which his scholars, who
traversed the land to make them known, found a well prepared soil in
the people of England. How could the rise of popular elements fail to
call forth a kindred effort also among the lower classes? The belief
arose that Nature intended all men to be equal. The country people
spoke of their primitive rights, traces of which were found in the
memorials of the Conqueror's times, and which had then been taken from
them. When now, instead of seeing these respected, they were subjected
to new impositions, and this with harshness and insolence, they rose
in open revolt. So overpowering was the attack which they directed
against the capital and the King's palace, that Richard II found
himself forced to grant them a charter which secured them personal
freedom. Had they contented themselves with this, they might have done
best for themselves and perhaps for the crown, but when they demanded
yet further and more extreme concessions, they roused against
themselves the whole power of the organised State, for which they were
as yet no match. The Mayor of London himself struck down with his
dagger the leader of the bands, Wat Tyler, because he seemed to
threaten the King; the Bishop of Norwich was not hindered by his
spiritual character from levelling his lance against the
insurgents;[58] after which he accompanied the leaders, who were taken
and condemned to death, to the scaffold, with words of comfort; in
other places the lay nobles did their best. When therefore in the next
Parliament the King brought forward the proposal to declare the serfs
free by a united resolution,--for the previous charter that had been
wrung from him was considered invalid,--both Lords and Commons
rejected it, as tending to disinherit them and prove pernicious to the
kingdom.

It is not to be supposed that a movement like this, which the lower
class of citizens in the towns had joined, just as in the German
peasant war, and which was mainly directed against the landed gentry,
could be stifled by one defeat: it continued to ferment
uninterruptedly in men's hearts.

Still less did the condemnation passed by Convocation on the
deviations from the teaching of the Church effect their suppression.
On the basis of Wiclif's doctrines grew up the sect of the Lollards,
which condemned the worship of images, pilgrimages, and other external
church ceremonies, designated the union of judicial authority with
spiritual office as unnatural--'herm