The Peasants' Revolt and Its Leaders

A Kingdom on the Brink

By the spring of 1381, England was a tinderbox. The Black Death had swept through the country three decades earlier, killing perhaps half the population. Labour was suddenly scarce, and survivors knew their worth. Yet the Statute of Labourers of 1351 froze wages at pre-plague levels, while landlords clung to feudal dues. Then came the third poll tax of 1380: a shilling a head, enough to cripple a labourer’s family. Tax collectors in Essex and Kent met evasion with threats, and in May 1381 the men of Fobbing and Brentwood drove them out. Within weeks, thousands were marching on London.

The rebels were not a mob of desperate beggars. They were priests, artisans, and labourers — tilers, fullers, weavers, and ploughmen — who had watched their masters tighten the screws. They demanded dignity, justice, and freedom from serfdom. Their leaders gave those demands a voice that still echoes.

John Ball: The Priest Who Preached Equality

John Ball was an itinerant priest from Kent, excommunicated for preaching that rank and wealth were not divinely ordained. At Blackheath on 12 June 1381, he delivered a sermon that became the revolt’s rallying cry: “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?” His message was simple and dangerous. If Adam and Eve had no masters, why should ordinary Englishmen bow to lords who lived off their sweat?

Ball had been imprisoned in Maidstone, but Kentish rebels freed him and brought him to London. He walked beside Wat Tyler and spoke of a world without serfdom, where goods were held in common. After the revolt collapsed, he was hanged, drawn, and quartered at St Albans on 15 July 1381. His words outlived him.

Wat Tyler: The Artisan Who Faced a King

Wat Tyler was probably a tiler from Essex, though some chronicles call him a blacksmith. He emerged as the captain of the Kentish rebels, leading them into London on 13 June 1381. The rebels opened prisons, burned the Savoy Palace, and killed the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Sudbury. At Mile End on 14 June, King Richard II — a boy of fourteen — promised to abolish serfdom and pardon all rebels.

The next day at Smithfield, Tyler met the king again. He presented a radical programme: abolition of serfdom, fixed low rents, free fishing and hunting, and equality before the law. But the meeting turned violent. William Walworth, the Lord Mayor of London, struck Tyler down, and he was killed. The rebellion lost its head. Richard II, surrounded by armed men, famously told the crowd he would be their leader — then rode away and revoked every promise.

Jack Straw and the Regional Captains

Wat Tyler and John Ball were not alone. The revolt threw up dozens of local leaders, most of them ordinary workers with a sharp sense of injustice.

• Jack Straw — possibly a real Essex rebel or a chronicler’s invention — was said to have led a contingent that stormed the Tower of London. His name became shorthand for the revolt’s most militant wing.
• John Wrawe, a Suffolk chaplain, led rebels who attacked Bury St Edmunds and executed the Chief Justice, John Cavendish.
• Geoffrey Litster, a dyer from Norfolk, captured Norwich and held a mock court, trying and executing royal officials before his forces were crushed.
• William Grindecobbe, a fuller from St Albans, demanded the abbey surrender its ancient charters and grant the townspeople their freedoms.
• Johanna Ferrour, a Kentish woman, led rebels in London and was named in later pardons for ordering the execution of royal officials. She reminds us that women were not bystanders.

The Reckoning at Smithfield and After

The king’s men hunted down the rebels with brutal efficiency. John Ball was executed. John Wrawe was hanged. Geoffrey Litster was captured and killed. William Grindecobbe was hanged at St Albans. Across England, perhaps 1,500 rebels were put to death in the summer of 1381. The poll tax was abandoned, but serfdom was not abolished by royal decree. Landlords resumed their old demands.

Yet something had shifted. The revolt showed that the feudal order could be challenged. Labour shortages and rising wages did more to end serfdom than any charter, but the rebels hastened its decline. By the 15th century, most English peasants were free tenants paying rent, not bonded labourers.

The Unfinished Business of 1381

The Peasants’ Revolt was not a romantic triumph. It was violent, messy, and ultimately defeated. But its leaders — a priest, a tiler, a dyer, a fuller, a woman named Johanna — asked questions that still matter. Who decides what a fair wage is? Who owns the land? Why should ordinary people accept poverty while a few live in palaces?

Their demand for dignity, justice, and freedom was not granted in 1381. It was not a single battle but a long argument. Whenever working people in Britain organise for better pay, for the right to be heard, or for a fairer share of what they produce, they are picking up a thread that runs back to Smithfield. The rogues and outlaws of 1381 lost their lives, but they left behind a stubborn, practical hope: that the masters are not inevitable, and that freedom is worth demanding.