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In: History - British·History - Early Modern (c. 1450-1750)·History - Modern (1750+)
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Leaders of the People is a scholarly collection of biographical sketches that traces the evolution of English liberty from the Norman conquest to the early twentieth‑century reform movements. The author opens by naming seventeen “leaders” – from celebrated archbishops such as Anselm and Stephen Langton to rebel figures like Wat Tyler, Lilburne and Ernest Jones – and argues that each, whether triumphant or defeated, shared a “resolute hatred of oppression” and a commitment to the public good. The introductory passage frames the work as a corrective to the “obloquy” that has clouded the reputations of many of these men, promising a reassessment based on original sources and contemporary historiography. Detailed references to medieval chronicles, the Rolls Series, and modern scholars signal a rigorous, source‑driven approach, while the author’s own 1910 preface underscores an intent to contribute to a broader history of democratic ideas in Britain.
The book’s voice is that of an early‑twentieth‑century academic historian, marked by formal, sometimes ornate prose and a didactic tone that reflects the period’s reverence for moral purpose in scholarship. Its style combines narrative biography with extensive footnotes and citations, appealing to readers who enjoy a measured, evidence‑based exploration of political and religious figures rather than a sensationalized account. Students of British history, scholars of democratic theory, and general readers with a patient appetite for detailed historical argument will find the work rewarding, especially those interested in how individual agency intersected with the larger currents of liberty and governance in England.
The opening · free to read
“_Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers who begat us._”
The names of the seventeen men, here named “Leaders of the People,” are for the most part familiar in our mouths as household words. Those who triumphed, like Anselm and Stephen Langton; or whose cause triumphed, like Simon of Montfort, Eliot, Pym and Hampden, are beyond any loss of fame. Those who in high place quitted themselves like men and died game (if the phrase may be permitted), as did Thomas Becket and Sir Thomas More, have, for all time, deservedly their reward. The unsuccessful rebels, FitzOsbert (called Longbeard), Wat Tyler, Jack Cade and Robert Ket, are hard put to get rid of the obloquy heaped upon them by contemporary authority; while the later rebels, equally unsuccessful, Lilburne, Winstanley, Major Cartwright and Ernest Jones, relying on the pen rather than the sword, escaped the hangman, and in so doing narrowly escaped oblivion. Good Bishop Grosseteste, living out his long life, thwarted often, but unmartyred, enjoys the reputation commonly awarded to conscientious public servants who die in harness.
On the whole, re-perusing the records of these seventeen men, who would altogether reverse the verdicts of time? The obloquy may be removed when the work of the rebels is fairly seen, and it may be judged that they deserved better of the State than appeared when they troubled its peace. The rebels of the pen, too, should be worthy of recollection in this age, for they wrought manfully with the weapon now at once so powerful and so popular. The greater men of our series stand out higher as the distance increases. So far readjusted, the awards of history may be accepted.
But with all the differences of character, one common quality binds these men whose stories are here retold--a resolute hatred of oppression. And one common work, successful or unsuccessful, was theirs--to labour for the liberties of England and the health of its people. The value of each man’s work can only be stated approximately: it is difficult to make full allowance for the vastly different parts our heroes, statesmen and rebels alike, were called to play. The great thing is, that whatever the part, they played it faithfully, as they read it, to the end. We may admit the degrees of service given: it is impossible to do otherwise. Some of these Leaders shone as great orbs of light in their day and generation, lighting not only England, but all western Europe--and still their light burns true and clear across the centuries. Others were but flickering rush-lights--long extinct now. But none were will-o’-the-wisps, for all helped to show the road to be travelled by English men and women seeking freedom, and moving ever towards democracy. At the least, we--enjoying an inheritance won at a great price, and only to be retained on terms no easier--can keep the memory green of some few valiant servants of our liberties. What is wanted is a real history of the growth of the idea of freedom and of popular liberty in this country; and these rough biographical sketches may be accepted as a contribution to the materials for such a book. “Biography is a department of history, and stands to it as the life-history of a plant or an animal does to general biology.”
I have gone back to all the original sources to get once more at the lives of these “Leaders of the People,” and to see them as they were seen by their contemporaries; but I have also done my best to read what the historians of our own day have written concerning them, and in mentioning my authorities I have, in each case, given a list of the modern books that seem to me valuable.
J. C.
September, 1910.
AUTHORITIES: Eadmer--_Historia Novorum_ and Life of Anselm; Orderic of St. Evroul; The English Chronicle; Florence of Worcester; William of Malmesbury; (Rolls Series); Sir Francis Palgrave--_England and Normandy_; Freeman--_Norman Conquest_, Vol. V., Reign of William Rufus; Dean Church--_St. Anselm_.
(From an old French Engraving in the British Museum.)]
The turbulent ambition of Norman barons threatened the sovereignity of William the Conqueror and of his son, the Red King, often enough, but these outbreaks promised no liberty for England. The fires of English revolt were stamped out utterly five years after Senlac, and the great Conqueror at his death left England crushed; but he left it under the discipline of religion, and he left it loyal to the authority of the crown, grateful for the one protection against the lawless rule of the barons.
The English Chronicler, writing as “one who knew him and once lived at his court,” summed up the character of the Conqueror’s life and work in words that have been freely quoted through the centuries:--
“King William was wiser and mightier than any of his forerunners. He built many minsters, and was gentle to God’s servants, though stern beyond all measure to those who withstood his will.... So stark and fierce was he that none dared resist his will. Earls that did aught against his bidding he put in bonds, and bishops he set off their bishoprics, and abbots off their abbacies, and thanes he cast into prison. He spared not his own brother, called Odo, who was the chief man next to the king, but set him in prison. So just was he that the good peace he made in this land cannot be forgotten. For he made it so that a man might fare alone over his realm with his bosom full of gold, unhurt; and no man durst slay another man whatsoever the evil he hath done him; and if any man harmed a woman he was punished accordingly. He ruled over England, and surveyed the land with such skill that there was not one hide but that he knew who held it, and what it was worth, and these things he set in a written book. So mighty was he that he held Normandy and Brittany, won England and Maine, brought Scotland and Wales to bow to him, and would, had he lived two years longer, have won Ireland by his renown, without need of weapons. Yet surely in his time men had much travail and very many sorrows; and poor men he made to toil hard for the castles he had built. He fell on covetousness, and the love of gold; and took by right and by unright many marks of gold and more hundred pounds of silver of his people, and for little need. He made great deer-parks, and ordered that whoso slew hart or hind, him men should blind; and forbade men to slay deer or boar, and made the hare go free; he loved the big game as if he were their father. And the poor men that were oppressed he recked nought of. All must follow the king’s will if they would live, or have land, or even a quiet life.”
But now, in September, 1087, the great King William was dead, with his life-work done; and from the tyranny of a strong and just ruler, England passed to the despotism of his fearless son, William the Red, who was “terrible and mighty over his land and his men and towards all his neighbours;” in whose reign “all that was loathsome in the eyes of God and righteous men was of common use; wherefore he was loathed by well-nigh all his people, and hateful to God as his end showed.”
There was much of the later Puritan in William I. in the steadfastness of purpose, the suppression of “malignants,” and determination to have justice done, no less than in the sincerity for Church reform, and the deep respect for the ordinances of religion. No king of England worked more harmoniously with a strong archbishop than William I. with Lanfranc--save, perhaps, Charles I. with Laud.
Then on the death of William I., followed less than two years later by Lanfranc’s, came the reaction in Church and State from the efforts after law, religion, and social decency under the Conqueror’s rule.
The Red King had all his father’s sternness and strength, but was without any of that belief in justice, that faith in the Sovereign Power of a Living God, that desire for law and order, and that grave austerity in morals, which saved the Conqueror from baseness in his tyranny.
William II., unmarried, made the wildest and most brutish profligacy fashionable at court. To pay for his debaucheries and extravagances he plundered all who could pay, in especial the Church, enjoying the revenues of all vacant sees and abbeys, and declining to fill up the vacancies so that this enjoyment might remain. After Lanfranc, as the king’s chief adviser, came Ranulf (nicknamed the Torch, or Firebrand), a coarse, unscrupulous bully, with the wit of a criminal lawyer. This man was made Bishop of Durham, and Justiciar. For him government meant nothing but the art of getting money for his royal master, and silencing all opposition.
For over three years there was no Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Red King refused to fill up the vacancy caused by Lanfranc’s death, preferring to enjoy the revenues and possessions of the see; a thing that was shocking to all lovers of religion, and scandalous to those who cared for public decency and the good estate of the country.
Eadmer, a contemporary, describes the condition of England in those early years of William II.:--
“The king seized the church at Canterbury, the mother of all England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the neighbouring isles; he bade his officers to make an inventory of all that belonged to it, within and without; and after he had fixed an allowance for the support of the monks who served God in that place, he ordered the remainder to be disposed of at a rent and brought under his domain. So he put up the Church of Christ to sale; giving the power of lordship over it to anyone who, however hurtful he might be, would bid the highest price. Every year, in wretched succession, a new rent was set; for the king would allow no bargain to remain settled, and whoever promised more ousted him who was paying less, unless the former tenant, giving up his original bargain, came up of his own accord to the offer of the later bidder: and every day might be seen, besides, the most abandoned of men on their business of collecting money for the king, marching about the cloisters of the monastery, heedless of the religious rule of God’s servants, and with fierce and savage looks giving their orders on all sides; uttering threats, lording it over every one, and showing their power to the utmost. What scandals and quarrels and irregularities arose from this I hate to remember. Some of the monks of the church were dispersed at the coming of this misfortune, and sent to other houses, and those who remained suffered many tribulations and indignities. What shall I say of the church tenants, ground down by such wasting and misery, that one might doubt, but that worse followed, whether escaping with bare life they could have been more cruelly oppressed. Nor did all this happen only at Canterbury. The same savage cruelty raged in all her daughter churches in England, which, when bishop or abbot died, at that time fell into widowhood. And this king, too, was the first who ordered this woeful oppression against the churches of God; he had inherited nothing of this sort from his father, but was alone in keeping the vacant churches in his own hands. And thus, wherever you looked, there was wretchedness before your eyes; and this distress lasted for nearly five years over the Church of Canterbury, always increasing, always, as time went on, growing more cruel and evil.”
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