The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1902-06-26

ing the country as they went. A serf
had been claimed in Gravesend bv the
agents of Sir Simon Burley few days
before, carried off by force, and i'm
prisoned in Rochester castle. The
object OF the rioters was said to be the
rescue of this victim of fraud and force.
A .riotous attack on the capital town
OF diocese was grave but not an
unprecedented breach of the peace.
Not till Saturday did it begin to look
as if the rioters had larger designs, and
the riot was assuming the dimensions
of an insurrection. Rochester castle
was one of the strongest castles in Eng
land, and the mobs that surged round
its massive walls were apparently I'M
able to break in. But instead OF
abandoning the enterprise and return
ing home, picked body of them
marched on in the direction of Canter-
bury, and the rumor ran as they adj
vanced the populations Of the villages
on their route met them with open
arms and Joined them in their march.
This looked serious, and-more
threatening still-the news came in OF
messengers riding hard in all direc-
tions, and of armed peasants mastering
with ready obedience wherever they
carried their eager summons.
The temperance and singleness OF
purpose displayed by the rebels was not
less remarkable than the CELEBRITY of
their movements. Tyler and Ball and
Jack Straw had their tumultuous fol-
lowers wonderfully in hand. There
was none of the indiscriminate slaugh-
tering and plundering of haphazard in.
surrection. Very few lives we're taken,
and there was very little rillage. The
fury of the insurgents was directed
mainly against two classes of docu-
ments, rolls and distress warrants con-
nected with the obnoxious subsidy, and
manor rolls of servile tenants containing
the names of villeins and the services
they were bound to render. That the
leaders should have been able to raise
so huge gathering of armed men in
so short a time says much for the per-
lection of their organization, and that
having raised such undisciplined and
angry swarms. they were able to keep
anger within fixed bounds, is evidence
of power of command not easy to
parallel. By Monday the leaders were
able to go to work at Canterbury. The
contingent they had brought from Dart
ford, and the towns and villages along
their route, was reinforced by levies
and Whitstable to Romney Marsh.
More lives might have been lost if au-
thority had not been so taken by sur
prise, panic-stricken, and robbed of all
power Of resistance.
Their business at Canterbury was
soon dispatched. The gates were open
ed by the inhabitants, and rush was
collector for the county and the sheriff.
Their lives were spared on condition
that they surrender their documents
- the instruments of the obnoxious
tax. Fires were lighted, and the peas
ants looked on, and cheered and hooted
with frantic Joy as subsidy rolls and
green wax writs, parchment after
parchment, was drawn from their
boxes, pitched into the flames and
burned to ashes.
Beyond this demonstration of wrath
against the poll tax very little damage
was done, amazingly little considering
the amount of turbulent rascality that
might have found it's chance in such
commotion. 1t lie a significant fact
that the shrine of st. Thomas, en-
riched with the offerings of thousands
of pilgrims, was left untouched. If the
motives of leaders capable of organic.
ing instruction on such a scale had
been personal ambition, they would not
have failed to seize upon such treas
ure to provide themselves with the
sinews of war. Few of Edwards
habits of the time, could have resisted
the temptation.
The capture of Canterbury was an
audacious act, but one still more au-
dacious was to follow. London was
their next object.
The advance on London showed the
same judgment and strategic skill that
marked all the proceedings of the in
surgents till the death of Tyler. 1t
was not without reason that Walsing-
ham, an unwilling witness, described
him as "magno sensu praeditus."
There were two points at which the
movement of such horde as the in
surgent peasants might easily have
been checked, Rochester and Maid
stone. Both were seized without loss