The End of the Middle Ages

 

The start of the Peasant’s Revolt

The black Death made many country people discontented. This unrest came to a ahead when peasant in the east and south led a rebellion in 1381. It began with a tax. In 1377 the government imposed a poll tax of four pence of each person of the realm, as well males as females above the age of fourteen years.

Poor people thought this was unfair, since they had to pay the same as arch people. In 1379, however, a new tax was introduced in which each early of England paid Euro 4 and all the mayors of the large towns paid Euro2. Since most families with children under the age of sixteen only paid a total of 4d(2p), they thought this was much fairer.

But in 1381 the government went back to the method used earlier in 1377.only this time they wanted more money. Every person had to give three goats as well by the male as by the females, who have [passed the age of fifteen years.

The outcry was enormous. People refused to pay the tax. Refusal soon led to rebellion. It began in earnest on 30 May 1381 when the King’s tax collectors in Essex were told by the peasant of Brentwood, they would have no dealing with them nor pay them a penny”, Violence erupted and spread to neighboring villages and across the Themes into Kent. The rebels seized towns and marched on Landon.

Rotherhithe.

On 12 June 1381 a huge crowd of peasant from Kent assembled at Blackheath on the South bank of the Thames. A similar crowd from Essex had gathered on the north bank as well. On the following day, 13 June 1381, King Richard II and his leading adviser rowed down the Thames on a barge to Rotherhithe intending to speak to the rebels. But the peasants, saw the kings barge coming, they began to shout and made such a cry, as though all t devils of hell had been among them.

Much to the anger of the crowd, the barge pulled away again without landing. And when these people saw that, they cried all one voice, “Let us go to London” and so they took their way thither.

In fact, the king was playing for time. The mayor had gone back to London for reinforcement. When they arrived, the revolt inland on collapsed, the peasant went home but the rebellion in the country continued for several weeks. In the end, however, among of the ringleaders were caught and either executed or imprisoned.

As for the king, he went back on his word. Ana act of Parliament in May 1382 decreed, that all obligation made by compulsion ad menace in the time of this riot shall be wholly quashed

 

The wars of the Roses.

The Medieval Kings rulled with the aid of a council. The barons and earls who advised the king and ran the great offices of state had immersed power and great wealth. These was a cause of rival, especial when a royal favorite quarreled with the king or queen.

In the fifteenth century, along drawn out conflict was fought for the throne between the great families of York (white rose) and Lancaster (Red Rose). They were backed by private armies of supporters who fought of battles of this, the first English Civil War.

It was called the Wars of the Roses but although the fighting lasted, off and on, from 1455 to 1485, there were long periods of relative quiet in between. Nonetheless, many great nobles were killed and warring armies disturbed county life. This is part of her a later written by Margaret Paston from her home in Norfolk to her Husband in London.

There’re three major wars of the Roses. The first, between 1459 and 1461, ended with the Battle of Townton when Edwards, the son of Richard, Duke of York, deposed Henry VI. As Edward IV, he was supported at first by the powerful Early of Warwick, but Warwick soon changed sides when Edward resisted his attempts to acquire greater power. Instead, he supported Queen Margaret and her son, Prince Edward, in their attempt to restore the House of Lancaster to the Throne.

This was the start of the second War of Rose (1469-71). Edward IV fled to France but raise a new army and returned to Britain. He defeated Warwick at Barnet, and Margaret and Edward at Tewkesbury in 1471.

The third war began soon after Edward IV died on 9 April 1483. His 12 years-old son Edward V was deposed by his Uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, on 26 June 1483. He was put in the Tower of London together with his brother. The two young Princes in the Tower were never heard of again.

The new king, Richard III, was challenge by Henry Tudor, a distant. Lancastrian claimant to the throne. In 1485 he landed in Wales and defeated and killed Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field. As Henry VII he began the long region of the Tudors.