ery likely way to develop whatever good was in him; and
it brought him to anything but a good or happy end.

The Duke of Lancaster, the young King's uncle--commonly called John of
Gaunt, from having been born at Ghent, which the common people so
pronounced--was supposed to have some thoughts of the throne himself;
but, as he was not popular, and the memory of the Black Prince was, he
submitted to his nephew.

The war with France being still unsettled, the Government of England
wanted money to provide for the expenses that might arise out of it;
accordingly a certain tax, called the Poll-tax, which had originated in
the last reign, was ordered to be levied on the people. This was a tax
on every person in the kingdom, male and female, above the age of
fourteen, of three groats (or three four-penny pieces) a year; clergymen
were charged more, and only beggars were exempt.

I have no need to repeat that the common people of England had long been
suffering under great oppression. They were still the mere slaves of the
lords of the land on which they lived, and were on most occasions harshly
and unjustly treated. But, they had begun by this time to think very
seriously of not bearing quite so much; and, probably, were emboldened by
that French insurrection I mentioned in the last chapter.

The people of Essex rose against the Poll-tax, and being severely handled
by the government officers, killed some of them. At this very time one
of the tax-collectors, going his rounds from house to house, at Dartford
in Kent came to the cottage of one WAT, a tiler by trade, and claimed the
tax upon his daughter. Her mother, who was at home, declared that she
was under the age of fourteen; upon that, the collector (as other
collectors had already done in different parts of England) behaved in a
savage way, and brutally insulted Wat Tyler's daughter. The daughter
screamed, the mother screamed. Wat the Tiler, who was at work not far
off, ran to the spot, and did what any honest father under such
provocation might have done--struck the collector dead at a blow.

Instantly the people of that town uprose as one man. They made Wat Tyler
their leader; they joined with the people of Essex, who were in arms
under a priest called JACK STRAW; they took out of prison another priest
named JOHN BALL; and gathering in numbers as they went along, advanced,
in a great confused army of poor men, to Blackheath. It is said that
they wanted to abol