Following
the tradition started by King Henry the Second in the year 1162 with Thomas
Becket, of making his Lord Chancellor concurrently Archbishop of Canterbury,
Archbishop Simon Sudbury was not only responsible for the re-building of the
Westgate Towers but also prominent in connection with The Great Rising, as the
Peasants' Revolt became known, to break the cycle of feudal bondage. The Lord
Chancellor was a prominent member of the Government.
The rebellion started on
30th May in Brentwood, Essex, with the arrival of a commission from the
Exchequer to enquire why there had been a mysterious fall of one third in the
adult population over the previous four years, since the poll tax was
introduced to levy a tax on each person and superseding the household
wealth tax.
When the rebels reached London on 14th June,
they tracked down Archbishop Sudbury to the Tower. Together with the King's
Treasurer Sir Robert Hales, who was responsible for collecting the poll tax
of 1380, the third poll tax in four years, both men were dragged out and
beheaded by the crowds, who then paraded their severed heads on poles in
procession to Westminster Abbey.
On the following day, Saturday 15 June, fourteen
year old King Richard the Second rode out to Smithfield, London's meat
market, with two hundred courtiers and men at arms, to face a much larger
party of rebels on the other side of the field. Further negotiations had
been arranged but they did not go according to plan when Wat Tyler rode
ahead to talk to the king and his party. According to the king's
chroniclers, Tyler behaved most belligerently, dismounted his
horse and called for a drink most rudely. Tyler supposedly drew and played
with his dagger and then attempted to stab the Mayor of London, William
Walworth, who was wearing armour beneath his costume. The Mayor drew his
sword and attacked Wat Tyler, mortally wounding him in the neck.* One of
the king's bodyguards drew his sword and ran it through Tyler.
Wat Tyler was taken by his followers to St.
Bartholomew's Hospital but the Mayor had him dragged out and beheaded**.
King Richard the Second's father, Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince, is
buried in Canterbury Cathedral.
The Kent Remembered article
published in the Kent Weekend section of the Kent On Sunday newspaper dated 12 June 2011
and each other Archant KOS Media Group newspaper published that week, entitled
"The Peasant Who Rebelled Against The Poll Tax", was based
on Richard West's press release and a telephone interview by journalist Marijka Cox.
An edition of the article
dated 7 June 2011, showing a different photograph and without TCEP's website
address, was published on the Archant KOS Media Kent News website, under the title
"Anniversary of Wat Tyler and the Peasants' Revolt at Canterbury Cathedral".
The newspaper's archive is searchable. Type "Wat Tyler" in the Archant
KOS Media Kent News website's search box, to access the article without
needing to click a hyperlink on this webpage.
Reference sources used: **Robert Lacey's book Great Tales From English
History; and *The Peasant's Revolt (downloaded 28 May 2011 from Wikipedia).