The History of England, from the Accession of Richard II to the Death of Richard III (1377-1485)
by Sir Charles William Chadwick Oman (9781150720864)

General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1906 Original Publisher: Longmans, Green, and Co. Subjects: England Great Britain History / Europe / Great Britain History / Medieval Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER II. THE GREAT REBELLION OF 1381. CHAP. The poll tax of 1381 seems to have stood to the great rebellion II- of that year much as the greased cartridges of 1857 stood to the Indian Mutiny. It brought about the explosion: it was not its cause. Things had been working up for trouble during many years: only a good cry, a grievance that united all malcontents, was needed to bring matters to a head. This was precisely what the poll tax provided. Medieval England was unreasonably jealous of taxation. The theory that "the king should live of his own" was universally prevalent; but, as any one who had to do with the national finance soon discovered, the royal revenue was not adequate to maintain the government even in time of peace. With a costly and unsuccessful war on hand, it was absolutely impossible to provide for the expenses of the realm without extraordinary taxation. If the council had been able to show satisfactory results for the money spent, there would not have been much murmuring at the increase of imposts. But a ministry which had perpetually to be reporting new losses in Aquitaine, which could not even keep the coast of England clear of pirates, and failed to maintain good order within the kingdom, was bound to find every one of its financial expedients criticised with acrimony. Yet, if financial and military problems alone had been troubling the realm in 1381, there, would have been no outbreak of rebellion, despite of all the irri tation caused by the...

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