santry and the mechanics of the towns resisted. The poor found
their mouth-piece in John Ball, "a mad priest of Kent," as Froissart
calls him. Mad his words must have seemed to the nobles of the land.
"Good people," he declared, "things will never go well in England so
long as goods be not in common, and so long as there be villains and
gentlemen. By what right are they whom we call lords greater folk than
we? On what grounds have they deserved it? Why do they hold us in
serfage? If we all came of the same father and mother, of Adam and Eve,
how can they say or prove that they are better than we, if it be not
that they make us gain for them by our toil what they spend in their
pride? They are clothed in velvet, and warm in their furs and their
ermines, while we are covered with rags. They have wine and spices and
fair bread; and we have oat-cake and straw, and water to drink. They
have leisure and fine houses; we have pain and labor, the rain and the
wind in the fields. And yet it is of us and of our toil that these men
hold their state."

So spoke this early socialist. So spoke his hearers in the popular rhyme
of the day:

"When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?"

So things went on for years, growing worse year by year, the fire of
discontent smouldering, ready at a moment to burst into flame.

At length the occasion came. Edward the Third died, but he left an ugly
heritage of debt behind him. His useless wars in France had beggared
the crown. New money must be raised. Parliament laid a poll-tax on every
person in the realm, the poorest to pay as much as the wealthiest.

Here was an application of the doctrine of equality of which the people
did not approve. The land was quickly on fire from sea to sea. Crowds of
peasants gathered and drove the tax-gatherers with clubs from their
homes. Rude rhymes passed from lip to lip, full of the spirit of revolt.
All over southern England spread the sentiment of rebellion.

The incident which set flame to the fuel was this. At Dartford, in Kent,
lived one Wat Tyler, a hardy soldier who had served in the French wars.
To his house, in his absence, came a tax-collector, and demanded the tax
on his daughter. The mother declared that she was not taxable, being
under fourteen years of age. The collector thereupon seized the child in
an insulting manner, so frightening her that her screams reached the
ears of her father, who was at work not far off. Wat flew