come back, we will discover what the king said to this messenger.

• 40:39Speaker 03

  Hi there, I'm Dan, host of Dan Snow's History Podcast. And I can imagine on these dark winter nights, all you're gonna do is curl up with a cup of tea and get lost in an amazing story. Well, I can help you with that. Twice a week, I tell you the most dramatic and extraordinary stories from history with details I can guarantee you've never heard before. Feel the frostbite of that grisly failed American invasion of Canada in the dead of winter. Imagine every clash and blow at the Battle of Bosworth. Follow Eleanor of Accretaine, one of the most powerful women in the medieval world, as she goes on crusade to the Holy Land with 300 handmaidens in tow.

• 41:18Speaker 04

  She leads her own army. Everyone goes gaga for Eleanor.

• 41:21Speaker 03

  And trace the voyage of the first Vikings as they arrive on Iceland's lonely shores. For the best historical stories to get lost in, check out Dan Snow's History.

• 41:38Speaker 02

  Matt, what did the king say to this messenger? Actually, where has he been? What has the king been doing? And then what's his response?

• 41:45Anthony Delaney?

  He's in the Tower of London playing on his Xbox.

• 41:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:48Anthony Delaney?

  A 14-year-old grunting at everybody around him. He is very much under the rule of his advisers, his council. He's not really considered old enough to make decisions for himself.

• 42:00Speaker 00

  He's a chess piece, really, isn't he? Just being moved around.

• 42:02Anthony Delaney?

  Richard II is growing up in one of these weird positions where he's told he's the most important, most significant and most powerful person in the kingdom, but he can't actually do anything for himself, which is a really hard thing for a 14-year-old to process, I would imagine.

• 42:14Anthony Delaney?

  So the constable of Rochester Castle arrives, a guy called Sir John Newington, who is known to Richard II. And he says, you know, the rebels want me to tell you, they don't mean to cause any harm, they're all in favour of you. And we have a record of this from a guy called Jean Fassar, who is a continental diarist, chronicler, who is in the Tower of London at the time. He's visiting England when this happens and he's in the tower.

• 42:37Speaker 00

  Terrible timing for a holiday.

• 42:40Anthony Delaney?

  But great for an on-the-spot reporter.

• 42:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:42Anthony Delaney?

  And he says that Sir John says he's come to show him how all they had done or would do was for him, the king, and his honour, and how the realm of England had not been governed a great space for the honour of the realm, nor for the common prophet, by his uncles and by the clergy, and especially by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

• 42:59Speaker 02

  Right.

• 43:00Speaker 00

  Hmm, okay.

• 43:02Speaker 02

  So they're traitors, basically.

• 43:04Anthony Delaney?

  Yeah.

• 43:04Speaker 02

  That cabal of men around him have...

• 43:07Anthony Delaney?

  In terms of medieval politics, it's bad form to blame the king.

• 43:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 43:10Anthony Delaney?

  For anything. Because he's been put there by God, so you criticise him.

• 43:14Speaker 00

  Criticise God, yeah.

• 43:15Anthony Delaney?

  Dangerously close to heresy. So the key thing is to blame everybody around him, which is what the rebels are very keen to do.

• 43:21Speaker 00

  So the rebels, I mean, they're very strategic, really. They understand that they can't just march on the Tower of London and tell the king that he's crap and that everything needs to change. They understand the way that the system works. The king decides that he's gonna allow them space to speak, right? He meets with them, which turns out not to be a great decision. But I think, what does that tell us about this 14-year-old monarch? Is this the advice that's given to him by those around him, including his uncle, John of Gaunt? Is this, you know, a case where he's like, oh, I'm gonna do what I want and I'm gonna march out and meet them? What's going on and what can we sort of surmise about him from this?

• 44:06Anthony Delaney?

  I think this demonstrates his massively overinflated opinion of himself.

• 44:09Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 44:10Anthony Delaney?

  I say overinflated, no, he is the king of England.

• 44:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:12Anthony Delaney?

  But he's also a 14-year-old boy who has never governed a day in his life. People have been doing that for him.

• 44:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:18Anthony Delaney?

  All of his life. I don't think he really understands what's going on, but he hears, these people want to do away with all of this middle management, report directly into you and tell you how great you are every day. And he thinks that that sounds brilliant. So he says to his advisers, we should go and talk to the rebels, this sounds great. All of his advisers, who are in that middle management tier, are saying, this seems like a really, really bad idea. I don't think we should be doing this, your highness.

• 44:42Anthony Delaney?

  Eventually, he says he will go and meet the rebels. And they set this meeting on the 13th of June at Rotherhyde, which is kind of halfway between the Tower of London and Blackheath. Richard II comes out to the tower, gets on a barge, his road along the Thames. They turn a corner in the Thames and we're told that they are greeted by a sight that absolutely terrifies them. It seems like his advisers were thinking they were gonna get a delegation of, you know, 10 of the smartest dressed peasants.

• 45:07Speaker 00

  Right, yeah.

• 45:08Anthony Delaney?

  To come up and say what they'd quite like, if the king doesn't mind, please. They turn the corner and they're greeted by tens of thousands of people gathered on the bank of Thames, probably quite keen to have a sight of the king, who's come to talk to them.

• 45:19Speaker 00

  This is extraordinary from both sides, right? Like, the king to be met with this vast crowd, but also this vast crowd seeing God's appointed individual, the king, in front of them. I mean, they, these are people who could not ever have possibly imagined they would ever lay eyes on anyone close to the king, let alone the king himself.

• 45:41Anthony Delaney?

  And not just laying eyes on him, he's coming to talk to you.

• 45:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, yes, exactly. He's legitimising what you want to say.

• 45:47Anthony Delaney?

  Yeah. So all of his advisers on the barge think, mm, mm, mm, mm, not having any of this. And they turn the barge around, they go back to the tower.

• 45:54Speaker 00

  Understandable.

• 45:55Speaker 02

  I can, I can, yeah, yeah, I can see why they would think strategically that's the best. Because how many of them was there? Not that many.

• 46:02Anthony Delaney?

  Not many, no.

• 46:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, they were way outnumbered, yeah.

• 46:04Anthony Delaney?

  Yeah.

• 46:05Speaker 02

  Okay. And so they go back to the tower, king's with them, but the rebels are still at the banks of the Thames?

• 46:11Anthony Delaney?

  Well, they're infuriated now. They've been promised a meeting with the king. And as far as they're concerned, all of those men that they're blaming for the problems of the country have sort of bought the king so far and they've watched him turn the barge, they've watched those men turn the barge around.

• 46:24Speaker 00

  They've dangled him in front of them.

• 46:25Anthony Delaney?

  And take him away and refuse them the opportunity to talk to the king, which they see as their route to getting everything that they want. So immediately after this, they head to London Bridge.

• 46:35Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 46:35Anthony Delaney?

  And they cross over London Bridge. And the significant thing about this is that London Bridge at this point has a drawbridge in the middle of it that can be raised against hostile forces.

• 46:42Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 46:43Anthony Delaney?

  The drawbridge is not raised.

• 46:44Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 46:46Speaker 00

  Someone's getting fired.

• 46:48Anthony Delaney?

  The people within London have really strong sympathies with these rebels. If you were a serf who ran away from the land that you were tied to, the best place that you could go was London. They had a thriving underground that would protect you, so that when your local sheriffs men or whatever came looking for Joe Blogs, who's run away from his lord's land, everyone in London would be like, nope, no idea, not a clue, never heard of him. So London has a lot of sympathy with the complaints of the rebels too. They allow them into the city. London Bridge is also populated by the Fleet Prison and lots of lawyers' offices too. So as they go across, they're breaking people out of prison. And this isn't breaking out like violent criminals, they're breaking out people who've

• 47:32Anthony Delaney?

  been accused of running away from serfdom.

• 47:35Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 47:35Anthony Delaney?

  Or of owing money to people. They are collecting documents from lawyers' offices on Tower, on London Bridge and burning all of those as they go. But they are now increasingly pissed off.

• 47:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:48Anthony Delaney?

  Because the king hasn't come to meet them. And they go straight at this point, same day, 13th of June, straight to the Savoy Palace. And the Savoy Palace is the London home of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, that oldest uncle of Richard II. John of Gaunt at this point is on the border of Scotland, negotiating peace with the Scots. And that fact probably saves his life. He's not in London when all of this happens. So the rebels go into his house, into his palace, can't find him anywhere, pile up all of his documents in the middle of the room, pile up all of his good furniture, everything else, anything burnable, and then they set fire to the Savoy Palace.

• 48:27Speaker 02

  Oh, yikes.

• 48:28Anthony Delaney?

  They bring out all of his gold and silver plate and they make a big show of the fact that they are not stealing this. They throw it all in the River Thames.

• 48:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 48:37Anthony Delaney?

  One of their number tries to steal something, probably shoves it up his tunic or whatever else he does, he's caught by the rest of them and killed.

• 48:43Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 48:43Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 48:44Anthony Delaney?

  Because to them, I think this devalues what they're doing.

• 48:49Speaker 00

  But that's so incredible, because again, thinking about like mob mentality and this huge, vast crowd that's become this like moving beast going through the city, there is so much potential for people to splinter off. And we see it again and again through our history, right? Especially in a city like London where there's riots that turn into like, you know, someone over there is robbing a house, someone's doing a sexual assault over here, someone's burning something down there, you know, it all goes to chaos. And even if there's a sort of legitimate political aim to begin with, it can go tits up really quickly.

• 49:17Anthony Delaney?

  Yeah.

• 49:17Speaker 00

  And yet here, they're so committed to the cause and it's so unified in terms of what they want and what they're prepared to, what they're not prepared to do, that when one person behaves in a way they don't like, they kill him.

• 49:30Anthony Delaney?

  Which might, again, point to militarisation, because if you go with a medieval army, most medieval armies have ordinances for a campaign that will tell you what you're allowed to do and not allowed to do. So famously, Henry V on the Agincourt campaign creates all of these ordinances, not allowed to steal anything from a church. He finds one of his men has stolen a pix out of a local church and hangs him as an example to everybody. You don't break the rules of the army.

• 49:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:51Anthony Delaney?

  And so if someone like what Tyleris is, even informally, setting out the ordinances, you know, we are not stealing.

• 49:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:58Anthony Delaney?

  That's not what we're here to do. So yeah, so John of Gaunt's palace is burned with all of his furniture and tapestries inside, incredible amount of wealth, gold and silver that won't burn is thrown into the river.

• 50:10Anthony Delaney?

  That's the reason there's no Savoy Palace anymore. It smoulders for weeks and weeks. It's never rebuilt. It's on the site of the Savoy Hotel, but no palace is ever rebuilt there.

• 50:17Speaker 00

  As a historian, part of me is like, think of all that stuff that's lost. You know, I mean, it's obviously, within the context of this, all power to the rebels, I guess. I mean, it's such a, it's such a powerful thing that they do. And it's, you can see how it, how it's part of their cause and everything. But yeah, just the, the loss. And you, you talked all about all the way through this campaign, all the, um, the burning of documentation, all of that, those written records that are lost to us now.

• 50:41Anthony Delaney?

  And we do, we do get another hint of a slight lack of discipline in that as the palace is burning, they suddenly begin to hear some noises. And it turns out that about 30 of the rebels have strayed into John of Gaunt's wine cellar.

• 50:54Speaker 00

  Ew.

• 50:55Anthony Delaney?

  And have been helping themselves down there. And the palace is set on fire and they can't get out anymore.

• 50:59Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 51:00Anthony Delaney?

  And the records tell us that their shouts and cries are heard for about three days.

• 51:03Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 51:04Anthony Delaney?

  After the fire and the revolt, but none of them are ever got out of that cellar. So a nice bottle of wine has just cost them their lives.

• 51:10Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 51:11Speaker 02

  Yikes. Now, we are going to have to address this and somebody is going to have to knit these two factions together. Do they go to the king or does the king come to them after? So I'm, I'm imagining, and tell me if I'm wrong, but I'm imagining that Savoy as a physical and visual prompt now goes, we're in chaos. This, the, the capital's falling apart. So someone's going to have to patch this together.

• 51:34Anthony Delaney?

  And someone in, you know, from the tower, you're going to be seeing smoke and flames and you're going to be aware that not only is this to them, an unruly violent mob now swarming through the streets of London.

• 51:44Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 51:45Anthony Delaney?

  But the people of London are kind of on board with it as well.

• 51:47Speaker 00

  And you'd be in the tower thinking, how long are these ramparts gonna protect us? You know, how tightly is the gate barred?

• 51:55Anthony Delaney?

  Yeah. So we, we get a, a situation where Richard the second seems to take matters into his own hands again. And he arranges to go and meet the rebels the following day, the 14th of June at Mile End. And it seems like this time he is taking a little bit more of a, a, a leading role and saying, we are going to talk to them. End of. Nobody is changing my mind this time. And so on the morning of the 14th, with, with London still enveloped in smoke and flames, he rides out to Mile End to meet all of these rebels.

• 52:26Anthony Delaney?

  And this is where we know, um, what Tyler, as the leader of those rebels, kind of comes forward and addresses Richard. And they, he says to them, you know, Jean Fossard tells us, he said, are you good people? I am your king. What lack you? What will you say? What do you want?

• 52:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:45Anthony Delaney?

  And what Tyler says, well, we'd like serfdom to be abolished so that we can all be even. We can all, you know, report into you. We can all live our lives without this kind of level of, of servitude. And Richard says, okay.

• 52:59Speaker 02

  Just got to upend the whole system.

• 53:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:02Anthony Delaney?

  And he kind of, I, I think the rebels probably went.

• 53:04Speaker 00

  Uh, it was that easy? Yeah.

• 53:06Anthony Delaney?

  But he calls for a load of clerks to bring, bring tables, sets up a line of tables across the, the space at Mile He, Mile End, and has them start writing writs to tell, to say that people are free.

• 53:16Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 53:17Anthony Delaney?

  And he's like, you know, go and queue at a table, get yourself a writ and you can go home.

• 53:20Speaker 00

  How, how did his advisors view this? Were they thinking, oh my God, this child is so naive. What is he doing? Or at this point are they thinking, give them, give the rebels what they want. We don't want our houses to be burned to the ground.

• 53:32Anthony Delaney?

  It's hard to know what they think. Lots of them stay in the tower. They have no intention of going to this meeting.

• 53:36Speaker 00

  So they don't follow their king?

• 53:38Anthony Delaney?

  Mm, mm, mm, mm.

• 53:38Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 53:39Anthony Delaney?

  The other thing that the rebels managed to ask for through the shock that Richard has agreed so easily to this is for the Archbishop of Canterbury, who up until the day before had been Chancellor of England, which is kind of medieval equivalent of the Prime Minister. So he'd been the head of the government. Uh, he quit that post the day, the day before. Um, and the treasurer, who is a man named Sir John Hales, they want them tried for treason as the people that they blame, head of the government, head of the money.

• 54:06Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 54:07Anthony Delaney?

  And Richard says, absolutely fine, but they must undergo the due process of law. They must be arrested, tried in court, but that will be done as well. I mean, you'd be tempted to ask for anything at this point.

• 54:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. He's going to give it to you.

• 54:19Anthony Delaney?

  He's going along with it. And a, a group of the rebels then peel off and they head to the Tower of London, which is where the Archbishop of Canterbury and the treasurer are. And this has often been framed as the only time in its history that the Tower of London is breached, is broken into. But all of the sources that we have suggest that the gates were opened to these men. They, they talk about the guards of the tower shaking hands with these people as they came in and welcoming them in.

• 54:43Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 54:44Anthony Delaney?

  It seems likely that perhaps they had a writ from Richard the second for the arrest of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the treasurer. So they got to the tower with permission from the king, being allowed in. They then seem to, to tear their way through the Tower of London into the, the White Tower eventually. We get reports of what must have been a fairly horrific scene in which Richard's mother, Joan of Kent, who is often positioned as, as one of the most beautiful women in English history, known as the fair maid of Kent. Is trapped in her bedroom by a bunch of the rebels who refuse to leave her bedroom until she gives them a kiss.

• 55:17Speaker 02

  Oh, God.

• 55:18Speaker 00

  Oh, okay.

• 55:19Anthony Delaney?

  Yuck. Um, and, and terrifying for her.

• 55:22Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 55:23Anthony Delaney?

  But they eventually tear their way up to the top of the White Tower, where you can still go today, St John's Chapel, absolutely beautiful space at the top. And there they find the Archbishop of Canterbury and the treasurer. And they dragged them both outside and they cut their heads off.

• 55:38Speaker 00

  Oh, so no due process.

• 55:39Anthony Delaney?

  Which is not what Richard the second had said they could do.

• 55:42Speaker 00

  Okay. I mean, this, this is now tipped over into chaos. You know, we spoke earlier about the, the sort of the discipline of the rebels. You know, if you try and steal something, you're going to be killed by the mob. Now we've got people, I mean, uh, the interaction with Richard's mother, you know, obviously we don't, do we have written documentation for exactly what happened there? I mean, it seems, you know, uh, not, it's not great. It's not a great scenario, whatever actually went on. And then you've got people who are meant to have to stand trial or whatever and be subjected to the law now being killed. I mean, this, this is now just, this is a mob just taking what they want.

• 56:21Anthony Delaney?

  Yeah. And I think it's something that you see so often, isn't it? That discipline will hold for so long.

• 56:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:25Anthony Delaney?

  But then it's almost like in the face of success.

• 56:28Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 56:28Anthony Delaney?

  The wheels completely come off. Discipline goes completely to, to pot. And now people are doing the exact things that they've been swearing all along they were never going to do.

• 56:38Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 56:39Speaker 02

  And when this happens, is this at the tower, is this joined up to, to Richard at any point? Like, does that faction hear that this has happened? Because I would imagine that will change his perspective on things that are happening, or at least the, the perspective of those who did go with him to Mile End.

• 56:58Anthony Delaney?

  What we get is, I mean, presumably they, they go their separate ways. Richard heads back to the tower and finds out what's gone on. Because the next day we get another meeting. Um, Richard agrees to re, meet with the rebels again. And essentially, I think he's, he's annoyed with them now.

• 57:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:17Anthony Delaney?

  Well, because they've come and shot sunshine up his backside.

• 57:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:20Anthony Delaney?

  And then gone away and done exactly the thing he told them they couldn't do. And so he agrees to meet with them again. What Tyler comes forward to talk to him and has another list of complaints. Cause like, so you know, they've probably gone home and thought, if the king's in a giving mood, what, what does everyone want? You know, scribbling away all night with this big, long list. And at some point during this confrontation, we get, we get conflicting versions of what happens from the sources. Either what Tyler makes a grab for the reins of Richard's horse, or he talks to the king disrespectfully. And one source suggests that he puts his hand on the, the handle of his dagger, which is seen as an aggressive move.

• 58:00Anthony Delaney?

  Whatever it is that happens, we know that the squire of the Lord Mayor of London draws his dagger and stabs what Tyler. And then the Lord Mayor draws his sword and runs what Tyler through and kills him.

• 58:10Speaker 02

  Oh, wow. So that's on the spot, done there, like this. And, and now he is accompanied by a big group again or not?

• 58:19Anthony Delaney?

  Tens of thousands are still there.

• 58:21Speaker 02

  They're still there.

• 58:21Anthony Delaney?

  Watching this.

• 58:23Speaker 02

  Okay. Chaos or despair?

• 58:26Anthony Delaney?

  This is the moment when Richard the second is often credited with a huge amount of personal bravery as a 14 year old boy. He spurs his horse on, rides over to the rebels and says, you don't need what Tyler, I'm your leader.

• 58:41Speaker 02

  Oh. How true is this?

• 58:44Anthony Delaney?

  It, as far as we know, this is what happens. So we've got people like Jean Fossard who are, are, are there when these things are going on. Uh, he seems to, to have done this. It's often positioned as this moment of bravery. I suspect he just simply doesn't have any concept of how much danger he's in.

• 58:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:00Anthony Delaney?

  He thinks these people absolutely adore me.

• 59:02Speaker 00

  Hmm. He's so removed from the situation. He's like, this will be fine.

• 59:06Anthony Delaney?

  Yeah. I think he is. I think all of the, the soldiers that are with him are probably thinking, holy.

• 59:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 59:12Anthony Delaney?

  What is he doing?

• 59:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:14Anthony Delaney?

  And I don't, I don't think Richard thought for a second he was in any kind of physical danger.

• 59:18Speaker 02

  In a way, he's the best possible candidate to be dealing with this because of the naivety.

• 59:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:23Anthony Delaney?

  Yeah. And he kind of says to the rebels, you know, you need no leader other than me. I'll make sure that you're looked after, but probably time you went home.

• 59:29Speaker 02

  Calm your shit down now.

• 59:30Anthony Delaney?

  This is getting a bit much. And I think most of the rebels probably realise.

• 59:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:35Anthony Delaney?

  It's gone as far as it's going to go. They're lucky to be walking away. They've got those writs that say they're free.

• 59:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:40Anthony Delaney?

  Which is what they really came for.

• 59:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:42Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, it is a success in that way. I mean, stuff has gone wrong, but.

• 59:47Anthony Delaney?

  And so they disperse and they go home. Um, and almost immediately that they leave, those writs are, are reversed.

• 59:57Speaker 02

  By Richard's.

• 59:58Anthony Delaney?

  Well, the interesting question is, who does it? So we have Richard, obviously annoyed at the rebels that they've not done what he told them to do, having said that they were there to, to serve him and only him.

• 1:00:15Anthony Delaney?

  And we get a quote from Richard, which is one of those things we don't, it's putting words into his mouth. But he's given this speech that says, "You wretches, detestable on land and sea. You who seek equality with lords are unworthy to live. Give this message to your colleagues. Rustics you were and rustic you are still. You will remain in bondage, not as before, but incomparably harsher."

• 1:00:39Speaker 02

  Oh, God.

• 1:00:40Anthony Delaney?

  "For as long as we live, we will strive to suppress you, and your misery will be an example in the eyes of posterity."

• 1:00:46Speaker 02

  Oh, sugar. And you, and we don't think he, he said that.

• 1:00:51Anthony Delaney?

  I suspect he didn't say that.

• 1:00:52Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:00:53Anthony Delaney?

  He might have been a fuming 14-year-old.

• 1:00:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, that sounds like the speech of a Shakespearean villain.

• 1:00:58Anthony Delaney?

  It does. But the interesting counter to this is all of this goes through Parliament and all of this sort of stuff later on. And Richard causes his Chancellor in Parliament, so his, his new kind of Prime Minister, to stand up at the moment at which they're, they're going to legalize reversing all of these writs. So they're, they're reversed immediately, but it needs to go through Parliament to be made legal because the King has given out all of these sealed writs. And the Chancellor is told to stand up before Parliament and say to them, "Now the King wishes to know the will of you, my lords, prelates, lords and commons here present, and whether it seems to you that he acted well in that repeal and pleased you or not. For he says that if you wish to enfranchise and make free the said villains by your common agreement, as he has been informed some of

• 1:01:42Anthony Delaney?

  you wish to do, he will assent to your request." So Richard is sitting in Parliament saying, "I'll still do it. I'll still abolish serfdom and completely change the structures of this society." The issue we have with this is, is this what Richard really thinks? Does he want to do this still, but his councillors are bullying him out of it? Or is this Richard saying, "We're all going down together on this one. You're now going to sign that you're all 100% back, you know, you're going to have to say you don't want me to do this."

• 1:02:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:12Speaker 00

  Hmm. It's really hard, isn't it, to access, again, the mind of this, this 14-year-old boy and, and to find the truth of what, how he viewed this. And he, I think it's sort of remarkable that he has this whole experience with the rebels. He's very much in this rebellion, even though he's on the other side of it and the figurehead of what, everything they're standing against, but also they're trying to collaborate with him and all of that. And then to, for it to be over and for him to then have to completely reposition himself, potentially, depending on, you know, what advice he's taking. Tell me this, Matt. If, when Wat Tyler is killed, if the rebels hadn't have dispersed in that moment, how different

• 1:02:55Speaker 00

  do you think history would have been? Like, what would have happened in that moment if, for example, they then turned on Richard and killed him, which they could have very easily done from the way you've described it? What would, what would England have looked like?

• 1:03:08Anthony Delaney?

  It's really hard to know. I mean, if a mob had killed the King, you can imagine that his uncles would have been raising armies to wade their way into Kent and Essex, you know, and be knee-deep in blood before the year was out. There would have been a mass slaughter. But, you know, we're living in a society that has faced a century of problems. Up until this point, you know, we began with the Great Famine and the Black Death, and all of those things that have destroyed people's trust in the government and trust in the church. Would the rebels have been willing to keep pushing to get what they wanted? I suspect they might have been. I think if discipline had held a bit longer, they could well have, have completely revolutionized the state of English society, you know, 200,

• 1:03:52Speaker 02

  It does seem like that.

• 1:03:52Anthony Delaney?

  200 years before it would eventually happen. Had Richard ignored those executions, I think he takes that as a personal slight against his own authority. You know, you're not, you've overstepped what I said you could do, and still gone along with the rebels, country still might have changed. I think actually his death would have been the thing that would have kept things the way it was, because then all of that nobility would have come in and had the excuse they wanted to deal harshly

• 1:04:19Speaker 00

  To double down on the status quo.

• 1:04:21Anthony Delaney?

  What they can position as just a violent, unruly mob. And one of the things we get out of the aftermath of the Peasants' Revolt is all of these legal cases brought against people that tell us lots of interesting things about the, the Peasants' Revolt. So there's a few people kind of worth talking about. We get a woman called Godaitha de Statham.

• 1:04:35Speaker 02

  Oh, say that again, sorry.

• 1:04:36Anthony Delaney?

  Godaitha de Statham.

• 1:04:37Speaker 02

  Godaitha.

• 1:04:39Anthony Delaney?

  De Statham. And she lives in Morley in Derbyshire, and her family are involved in acting as rebels. So they are attacking local priaries and a castle, gathering these documents and burning it, and acting on the basis of these writs that are being handed out everywhere that they're free. And she has five sons who are also accused of all of this. And we know for a fact that all five of those sons appear on muster rolls for the Army of France at various points. So again, that militarization of it. And sadly, no one is, no one of them is called Jason. I would have loved it if there was a Jason de Statham.

• 1:05:12Speaker 02

  Oh, my God. It's like, what? Why are you saying Jason? What, what has that got to do with anything? I was like, thinking of the Argonauts. No, okay, Jason de Statham, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:20Anthony Delaney?

  I make myself laugh. We have a woman called Marjorie Tawney, who gives testimony after the, the revolt that counteracts the government's official position on all of this, because they say it's just a, a mob that invades London with no right to be there and everything else. Marjorie Tawney gives us testimony. She lives in London, and she tells us that a proclamation was made that anyone with a legal complaint should go to the Tower and present it directly to the King, and he will provide justice for them. Because she says she tried to get to the Tower on the 13th of June, that day that London is burning, and she couldn't get there because of the, the mobs and the fires, and it was all a little bit scary. So she goes back on the, the Saturday, the following

• 1:06:04Anthony Delaney?

  day, and she manages to get her case heard, which is essentially that the Dean of Windsor owes her deceased husband a load of money. She, she wins her case in front of the King. The Dean of Windsor is ordered to pay her the money. What he actually does is beat one of her sons to death.

• 1:06:21Speaker 02

  Hey, that's not the same thing.

• 1:06:23Anthony Delaney?

  No, not the same thing. And he doesn't pay her the money. But her story is interesting because the government were adamant after the revolt that this never happened, that they weren't encouraged to go to the Tower, that they were told to all go home. And Marjorie is saying, "No, we got the proclamation to say, bring your legal complaints to the Tower and the King will straighten them out for you."

• 1:06:41Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:06:42Anthony Delaney?

  We get a man in Norfolk called Geoffrey Lister, who calls himself the King of the Commons, which seems like a really stupid idea.

• 1:06:50Speaker 02

  Perfect, yeah.

• 1:06:51Speaker 00

  Oh, mate.

• 1:06:51Anthony Delaney?

  Ends up in a battle against Henry Dispenser, the only battle of the, the Peasants' Revolt, Battle of North Walsham. He fights against Henry Dispenser, who's the Bishop of Norwich. So you get a bishop running around the battlefield, beating people up and chasing them down.

• 1:07:06Speaker 02

  But what, what you are painting, though, is a picture of individual, familial, domestic, then state, legal, and, and warfare chaos. But warfare is a bit of a strong word, but, but certainly battlefield chaos, certainly violent chaos. And I think actually that's not something that I had of, as an overall picture of this revolt, where I had the group, this idea of a group of tens of thousands of people, especially coming over Blackheath, that being the moment where they really present themselves. But this is, A, an interesting way in which we're getting voices that we would otherwise not know, and that's always so valuable, because we're left with this aftermath of what's going on post the, the

• 1:07:50Speaker 02

  intense Middle of June time. But we're also getting a much more fractured geographical picture around the country, that this isn't just concentrated on Blackheath, or it's not just one swathe of people coming from Kent up to Blackheath. This really is a national movement.

• 1:08:07Anthony Delaney?

  It is. There, I mean, there's a website, there's a project called The People of 1381. So if you, if you Google People of 1381, they have a searchable database of all of these legal cases that you can find on there. So you can search for a name, surname, or a place name. And I do talks on the Peasants' Revolt, and touch wood, I've yet to give a talk in a place where I can't find a rebel from that

• 1:08:27Speaker 02

  Stop, really? Wow.

• 1:08:28Anthony Delaney?

  Town or village or whatever else. It's so widespread.

• 1:08:30Speaker 02

  So hundreds, you're talking about hundreds of cases?

• 1:08:31Anthony Delaney?

  Hundreds and hundreds of cases all across the country. One of the most interesting, I'm going to squeeze this in as well.

• 1:08:37Speaker 02

  Squeeze it.

• 1:08:37Anthony Delaney?

  One of the most interesting is a, a woman named Joanna Ferah, who is the, the wife of John Ferah. And it's very much that way around in the records. So she is recorded at being at Rochester Castle when they captured that and burnt the record. She's recorded being at Blackheath. She's one of only three women named amongst the 520 rebels who are brought to, to task afterwards. And she's accused of stealing a thousand pounds from the Savoy. And one of the things that we said was they, they weren't, they were very clear that they weren't stealing stuff. They killed someone who tried to steal something. But the government accuses her of stealing a thousand pounds worth of stuff, rowing it across the Thames and divvying it up with all of her mates.

• 1:09:13Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:09:13Anthony Delaney?

  And we get the, so the indictment against her in court says, "Joanna, wife of John Ferah of Rochester, in the county of Kent, went as the chief perpetrator and leader of a great society of rebels, wrongdoers, from Kent on, on Thursday, the 13th of June, 1381, to the Savoy, and as an enemy of the King, burned the said manor, seized the chest of a thousand pounds and took it away." So she is positioned as one of the leaders, one of the senior figures of the Peasants' Revolt. And we know that this ends up going to court. We're told that the sheriff orders Joanna's arrest, that she pleads not guilty in court, and that the jury find her not guilty and release her.

• 1:09:55Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:09:56Anthony Delaney?

  So the government's, to me, the government's plan to frame her and make her look like a thief who was out for her own ends, kind of fails at that point. And their story is interesting, too, because 20 years after the Peasants' Revolt, 1401, the King is now Henry IV, Richard II has failed dismally, been kicked off the throne. Henry IV is trying a, a guy for treason. And, and he's kind of squinting his eyes, and he's like, "Do I, do I know you? Have we met before?" And this guy's like, "We have, Your Majesty, in 1381, in the Tower of London." So this is John Ferah. "In 1381, in the Tower of London," John of Gaunt wasn't in London, "but his son, Henry Bolingbrook, who becomes Henry IV, was in the Tower of London, same age as Richard II, 14-year-old boy. But would

• 1:10:41Anthony Delaney?

  the mob have liked to get their hands on him? Most likely." And the King records in court his recollection of the fact that it was John and Joanna Ferah who bundled him into a cupboard and protected him from the rest of the rebels.

• 1:10:55Speaker 02

  Stop.

• 1:10:56Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 1:10:56Anthony Delaney?

  So John Ferah is standing in front of him, accused of treason, and Henry essentially lets him off, because he said, "I remember 20 years ago, you saved my life."

• 1:11:05Speaker 00

  Because he owes him his life.

• 1:11:06Speaker 02

  No. Is that going to be in the movie? Because

• 1:11:08Speaker 00

  That needs to be in the movie. Oh, my God.

• 1:11:11Speaker 02

  Now, have you flexed and warmed up? We're asking, I was asking you this before we started in preparation, because if The Odyssey has anything to go by, there's going to be an awful lot of hot medieval takes that need to happen once this movie comes out. Are you, are you, do you get excited when these new things present themselves? Or are you just like, oh, here we go again? Trot me out?

• 1:11:29Anthony Delaney?

  No, I, I think it's great whenever any bit of history like this is served to a more general public, who may not know the Peasants' Revolt very well, who may not have encountered it, may not know the detail. I think I would always say, treat these things as an intro, as a bit of a gateway, do a bit of reading, because making a film requires you to bend the history and not tell the full story, because it never can do that.

• 1:11:57Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:11:58Anthony Delaney?

  So just take it with a pinch of salt. Enjoy it, but then go and find out how much of it is really true. Because the stories of the Peasants' Revolt are incredible, and they are all there for us to see.

• 1:12:07Speaker 00

  Tell us again what that database is called with all the legal.

• 1:12:09Anthony Delaney?

  The People of 1381.

• 1:12:11Speaker 00

  Okay, I'm going to be going to that.

• 1:12:12Speaker 02

  Great title.

• 1:12:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's so great. I'm going to be going and looking at all of that. I, I love a, a legal record. We're always talking about the, um,

• 1:12:18Speaker 02

  And I don't see medieval legal records, actually, so that will be a totally

• 1:12:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:12:22Speaker 02

  different gig for me.

• 1:12:23Speaker 00

  Totally. I will, I'm going to go and do that. I really am.

• 1:12:26Anthony Delaney?

  I should go now, though. Look for your surname and look for where you live and see if you can find it.

• 1:12:28Speaker 02

  Oh, there won't be any for me, though, because Ireland.

• 1:12:30Anthony Delaney?

  They might not be directly related, but it's always interesting to look.

• 1:12:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay. I'll look for my surname.

• 1:12:35Speaker 00

  You, you, sorry, on an earlier episode, you were like, "I'm related to the Normans when they invaded in 1066."

• 1:12:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I mean, they're not going to be in the Peasants' Revolt, are they? They were in Ireland. We were all peasants there. We didn't revolt.

• 1:12:45Speaker 00

  Were you, were you already in Ireland at this point?

• 1:12:48Speaker 02

  I don't know. Yeah.

• 1:12:49Speaker 00

  Well, okay, more research needed on Anthony's family history.

• 1:12:52Speaker 02

  No, we've done, oh, my God, I've done so much for this podcast on my family history. We've gone back as far as I can go.

• 1:12:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's for sure. Okay, we're going to end this episode. If you've enjoyed it, if you'd like to hear more about medieval peasantry, about anything medieval, you can get in touch with us after dark, historyhit.com. Leave us a five-star review wherever you get your podcasts.