The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1902-04-24

armor, nor money to buy these neces-
saries of successful rebellion. A fatal
error, argued Sir John Fortescue. Pow
erty does not make people contented.
1t is poverty that breeds rebellion.
"For nothing may make people to
arise but lack of goods or lack OF JUS
tice. But yet certainly when they lack
goods, they will arise, saying that they
lack Justice Nevertheless, if they be
not poor, they will never arise, but If
their prince so leave justice that he
give himself all to tyranny"
The commons in Sir Richard Rain
hams neigh borhood had been stripped
as bare as the cupidity of himself and
his followers dictated. But the opera
ton had not improved their temper
They hated him cordially for it. And
when the emissaries of the pretended
Flemish merchant went round with the
news that friend of John Trueman's
was in the hands of Sir Richard Rain
ham, and invited them to help in the
rescue, they were not slow to respond
to the summons.
The gathering was not mere rabble.
There was some organization in 1T, and
this organization was based, oddly
enough, and yet not inappropriately,
upon the established machinery for the
observation of peace. The use made
of this machinery in the great Rebellion
of the Peasants is one of the most Curl
GUS features in it, and the least gener-
ally understood. The machinery was
simple, and it may be worth while to
describe it in word or two, seeing that
it is one of the main clews to the for
midable character of the rebellion.
In the Fourteenth century we were of
course still very far from the modern
institution of police force. If you were
robbed in open day, or had your house
forcibly entered and pillaged, or were
violently assaulted on your way to
church or market, there was no civic
soldier in blue on the spot, or, as it
might be, at some distance from the
spot, to protect or pursue. And yet
there was certain guardianship of
the peace. an arrangement by which
all the able bodied men of district
were constituted into sort of reserve
police force. Every man, villein and
freeman, between the ages of Is and
90, from the poorest son of the soil to
the substantial freeholder, was bound
by law to possess arms OF some sort.
Officers were periodically appointed to
make tours of inspection, and see that
every man was provided with arms &C.
cording to his means, from rough dag
ger knife, or iron pointed stake, to
sword and spear, helmet, and coat of
mail Then in every township there
was constable, and in every hun
dred chief constable, whose duty it
was to keep the roll of this reserve
force and call them out upon occasion.
Every man was bound under penalties
to respond to the call. When flag
rant breach OF the peace was commit
ted, and hue and cry raised, the force
was put in motion through the con-
stables, and criminals were chased from
township to township with an ardor
proportional to the unpopularity of the
offence. There was thus simple but
effective military organization, strength
ened by long established tradition,
available for the preservation of order.
When the feudal chiefs began to
neglect their duties, and became, many
of them, the enemies, instead of the
this organization stood ready to the
hand of the widespread discomfort. 1t
was this that made the instruction so
formidable.
But to return to the armed gathering
that had stormed Sturmere Castle.
Why did not Simon d'Ypres, as this
agitator of many aliases called himself
on his present journey, raise the hue
and cry against Rainham in the regular
way? A high handed robbery had been
committed in broad day on the kings
highway. Why did he not appeal at
once to the chief constable of the hun
dred? For the best of reasons. Sir
Richard Rainham was himself chief
constable. The custos pacis was the
sturdy lawbreaker. This was the reas-
on why the plundered traveller APP
peal"d to the organization which for
some time he and his friends had been
secretly building up within the lines of
the regular legal organization.
from the moment that the assembled
peasants crossed tn" drawbridge they
became a rabble, rabble Infatuated,
possessed with the savage instincts of
lynch law. The whole affair had been
so sudden that there had been no time
for such drill as alone can keep in
check the irregular, bloodthirsty i'm
pulses of excited men with arms in