0:00:11 > 0:00:13Here in this country, we have had the bloody Civil War,
0:00:13 > 0:00:17and we have also executed a king who many people thought
0:00:17 > 0:00:19was appointed on Earth by God.
0:00:19 > 0:00:21But we have never had a true revolution,
0:00:21 > 0:00:24yet there has been a consistent radical,
0:00:24 > 0:00:28egalitarian tradition in literature and in politics.
0:00:28 > 0:00:31These two programmes are called Radical Lives
0:00:31 > 0:00:33and I'll be talking about John Ball,
0:00:33 > 0:00:35the great preacher in the 14th century,
0:00:35 > 0:00:39a rebel who drew his fervour from fundamentalist Christianity,
0:00:39 > 0:00:43and Tom Paine, who drew his ideas from the Enlightenment
0:00:43 > 0:00:45in the 18th century.
0:00:45 > 0:00:48Both these men tried to uproot the systems
0:00:48 > 0:00:50in which they found themselves.
0:00:50 > 0:00:54Both were reviled and repudiated after their deaths
0:00:54 > 0:00:57and both left an enduring radical legacy.
0:00:58 > 0:01:01"When Adam delved and Eve span
0:01:01 > 0:01:03"Who was then the gentleman?"
0:01:03 > 0:01:05These lines, written by John Ball,
0:01:05 > 0:01:08are from a momentous sermon he gave in 1381.
0:01:08 > 0:01:11A sermon that transformed a rebellion that was the
0:01:11 > 0:01:14closest thing this country has ever come to a true revolution.
0:01:14 > 0:01:17And yet, these lines are all that some people know of him.
0:01:18 > 0:01:22John Ball's rhetoric so terrified the authorities of his own time
0:01:22 > 0:01:24that they attempted to erase him from memory,
0:01:24 > 0:01:28and effectively, they did just that for about 300 years.
0:01:28 > 0:01:29BELL CHIMES
0:01:29 > 0:01:32He would later influence, as we shall see in this programme,
0:01:32 > 0:01:35many of our greatest writers and political thinkers.
0:01:35 > 0:01:38Yet, despite this, he is one of our unheard heroes,
0:01:38 > 0:01:42and I think he is one of the most significant figures in our history.
0:01:42 > 0:01:45The death of John Ball happened here,
0:01:45 > 0:01:48next to the Cathedral of St Albans.
0:01:48 > 0:01:50It was the end of a revolutionary voice.
0:01:50 > 0:01:54This country has never had as powerful a revolutionary voice,
0:01:54 > 0:01:57as uncompromising, as root and branch,
0:01:57 > 0:02:01and as within a hair's breadth of success as that of John Ball.
0:02:01 > 0:02:06A preacher, excommunicated, hunted by the King and his bishops
0:02:06 > 0:02:10but, above all, the inspiration behind the commons,
0:02:10 > 0:02:15the people of England who rose up in their thousands against a brutal
0:02:15 > 0:02:18and ruling elite and almost toppled them.
0:02:23 > 0:02:25It was a time of butchery and betrayals,
0:02:25 > 0:02:29of the eruption of the anger of centuries across the countryside.
0:02:29 > 0:02:31Anger that led to the burning of London,
0:02:31 > 0:02:35murder and terror, spectacular and swift mobilisation of the people.
0:02:36 > 0:02:39But, most of all, there was a brief
0:02:39 > 0:02:42but golden promise of a new, free, just, equal country.
0:02:42 > 0:02:44It was a promise made by John Ball,
0:02:44 > 0:02:48and believed by men and women who crushed the military regime
0:02:48 > 0:02:51and put crown and state under threat in just four days
0:02:51 > 0:02:56in what came to be known as the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.
0:02:56 > 0:02:59The Peasants' Revolt is a title I reject.
0:02:59 > 0:03:02Yes, there were serfs and bondmen and villeins
0:03:02 > 0:03:05but there were also artisans, administrators,
0:03:05 > 0:03:07one or two knights of the realm.
0:03:07 > 0:03:09This was the commons of England,
0:03:09 > 0:03:12the people of England whom John Ball inspired.
0:03:24 > 0:03:27John Ball was born into what became one of the most,
0:03:27 > 0:03:30if not the most, catastrophic centuries in English history
0:03:30 > 0:03:32over the last thousand years.
0:03:32 > 0:03:35At that time, more than 90% of the people lived in the countryside,
0:03:35 > 0:03:39and society was very strictly stratified.
0:03:39 > 0:03:40It was not unlike a pyramid.
0:03:40 > 0:03:44The King at the top, then his nobles, the bishops, archbishops,
0:03:44 > 0:03:48the administrators, the controllers of society at every level.
0:03:48 > 0:03:52And the mass of the people owed them various forms of service
0:03:52 > 0:03:54and were frankly oppressed by them
0:03:54 > 0:03:58and ruled by them in many details of their lives.
0:03:58 > 0:04:01And God, too, seemed to be against them. In the 14th century,
0:04:01 > 0:04:04England suffered the horror of the Black Death.
0:04:04 > 0:04:06Almost half the people died.
0:04:06 > 0:04:09The population in England wouldn't regain its former size
0:04:09 > 0:04:11for about 300 years.
0:04:11 > 0:04:15And, as a consequence, labour was in chronically short supply.
0:04:15 > 0:04:19Those remaining, especially labourers at the bottom of the heap,
0:04:19 > 0:04:22bonded men, serfs, often slaves in all but name,
0:04:22 > 0:04:25saw an opportunity to raise their wages.
0:04:25 > 0:04:28They saw they could find better work elsewhere.
0:04:28 > 0:04:31They saw they had a measure of freedom.
0:04:31 > 0:04:34They wanted to take this chance, but they were immediately
0:04:34 > 0:04:38and viciously stamped on by a series of royal statutes.
0:04:38 > 0:04:41All wages were frozen and no movement of labour was allowed.
0:04:41 > 0:04:45Anyone who disobeyed was likely to be fined, imprisoned,
0:04:45 > 0:04:47or hunted down.
0:04:47 > 0:04:50And a war with France, which was to last for 100 years,
0:04:50 > 0:04:52was bankrupting the nation.
0:04:52 > 0:04:55War-mongering nobles, plague and poverty
0:04:55 > 0:04:57defined the 14th century.
0:04:58 > 0:05:03"Ah, ye good people," Ball was to write in a letter, "the matters
0:05:03 > 0:05:08"goeth not well to pass in England, nor shall do until everything
0:05:08 > 0:05:11"be common and that the Lords be no greater masters than we be."
0:05:14 > 0:05:19John Ball was born around 1330 here in Essex,
0:05:19 > 0:05:23his family possibly came from near the village of Peldon.
0:05:26 > 0:05:28Among the original medieval court documents
0:05:28 > 0:05:31held here in the Essex Records Office at Chelmsford
0:05:31 > 0:05:34are court rolls that mention a John Ball.
0:05:35 > 0:05:40These are tenancy rolls and court rolls from the 14th century.
0:05:40 > 0:05:42They are written in Latin. We are lucky to have them
0:05:42 > 0:05:46because a lot of the rolls around here were destroyed by the rebels.
0:05:46 > 0:05:50But here these are, and this tenancy roll talks of a William Ball,
0:05:50 > 0:05:53who came from nearby Peldon to Colchester,
0:05:53 > 0:05:57and his son, John Ball, who lived with his mother, Joan.
0:05:57 > 0:06:00And it's proof that our man existed.
0:06:00 > 0:06:02Translated from Latin, it says,
0:06:02 > 0:06:06"Grant by John, son and heir of William Ball of Peldon,
0:06:06 > 0:06:09"to Joan, his mother, of a tenement in Colchester
0:06:09 > 0:06:13"between East Stockwell Strat and West Stockwell Strat."
0:06:13 > 0:06:18"Strat" being a Saxon derivation of the Germanic word for street.
0:06:23 > 0:06:27..109.50 bid, sold at 109.50. 109.50 for four, Graeme.
0:06:28 > 0:06:33Colchester, about this time, was a thriving medieval wool town.
0:06:33 > 0:06:35It had a population of about 5,000,
0:06:35 > 0:06:39which made it one of the larger towns in England.
0:06:39 > 0:06:42The town itself had a tradition of self-governance,
0:06:42 > 0:06:43unlike the countryside.
0:06:43 > 0:06:47And also, towards the end of the 14th century, it was a place
0:06:47 > 0:06:49to which dissident churchmen gravitated.
0:06:49 > 0:06:52John Ball was very much at home here,
0:06:52 > 0:06:56and he spent much of his time around Colchester.
0:06:56 > 0:06:59In the letters and sermons that he would later write,
0:06:59 > 0:07:01Ball drew on the rural world he grew up in,
0:07:01 > 0:07:04a world of country folk, farmers, shepherds, millers.
0:07:04 > 0:07:08He learnt how to arouse the passions of the people by using what
0:07:08 > 0:07:10they were familiar with.
0:07:11 > 0:07:15"Falseness and guile have reigned too long," he wrote, "and truth
0:07:15 > 0:07:19"has been set under a lock and falseness reigns in every flock."
0:07:21 > 0:07:24The Church dominated 14th-century England.
0:07:24 > 0:07:29There were two abbeys in Colchester - St John's and St Botolph's.
0:07:29 > 0:07:32Colchester swarmed with political squabbles and ongoing battles
0:07:32 > 0:07:35between the freer local people and these two monasteries.
0:07:35 > 0:07:39The court rolls also show troublemaking among the young
0:07:39 > 0:07:43chaplains themselves, citing drunkenness and gambling.
0:07:43 > 0:07:46Like many young Colchester priests, John Ball was
0:07:46 > 0:07:50trained in the priesthood in York, at St Mary's Benedictine Abbey.
0:07:50 > 0:07:54He would describe himself as sometime-priest of St Mary's,
0:07:54 > 0:07:55now of Colchester.
0:07:55 > 0:07:58This simply because this abbey, St John's,
0:07:58 > 0:08:01was connected with York and sent its young men up there.
0:08:01 > 0:08:02Curiously enough, this gatehouse,
0:08:02 > 0:08:05the only thing remaining of the abbey, was built after the
0:08:05 > 0:08:07Peasants' Revolt to fortify the abbey
0:08:07 > 0:08:10against possible further uprisings.
0:08:12 > 0:08:16Across the town from St John's Abbey stands St James', East Hill.
0:08:16 > 0:08:20After being ordained, it was here that as a young man John Ball began
0:08:20 > 0:08:24to offer his own interpretation of the Bible's true meaning.
0:08:25 > 0:08:27Over the plague years and the war years,
0:08:27 > 0:08:29Ball saw the plight and the increasing
0:08:29 > 0:08:33misery of the people he had grown up with around here.
0:08:33 > 0:08:37He blamed the indifference and oppression of the nobility,
0:08:37 > 0:08:39and the indifference and wealth of the Church.
0:08:39 > 0:08:42He saw evidence for neither of those things in the Bible.
0:08:42 > 0:08:44It was time for him to speak out.
0:08:50 > 0:08:53Ball's quarrel was really with the Church's economic power -
0:08:53 > 0:08:56its massive land-holdings and wealth.
0:08:56 > 0:08:58The Church owned a third of the country's land.
0:09:01 > 0:09:05Many of the bishops and senior clergy were seen as corrupt
0:09:05 > 0:09:06and tyrannical.
0:09:06 > 0:09:10Ball attacked them in a style both pointed and popular.
0:09:12 > 0:09:17What made Ball so effective was his gift for memorable lines and rhymes.
0:09:17 > 0:09:19This is from one of his letters.
0:09:19 > 0:09:22"Now reigns pride in every place
0:09:22 > 0:09:25"And greed not shy to show its face
0:09:25 > 0:09:28"And lechery with never shame
0:09:28 > 0:09:31"And gluttony with never blame
0:09:31 > 0:09:34"Envy reigns with treason
0:09:34 > 0:09:37"And sloth is ever in season
0:09:37 > 0:09:40"God help us, for now is the time
0:09:40 > 0:09:41"Amen."
0:09:41 > 0:09:44Now is the time, he meant, for change.
0:09:44 > 0:09:47The world as he saw it was godless and doomed.
0:09:58 > 0:10:03Ball's preaching was powerful, and his fame spread by word of mouth.
0:10:03 > 0:10:05His words have a millenarian tone.
0:10:05 > 0:10:08His superstitious congregations believed hardship and disasters
0:10:08 > 0:10:12like the Black Death might mean the end of the world was at hand,
0:10:12 > 0:10:14that Judgment Day was imminent.
0:10:14 > 0:10:19But John Ball was just as keen to see justice in the here and now.
0:10:19 > 0:10:22Ball's vision of Christianity was a kind of democracy
0:10:22 > 0:10:25in which men and women lived equally
0:10:25 > 0:10:29without being oppressed either by the Church or by the State.
0:10:31 > 0:10:34"We be all come from one father and one mother, Adam and Eve.
0:10:35 > 0:10:39"Whereby can they say or show that they be greater lords than we?
0:10:39 > 0:10:42"They are clothed in velvet and camlet furred with grise,
0:10:42 > 0:10:45"and we be vested with poor cloth,
0:10:45 > 0:10:47"and by that that cometh of our labours
0:10:47 > 0:10:49"they keep and maintain their estates."
0:10:52 > 0:10:57This subversive rhetoric was radical stuff and must have drawn a crowd.
0:10:57 > 0:11:01He clearly alarmed his superiors because in 1364,
0:11:01 > 0:11:05when Ball was in his early thirties, they excommunicated him.
0:11:05 > 0:11:07They wanted to stop him in his tracks
0:11:07 > 0:11:09before his influence grew any stronger.
0:11:09 > 0:11:11John Ball was forbidden to speak in churches,
0:11:11 > 0:11:15so he waited until the service was finished and spoke in churchyards
0:11:15 > 0:11:18or in markets or anywhere that people would listen to him.
0:11:18 > 0:11:21And he spoke to his own congregation
0:11:21 > 0:11:23in their own tongue, in English.
0:11:23 > 0:11:27This at a time when French and Latin were the dominant languages
0:11:27 > 0:11:29of the ruling classes.
0:11:29 > 0:11:30"John Ball greeteth you all
0:11:30 > 0:11:33"and doth to understand he hath rung your bell.
0:11:33 > 0:11:36"Now, with might and right, and will and skill.
0:11:36 > 0:11:38"God speed every dell."
0:11:40 > 0:11:44The English language, itself a provocation to the authorities,
0:11:44 > 0:11:47was an essential part of Ball's power.
0:11:47 > 0:11:51English had remained the common tongue,
0:11:51 > 0:11:52the language of the "commons",
0:11:52 > 0:11:56despite the colonising, oppressive French
0:11:56 > 0:12:00and the excluding strategies of Latin.
0:12:00 > 0:12:03It appealed to them, and he knew it.
0:12:04 > 0:12:06English was now unchained.
0:12:06 > 0:12:08Through John Ball, it was re-emerging
0:12:08 > 0:12:10as a new radical language.
0:12:10 > 0:12:12It was also being used for literary purposes.
0:12:12 > 0:12:15Langland and Chaucer were writing in English.
0:12:15 > 0:12:18William Langland's poem Piers Plowman movingly describes
0:12:18 > 0:12:20the terrible plight of the poor,
0:12:20 > 0:12:23but Langland's verse, unlike Ball's pounding rhymes,
0:12:23 > 0:12:26doesn't seek to overturn the social order.
0:12:28 > 0:12:30"The needy are our neighbours,
0:12:30 > 0:12:34"if we note rightly - as prisoners in cells, or poor folk in hovels,
0:12:34 > 0:12:37"charged with children and overcharged by landlords.
0:12:37 > 0:12:40"What they may spare in spinning they spend on rental,
0:12:40 > 0:12:43"on milk, or on meal to make porridge,
0:12:43 > 0:12:46"to still the sobbing of the children at mealtime."
0:12:48 > 0:12:50The ploughman was a symbol of Christian virtue
0:12:50 > 0:12:52in medieval literature.
0:12:52 > 0:12:55Geoffrey Chaucer's ploughman in the Canterbury Tales is an example.
0:12:55 > 0:13:00"A true worker and a good one was he, Living in peace and perfect charity."
0:13:00 > 0:13:04Chaucer and Langland would be praised for writing in English
0:13:04 > 0:13:06but others were to be condemned for it.
0:13:06 > 0:13:08The scholar John Wycliffe,
0:13:08 > 0:13:11who was in the process of translating the Bible into English,
0:13:11 > 0:13:14would find himself persecuted for using that language.
0:13:14 > 0:13:17People would have heard versions of the Bible in English
0:13:17 > 0:13:20even if they hadn't read it. John Ball certainly did.
0:13:20 > 0:13:22The English words in the Bible
0:13:22 > 0:13:25were a powerful threat to the established order,
0:13:25 > 0:13:26who ruled through Latin and French.
0:13:28 > 0:13:31"Blessed be poor men in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
0:13:31 > 0:13:35"Blessed be they that suffer persecution for right wiseness,
0:13:35 > 0:13:38"for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs."
0:13:42 > 0:13:44Unlike Ball, John Wycliffe was an establishment figure
0:13:44 > 0:13:46even though he and his followers,
0:13:46 > 0:13:50known as the Lollards, would later clash with the Church authorities.
0:13:50 > 0:13:51The men were very different.
0:13:51 > 0:13:53But they shared certain views.
0:13:53 > 0:13:56Both of them went to the Bible for their authority,
0:13:56 > 0:14:00and both of them were feared and hated by the church.
0:14:01 > 0:14:05John Ball no doubt had his sympathisers and his followers
0:14:05 > 0:14:07but he was, in effect, a lone operator.
0:14:07 > 0:14:08He was known as a hedge priest,
0:14:08 > 0:14:11darting across the countryside here and there.
0:14:11 > 0:14:13He seems to have been quite skilled in navigating
0:14:13 > 0:14:14the muddle of the Middle Ages.
0:14:14 > 0:14:17He was one step ahead of his persecutors some of the time,
0:14:17 > 0:14:20and other times he was caught and thrown in jail.
0:14:20 > 0:14:22He was, in effect, an outlaw.
0:14:24 > 0:14:26In 1376, fearing the discontent
0:14:26 > 0:14:29Ball's treasonable preaching could unleash,
0:14:29 > 0:14:33the Church pronounced a second excommunication,
0:14:33 > 0:14:35as was the custom of the time.
0:14:35 > 0:14:38And on this occasion, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon of Sudbury,
0:14:38 > 0:14:40enlisted the King - Edward III.
0:14:42 > 0:14:44This was quite extraordinary.
0:14:44 > 0:14:46John Ball was, after all, just a hedge priest
0:14:46 > 0:14:50but the highest in the land wanted him silenced and immured.
0:14:50 > 0:14:54They put him in prison and intended to keep him there.
0:14:54 > 0:14:56Ball to me is very much in the tradition
0:14:56 > 0:14:59of prophetic Old Testament figures.
0:14:59 > 0:15:05Ball saw that the enemies of the true religion should be cut down.
0:15:05 > 0:15:10The fact that King Edward III himself was cited as party to
0:15:10 > 0:15:12this excommunication showed that
0:15:12 > 0:15:15Ball was becoming very troublesome to the authorities.
0:15:15 > 0:15:19His popularity was growing. They wanted him out of the way.
0:15:20 > 0:15:24During his life, John Ball is known to have written letters and sermons,
0:15:24 > 0:15:26but our only source for words
0:15:26 > 0:15:29that were to send seismic shocks through church and state
0:15:29 > 0:15:31are a few quotations reported in the chronicles
0:15:31 > 0:15:33and illuminated manuscripts of the time.
0:15:33 > 0:15:35These were written by Jean Froissart,
0:15:35 > 0:15:39and clerics like Henry Knighton, Thomas Walsingham and others.
0:15:39 > 0:15:41Early copies are kept here in the British Library.
0:15:41 > 0:15:44These chronicles are a vital part of our literature
0:15:44 > 0:15:45as well as of our history.
0:15:47 > 0:15:50On the one hand we're very grateful to them for preserving
0:15:50 > 0:15:55John Ball's letters and sermons and details of the events of the time.
0:15:55 > 0:15:58On the other hand, we've every reason to be suspicious of them
0:15:58 > 0:15:59because they were against him
0:15:59 > 0:16:03and there's a sense in which a lot of this is black propaganda.
0:16:03 > 0:16:07They were against, to put it mildly, John Ball,
0:16:07 > 0:16:09because he was against them.
0:16:09 > 0:16:12He objected to their authority
0:16:12 > 0:16:13and they thought that
0:16:13 > 0:16:17that meant he also objected to their God's authority.
0:16:17 > 0:16:22If we look at this beautiful, magnificent, irreplaceable chronicle
0:16:22 > 0:16:25by Froissart, we can see John Ball referenced several times there,
0:16:25 > 0:16:27and there, and there, for instance
0:16:27 > 0:16:30and here's a translation of part of it in English.
0:16:30 > 0:16:32"The Archbishop of Canterbury,
0:16:32 > 0:16:36"who was informed of the saying of this John Ball,
0:16:36 > 0:16:40"caused him to be taken and put in prison and chastise him.
0:16:40 > 0:16:43"How be it, it had been much better at the beginning that
0:16:43 > 0:16:48"he had been condemned to perpetual prison, or else to have died."
0:16:49 > 0:16:51No doubt whose side Froissart is on!
0:16:55 > 0:16:58It was here in Essex in May and June 1381
0:16:58 > 0:17:00that the tyranny and harshness suffered for decades
0:17:00 > 0:17:04by the English commons, the English people, came to a head.
0:17:04 > 0:17:05The Great Rebellion, in which
0:17:05 > 0:17:09John Ball's voice would play such a vital part, was about to begin.
0:17:12 > 0:17:15This was once the wealthy Manor of Cressing Temple.
0:17:15 > 0:17:17There were 800 acres of farmland
0:17:17 > 0:17:21and a large workforce, from farm tenants to bonded labourers.
0:17:21 > 0:17:24The manor would be one of the rebellion's many casualties.
0:17:25 > 0:17:29It was owned by St John's Hospitallers, an order both military
0:17:29 > 0:17:32and religious, which had succeeded the famous Knights Templar.
0:17:32 > 0:17:36The order was headed by Sir Robert Hales, the Lord Treasurer of England
0:17:36 > 0:17:39and a close advisor of Richard II, the new King.
0:17:40 > 0:17:43All that's left of it now are these magnificent barns.
0:17:45 > 0:17:47Alastair Dunn is an historian
0:17:47 > 0:17:50who has written on the Great Rebellion of 1381.
0:17:50 > 0:17:55The scale of this structure really shows us there is great wealth
0:17:55 > 0:17:58to be had out of the English countryside
0:17:58 > 0:18:02and that wealth is in the hands of the great church
0:18:02 > 0:18:04and noble landowners.
0:18:04 > 0:18:07'But in May 1381, that order was about to be challenged.
0:18:07 > 0:18:11'The people were about to take matters into their own hands.'
0:18:13 > 0:18:16Plague, tyrannical laws, harsh conditions
0:18:16 > 0:18:18and endless wars had pushed them to the brink,
0:18:18 > 0:18:22and now a series of punitive taxes drove them to action.
0:18:23 > 0:18:28The poll taxes came about due to the remarkable situation
0:18:28 > 0:18:30of England being mired
0:18:30 > 0:18:33in a war that it was not winning.
0:18:33 > 0:18:37The costs of that war were spiralling out of control.
0:18:37 > 0:18:38What was new about them?
0:18:38 > 0:18:42What was new about it is that it was a tax on individuals.
0:18:42 > 0:18:44The first poll tax was brought in
0:18:44 > 0:18:48in 1377 on all adult men and women over the age of 15.
0:18:48 > 0:18:52And it was a flat rate tax of four pence and above.
0:18:52 > 0:18:57The yield of that still wasn't enough to fill the gaping chasm of money
0:18:57 > 0:19:00that was needed to fund the army and navy.
0:19:00 > 0:19:03A second poll tax was then brought in in 1379.
0:19:03 > 0:19:09However, that still didn't yield enough to cover the military debts
0:19:09 > 0:19:13of the English crown, and this led to the extreme measure in 1380
0:19:13 > 0:19:16of a third poll tax being introduced
0:19:16 > 0:19:21and this was three times more than had been charged in 1377
0:19:21 > 0:19:24and every man and woman was expected now to pay 12 pence
0:19:24 > 0:19:27whether they were the greatest landowner in the realm
0:19:27 > 0:19:29or the smallest tenant farmer.
0:19:29 > 0:19:33The effect of the poll tax was to lead to huge tax avoidance
0:19:33 > 0:19:35by the ordinary people of England.
0:19:37 > 0:19:40The anger against these taxes was desperate.
0:19:40 > 0:19:45Some people simply could not pay, others wouldn't pay on principle.
0:19:45 > 0:19:49It's reported that in a country whose population had been halved,
0:19:49 > 0:19:53at least 450,000 people evaded taxes
0:19:53 > 0:19:55and hid away members of their family.
0:19:55 > 0:19:58The king, Richard II,
0:19:58 > 0:20:02was in the hands of unimaginably wealthy advisors.
0:20:02 > 0:20:05They advised him to send in the tax collectors.
0:20:05 > 0:20:08These tax collectors went in with such brutality
0:20:08 > 0:20:12that they inflamed the situation and lit the fuse.
0:20:12 > 0:20:15The calls for equality, and above all freedom,
0:20:15 > 0:20:17which John Ball had preached for years, took hold
0:20:17 > 0:20:21as the people's fury over taxes flared into an organised revolt.
0:20:24 > 0:20:25Village after village in Essex
0:20:25 > 0:20:28and town after town came out for the revolt - Bocking,
0:20:28 > 0:20:31Coggeshall, Stisted, Braintree,
0:20:31 > 0:20:33Dunmowe, Gestingthorpe,
0:20:33 > 0:20:35Ashen, Dedham, Little Henny,
0:20:35 > 0:20:38Waltham, Chelmsford, Fobbing,
0:20:38 > 0:20:40Goldhanger, Colchester, Billericay,
0:20:40 > 0:20:42Great Baddow, and Cressing Temple.
0:20:42 > 0:20:45How did it spread and why did it spread so quickly?
0:20:45 > 0:20:49That is a remarkable issue, the speed of it.
0:20:49 > 0:20:51In an era before modern communications,
0:20:51 > 0:20:54some of it must have been word of mouth and rumour.
0:20:54 > 0:20:57Rumour is a very important force in the spreading of news
0:20:57 > 0:20:59in pre-modern societies.
0:20:59 > 0:21:02I also think that the rebels organised themselves with messengers
0:21:02 > 0:21:07to communicate among each other and to try and find out what is going on
0:21:07 > 0:21:09and also to seek leadership.
0:21:09 > 0:21:10Do you know how they were armed?
0:21:10 > 0:21:14Well, we're talking about the...things like billhooks, daggers,
0:21:14 > 0:21:19staves, the kind of objects that they would have had to hand.
0:21:19 > 0:21:20What about bows?
0:21:20 > 0:21:23I think that they would have had access to bows because
0:21:23 > 0:21:26practising with bows was a feature of daily life
0:21:26 > 0:21:29and adult men would have practised with a long bow.
0:21:29 > 0:21:33And therefore, they probably would have had access to bows as well.
0:21:33 > 0:21:35This was no rabble on the rampage.
0:21:35 > 0:21:37These were village leaders, farm managers
0:21:37 > 0:21:39along with the labourers and serfs.
0:21:39 > 0:21:41Many of these men had fought in the wars in France.
0:21:41 > 0:21:44They had a serious agenda - justice for all
0:21:44 > 0:21:46and they were going after the tax collectors
0:21:46 > 0:21:48and those who had sent them.
0:21:50 > 0:21:52They felt that the young King, aged 14,
0:21:52 > 0:21:55was surrounded by particularly greedy and corrupt advisers,
0:21:55 > 0:21:58men like John Ball's enemy, Archbishop Sudbury,
0:21:58 > 0:22:02and Sir Robert Hales and the King's uncle, John of Gaunt.
0:22:02 > 0:22:06This fear of the rise of the commons, of the common people,
0:22:06 > 0:22:07was in the literature too.
0:22:07 > 0:22:11John Gower, the conservative poet and friend of Chaucer,
0:22:11 > 0:22:15in his poem, Mirour de l'Omme - The Mirror of Man - wrote in French
0:22:15 > 0:22:19- he wrote in English much later - that the mob terrified him.
0:22:20 > 0:22:23"There are three things of such nature that they perform
0:22:23 > 0:22:27"merciless destruction when they get the upper hand.
0:22:27 > 0:22:29"One is floodwater, another is wild fire
0:22:29 > 0:22:33"and the third is a mob of common people led by instigators,
0:22:33 > 0:22:36"for they will not be stopped by reason or discipline."
0:22:40 > 0:22:43In June 1381, Cressing Temple was among the many estates
0:22:43 > 0:22:45attacked by the rebels.
0:22:46 > 0:22:49This manor was almost completely destroyed
0:22:49 > 0:22:51but these great barns were left intact.
0:22:51 > 0:22:55Perhaps the rebels thought that they might find a use for them later on.
0:22:55 > 0:22:58As the rebellion took hold quickly in Essex, the people of Kent
0:22:58 > 0:23:00also came out for the revolt.
0:23:03 > 0:23:04Erith, Dartford, Gravesend,
0:23:04 > 0:23:06Frindsbury, Chalk, Rochester,
0:23:06 > 0:23:08Borden, Maidstone, Sittingbourne,
0:23:08 > 0:23:10Faversham, Canterbury - all were for the rebellion.
0:23:12 > 0:23:15Crossing back and forth across the rivers between the counties,
0:23:15 > 0:23:19the rebels agreed on their demands and made their plans.
0:23:19 > 0:23:23Within two or three days, a full-scale rebellion was on.
0:23:23 > 0:23:25This was unprecedented.
0:23:25 > 0:23:27The commons, the people of England,
0:23:27 > 0:23:30were taking on the armed might of the state.
0:23:30 > 0:23:35And their organisation and communications were remarkable.
0:23:37 > 0:23:40They moved swiftly towards Rochester, where they attacked
0:23:40 > 0:23:42the forbidding fortress of Rochester Castle.
0:23:42 > 0:23:44It surrendered to them almost at once.
0:23:44 > 0:23:46It was their first great success.
0:23:48 > 0:23:50By the time the rebels had seized the Castle,
0:23:50 > 0:23:53a remarkable man had emerged as their military leader,
0:23:53 > 0:23:57a man who was to combine forces and be inspired by John Ball.
0:23:57 > 0:24:00His name was Walter Tyler - Wat Tyler.
0:24:00 > 0:24:03There's not much we know for certain about Wat Tyler.
0:24:03 > 0:24:06There are reports that as a young man he joined the English army
0:24:06 > 0:24:09and fought with distinction at Poitiers and Crecy
0:24:09 > 0:24:11under the leadership of the Black Prince.
0:24:11 > 0:24:16Froissart, the chronicler, does say that he went abroad in the army.
0:24:16 > 0:24:18Whatever, he was a remarkable man.
0:24:18 > 0:24:22He organised the thousands of men now under his command
0:24:22 > 0:24:25in military fashion and in double quick time.
0:24:25 > 0:24:29And when he decided to march on London, he left a line of defence
0:24:29 > 0:24:34along the South Coast to block the French from marauding England.
0:24:34 > 0:24:36In his own way, he was a great patriot.
0:24:37 > 0:24:41But first, Tyler led the rebels south through Kent, and crucially,
0:24:41 > 0:24:46he set free John Ball from prison in Maidstone and they joined forces.
0:24:46 > 0:24:49Tyler now led the military arm of the revolt
0:24:49 > 0:24:53and John Ball and his preaching were to be its spiritual core.
0:24:53 > 0:24:54When these two men got together,
0:24:54 > 0:24:57the effect was immediate and momentous.
0:24:57 > 0:24:59The rebellion changed radically.
0:24:59 > 0:25:01Now it resembled a crusade.
0:25:03 > 0:25:07The only contemporary depiction of Ball and Tyler in our literature
0:25:07 > 0:25:10is in the Froissart Chronicles held at the British Library.
0:25:10 > 0:25:14'Julian Harrison is Curator of pre-1600 manuscripts.'
0:25:15 > 0:25:17Most remarkably, it actually has
0:25:17 > 0:25:21what is believed to be the only depiction of John Ball himself.
0:25:22 > 0:25:25There he is, he's on his horse.
0:25:25 > 0:25:29His cloak actually has the name "John Ball" written on it.
0:25:29 > 0:25:33Surrounded by the peasants, the armies,
0:25:33 > 0:25:37carrying the standards of England and the Cross of St George.
0:25:37 > 0:25:40They look very unlike peasants, don't they?
0:25:40 > 0:25:44They look like soldiers who can afford armour and pikes.
0:25:44 > 0:25:48They look like men ready to take on another army.
0:25:48 > 0:25:52And there on his horse, there is Wat the Tyler, Walter the Tyler there.
0:25:52 > 0:25:54That's him there, and again,
0:25:54 > 0:25:58he's wearing robes that actually make him look rather noble.
0:25:59 > 0:26:03There are very few quotations from the letters that John Ball sent out
0:26:03 > 0:26:07to the rebel groups. But those we do have include encouragement
0:26:07 > 0:26:09and instruction not to steal for personal gain.
0:26:11 > 0:26:14"John the Miller's ground small, small, small.
0:26:14 > 0:26:17"The King of Heaven's son shall pay for all.
0:26:17 > 0:26:21"Be aware or be at fault. Take enough and then say halt."
0:26:22 > 0:26:25Rather confusingly, or for the purposes of code,
0:26:25 > 0:26:29John Ball often uses other names in his letters and sermons,
0:26:29 > 0:26:32names like Shep the Shepherd
0:26:32 > 0:26:34and John Nameless, John Miller,
0:26:34 > 0:26:36John Trueman, John Carter.
0:26:36 > 0:26:39Either he's disguising his own identity or,
0:26:39 > 0:26:40and I think this is also possible,
0:26:40 > 0:26:42he's saying, "This is for everybody.
0:26:42 > 0:26:46"This is for all of you, you Carters, you Millers, you true men."
0:26:46 > 0:26:51He takes the name of William Langland's great figure Piers Plowman,
0:26:51 > 0:26:53Piers the Ploughman, he calls him
0:26:53 > 0:26:56and he brings in other names from the folk past,
0:26:56 > 0:26:59to say, "This represents you all.
0:26:59 > 0:27:02"This reflects you all, these are you, the commons of England."
0:27:03 > 0:27:07In using these familiar names, Ball turned William Langland's language
0:27:07 > 0:27:10into something far more subversive.
0:27:12 > 0:27:16"John Shepherd, former St Mary's Priest of York, now of Colchester,
0:27:16 > 0:27:19"greets well John Nameless and John Miller and John Carter,
0:27:19 > 0:27:22"and bids them to beware of treachery in the city.
0:27:22 > 0:27:26"Stand together in God's name, bid Piers the Ploughman tend to his work,
0:27:26 > 0:27:28"and chastise well Hob the Robber."
0:27:30 > 0:27:33John Ball's letters were eagerly passed from hand to hand
0:27:33 > 0:27:36and read out loud to Tyler's rebel army.
0:27:36 > 0:27:38These words gave them an ever-growing strength
0:27:38 > 0:27:42and moral purpose. Right was on their side. Now was the time.
0:27:44 > 0:27:49Tyler and Ball's march through Kent was swift, strategic and brutal.
0:27:49 > 0:27:54Though they held to John Ball's injunction against looting,
0:27:54 > 0:27:56they still wrought havoc.
0:27:56 > 0:27:59Whenever they found hated tax documents, they burnt them,
0:27:59 > 0:28:01whenever they saw the houses of great men
0:28:01 > 0:28:04who they thought were their enemies, they burnt them too
0:28:04 > 0:28:08and whenever they found their oppressors, they destroyed them.
0:28:09 > 0:28:13When the rebels reach here, Canterbury, the Holy City of England,
0:28:13 > 0:28:16they were so inspired by the teachings of John Ball
0:28:16 > 0:28:19that they wanted to make him Archbishop of Canterbury.
0:28:19 > 0:28:21He refused.
0:28:27 > 0:28:31Having reached England's Holy City, the symbol of the Church's power,
0:28:31 > 0:28:34the rebels meted out their own justice.
0:28:36 > 0:28:39They executed at least three officials in Canterbury,
0:28:39 > 0:28:41beheading them.
0:28:41 > 0:28:42Men regarded as traitors.
0:28:46 > 0:28:48Richard and his advisers in London
0:28:48 > 0:28:53were now unsettled by the scale of the uprising as they heard of it.
0:28:53 > 0:28:55He sent messengers here to Canterbury to find out
0:28:55 > 0:28:57what was really going on.
0:28:58 > 0:29:00News of the scale of the rebellion
0:29:00 > 0:29:04and its bloody consequences now reached London and King Richard.
0:29:04 > 0:29:08They were confident that the King alone would understand them
0:29:08 > 0:29:10and meet their demands.
0:29:10 > 0:29:14The watchword throughout Kent and Essex and later in London was,
0:29:14 > 0:29:16when challenged, "Who are you for?"
0:29:16 > 0:29:21The answer had to be, "I am for the King and the Commons of England."
0:29:23 > 0:29:26In a sermon, John Ball urged his followers to go to London
0:29:26 > 0:29:27to make their case.
0:29:30 > 0:29:33"He is young, and show him what servage we be in...
0:29:33 > 0:29:37"and if we go together, all manner of people that now be in bondage
0:29:37 > 0:29:39"will follow us to the intent to be made free,
0:29:39 > 0:29:43"and when the King seeth, we shall have some remedy."
0:29:45 > 0:29:48Gathering ever more recruits along the way, Tyler and Ball
0:29:48 > 0:29:52and the rebels now headed towards the bleak open spaces of Blackheath,
0:29:52 > 0:29:54a few miles outside London.
0:29:54 > 0:29:55Some estimates say
0:29:55 > 0:29:58there were as many as between 30 and 60,000 of them.
0:30:01 > 0:30:04On the Feast of Corpus Christi, in June 1381,
0:30:04 > 0:30:07a time of pandemonium and merriment,
0:30:07 > 0:30:10the rebel army, together with local revellers from London's suburbs,
0:30:10 > 0:30:15many of whom were in sympathy with the revolt, gathered at Blackheath.
0:30:16 > 0:30:20It was here that John Ball gave the sermon that is now regarded
0:30:20 > 0:30:23as one of the most moving pleas for social equality
0:30:23 > 0:30:25in the history of the English language.
0:30:27 > 0:30:30John Ball stood forward to address this mass of people
0:30:30 > 0:30:35and he put forward his radical and extraordinarily ambitious plan.
0:30:35 > 0:30:39He went back to Genesis, his bedrock, where Adam was digging
0:30:39 > 0:30:44and Eve was spinning, in a state of paradise, equality.
0:30:44 > 0:30:49"When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?
0:30:51 > 0:30:56"From the beginning, all men by nature were created alike,
0:30:56 > 0:30:58"and our bondage or servitude
0:30:58 > 0:31:02"came in by the unjust oppression of wicked men.
0:31:02 > 0:31:06"For if God would have had any bondmen from the beginning,
0:31:06 > 0:31:10"he would have appointed who should be bonded, and who free."
0:31:10 > 0:31:12He went on to talk about
0:31:12 > 0:31:16"uprooting the tares that are accustomed to destroy the grain,
0:31:16 > 0:31:19"first killing the great lords of the realm,
0:31:19 > 0:31:24"then slaying the lawyers, justices and jurors, and finally rooting out
0:31:24 > 0:31:29"everyone whom they knew to be harmful to the community in future."
0:31:31 > 0:31:34Ball's great sermon was a further rallying cry.
0:31:34 > 0:31:37King Richard, shaken by the arrival of the massive rebel army,
0:31:37 > 0:31:40travelled from the Tower to see what they wanted.
0:31:40 > 0:31:44Richard travelled downriver from here, from the Tower of London,
0:31:44 > 0:31:46down to Rotherhithe, with his ministers,
0:31:46 > 0:31:48including the Earl of Salisbury.
0:31:48 > 0:31:49When they got to Rotherhithe
0:31:49 > 0:31:53and saw the mass of the rebel army on the shore, they took fright
0:31:53 > 0:31:57and advised Richard not to leave the boat.
0:31:57 > 0:32:00Instead, the Earl of Salisbury came to the edge of the boat
0:32:00 > 0:32:01and spoke to the men on the bank
0:32:01 > 0:32:05and said, "Sirs, ye be not in such order nor array
0:32:05 > 0:32:08"that the King ought to speak with you."
0:32:08 > 0:32:12In other words, they were an armed rabble, he might have thought,
0:32:12 > 0:32:14and ill-dressed for the King.
0:32:14 > 0:32:19These men, who had looked forward to meeting their King so much,
0:32:19 > 0:32:21felt spurned, and they were furious.
0:32:21 > 0:32:25And they moved away and decided they would march across London Bridge
0:32:25 > 0:32:28and into the teeming walled city itself.
0:32:32 > 0:32:35They approached via Southwark on London's outskirts.
0:32:35 > 0:32:37They swarmed through the borough
0:32:37 > 0:32:40and many local people, disaffected for their own reasons,
0:32:40 > 0:32:41joined up with them.
0:32:45 > 0:32:46The rebels had been snubbed.
0:32:46 > 0:32:49They didn't blame the King, they blamed his advisors,
0:32:49 > 0:32:50but they had been snubbed
0:32:50 > 0:32:54and they walked up to London in a state of fury.
0:32:54 > 0:32:56They hit on this place around Southwark,
0:32:56 > 0:32:59famous, among other things, for its brothels.
0:32:59 > 0:33:02One of them was owned by the Mayor of London, William Walworth,
0:33:02 > 0:33:04who leased it from the Bishop of Winchester.
0:33:04 > 0:33:10They burnt it down. It began the stampede of destruction in London,
0:33:10 > 0:33:12but still no looting.
0:33:12 > 0:33:13Ball had aimed at the brothel
0:33:13 > 0:33:16because it represented the three things he detested -
0:33:16 > 0:33:19the state, the power of the church and immorality.
0:33:19 > 0:33:23Nevertheless, as we learn from the records, for quite a long time
0:33:23 > 0:33:26the rebels kept to their notion that they were zealots for truth
0:33:26 > 0:33:28and justice, not thieves or robbers.
0:33:30 > 0:33:32They stormed over London Bridge.
0:33:32 > 0:33:37To their surprise, the gates were opened and they met no resistance.
0:33:37 > 0:33:40As they made their way through London, they opened up the jails,
0:33:40 > 0:33:43releasing many who had been wrongly imprisoned, usually for debt,
0:33:43 > 0:33:45but inevitably letting out some
0:33:45 > 0:33:48who would use the revolt for their own criminal purposes.
0:33:50 > 0:33:53On they went, along Fleet Street here to Temple,
0:33:53 > 0:33:55opening the Fleet prison on the way.
0:33:56 > 0:33:59Temple Church stands in the middle of Temple,
0:33:59 > 0:34:02one of the Inns of Courts, where lawyers plied their trade.
0:34:02 > 0:34:06They did in 1381 and they still do today.
0:34:06 > 0:34:10It was here in this church that the rebels found documents,
0:34:10 > 0:34:15legal documents, which they saw as working against their freedoms.
0:34:15 > 0:34:19We're told that systematically, they destroyed and burnt them.
0:34:19 > 0:34:23According to the chroniclers, John Ball authorised this action,
0:34:23 > 0:34:26saying, "You may destroy the judges and lawyers,
0:34:26 > 0:34:28"and all others who have taken against the commons."
0:34:30 > 0:34:32This commandment of Ball's
0:34:32 > 0:34:34has a vengeful Old Testament ring to it.
0:34:34 > 0:34:37There was no doubting the strength of his resolution
0:34:37 > 0:34:41and it brought yet more rural people into the city to join in.
0:34:44 > 0:34:46The destruction was everywhere.
0:34:46 > 0:34:49This gatehouse and the crypt of an old church are now
0:34:49 > 0:34:51all that's left of St John's Priory,
0:34:51 > 0:34:53another casualty of the rebellion.
0:34:53 > 0:34:55Like Cressing Temple in Essex,
0:34:55 > 0:34:58this estate belonged to the Knights Hospitallers of St John.
0:35:00 > 0:35:03Professor Caroline Barron has made a study
0:35:03 > 0:35:05of the medieval history of London.
0:35:05 > 0:35:07It seems that when the rebels came to London,
0:35:07 > 0:35:11the gates were locked, this was a great fortified city
0:35:11 > 0:35:13with a tower in the middle
0:35:13 > 0:35:15and a towering reputation for being a fortress city.
0:35:15 > 0:35:18How did they get in so easily?
0:35:18 > 0:35:20I think you have to remember
0:35:20 > 0:35:24that London had never withstood a siege since the Norman Conquest.
0:35:24 > 0:35:27So it wasn't a city used to being besieged and knowing what to do.
0:35:27 > 0:35:29You have to remember also that
0:35:29 > 0:35:32the Aldermen who were in charge at Aldgate and on the bridge
0:35:32 > 0:35:37were inexperienced. All the Aldermen in the city were on a system
0:35:37 > 0:35:39of being elected newly every year.
0:35:39 > 0:35:42I think it was panic. I think they saw this mob coming
0:35:42 > 0:35:45and they thought, "What are we to do?" The Aldermen probably said
0:35:45 > 0:35:48"It's better to let them in than to have them fire the gates
0:35:48 > 0:35:50"or destroy the bridge," and so they let them in.
0:35:50 > 0:35:53Perhaps there were some people in London who may have sympathised
0:35:53 > 0:35:55with the rebels, but I don't think that was the main reason,
0:35:55 > 0:35:57I think it was panic.
0:35:57 > 0:36:00But I think it's worth emphasising that the Londoners would not,
0:36:00 > 0:36:06I think, have gathered together in a rebellion if it hadn't been for
0:36:06 > 0:36:10the peasants, and the rusticky, as they were called, coming to London.
0:36:10 > 0:36:13Did they gather their force in London, did people join them?
0:36:13 > 0:36:16Yes, I'm sure that there were some of them
0:36:16 > 0:36:20who understood the rebels' demands, perhaps, but more opportunists.
0:36:20 > 0:36:25People who saw this was an opportunity to settle old scores.
0:36:25 > 0:36:29There were particular objects of hostility -
0:36:29 > 0:36:32the prior of the Hospital of St John, Robert Hales,
0:36:32 > 0:36:34who was the Treasurer at the time.
0:36:34 > 0:36:38The Hospitallers had blocked up an access point to the Thames,
0:36:38 > 0:36:41which annoyed the people who lived around there,
0:36:41 > 0:36:43that was near the Temple. And indeed,
0:36:43 > 0:36:46that is partly why the Temple was sacked by the Londoners, I think,
0:36:46 > 0:36:50was because of this annoyance about the blocking up of the access point.
0:36:50 > 0:36:54The chronicles mention John Ball's injunction to the rebels
0:36:54 > 0:36:56not to loot, not to steal.
0:36:56 > 0:36:59They are not varlets, they are honest men.
0:36:59 > 0:37:03How far was that injunction adhered to, how far was it kept?
0:37:03 > 0:37:08I think the evidence, even of hostile chroniclers like Thomas Walsingham,
0:37:08 > 0:37:09the Monk of Westminster,
0:37:09 > 0:37:12seems to suggest they were not interested in looting.
0:37:12 > 0:37:16They saw themselves as pursuing traitors rather than
0:37:16 > 0:37:18acquiring opportunist loot.
0:37:22 > 0:37:25The rebels marched on through the streets of London.
0:37:25 > 0:37:28They were in pursuit of one of their greatest enemies.
0:37:31 > 0:37:34In the afternoon of June 13th, 1381,
0:37:34 > 0:37:36just a few days after they had set off,
0:37:36 > 0:37:39they arrived at the Savoy Palace, now the site of the Savoy Hotel.
0:37:39 > 0:37:41It was a prized target.
0:37:41 > 0:37:44This was the principal residence of John of Gaunt.
0:37:44 > 0:37:46The King's uncle and his closest advisor
0:37:46 > 0:37:49and probably the most hated man in England.
0:37:49 > 0:37:53Especially in London, where he bullied the people,
0:37:53 > 0:37:55tore into the court at his own will
0:37:55 > 0:37:57and treated it like a little fiefdom.
0:37:57 > 0:38:01It was an opulent palace, almost beyond belief in those days,
0:38:01 > 0:38:06and its great richness inflamed and mocked the poverty of the rebels.
0:38:08 > 0:38:11John of Gaunt wasn't in London, luckily for him,
0:38:11 > 0:38:13but the rebels sacked and burnt his palace
0:38:13 > 0:38:16and took out their frustration at his absence on his clothing.
0:38:16 > 0:38:18One of the chronicles tells us...
0:38:18 > 0:38:22"In order not to pass by any opportunity of shaming the duke completely,
0:38:22 > 0:38:25"they seized one of his most precious vestments, which we call a jakke,
0:38:25 > 0:38:29"and placed it on a lance to be used as target for their arrows."
0:38:30 > 0:38:33There's a dispute in the chronicles here - some say the rebels tore
0:38:33 > 0:38:38the place down and some rebels there were, certainly, but the fury of it,
0:38:38 > 0:38:40I think, came from the Londoners,
0:38:40 > 0:38:43who had the greatest reason to detest John of Gaunt,
0:38:43 > 0:38:45and wanted to destroy him and all his works.
0:38:45 > 0:38:48Some of these, 32 of them, found the wine cellar
0:38:48 > 0:38:49and got tucked into the wine.
0:38:49 > 0:38:52Unfortunately, the wall collapsed, they couldn't get out
0:38:52 > 0:38:55and there they were, drinking the finest wines in the kingdom
0:38:55 > 0:38:57until they died.
0:38:57 > 0:39:00But on the whole, and the chroniclers have no reason to favour him,
0:39:00 > 0:39:03John Ball's moral teaching seems to have held.
0:39:03 > 0:39:06There was no looting when this place was smashed to bits.
0:39:06 > 0:39:09Anybody caught doing that was hauled away and beheaded.
0:39:09 > 0:39:13One poor man caught with silver was thrown into an open fire.
0:39:13 > 0:39:16We are told that some of the rebels carried copies of John Ball's words,
0:39:16 > 0:39:19his verses, his sermons with them as they stormed through London.
0:39:19 > 0:39:23Curiously enough, about 300 years later, Cromwell's soldiers
0:39:23 > 0:39:25carried a small copy of the Geneva Bible with them
0:39:25 > 0:39:28as they went through the Civil Wars.
0:39:29 > 0:39:32At the Tower of London, King Richard met his ministers
0:39:32 > 0:39:35after witnessing a day and night of destruction.
0:39:35 > 0:39:37They must have feared for their lives,
0:39:37 > 0:39:40sensing all too well that the fire of revolution had been lit
0:39:40 > 0:39:43and lit by the radical words of John Ball.
0:39:43 > 0:39:46There was a great deal of urgent discussion here in the Tower
0:39:46 > 0:39:47about what to do.
0:39:47 > 0:39:51William Walworth, the Mayor of London, with his armed men,
0:39:51 > 0:39:53was keen to attack the rebels
0:39:53 > 0:39:57while he said they were drunk and asleep so he could slaughter them.
0:39:57 > 0:39:59Others were more cautious.
0:39:59 > 0:40:03Lord Salisbury said they might be overwhelmed
0:40:03 > 0:40:06and then the whole thing would be over
0:40:06 > 0:40:12and he said to the King, "Appease them, for the moment, appease them."
0:40:14 > 0:40:18The next morning, Richard called the rebels to a meeting at Mile End.
0:40:19 > 0:40:21Richard asked the rebels what they wanted
0:40:21 > 0:40:23and why they had come to London.
0:40:23 > 0:40:27They replied much in the way of John Ball's rhymes -
0:40:27 > 0:40:31they wanted freedom from serfdom, freedom from feudal power,
0:40:31 > 0:40:36and land pitched at four pence an acre to restrain greedy landlords.
0:40:36 > 0:40:40They also wanted the surrender of Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury,
0:40:40 > 0:40:43and Hales, the Lord High Treasurer.
0:40:43 > 0:40:45And they wanted an amnesty.
0:40:46 > 0:40:49Richard agreed to many of their requests.
0:40:49 > 0:40:52Within a few hours, Freedom Charters were written, issued
0:40:52 > 0:40:54and endorsed with a great seal.
0:40:55 > 0:41:00And having granted these freedoms, some say Richard went even further.
0:41:00 > 0:41:01It's reported that he said,
0:41:01 > 0:41:04"Go after those you consider to be traitors."
0:41:04 > 0:41:06It was a licence to kill.
0:41:06 > 0:41:08Perhaps he was swept away in the moment,
0:41:08 > 0:41:12perhaps he'd been told to give them everything they could possibly want.
0:41:12 > 0:41:15Whatever it was, it had terrible consequences.
0:41:18 > 0:41:21The rebels who remained in London, including Ball and Tyler,
0:41:21 > 0:41:23had unfinished business.
0:41:23 > 0:41:26Some of them headed back to the Tower, where they found,
0:41:26 > 0:41:28among others, John Ball's old enemy,
0:41:28 > 0:41:31the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon of Sudbury.
0:41:31 > 0:41:33Archbishop Sudbury was here
0:41:33 > 0:41:37in the Chapel of St John the Evangelist, in the Tower.
0:41:37 > 0:41:41He was said to be chanting prayers in medieval Latin for the dead.
0:41:41 > 0:41:44When the rebels stormed through the door, he said,
0:41:44 > 0:41:50"Omnes sancti orate pro nobis" - "All the Holy saints, pray for us."
0:41:50 > 0:41:53Sudbury, with Robert Hales and three others,
0:41:53 > 0:41:57was then taken to the top of Tower Hill to be beheaded.
0:41:57 > 0:42:02It took a long time to decapitate Sudbury - eight strokes of the axe.
0:42:04 > 0:42:05After acts of such violence,
0:42:05 > 0:42:10even the very highest in the land must have feared for their lives.
0:42:10 > 0:42:13It's astonishing the speed with which this happened.
0:42:13 > 0:42:17In just three days these men marched up from Kent and Essex and beyond,
0:42:17 > 0:42:20forced their way into the City of London, forced their way here
0:42:20 > 0:42:23into the great Tower, which had never been breached,
0:42:23 > 0:42:25forced the King to talk to them
0:42:25 > 0:42:28and executed those high ministers who were their great enemies.
0:42:37 > 0:42:40Aware that they were on the verge of a cataclysm that could sweep up
0:42:40 > 0:42:43and destroy the established order, the young King and his ministers
0:42:43 > 0:42:48put forward a plan to meet Tyler, John Ball and the rebels once again.
0:42:49 > 0:42:53The location this time was Smithfield, a favourite place
0:42:53 > 0:42:57for tournaments and bounded by St Bartholomew's Church and Hospital.
0:43:01 > 0:43:06Smithfield had been very carefully chosen by the King and his advisors.
0:43:06 > 0:43:08It was a field, of course, but on one side was the city
0:43:08 > 0:43:12and Walworth put his armed men behind those buildings
0:43:12 > 0:43:15and, as it's said in the chronicles, enveloped the square.
0:43:16 > 0:43:17But Wat Tyler and John Ball
0:43:17 > 0:43:20had every reason to feel tremendously confident.
0:43:20 > 0:43:22After all, the day before, the King had promised them
0:43:22 > 0:43:26everything they'd asked for and he'd written charters to prove it.
0:43:27 > 0:43:30What happened next is unclear, because the chronicles have
0:43:30 > 0:43:35never been more dramatically on the side, obviously, of the King
0:43:35 > 0:43:39and his forces, because this was a time of great danger for the King.
0:43:39 > 0:43:42Nevertheless, Tyler rode forward,
0:43:42 > 0:43:46confident, on a short horse, we're told,
0:43:46 > 0:43:49knelt in front of the King, took his hand,
0:43:49 > 0:43:52some of the chronicles say, called him brother,
0:43:52 > 0:43:55shook his hand vigorously, and then made his final demands.
0:43:55 > 0:44:00He wanted all the lands and titles of the aristocracy abolished.
0:44:00 > 0:44:04He wanted the church to be drastically reformed, a reformation.
0:44:04 > 0:44:06He wanted bishops to be gone
0:44:06 > 0:44:09and he wanted the commons of England to be able to fish and hunt
0:44:09 > 0:44:11without being persecuted.
0:44:11 > 0:44:13What happened next is unclear.
0:44:14 > 0:44:19One version says a young squire insulted Tyler,
0:44:19 > 0:44:23Tyler lost his temper, threw his dagger and had a go at him,
0:44:23 > 0:44:26another version says, look, this was a set-up,
0:44:26 > 0:44:29it was an assassination attempt from the first.
0:44:29 > 0:44:33The men of the King's retinue closed around Tyler
0:44:33 > 0:44:35so his own men couldn't see them,
0:44:35 > 0:44:40and in that melee, Walworth struck Tyler a massive blow across the head
0:44:40 > 0:44:42and split it and across the shoulder.
0:44:42 > 0:44:44Somehow, Tyler turned his horse around
0:44:44 > 0:44:48and started to gallop across the field, wounded as he was,
0:44:48 > 0:44:51and then fell from the horse as his men rushed towards him.
0:44:51 > 0:44:53The young King, either of his own volition
0:44:53 > 0:44:57or urged on by his advisors, rode out to them on his own
0:44:57 > 0:45:01and spoke to them in English and said, "I am your leader"
0:45:01 > 0:45:05and gave them all the reassurances he'd given them the day before.
0:45:05 > 0:45:06He was their King,
0:45:06 > 0:45:08and they knelt in front of him.
0:45:10 > 0:45:14The rebels, completely reassured by the words of their King,
0:45:14 > 0:45:18began to disperse and go back to their counties.
0:45:18 > 0:45:22Almost immediately, the King broke his word, deceived them,
0:45:22 > 0:45:26pursued them, and slaughtered as many as he could get hold of.
0:45:27 > 0:45:31It was said that Tyler was dragged out from where he lay dying
0:45:31 > 0:45:34in St Bartholomew's in Smithfield, and publicly beheaded.
0:45:38 > 0:45:40Ball himself escaped from London
0:45:40 > 0:45:43and made his way as far as Coventry, where he was captured.
0:45:43 > 0:45:45It was thought that he was on his way to York,
0:45:45 > 0:45:48where he'd been trained and he hoped to find support.
0:45:48 > 0:45:50He was brought here, to St Albans
0:45:50 > 0:45:52and put in the cells of the gatehouse behind me.
0:45:52 > 0:45:54That was on July 13th.
0:45:55 > 0:45:59At his trial, John Ball admitted sending letters to incite revolt
0:45:59 > 0:46:01and he admitted his part in the uprising,
0:46:01 > 0:46:05but he absolutely denied that his actions were in any way wrong.
0:46:06 > 0:46:09The jury convicted him of making rebellion against the Crown
0:46:09 > 0:46:11and for writing seditious letters.
0:46:11 > 0:46:15He was acquitted of the murder of Archbishop Sudbury and the others.
0:46:15 > 0:46:20Even so, Ball was sentenced to be hanged, taken down while alive,
0:46:20 > 0:46:23disembowelled and then hacked into four parts.
0:46:23 > 0:46:26The King was present at the trial.
0:46:26 > 0:46:30There is a version that said that the King offered to merely hang him
0:46:30 > 0:46:32if he knelt before the King.
0:46:32 > 0:46:33But Ball refused.
0:46:33 > 0:46:37So, on 15th July, just a few weeks after the revolt had begun,
0:46:37 > 0:46:39John Ball was executed,
0:46:39 > 0:46:43probably here in Rome Lands, next to the Cathedral,
0:46:43 > 0:46:47and the four pieces of his body were sent to Coventry, Chester,
0:46:47 > 0:46:48York and Canterbury.
0:46:50 > 0:46:53Hundreds of the rebels were executed by hanging.
0:46:53 > 0:46:55One chronicle reports, poignantly,
0:46:55 > 0:46:58that a copy of one of Ball's letters fluttered from the sleeve
0:46:58 > 0:47:00of a convicted rebel as he hung.
0:47:04 > 0:47:06Richard's revenge to this challenge
0:47:06 > 0:47:10to his supreme - as he thought, divine - authority was vicious.
0:47:11 > 0:47:16In a speech just a few days later, King Richard made his views clear.
0:47:16 > 0:47:19"Peasants you were and peasants you are.
0:47:19 > 0:47:21"You will remain in bondage,
0:47:21 > 0:47:24"not as before, but in an incomparably worse state.
0:47:24 > 0:47:26"For as long as we are alive to achieve this
0:47:26 > 0:47:29"and by the grace of God, rule this kingdom,
0:47:29 > 0:47:32"we shall work with our minds, powers and possessions
0:47:32 > 0:47:36"to keep you in such subjection that the abject state of your servitude
0:47:36 > 0:47:39"may be an object lesson to posterity."
0:47:43 > 0:47:47So did the Great Rebellion of 1381 achieve anything?
0:47:47 > 0:47:50In the short term, it seemed that it didn't.
0:47:50 > 0:47:53It even seemed that the people were worse off
0:47:53 > 0:47:55and royal authority was strengthened.
0:47:55 > 0:47:57And after John Ball's death,
0:47:57 > 0:48:00every attempt was made to blacken his name.
0:48:00 > 0:48:02He was totally repudiated
0:48:02 > 0:48:05and even if you mentioned him admiringly in public,
0:48:05 > 0:48:10you could be hung, and there's evidence that that happened.
0:48:10 > 0:48:12Centuries later, artists and writers
0:48:12 > 0:48:15like William Morris, who lived and worked here in Hammersmith, London,
0:48:15 > 0:48:17would be proud to take up John Ball,
0:48:17 > 0:48:20and his influence on poets, writers
0:48:20 > 0:48:23and political thinkers, right up to today, was to be profound.
0:48:23 > 0:48:26But the writers of his own times disowned him.
0:48:26 > 0:48:30William Langland revised his great poem Piers Plowman
0:48:30 > 0:48:33after the rebellion, almost certainly to avoid any accusation
0:48:33 > 0:48:36of sympathy with the rhetoric of John Ball.
0:48:36 > 0:48:38He probably feared for his life.
0:48:38 > 0:48:41The poet John Gower denounced the rebellion in his work,
0:48:41 > 0:48:45and his friend Chaucer made only one passing, and dismissive,
0:48:45 > 0:48:47reference to it in the Canterbury Tales.
0:48:47 > 0:48:49They took the side of the King
0:48:49 > 0:48:52and did not speak out.
0:48:52 > 0:48:54Chaucer was a court poet, of course,
0:48:54 > 0:48:57and two centuries later, Shakespeare took the same side,
0:48:57 > 0:48:59endorsing the social order of his time.
0:48:59 > 0:49:02Shakespeare did write about a popular rebellion,
0:49:02 > 0:49:05and one that seems to have been partly inspired by John Ball's ideas.
0:49:05 > 0:49:09This was the 1450 revolt led by Jack Cade.
0:49:09 > 0:49:12But Shakespeare poured scorn on Cade and his aspirations
0:49:12 > 0:49:14in Henry VI Part II.
0:49:15 > 0:49:18"When I am king, as king I will be,
0:49:18 > 0:49:20"there shall be no money.
0:49:20 > 0:49:22"All shall eat and drink on my score,
0:49:22 > 0:49:24"and I will apparel them all in one livery,
0:49:24 > 0:49:28"that they may agree like brothers and worship me their lord."
0:49:32 > 0:49:34Hello, Frank.
0:49:34 > 0:49:36'Frank McLynn is a writer
0:49:36 > 0:49:39'who has made a study of rebellions in British history.'
0:49:39 > 0:49:41Did this rebellion have any effect
0:49:41 > 0:49:43on the rebellions of the next two centuries?
0:49:43 > 0:49:48Obviously in the 1450 Jack Cade rising,
0:49:48 > 0:49:50one can see the influence
0:49:50 > 0:49:56because in some ways the Jack Cade rising was almost a re-run of 1381,
0:49:56 > 0:49:58the same convergence on London.
0:49:58 > 0:50:01But this time, whereas in 1381,
0:50:01 > 0:50:06London by and large welcomed the rebels, in 1450 they didn't,
0:50:06 > 0:50:11so there was this terrific all-night battle on London Bridge.
0:50:11 > 0:50:14So that was the major difference. But, um...
0:50:15 > 0:50:23..when Shakespeare wrote about Jack Cade in Henry VI Part II,
0:50:23 > 0:50:25some of his critics said that
0:50:25 > 0:50:30the similarities between Cade and Wat Tyler were so great
0:50:30 > 0:50:34that Shakespeare had confused the two risings and run them together.
0:50:34 > 0:50:37What do you think the immediate consequences were
0:50:37 > 0:50:38of this 1381 rebellion?
0:50:38 > 0:50:45Well, the sceptics say that Richard II simply put the clock back to 1380
0:50:45 > 0:50:48and the feudal system continued as before.
0:50:48 > 0:50:52But, in fact, there was never again a poll tax raise
0:50:52 > 0:50:56and the three poll taxes were the immediate trigger for the rising,
0:50:56 > 0:51:00even when there was a dire shortage of money,
0:51:00 > 0:51:03which was required for the Hundred Years War.
0:51:03 > 0:51:07So some people go so far as to say that the peasants' revolt
0:51:07 > 0:51:10meant that England lost the Hundred Years War.
0:51:10 > 0:51:14Over the next few centuries, John Ball's ideas were slowly reclaimed,
0:51:14 > 0:51:17if not always acknowledged.
0:51:17 > 0:51:20Rebellions arose based, like his, on the English Bible.
0:51:20 > 0:51:25The Bible-based rebellions of John Ball and Jack Cade may have failed
0:51:25 > 0:51:28but in the South-East of England in the 17th century,
0:51:28 > 0:51:32the egalitarian Levellers and Diggers used biblical references
0:51:32 > 0:51:34to support their radical ideas.
0:51:34 > 0:51:37They too went back to Genesis, just like Ball.
0:51:37 > 0:51:40They fought on Oliver Cromwell's winning side in the Civil War.
0:51:42 > 0:51:44Gerrard Winstanley, the Diggers' leader,
0:51:44 > 0:51:48shared Ball's sense of urgency and his millenarian tone -
0:51:48 > 0:51:50Judgment Day was about to happen.
0:51:51 > 0:51:55"This new law of Righteousness is now coming to reign," Winstanley wrote,
0:51:55 > 0:51:58and "In the beginning of time, God made the earth.
0:51:58 > 0:52:01"Not one word was spoken at the beginning
0:52:01 > 0:52:04"that one branch of mankind should rule over another."
0:52:04 > 0:52:06Ball's words rewritten.
0:52:08 > 0:52:11Both Ball and Winstanley are in the class of
0:52:11 > 0:52:14what I call "liberation theology"
0:52:14 > 0:52:18because both thought that if you take Christianity seriously,
0:52:18 > 0:52:21if you look at the teachings of Jesus and the law of love,
0:52:21 > 0:52:25you must logically embrace something like socialism,
0:52:25 > 0:52:28certainly social equality in some form.
0:52:28 > 0:52:32Whereas Ball believed in a God that, let's say,
0:52:32 > 0:52:36practitioners of orthodox religion could easily understand and follow,
0:52:36 > 0:52:40if you like, the traditional God of Christianity,
0:52:40 > 0:52:44Winstanley's conception of God was quite bizarre
0:52:44 > 0:52:50and really pointed forward to people like Blake because he thought that
0:52:50 > 0:52:54the Bible and the whole story of Christianity was really allegorical.
0:52:54 > 0:52:59Would you say that Ball and Tyler were reclaimed,
0:52:59 > 0:53:03came back into some kind of intellectual radical mainstream
0:53:03 > 0:53:05after the French Revolution?
0:53:05 > 0:53:07Yes, absolutely, yes,
0:53:07 > 0:53:11because apart from the few mentions from Winstanley,
0:53:11 > 0:53:16they are almost the forgotten men until the French Revolution.
0:53:16 > 0:53:20And I think what the French Revolution did was to make people
0:53:20 > 0:53:23take the whole idea of revolution seriously
0:53:23 > 0:53:26and once you start taking it seriously, then you start
0:53:26 > 0:53:29reassessing history and thinking,
0:53:29 > 0:53:33"Actually, these people were much more significant than we thought,
0:53:33 > 0:53:37"because they are quite clearly pointing to future possibilities."
0:53:39 > 0:53:43It was during the 18th century, the Enlightenment, that John Ball,
0:53:43 > 0:53:46along with Wat Tyler, was acknowledged as a radical hero.
0:53:46 > 0:53:48There was an outpouring of revolutionary writing
0:53:48 > 0:53:50in the wake of the French Revolution.
0:53:50 > 0:53:52The young poet Robert Southey
0:53:52 > 0:53:56wrote a passionate defence of Tyler and John Ball in a play.
0:53:56 > 0:53:58It's now more famous for the fact that he tried to suppress it
0:53:58 > 0:54:02when he became a rather less radical poet laureate.
0:54:02 > 0:54:05The great political philosophers of the day
0:54:05 > 0:54:06argued over the 1381 rebellion.
0:54:06 > 0:54:10Edmund Burke, a radical of the right, attacked John Ball
0:54:10 > 0:54:12as "a patriarch of sedition"
0:54:12 > 0:54:15while Thomas Paine, author of Rights of Man, said that Tyler
0:54:15 > 0:54:19should have a monument erected to him in Smithfield.
0:54:19 > 0:54:21I think that John Ball should have one too.
0:54:23 > 0:54:27John Ball was becoming a beacon for British radicalism and socialism.
0:54:27 > 0:54:28In the 19th century,
0:54:28 > 0:54:32there was also a renewed interest in all things medieval.
0:54:32 > 0:54:35William Morris was the founder of the Socialist League.
0:54:35 > 0:54:38And he published his prose poem, The Dream of John Ball,
0:54:38 > 0:54:41in his socialist newspaper in the 1880s.
0:54:41 > 0:54:45The story was then printed as a book here in the Kelmscott Press
0:54:45 > 0:54:48with a frontispiece of Adam delving and Eve spinning
0:54:48 > 0:54:51by Sir Edward Burne Jones.
0:54:52 > 0:54:56"So now I heard John Ball, how he lifted up his voice and said,
0:54:56 > 0:55:00"Once again I saw, as of old, the great treading down the little,
0:55:00 > 0:55:02"and the strong beating down the weak,
0:55:02 > 0:55:05"in the belly of every rich man dwelleth a devil of hell."
0:55:07 > 0:55:09For William Morris, what mattered
0:55:09 > 0:55:13was not that the revolt of 1381 ended as it did,
0:55:13 > 0:55:16but that the actions of John Ball and the rebels
0:55:16 > 0:55:19would lead to freedom, even if it happened only centuries later.
0:55:19 > 0:55:22It's possible, I think, to hear his insistent rhymes,
0:55:22 > 0:55:25not only in the political writings of the Levellers,
0:55:25 > 0:55:27but in the work of our poets.
0:55:27 > 0:55:30In Milton, for example, his sonnet to Oliver Cromwell,
0:55:30 > 0:55:34asking that he allow a variety of Christian beliefs.
0:55:36 > 0:55:40"Help us save free conscience from the paw of hireling wolves,
0:55:40 > 0:55:41"whose gospel is their maw."
0:55:42 > 0:55:45And William Blake, imagining of a heaven on earth
0:55:45 > 0:55:48amid the dark Industrial Revolution.
0:55:49 > 0:55:51"I will not cease from mental fight
0:55:51 > 0:55:54"Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
0:55:54 > 0:55:58"Till we have built Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land."
0:55:59 > 0:56:02And in Shelley, whose Song To The Men Of England
0:56:02 > 0:56:05asks the very same questions that Ball asked.
0:56:07 > 0:56:11"Men of England, wherefore plough for the lords who lay ye low?
0:56:11 > 0:56:15"Wherefore weave with toil and care the rich robes your tyrants wear?"
0:56:16 > 0:56:19Now is the time, insisted John Ball.
0:56:19 > 0:56:24Radicals want change and generally they want it fast.
0:56:24 > 0:56:26Many later politicians
0:56:26 > 0:56:31and writers in their language have reflected John Ball's insistence.
0:56:31 > 0:56:35But I beg everybody here to give 100% support
0:56:35 > 0:56:41to those who do not or cannot or will not pay the poll tax.
0:56:41 > 0:56:42APPLAUSE
0:56:42 > 0:56:45And not only politicians and writers.
0:56:45 > 0:56:48We hear John Ball's simple, rhythmic, memorable prose
0:56:48 > 0:56:50on the streets in chants and on demonstrations.
0:56:53 > 0:56:57Let's not forget that one great legacy of the 1381 revolt
0:56:57 > 0:56:59was that monarchs and governments
0:56:59 > 0:57:02have almost never attempted to impose a poll tax again -
0:57:02 > 0:57:05until Margaret Thatcher tried and failed in 1990.
0:57:14 > 0:57:18"When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?"
0:57:18 > 0:57:21That was a radical cry in 1381.
0:57:21 > 0:57:24It seems a little quaint now, but the basic idea
0:57:24 > 0:57:28is still everywhere around us around the globe.
0:57:28 > 0:57:32And it's interesting that Ball's ideas have been taken up again
0:57:32 > 0:57:34when there has been revolution.
0:57:34 > 0:57:36In the French Revolution,
0:57:36 > 0:57:41we have the great English radical Thomas Paine taking up Ball's ideas.
0:57:41 > 0:57:44In the middle of the 19th century, we have the Chartists taking him up.
0:57:44 > 0:57:48I think that what Ball gives is
0:57:48 > 0:57:52an inspired ideal which didn't come off,
0:57:52 > 0:57:55perhaps it will never come off,
0:57:55 > 0:57:59but in its way, it's as radical as the Sermon on the Mount
0:57:59 > 0:58:01and he remains somewhere deep in our past
0:58:01 > 0:58:06and in some of our literature as a still, small voice, saying
0:58:06 > 0:58:10"This could happen. We could all be equal. There is a world like that."
0:58:13 > 0:58:15In our next programme,
0:58:15 > 0:58:18I'll be looking at the life and work of the British radical Thomas Paine,
0:58:18 > 0:58:22a man who lit the fuse that started the American revolution.
0:58:24 > 0:58:25MUSIC: "John Ball" by Sydney Carter
0:58:25 > 0:58:28# Who will be the lady, Who will be the lord
0:58:28 > 0:58:31# When we are ruled By the love of one another?
0:58:31 > 0:58:34# Tell me, who will be the lady, Who will be the lord
0:58:34 > 0:58:38# In the light that is coming in the morning?
0:58:38 > 0:58:41# Sing, John Ball, and tell it to them all
0:58:41 > 0:58:44# Long live the day that is dawning
0:58:44 > 0:58:48# And I'll crow like a cock, I'll carol like a lark
0:58:48 > 0:58:52# For the light that is coming in the morning. #