To Delve and Spin – A Medieval English timeline
- Thread starter BurkeanLibCon
- Start date
I agree, medieval social history is underexamined, I’ve read a few good works on this site such as Mumby’s Law of Winchester.
When I finish the essay I’m currently writing I’ll rewrite the lost chapter. So it’ll be out around the 20th.
Chapter 9 – By Fire and By Sword
Chapter 9 – By Fire and By Sword
November 1381 – January 1382
"Death to the villain who dares abuse the sacred name of liberty"
– Maximillian Robespierre, 1794
– Maximillian Robespierre, 1794
Future generations of intellectuals would look upon the Battle of Southwark as marking the end of the first phase of the English Revolt. The traditional approach goes that the initial idealism and vision of the first sixth months was corrupted, with the fervour that had brought the mob to London in June being turned to darker impulses. Others would dispute this interpretation of events, noting that much violence had already occurred as part of the initial outbreak and then consolidation of the Revolt, especially in the south and east of England - this line of thought leads to the idea that what was to follow Southwark was an inevitable conclusion of the fervent radicalism and zeal of those original revolutionaries. Many compared the butchering of the French knights at Southwark and the killings of Flemish weavers in June as proof of this.
However, it would be improper to note the change of mood in England in the early winter of 1381. Up until this point, it appeared that the revolt was headed for victory, God was their side, the side of freedom and righteous justice. Devereux's landing changed this, placing the revolt under the most serious threat it had faced since June; whilst the invading Anglo-French army from Calais was beaten off, that optimism about decisive victory had been soured. Much work was still needed to secure England. It was obvious that foreign powers had no desire of letting this order of low-born men solidify control, but added to that were more local traitors – some real but most very much imagined. As December rolled around, the Realm was fragile (especially in the southern towns and cities). The tension was palpable, all that was needed was for it to snap..
The Vintry Ward of London had calmed down somewhat since it had burned white hot in June with rage. Here, over forty Flemings had been dragged from their houses and beheaded. The memory of those days in June still stalked the place like a bad smell, or a plague, but it was still home to Jan Clofhamer. He'd arrived from Ghent with his wife in 1379 and had been doing well for himself. His wife hadn't given him any children, but that was ok for they had each other. Though life could be hard and there were always tensions with the English weavers in London, life was good for the Clofhamers. Then came June of 1381. Then came the mob. Then came the killings, when Jan knew of the mob breaking into London he dropped his work and ran home to find...no one. Katherine wasn't there. He searched all through the house, Katherine wasn't there. He looked outside, and saw a group of angry men pin one of Jan's neighburs against his front wall and ask him to say "bread and cheese" [1]. Unfortunately for the poor man he could only reply in his native tongue, and upon uttering the Flemish "brood en kass" he was taken away. Jan remained hidden, praying not to be seen or heard. Thankfully for him, his house was ignored having already been searched. Hence the key words being "for him". His wife Katherine had not been so lucky. Like the Clofhamer's neighbour she had been asked to utter the expression "bread and cheese" with much the same result. She was taken away by the mob. Jan followed distantly, wondering what was happening, despite knowing it couldn't possibly be good. He dove very quickly behind a wall when he saw the men take a sword to the top of his neighbour's neck. His head was cut clean off, one of many that day.
Eventually the violence began to temper as news reached the mob of the King's agreements and so they naturally gravitated to the Tower, leaving an apocalypytic mess in their wake in the Vintry Ward. Strewn around were bodies, holes where heads should have been, and heads which should be resting upon shoulders. As Jan began stumbling around the scene, one head caught his eye with its long dark hair. "No" he thought to himself, picking up his pace with every step, "No". No amount of noes could change reality however, nor replace Katherine's head or allow her mouth to speak. Were it not for the cheers of the mob over at the Tower at their new charters, Jan's wailing would have been heard across half of London. Still holding his deceased wife's head in his arms he began charging towards the Thames, intending to join her in the next life. He had to be physically held back from the water's edge until he calmed down from lack of energy to do anything. Like the other dead, Katherine's remains would be disposed of in the great river, clearing up the mess but providing no comfort for the families.
In the days that followed, life began to resume to relative normality. Yes, things weren't amazing. The Flemish charter of 1352 had been all but revoked [2], and he was now working under the authority of the English weavers guild, but many were thankful to still be alive and allowed to work. Things were still shaky though, no one was quite happy with the new arrangements, but where in England wasn't shaky these days? It was shaky in Jan's soul, the man had been through more than he could bear, watching friends and neighbours dragged away and discovering his one-and-only's murdered body does strange things to a man - none good.
As the months went by, it did not get any easier for Jan. Every story of the revolt's victory put a little more poison into his heart. Every story sent him back to those days in July. The images, the screams, the smell and Katherine, oh God Katherine. His chest seized up tight, his head began to feel giddy, his eyes stared a thousand furlongs and he felt his legs ready themselves to give way. The sensations eventually abated though the thoughts did not. He could never remove them no matter how hard he tried. He could have been there, he told himself. "If I'd been home with her, I could have hidden her with me." He felt helpless, he was certain he could have prevented her death and it haunted him, both day and night.
As November began drawing to a close it got cold, very cold - in more ways than one for Jan. He knew the names of many revolt leaders by over-hearing conversations in local taverns, he could speak relatively good English – his father had taught him to better be able to trade in England. He knew the big names, Grindecobbe, Straw, Tyler, Ball. The last name, John Ball, was perhaps the third most well-known name in the kingdom. The people's priest, incorruptible, given up everything to fight for the rights of the English people against noble tyranny. Ball's star had shone bright since the summer. The new Archbishop of Canterbury, Kempe, had lifted his excommunication, allowing him the formal right to preach. He had even been assigned a parish church in London from which to preach, St. Helen's in Bishopsgate. Here, Ball's sermons were always packed, always engaging and crammed full of revolutionary evangelism. Jan didn't feel particularly drawn to support his message, he found that he didn't feel positively towards those who had slaughtered his nearest and dearest slaughtered in their name. He had other plans. In the intervening months, Jan had let his imagination take him to darker and darker places. His grief turned to rage and his rage turned to revenge. He knew what he was to do.
It was Christmas Day, the festival of Christ's birth. Jan woke up feeling strangely pleased. "Today" he ruminated "today I will bring justice". He dressed, ate and then left for St. Helen's Church for a mass no one would forget. The congregation arrived and the mass began. Hymns were sung, the Gospels were preached and Ball delivered his Christmas homily. Since summer it had become more common for services to be read in English as opposed to Latin though no official language policy was created yet. Jan wasn't paying that much attention though, he was more focused on the message he held in his hand and how would deliver it. he waited, until the mass had ended. "Go in peace" Ball exclaimed, and soon the church began to empty. Except for one.
"Father" Jan called out. "Yes? Can I help you?" came the priest's reply. "I have something you must see Father" he pulled out a small written message.
Brood en kass
Ball was confused, what was happenin..
He would never know why. He didn't have time to think before Jan plunged his knife through his throat. All he was able to do was make spluttering noises as his veins rapidly began to empty. John Ball would bleed out there on the altar. It didn't take long before the noise was heard from outside. Though Mass had ended, Ball was the people's priest - he wasn't simply going to retreat away from them on the feast of Christ's birth.
A sharp scream from the door snapped Jan out of focus, as he turned around to find a small crowd gathered. "Shit" he said to himself, knowing he'd been caught. In his brief moment of panic his mind began to reply that day in July again - just as they had for many months. The images, the screams, the smell and Katherine. His chest seized up tight, his head began to feel giddy, his eyes stared a thousand furlongs and he felt his legs ready themselves to give way - which they duly did. He fell to the floor, knife still in hand.
Jan was dragged outside into the cold by the crowd. Retribution came swiftly. Whether he was reunited with his Katherine, stuck in purgatory or rotting in hell would only be known by those who passed into the next life themselves.
The murder of John Ball on Christmas Day 1381 in St. Helen's Church in Bishopsgate [3] would be the spark that finally sent England over the edge. A turning point, the next phase of the English Revolt, it marked the end of the honeymoon phase. After Ball's funeral in January of 1382, at which the King, Tyler, Kempe and many others were present, a crowd gathered in London to hear Wat Tyler speak.
This was the largest crowd gathered in London since June. England was different now, as was Tyler. The fighting at Brompton and at Southwark had left him with a scar on his right cheek, which he grew a beard to try and cover. But his verbal strength, the trait that had propelled him to leadership of the rebels back in Canterbury in the Revolt's beginning, was just as strong as ever. But now, it was fueled by a very different emotion to the charismatic populism of those summer days.
"Brothers"
Tyler held the crowd in a tight grip as he spoke. There was less of the charismatic visionary of June, in its place were the words of rage. He spoke of the Revolt with fury in his mouth, as though he were talking directly to John of Gaunt himself:
"We must not hold back when surrounded by Gauntists and their whores. We must find them wherever they are and bring justice upon them for conspiring against the freedom of the Realm and against the King and his True Commons. Lancaster and his whores are in insurrection, to deny what is now evident, that the people here in England now be free and have cast off the false nobility of the gentleman. God hath made clear that there be no gentleman in England, but true subjects of Good King Richard who hath confirmed our freedoms. Therefore it is us who must bring order to the Realm. It is us who must do God's will. Let none claim that they hath not the stomach for this fight, let none be passive in the duty for King and Commons, for they shall be inviting in the traitor. By their inaction, they would be inviting those who call us villein and beat us to toil. But if we go and we do what that which we seeth we must, we will keep what is ours. Lancaster and his whores, whom now torment us, will feel the fires of justice and truth and be otherwise removed from England."
As 1382 progressed, the Kentish Purge was just getting started. England was going to burn. All the while, its neighbours looked on with trepidation and caution.
Footnotes
- [1] The "bread and cheese" test happened in OTL as well.
- [2] OTL charter signed by Edward III, guaranteeing autonomy to the Flemish weavers brought over from French-ruled Flanders.
- [3] The murder of Ball is based very loosely off the assassination of Marat in the French Revolution. As for the church, it was Shakespeare's local church when he lived in London and is one of very few buildings to have survived the Great Fire of 1666 and the Blitz of 1940-41.
Words from the author
Since we are working with a scenario written in medieval Europe, there will be descriptions of bloody and violent incidents. I'm clarifying this now to avoid doubts later on but when I'm writing about a character or group of characters, I tend to write from their perspective - even if it includes rather horrible acts. I don't do this to lend support to any cause or actions, but to try to examine their mindset as the world around them is turned upside down.
Sources
Charlotte Corday - Wikipedia
Jean-Paul Marat - Wikipedia
Immigration and the Common Profit: Native Cloth Workers, Flemish Exiles, and Royal Policy in Fourteenth-Century London | Journal of British Studies | Cambridge Core
Immigration and the Common Profit: Native Cloth Workers, Flemish Exiles, and Royal Policy in Fourteenth-Century London - Volume 55 Issue 4
www.cambridge.org
Comments?
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It seems we have gone from bread and cheese to blood and cheese with these revenge murders. But honestly, Go Jan.
Karl der Große
Banned
Great update, but hard to believe John Ball, the third most well known man in England (after the king and Tyler, I presume) would not have supporters, supplicants, and others hangers-on surrounding him the entire day.
I like this TL very much. Thank you for writing and sharing it.
This work is literary evidence of the social unrest of the time. John Ball to the rebels in London in 1381 "biddeth Piers Plowman goew to his werke and chastise wel Hobbe the Robbere*".
Robin Hood and his Merrie Men were called into existence by popular desires for justice...
*Hobbe the Robbere, perhaps a colloquial term for thieves but in this context, referring to Lord High Treasurer Robert Hales.
Hmmm, the rebels would have viewed Hales as a thief, haha
Rymes of Robyn hood were first mentioned c.1377 in William Langland's Visions of Piers Plowman.
This work is literary evidence of the social unrest of the time. John Ball to the rebels in London in 1381 "biddeth Piers Plowman goew to his werke and chastise wel Hobbe the Robbere*".
Robin Hood and his Merrie Men were called into existence by popular desires for justice...
*Hobbe the Robbere, perhaps a colloquial term for thieves but in this context, referring to Lord High Treasurer Robert Hales.
Hmmm, the rebels would have viewed Hales as a thief, haha
I doubt their would have been a permanent bodyguard inside a Church given the attitudes of the time. When Thomas Becket was killed, he had earlier prevented the doors of Canterbury Cathedral from being locked.
Thanks for the kind words.
They did view Hailes as a thief, that's most of the rationale for killing him both in OTL and ITTL.
Karl der Große
Banned
Not a bodyguard, just people who are around, wanting to be around, you know, the third most important guy in the kingdom. Ball would be killed, but he wouldn't be found hours or minutes later. There'd be plenty of witnesses and no way the murderer gets away.
Especially after a Christmas Day sermon, Ball would be politically and just socially out of his mind to not spend time with his supporters and the common folk. It's not 2023, he has no computer or TV to get back to at home.
I've edited it now.
Also, I likely won't be publishing another chapter until February, I've got exams and an interview to prepare for so my calendar is full for the next few weeks.
Thanks for the warning, I do tend to figure out how to skip over such things, between being an extreme visual thinker, and a hint of PTSD from being bullied in Junhigh. I tend to need to keep some things out of my brain.
However, it is still a very interesting timelime. I wonder how the peasants having more freedom will affect technological and scientific change. Obviously ieasily, it won't be right away, but I wonder if there might be a bright mind or 2 who can maybe advance things medically or with better farming equipment or something like that a little faster.
Of course, they may not have really thought about the need for literacy yet, which would help greatly. They have to have enough food and stuff first.
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Me, an idiot, Googling this like "Where's Junhigh? I've never heard of it" only to realize you meant junior high
Hey laughs like that really help.Me, an idiot, Googling this like "Where's Junhigh? I've never heard of it" only to realize you meant junior high
It's like the time I misheard one of one of my friends saying he had more freckles in the summer and I started laughing at roriously thinking he had said he had freckles in the cellar. I got this image of big boxes of freckles stored down there and pasted on whenever he wanted.
Really part of the problem is speaking into one of my tablets, the AI doesn't hear very well and stops and starts words at weird times, I'm kind of surprised that it didn't hear that there were freckles in the cellar.
At this point, most developments are political and religious. Literacy may not take off yet because of the lack of a reliable printing press, though the language of the Church will be covered in the next update.
An interesting comparison to be made between the English Revolt and OTLs 1789 French Revolution is that the Medieval English revolt wasn’t guided by Enlightenment ideals of making something new - but of reasserting customary rights and redressing the balance between ruler and subjects, and they saw the aristocracy and Church hierarchy as disturbing that balance contrary to a God-ordained natural order.
That’s not to say that nothing new will be created here, but the initial spurs of the Revolt both OTL and ITTL were guided by custom rather than creation of something distinct from what came before.
Not gonna lie, I did as well!!Me, an idiot, Googling this like "Where's Junhigh? I've never heard of it" only to realize you meant junior high
Silly me
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Make sure to vote for "To Delve and Spin" for best medieval timeline - or else the flames of justice will come for you, you worthless Lancastrian traitors
In all seriousness, thank you so much for the nomination. I saw it whilst logging in to start writing the next chapter, we're really getting into the Kentish Purge now.
In all seriousness, thank you so much for the nomination. I saw it whilst logging in to start writing the next chapter, we're really getting into the Kentish Purge now.
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Chapter 10 – Cruel Necessity
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As of writing this, we're third
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Chapter 10 – Cruel Necessity
1382 – 1383
"Welcome the cross of Christ, welcome everlasting life!"
– Laurence Saunders
Roger Baker had once been ignored and scorned, but no more. He now held the whole town's gaze at him as he turned to lead them in pursuit of a vicious traitor - or so they believed. He acted with a zeal and force of character which suggested he had something to prove. Indeed, he did. As the second son of a baker, it was always his elder brother who was the apple of his father's eye when Roger entered this world in 1358. Try as he might Roger had never quite been able to earn any more attention than his exhausted father could spare after many long hours in his Chelmsford bakery, teaching his first son with the guild for when he would take over one day. That's why he would take to acting up, he craved that attention. He craved that connection, craved that appreciation, craved respect from his father. Things were different with his mother, she loved him very much and she showed it often. But she died when he was 7 and he'd found familial affection in short supply since.
At 14, he'd entered the Chelmsford baker's guild himself as a junior apprentice. His master - John - was a good man and trained the young Roger well in the basics of the craft. Roger was not paid for this work, though he looked up to John as if he were his true father. After almost six years he became a journeyman and began to receive a salary for his work. Not long after this his old master John would die suddenly. Roger was deeply affected by John's passing. Not only had he lost his only real father figure, without a master to supervise and unable to open his own establishment, Roger would soon find himself idle. As he began to fall through the cracks, his temperament worsened. His long-held sense of insufficiency, which had never truly gone, came back in full force. He became bitter, argumentative and resentful. One day in 1378 he got into an argument with his brother, his eternal source of grief - for he'd received what he believed he was due from their father. During the altercation, he'd struck his brother and sent him flying back into a wall. He was arrested and indicted for battery, for which he would spend a week in the pillory. He was ritually humiliated during that time and the guard assigned to watch over him had to prevent passersby from throwing larger rocks at him, though a blind eye was turned to smaller stones and other projectiles.
Having lost his trade and now his reputation, he became further embittered. After his father disowned him for attacking his brother, he then became a vagrant and roamed the villages and towns of south Essex looking for scraps. At the same time this was happening, tensions in England were beginning to stir. Through each town he passed, Roger would hear stories of a "poll tax" of some kind. He didn't quite understand what it all meant but he could tell people weren't happy about it. He would listen to and overhear the stories people told about the unfairness of it all and he took in their anger along with his own. Village after village, hamlet after hamlet, his heart was filled with rage, and he yearned for a chance to get even. Even with his father, with his scorned family, with the bakers and with whomever was hurting these poor folks with their taxes.
When revolt broke out in summer 1381, Roger was passing through the village of Corringham when he heard of the townsfolk being assembled in Brentwood. Apparently, they hadn't paid their share of the poll tax. When the situation got out of hand, Roger found himself deep within the crowd as it chased the villainous man who had come to their towns away. He was still with the crowd as it marched its way to London, and still when it broke through the city walls and began to bring havoc. When the crowd's leader, a certain Wat Tyler, emerged with a call for men to go and fight in the north, he was all too eager. The shock and shear speed of the past week's events had shaken Roger. He wasn't a vagrant anymore; he was a zealot for justice - justice on those who had wronged him for all these years. He was there at Brompton, where he was wounded. During that time, he'd aquainted himself with many fellow Essexmen - including their ringleader, John Wrawe. Wrawe was impressed by Baker's zeal and the two developed something of a working relationship, something that would become of great use as time progressed.
Following John Ball's death, Baker returned to social affairs. After the revolutionary English government had attainted Gaunt and proclaimed him a traitor, he heeded the calls sent out to the counties to search for the many traitors believed to be hiding among the common subjects of the King. Baker found himself appointed a constable by the new magistrates in Essex. He was tasked with finding these traitors and bringing them to trial. Respect, appreciation, purpose. Roger Baker for the first time in many years finally felt he’d found his calling.
De Proditorum Comburendo
In the summer of 1382, he was tasked with the capture of a traitor from the village of Great Waltham, a man by the name of John Hawkes. He and an assembled posse pursued the poor man for 4 days until he was discovered in the nearby village of Broomfield after sneaking out of St Mary with St Leonard Church, believing the coast to be clear only to be jumped by three men in a hedge. Dragged back to Great Waltham on the back of a horse cart, he was handed to constable Baker who personally delivered the broken Hawkes to the local magistrate for trial. Baker sat as witness to the trial, watching as Hawkes was charged with treason. The local drunken Hawkes had been turned in by a neighbour after having babbled incoherently that “Tyler is the biggest bastard in England” after a night in the town’s tavern. Now that neighbour stood before the courtroom to aid in drawing Hawkes over the coals for his remarks. After a short deliberation, Hawkes was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death by burning – that punishment favoured by the new rulers of England for exacting what they saw as justice.
Hawkes was burned in Chelmsford 5 days later, Baker was there. As the flames rose to Hawkes’s waist, Baker remembered what his father had told him back in 1378:
“You never showed more promise to me than a drunkard or a vagrant.”
As Hawkes prayed for mercy as the flames rose to his head, Baker remembered roaming the Essex woods of Essex as a vagrant and his interactions with the common people. He looked up at the burning wretch tied to the stake and did not pity him – for in the face of a once-drunkard he saw the face of a traitor. And as the flames swelled Hawkes’s tongue and shriveled his gums so he couldn’t speak, extinguishing the cries of “Lord Jesus, have mercy on me”, Baker felt once again assured that he’d found his purpose. This one of Lancaster’s whores could scheme no more in the shadows. As long as there were traitors in the Realm, Baker would have his purpose. In the zealous flames of revolt, he prayed that he may do his duty with firm and honest conviction.
There were more Gauntists to burn.
In March 1382, the new English Parliament - comprised solely of the Commons with the English bishops attending as mere observers - met in Westminster to deal with an issue pressing on the minds of many within the English government, the presence of suspected traitors working under the influence of John of Gaunt attempting to discredit and reserve the achievements of the revolt.
The body gathered to discuss the issue of "Gauntists" (as they were known as) was a substantial reform of the Parliament established in 1215 by Magna Carta. New suffrage rules had been created which allowed for all free male subjects of the King aged 21 and over the ability to vote for a representative of either the county or borough they inhabited. Women, vagrants, criminals, the young and those not born in the kingdom were not given the vote. When the new body assembled, its membership was comprised mostly of members of the gentry and urban middle class who had thrown their lot in with Tyler and the Revolters. The Wonderful Parliament - as future generations would call it - was a radical change from the Parliaments which proceeded it as its membership was chosen by a substantially larger segment of the population that ever before. Whilst its powers in relation to the King remained unchanged, it was a more imposing institution that previously constituted. It was use that power and influence in the spring of 1382 as it began to discuss the so-called "Gauntist" issue.
What emerged was a document titled De proditorum comburendo, "Regarding the burning of traitors" [1]. In it included the passages "they do wickedly instruct and inform people, and as such they may excite and stir them to sedition and insurrection, and make great strife and division among the people, and…do perpetrate and commit subversion of the order of the Realm" and instructed that "this wicked sect...should from henceforth cease and be utterly destroyed" [2] and was passed on the 13th of March 1382. Additionally, Parliament placed a bill of attainder on John of Gaunt, declaring him to be both a bastard and guilty of treason [3]. The first executions under the new treason act took place on the 25th of March in London when three knights captured from Devereux's expedition were convicted and burnt near Smithfield. They were the first victims of the Kentish Purge, they were very far from the last.
The Kentish Purge did not discriminate by class, though in practice those associated with the former magnates of the aristocracy were affected more than other classes. The properties of John of Gaunt were set upon with great ferocity. Long since cleared of any useful valuables to the Revolt, many of his castles would be dismantled entirely including Kenilworth and Bolingbroke.
Other people accused and burnt during the Purge were often those involved with local disputes or neighbourhood scraps. Almost all of these people were innocent of actual treason, the idea of a secret Gauntist sect beyond the local plans of some resentful magnates and gentry were little more than paranoia on the part of Tyler and his colleagues.
Among the most affected groups of the Purge were the Lollards, both for their beliefs and their most well-known patron - the Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt. In May 1382, 34 Lollards would be executed in Herefordshire. The story of the Lollards in the English Revolt is particularly tragic. Many of the "poor-priests" giving sermons across parts of England had supported the revolt. Though others had condemned it, broadly speaking they were supportive. Now their former allies were turning on them, leaving the Lollard priests to decide whether to hold to their faith or to get in line with the new order. The Revolters surrounding the King and his court would often take elements of the Lollards argument in their relationship with the Church, but Lollardy as a whole suffered terribly during the 1380s and 1390s [4].
News of the Purge spread abroad fairly rapidly. In Southern and Eastern England, a large number of wealthy Englishmen with reservations about the revolt chose to leave for Europe and word spread round the courts of France and Burgundy quickly. They were aghast at the news that men of lowly rank were dragging England into anarchy and chaos, with many secular noble properties belonging to the exiles destroyed and their remaining possessions and estates seized. A smaller number besides in the North, where the Purge was less strongly enforced, left for Gaunt and King Robert in Scotland - adding to the ranks of what would become a second army to finally restore order in England.
The Kentish Purge would go on for several years, coinciding with preparations by the Revolters regime to make moves on their foreign enemies. Gaunt was still at large in Scotland under King Robert's protection. The self-imposed exiles fleeing to France had the affect of increasing the paranoia directed at supposed enemies of the Revolt as well as direct the attention of Tyler and his council around King Richard of the possibility of retaliation from across the Channel, especially as England's territory of Gascony had signed a truce with the French King.
By the start of 1383 nearly 70 "Gauntists" had already been burnt.
The second phase of the English Revolt was already a far bloodier affair than the first. Detachments were raiding into Scotland on a frequent basis with the Scots retaliating in kind, the exiles in France were beginning to influence European couurts and the Kentish Purge was setting England ablaze.
Footnotes
- [1] I don't speak Latin. If this needs correcting, please let me know.
- [2] Both lines made up by me inspired by OTL's De heretico comburendo.
- [3] Bills of attainder were commonly used at the time to convict those the ruler wished to condemn without a trial. Also, there were rumours towards the end of Gaunt's life in OTL suspecting that he may have been illegitimate (likely untrue) so it's possible the Revolters may use it as propaganda.
- [4] More detail on the Lollards and their role in the Revolt coming in future chapters.
Sources
De heretico comburendo - Wikipedia
Lollardy - Wikipedia
Comments?
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Well, if in France and in Scotland along with the English exiles, were enraged and worried about the ongoing English 'commoners' revolt and takeover , I'd say that this new Parliament would have them frightened even more so than the still ongoing 'Kentish Purge'. Also, I should say that was expecting for the Parliament to be a moderate one, instead that it be the one organizing and enacting the purge. Finally, I would expect that already there would be worry in Rome and that both the English exiles and the French court pressuring to the Pope, to condemn the English commoners or even to interdict to England...
Just want to say that however way you fare in the Turtledoves this is one of the most original and well-written TLs I have read in a while, advise everyone to pair it with @Xekimus La Guillotine Permanent if you enjoy revolutionary content and hope both of you remain giving great reading material in the coming future