Tracing The Peasants’ Revolt Through London’s Streets

The Peasants’ Revolt, or the ‘Great Uprising’ of 1381, was one of the great defining and dramatic events of medieval England. That summer, rebellion erupted across parts of Southern and Eastern England. Thousands of ordinary people arrived at the gates of London and, for a brief moment, threatened the established order of English society.

They were fed up ultimately with the Feudal system, toiling fields for noblemen with low wages and little freedom or flexibility in their lives. The traditional name is also misleading really, merchants, townspeople, ex-soldiers were also involved. 

After the background are ten spots in London related to the Peasants’ Revolt.

The Background

The Black Death in the middle of the century had killed somewhere between a third and a half of the population of the country. In urban areas like London estimates are as high as 50-60%. Labour consequently became more valuable, and many workers expected to be able to demand better wages and greater freedom. The authorities, however, desperately attempted to supress this. The Statue of Labourers of 1351, for example, froze wages and forced people to work against their wishes. 

England had also been fighting France for decades during the Hundred Years’ War, and the government of the young King Richard II desperately needed money. In 1380 Parliament approved a controversial poll tax, requiring everyone to pay a fixed sum regardless of wealth or standing. It was the third such tax in four years.

When royal tax collectors arrived in Essex and Kent particularly, they met fierce resentment and then open rebellion. The rising spread rapidly, the rebels attacking manor houses, prisons and administrative centres. Then, in June 1381, they marched on the true centre of power: London.

You can see a map of the locations covered below. You could even link them up into a walk if you happened to want to march on London once again.

1. Blackheath 

On the 12th June 1381, thousands of rebels from Kent under their leader Wat Tyler gathered on Blackheath. John Ball, a radical priest who preached that social distinctions were unjust, was also present.

At Blackheath, Ball is said to have posed the question: ‘When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?’, i.e. if we are all descended from the same ancestors, why should some be born into wealth and privilege while others were forced to work for them?

Government officials tried to persuade the rebels to go home, but were unsuccessful. The following day, King Richard II attempted to meet them not far away at Rotherhithe. The fourteen year old king travelled down the Thames from the Tower, but upon seeing the thousands waiting for him on the riverside, his advisers persuaded him that it was too dangerous. Richard returned to the Tower.

The numbers that marched on London by the way are contested, ranging from 10,000 up 100,000 although the larger figures are thought to almost certainly be exaggerated. 

2. Lambeth Palace

Whilst they were on the South side of the river, the rebels targeted Lambeth Palace on the 13th June, the London home of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Sudbury. 

Sudbury was one of the most hated men in England. As Lord Chancellor and one of the king’s leading advisers, he was closely associated with the government and the unpopular taxation. He had also become a symbol of the wealth and power of the Church.

The rebels proceeded to attack and ransack the palace. Sudbury was not there however, having already fled to the Tower. I have written more extensively about the history Lambeth Palace here. 

3. London Bridge

That same day they crossed London Bridge into the city, the only gateway into London from the South. Ordinarily the gatehouses on the bridge would be shut and the bridge defended, but it seems that the rebels were able to cross unimpeded. The reason why is still unclear but it is thought they possibly had many sympathisers in the city itself. 

An incredible model of the old medieval London Bridge with its 13 arches, the roadway lined with houses and shops can be seen in St Magnus the Martyr church today. 

4. Newgate Prison

London’s most notorious prison, Newgate, was attacked and the inmates released. Across the rebellion they consistently targeted legal records, prisons and officials because this was the system that governed their lives, but also because documents recorded rents, debts, manorial obligations and legal claims. They thought that destroying them would rid them of those bonds.

Newgate Prison is now the site of the Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court, which I have written about in more detail here. 

The Fleet and Marshalsea Prisons were also targeted. 

5. Priory of St John

The rebels then attacked the great Priory of St John in Clerkenwell, the English headquarters of the Knights Hospitaller.

The priory was an enormous and wealthy religious institution, and its head, Robert Hales, was also Lord Treasurer of England, one of the rebels’ key targets. 

The priory’s buildings and records were destroyed, but Hales had, similar to Sudbury, escaped to the Tower. 

Today you can visit St John’s Gate and St John’s Priory Church, which still has its surviving crypt from the 13th century. I have written about them previously here. 

6. Temple 

The centre of London’s legal world, Temple was next on the list of targets. This had, until the beginning of the 14th century been the enclave of the Knights Templar, the other major crusading military order with the Hospitallers. They were disbanded in England in 1312 and the area became the home of two legal Inns of Court: Inner Temple and Middle Temple. 

Again the buildings were attacked but also legal documents, records and deeds were brought outside and burnt. 

You can find out more about Temple Church and the Inns of Court here. 

7. Savoy Palace 

The Savoy Palace was the magnificent home of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and uncle of King Richard II. He had been de facto ruler of the country during the final years of King Edward III’s reign and during the minority of Richard II, as he came to the throne at the age of ten in 1377. 

Gaunt for the rebels represented everything they were fighting against. They saw him as the man in control and the man to blame for their woes, rather than the King himself necessarily. Gaunt epitomised the corrupt and greedy court surrounding and advising the King. 

The Savoy Palace was the grandest of a line of mansions and palaces along the bank of the Thames. John of Gaunt was not actually in London at the time, he was up in the North negotiating with the Scots, however his home was attacked and burnt to the ground by the rebels. 

The rebels had a rule that they were not to steal anything, but instead valuables were burnt or thrown into the Thames to make a statement. 

On the site today is the Savoy Chapel, which I have written about here and the Savoy Hotel, amongst other buildings. 

The Savoy Chapel today is still a ‘Royal Peculiar’, i.e. owned by the monarch as part of their other title of the Duke of Lancaster, after this was absorbed into the monarchy during the Wars of the Roses.

8. The Tower of London

The next day, on the 14th June, King Richard left the safety of the Tower to met some of the rebels that had gathered at Mile End. 

In his absence other rebels stormed the Tower. They found Archbishop Sudbury and Treasurer Hales, dragged them out onto Tower Hill, where they were beheaded. One of the leaders of the assault on the Tower and the Savoy Palace was a lady called Johanna Ferrour and it is her that is thought to have ordered the execution of Sudbury and Hales. 

The rebels are also said to have sat and joked on the King’s bed. The story goes that they even asked Richard’s mother, Joan of Kent, to kiss them. She apparently was terrified and fainted. 

It is the only time in the Tower’s near thousand year history that it was ever breached. Possibly because the guards were taken by surprise, possibly again because they had sympathisers on the inside. 

9. Mile End 

King Richard II rode out to Mile End, then a small village a mile fro Aldgate, the Eastern gate in the city walls. Here he met Wat Tyler and representatives of the rebels to listen to their demands: an end to serfdom, more favourable rents, as well as a pardon for all those who had taken part in the uprising. 

Remarkably, Richard agreed to their proposal. Charters were issued promising freedoms and concessions to the rebels. 

The victory however, was not to last for long. 

10. Smithfield 

Smithfield is where the grand finale, the climax of the Peasants’ Revolt, took place. It was on this ‘Smooth field’, outside the city walls that London’s livestock market regularly took place. It was also where large public spectacles were staged such as jousting tournaments or the hanging, drawing and quartering of William Wallace in 1305. A place therefore already associated with blood, guts and violence. 

On 15th June Richard met the gathered rebel leaders once again. The exact sequence of events is disputed in some contemporary accounts, but during negotiations a scuffle broke out and William Walworth, the Lord Mayor of the City, stabbed and mortally wounded Wat Tyler with a sword. His head was later severed from his body and paraded around the city on a spike. 

With their leader gone, the King then stepped forward and addressed the crowd. With the risk of further violence he assured them that he would be their leader and encouraged them to disperse. 

They did. The rebellion was over and the promises the King had made to them were very swiftly forgotten. Many of the rebels were also later executed. 

The Memorial

There is a memorial today in Smithfield on the wall of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, unveiled in June 2015 by filmmaker Ken Loach, after a campaign led by local Matthew Bell. 

It is a slate triptych, sculpted by Emily Hoffnung and has a quote from John Ball down the centre, as well as history of what happened here. You have to read the writing in italics separately to the words in capitals.

On either side are the weapons of the rebels: scythes and pitchforks and then on the other the weapons of the establishment: axes, maces and spears. 

Was The War Ultimately Won?

The revolt had ultimately failed, but the events had exposed great rifts and tensions in 14th century England. The freedoms they had demanded were gradually won over the following decades. By 1450 serfdom had largely disappeared and attempts at poll taxes, at least for a few hundred years, were dropped.

2026 seems to be the year of the Peasant’s Revolt. Andrew Garfield is starring in a new film called the Uprising covering these momentous events. You can watch a trailer here. The brilliant writer AK Blakemore has written a historical novel called Doom Painting. You can find out more here.

Thank you for reading, more of London’s amazing historical spots below.