In May 1381, much like the Jacquerie Revolt in France in 1358, the resentment against the labor restrictions and the tax laws used to raise funds for the war effort led to all-out rebellion. Most of the unrest began in southeast England, in Kent and Essex, two neighboring counties in southeast England, where incensed workers attacked tax collectors and their landowners, and they destroyed legal papers that documented their attachment to their lands.
The outrage against the tax and labor laws combined with the preacher John Ball’s sermons on the equality of all men as descendants of Adam and Eve increased the political consciousness among the peasants. They believed that they were equal to the upper classes, and they demanded equal treatment. By June 1381, the rebellion in Kent in southeastern England soon became organized under Wat Tyler, and they marched to Canterbury, where they executed anyone that was associated with the government and freed the prisoners from the jails.
Tyler then convinced a few thousand followers to march with him to London to demand a change in the taxation laws and the removal of the king’s officials who had passed them as well as an end to serfdom. Reaching Blackheath, to the southeast of London, the Bishop of Rochester met with the peasants to convince them to return home; it didn’t work, and Tyler and his men pressed into the city.
Already a hotbed of political resentment, many members of London’s upper class fought each other for influence. Members of the nobility resented the power of Richard II’s advisors, including the Lord Chancellor Simon Sudbury and the Lord High Treasurer Robert Hales. The royal council had established a new court that took power away from the local city officials. When Tyler and his men arrived, they found a large group of London citizens ready to join their cause.
By the middle of June, Tyler and his rebels arrived in London, descending the city into pure chaos: the combined forces of disgruntled Londoners and Wat Tyler’s followers killed anyone connected to the government, stormed the jails, and either set fire to or destroyed many homes and public buildings. Richard II, the teenaged king of England, had to flee to the safety of the Tower of London; most of his armed guards and military were fighting the war in France or stationed in the north to protect the country against an invasion from Scotland.