The lower classes of the people of England had been held substantially as slaves by the nobles and gentry for many generations. They had long submitted to this, hopeless of any change. But they had gradually become enlightened in respect to their natural rights; and now, when the class immediately above them were so grievously oppressed and harassed by the taxes which were assessed upon them, and still more by the vexatious and extortionate mode in which the money was collected, they all began to make common cause, and, when the rebellion broke out, they rose in one mass, freemen and bondmen together.
There was a certain priest named John Ball, who, before the rebellion broke out, had done much to enlighten the people as to their rights, and had attempted to induce them to seek redress at first in a peaceable manner. He used to make speeches to the people in the market-place, representing to them the hardships which they endured by the oppressions of the nobility, and urging them to combine together to petition the king for a redress of their grievances. "The king will listen to us, I am sure," said he, "if we go to him together in a body and make our request; but if he will not hear us, then we must redress our grievances ourselves the best way we can."
The example of Ball was followed by many other persons; and, as always happens in such cases, the excitement among the people, and their eagerness to hear, brought out a great many spectators, whose only object was to see who could awaken the resentment and anger of their audiences in the highest degree, and produce the greatest possible excitement. These orators, having begun with condemning the extravagant wealth, the haughty pretensions, and the cruel oppressions of the nobles, and contrasting them with the extreme misery and want of the common people, whom they held as slaves, proceeded at length to denounce all inequalities in human condition, and to demand that all things should be held in common.
"Things will never go on well in England," said they, "until all these distinctions shall be leveled, and the time shall come when there shall be neither vassal nor lord, and these proud nobles shall be no more masters than ourselves. How ill have they used us! And what right have they to hold us in this miserable bondage? Are we not all descended from the same parents, Adam and Eve? What right have one set of men to make another set their slaves? What right have they to compel us to toil all our lives to earn money, that they may live at ease and spend it? They are clothed in velvets and rich stuffs, ornamented with ermine and furs, while we are half naked, or clothed only in rags. They have wines, and spices, and fine bread, while we have nothing but rye, and the refuse of the straw. They have manors and handsome seats, while we live in miserable cabins, and have to brave the wind and rain at our labor in the fields, in order that, with the proceeds of our toil, they may support their pomp and luxury. And if we do not perform our services, or if they unjustly think that we do not, we are beaten, and there is no one to whom we can complain or look for justice."
There is obviously some truth and some extravagance in these complaints. Men deprived of their rights, as these poor English serfs were, and goaded by the oppressions which they suffered almost to despair, will, of course, be extravagant in their complaints. None but those totally ignorant of human nature would expect men to be moderate and reasonable when in such a condition, and in such a state of mind.
The truth is, that there always has been, and there always will necessarily be, a great inequality in the conditions, and a great difference in the employments of men; but this fact awakens no dissatisfaction or discontent when those who have the lower stations of life to fill are treated as they ought to be treated. If they enjoy personal liberty, and are paid the fair wages which they earn by their labor, and are treated with kindness and consideration by those whose duties are of a higher and more intellectual character, and whose position in life is superior to theirs, they are, almost without exception, satisfied and happy. It is only when they are urged and driven hard and long by unfeeling oppression that they are ever aroused to rebellion against the order of the social state; and then, as might be expected, they go to extremes, and, if they get the power into their hands, they sweep every thing away, and overwhelm themselves and their superiors in one common destruction.
Young persons sometimes imagine that the American doctrine of the equality of man refers to equality of condition; and even grown persons, who ought to think more clearly and be more reasonable, sometimes refer to the distinctions of rich and poor in this country as falsifying our political theories. But the truth is, that, in our political theory of equality, it is not at all equality of condition, but equality of rights, that is claimed for man. All men-the doctrine is simply-have an equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Even when all are in the full enjoyment of their rights, different men will, of course, attain to very different degrees of advancement in the objects of their desire. Some will be rich and some will be poor; some will be servants and some masters; some will be the employers and some the employed; but, so long as all are equal in respect to their rights, none will complain-or, at least, no classes will complain. There will, of course, be here and there disappointed and discontented individuals, but their discontent will not spread. It is only by the long-continued and oppressive infringement of the natural rights of large masses of men that the way is prepared for revolts and insurrections.
It was by this process that the way was prepared for the insurrection which I am now to describe. The whole country for fifty miles about London was in a very sullen and angry mood, ready for an outbreak the moment that any incident should occur to put the excitement in motion. This incident was furnished by an occurrence which took place in the family of Walter the Tiler.
It seems that a personal tax had been levied by the government, the amount of which varied with the age of the individual assessed. Children paid so much. Young men and young women paid more. The line between these classes was not clearly defined, or, rather, the tax-gatherers had no means of determining the ages of the young people in a family, if they suspected the parents reported them wrong. In such cases they were often very insolent and rude, and a great many quarrels took place, by which the people were often very much incensed. The tax-gatherer came one day into Walter's house to collect the tax. Walter himself was away, engaged at work tiling a house nearby. The only persons that were at home were his wife and a young daughter just growing to womanhood. The tax-gatherer said that the girl was full-grown, and that they must pay the higher tax for her. Her mother said, "No, she is not full-grown yet; she is only a child." The tax-gatherer then said he would soon find out whether she was a woman or not, and went to her to take hold of her, offering her rudeness and violence of the worst possible character. The poor girl screamed and struggled to get away from him. Her mother ran to the door, and made a great outcry, calling for help. Walter, hearing the cries, seized for a club a heavy implement which he used in tiling, and ran home. As soon as he entered the house, he demanded of the officer, who had now left his daughter and came forward to meet him, what he meant by conducting in so outrageous a manner in his house. The officer replied defiantly, and advanced toward Walter to strike him. Walter parried the stroke, and then, being roused to perfect phrensy by the insult which his daughter had received and the insolence of the tax-gatherer, he brought his club down upon the tax-gatherer's head with such a blow as to break his skull and kill him on the spot. The blow was so violent that the man's brains were scattered all about the floor.