Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/360

 worn-out bows—many a bowman having but a single arrow, and many an arrow winged with a single feather; and "thus they went forth to conquer a kingdom." There is a poetical touch in this description which warrants us in treating it with some degree of qualification. Poor as the organisation must have been, the forces of "the Commons," as they delighted to call themselves, were probably better than the mere riff-raff of the country-side.

The men of Kent, "hearing of this thing which they had so often prayed for," immediately roused the whole county, blocked the roads, and, stopping every traveller, made him swear—"That he would be loyal to King Richard and to the Commons; that he would have no King of the name of John; that he would be ready when sent for to come and join them; that he would persuade all his neighbours and acquaintance to hold with them; and that he would not agree or consent to the raising of any taxes in the kingdom thenceforth except only the fifteenths which their fathers and ancestors had known and agreed to." Then they liberated John Ball at Maidstone, as already stated, and proceeded by way of Canterbury and Rochester along the northern road to London.

The news spread to Sussex, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, and Norfolk, and all men's minds were divided between hope and dread." Men commonly said to each other that there would be a division of the kingdom owing to these occurrences, and that England would be devastated and destroyed." And when the number of the rebels daily