The English Peasants' Revolt of 1381 That Briefly Captured London, Beheaded the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Was Ended When the Lord Mayor Stabbed Wat Tyler in Front of the King

The English Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 emerged from three converging pressures. The first was the demographic aftermath of the Black Death — the 1348-1350 plague had killed about a third of the English population, producing labour shortages, rising wages, and peasant economic mobility. The second was the Statute of Labourers (1351) and successor laws that had attempted to freeze wages at pre-plague levels against the actual labour market. The third was the Poll Tax of 1380-1381 — the third in four years, increased to a shilling per adult, and regressive.

The revolt began at the Essex village of Fobbing on 30 May 1381 when villagers refused to pay the collector. Kent rose within days. By 12 June 1381 an army of approximately 60,000 rebels was camped on Blackheath south of London.

The young king Richard II — then 14 — met the rebel leadership on 13 June at Rotherhithe. The negotiation failed; the rebels crossed the Thames and entered London the same day. They burned the Savoy Palace (the residence of John of Gaunt, the king’s uncle and the most-hated noble), opened the prisons at Newgate and Marshalsea, and beheaded the Archbishop of Canterbury Simon Sudbury (who was also Lord Chancellor) and the Treasurer Robert Hales on Tower Hill on 14 June.

Mile End

Richard II met the moderate Essex contingent at Mile End on 14 June. He agreed to their demands: the abolition of serfdom, free movement of labour, rent caps at 4 pence per acre, and pardons. He issued charters embodying the agreement. About half the rebel army accepted the charters and began to disperse east.

The Kent contingent under Wat Tyler did not accept the Mile End settlement. They wanted more — the abolition of all lordship below the king, the redistribution of church property, and an end to the labour-control statutes. Richard agreed to a second meeting at Smithfield the next day.

Smithfield, 15 June 1381

The meeting took place at Smithfield on the afternoon of 15 June 1381. Tyler approached the royal party on horseback. The accounts of what was said vary between sources — the principal contemporary account is the Anonimalle Chronicle, with details added by Henry Knighton and Thomas Walsingham.

Tyler’s tone toward the king was reportedly familiar; he reached for a flask, called the king “brother,” and may have spat. The Lord Mayor of London William Walworth — present in the royal party — reacted. He stabbed Tyler in the neck and head with a short sword. Tyler reeled, rode back toward the rebel lines, and fell from his horse before reaching them.

Walworth had killed the rebel commander in plain sight of approximately 20,000 armed rebels. Richard II — the 14-year-old king — then rode forward alone toward the rebel formation and reportedly called out: “I will be your captain” (in some accounts: “You shall have no captain but me”). The rebel army, leaderless and confused, followed the king back toward Clerkenwell. Richard had simultaneously summoned the London militia, which arrived during the confusion. The rebel army was disarmed and dispersed without further bloodshed.

What followed

The royal pardons issued at Mile End were rescinded within weeks. Approximately 1,500 rebels were executed across summer 1381 by judicial commissions that toured the rebellious counties. Tyler’s lieutenant John Ball — the radical priest who had preached the rebel theology summarised in his couplet “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?” — was hanged, drawn, and quartered at St Albans on 15 July 1381.

Wat Tyler’s body was beheaded at Smithfield the day after his death. His head was displayed on London Bridge until autumn 1381.

The Poll Tax was withdrawn — the only substantive rebel objective that actually held. Serfdom in England decayed gradually across the next century but was never formally abolished by statute; it simply died out by approximately 1500 as the labour market continued to evolve.

The sociopolitical lesson of the Peasants’ Revolt for the late medieval English ruling class was that direct mass uprising could threaten the political order. The lesson held. The next mass peasant uprising in England — Jack Cade’s revolt of 1450 — was the only comparable event for 270 years.