Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/362

 have been drawn to Blackheath in order to meet John Ball. One of Ball's lieutenants, Jack Straw, seems to have crossed the Thames at an earlier date, with a few companions, for the purpose of rousing the southern shire and opening the gates of Maidstone jail.

On Blackheath there was a more or less orderly-muster. Wat Tyler, who had served in France, was at the head of this contingent, and seems to have kept it well in hand whilst the fiery priest from Essex harangued and inflamed it. Commissioners from the King came to hear the demands of the peasants, and they were sent back with fair treatment and a moderate request from the leaders that they might have speech with their monarch. In the Council to which this message was reported Sudbury made the fatal mistake, in which he was supported by the Treasurer—Sir Robert Hales, prior of the Hospital of St. John,—of urging that the King should not receive the representatives of the rebels. The story of the next few days need not be repeated here in detail; but so far as the spirit of the movement can be gathered from the words and acts of John Ball—who must certainly be classed as a Lollard, whether he was a professed disciple of Wyclif or not—it is worth while to take note of the general course of events.

The famous speech of Ball on Blackheath has been cited by the chroniclers and others as a distinct encouragement to violence and bloodshed. The simple question is whether we are to accept the testimony of his enemies, written down at the time when passion ran high, and by men who considered