The Peasants' Revolt Was Crushed. So Why Did England Never Tax Like That Again?

The rebellion is over in three weeks. Wat Tyler is dead, the charters are revoked, John Ball is executed, and by every measure that historians usually use, the Peasants' Revolt failed completely. Except that the tax that started it was never levied again in the same way for a hundred and thirty two years. The next general poll tax in England comes in 1513, under Henry VIII, and even then the government moved carefully. For four generations, the memory of 1381 sat in the room every time Parliament talked about taxing ordinary people. In this final part of the series we go to Smithfield on the 15th of June, 1381, and work out what actually happened between Wat Tyler and the fourteen year old king. Then we follow Richard II to Waltham, where the chronicler Thomas Walsingham puts a speech in his mouth that is quoted in almost every book on the revolt, and which one of the best modern historians of 1381 thinks was made up. We go through the reprisals in Essex, Hertfordshire and Norfolk, and then we ask the question the whole series has been building toward. They lost. Did they also win? Serfdom in England is not abolished by an act of Parliament. It drains away. And in 1574, Elizabeth I signs a commission to free the last serfs on the crown estates, which tells you both that villeinage had almost disappeared and that it had not quite. 📅 TudorCon From Home, October 23 to 25: join the Privy Council by September 30 for bonus game nights, early community access, the Spooky Halloween Walk through London audio tour, and 25% off with code PRIVYCOUNCIL. 👉 https://tudorcon.englandcast.com/tudorcon-from-home/ FREE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER Tudor and medieval history in your inbox every week, plus the three history stories that caught my eye. https://www.englandcast.com/newsletter-sign-up/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices