Leaders we know only through enemies
When people talk about the 1381 rising in England, one name stands out: Wat Tyler. Yet there is surprisingly little reliable information about who he was. He appears in the sources suddenly, in Kent in early June 1381, and is dead within about ten days. Nearly everything we know about him comes from chroniclers who were hostile to the rising, and from the legal records afterward.
The same is true of other leaders. The rising was not run by a single commander. Different bands in Essex, Kent, Hertfordshire, Suffolk and Norfolk had their own captains, and leadership was often local and shifting.
Wat Tyler
“Wat” is a short form of Walter. “Tyler” may have been an occupation (a roof-tiler) or a family name, and chroniclers disagree on his origins. Some place him in Kent, others in Essex. Some later writers describe him as a former soldier who had served in the Hundred Years War in France. That would fit his apparent skill at organizing a march, but it is an inference and not a certainty.
The best-attested fact is that rebels at Maidstone chose him as their leader around 7 June. From there he led the Kentish force to Canterbury and then to Blackheath and London. Chroniclers say that he kept some discipline, trying to stop looting by the rebels and insisting on their loyalty to the king. He was spokesman for the group on the days of negotiation, and while the king met the Essex rebels at Mile End, Tyler’s men were elsewhere in the city.
John Ball and the preachers
John Ball was a priest from Kent, reportedly imprisoned several times by church authorities for preaching against the clergy and the great lords. The rebels freed him at Maidstone. He is credited with a sermon at Blackheath that began with the couplet “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?”, though the sources are partisan and the exact words are uncertain. The couplet became a symbol of the idea that all people share a common origin and that rank was not natural.
Ball’s role in actual command is unclear. He seems to have been more of an inspirer and spokesman than a general. After the revolt he was captured, tried at St Albans and executed in July. His preaching also shows that the rising was entangled with arguments about the church’s wealth and authority, which were part of the broader world of the three estates, where clergy, nobles and commoners each had their expected place.
Jack Straw and other captains
Jack Straw was one of the Essex leaders and is named in several chronicles. Some historians think “Jack Straw” may have been a nickname or a stock name, and some sources treat him as associated with Tyler. After capture, he reportedly made a confession in which he spoke of a plan to kill nobles and the king, but such a confession by a prisoner facing execution should be read cautiously.
Others played big roles locally. Thomas Baker is associated with the first outbreak at Fobbing. In East Anglia, Geoffrey Litster led a rising that took several weeks to put down. There were also men who were not peasants at all: clergy, local officials and townsmen who joined or guided the movement.
The young king
Richard II was fourteen in 1381 and had been king for four years. He was the son of the Black Prince, and his grandfather Edward III had died in 1377. In the crisis he was surrounded by advisers, including nobles and city officials, some of whom were at the Tower with him. After his chancellor and treasurer were killed, the royal administration was shaken. The king agreed to meet the rebels first at Mile End, where the Essex group sought charters, and then, the following day, at Smithfield.
Many accounts present the king as notably composed for his age. Some of that is the kind of praise chroniclers gave to their sovereign. What can be said is that he did take part in meetings with the rebels in person, and that his later behavior, canceling the concessions, was in line with what the lords around him wanted.
Smithfield, 15 June
At Smithfield the king and a group of attendants met Tyler and a large crowd of rebels outside the city walls. The accounts differ in details, but they agree on the main outline. Tyler rode forward to speak to the king, and a quarrel started with one of the royal party. The Lord Mayor, William Walworth, struck him, and others wounded him. Tyler was carried to St Bartholomew’s hospital nearby, was found there, dragged out and beheaded.
According to the chronicles, the rebels drew their bows and a battle seemed likely, but Richard rode toward them and invited them to follow him. Whether he used the words later attributed to him, offering to be their leader, is unknowable. The crowd moved off to Clerkenwell Fields, where the mayor and others later arrived with armed men from the city. The rebels, without their leader, dispersed. Tyler’s head was put on London Bridge.
What the confrontation shows
The scene is often retold as a story of a brave boy-king and a villainous rebel, which is how the chroniclers tell it. A more cautious reading is that the rebels were trusting the king as the source of justice, and that Tyler’s death came in a moment of confused violence rather than a planned trap, though some historians suspect the lords around the king saw an opportunity. Rebels had also singled out John of Gaunt, the king’s uncle, who was away in the north at the time. The rebels’ loyalty to the person of the king was real, and it proved fatal to their cause.
Leaders were in any case hard to remove entirely. The rising continued for some weeks in other parts of the country, and it took royal forces, local gentry and bishops to restore order. Tyler’s death marked the moment at which the London phase ended, but not the end of the unrest.