Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/365

 was set on fire, the peasants seized a pillager who was making off with his booty and flung him into the blazing pile. "We have no mind to be thieves," they are reported to have said. Hate was far stronger in their breasts than greed. It is recorded that they pounded the Duke's jewels in mortars, trampled on his cloth of gold and embroidered silks, smashed the gold and silver plate, the spoils of many a hard fight, and hurled them into the Thames.

The Duke himself at this time was at the head of his troops in Scotland, and it is therefore inexact to say that he had fled before the storm. The facts connected with the death of Archbishop Sudbury and the Treasurer Hales are by no means clear; but the beheading on Tower Hill may be supposed to have been intended as an assertion by the "sovereign people" of its right to execute summary justice.

In the wallet of one of the Essex men, who suffered for his part in the great disturbance, a letter was found which was manifestly the composition of John Ball.

"John Schep, som tyme Seynt Marie prest of Yorke, and nowe of Colchestre, greteth welle Johan Nameles, and Johan the Mullere, and Johan Cartere, and biddeth hem that thei ware of gyle in borugh. And stondeth togiddir in Goddis name, and biddeth Peres Ploughman go to his werke, and chastise Hobbe the robber, and taketh with you Johan Trewman, and alle his felaws, and no mo, and loke scharpe you to on heved and no mo [obey one head and no more].