THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR 523 exercise of this constitutional power. Many reforms were planned in the government, and the succession to the throne was secured to Richard, the young son of the Black Prince, as against his ambitious and unpopular uncle, John of Gaunt. After this Parliament was over, the corrupt court party recovered to some extent its former position and the program of reform was not carried out. But then within a year came the death of Edward III, the flight of his greedy favorites, the withdrawal of John of Gaunt from domestic politics, and the accession of the ten-year-old Richard II with a council of twelve selected both from the court and the parliamentary parties. The English Parliament, however, and even the House of Commons, made up as it was of representatives of the land- owning class and of the more prosperous towns- The Peag _ men, had little sympathy with the lower classes ants' Revolt of workingmen who had but recently come up ° I3 ! from serfdom or villeinage, as it had already shown in its Statute of Laborers. This attempt to force men to work for the same wages as before the Black Death had caused great discontent among the laboring classes and was almost im- possible to enforce, but the government had kept trying to enforce it, and had enacted a series of similar laws in the years from 1351 to 1381. Now, in order to meet the expense of the unsuccessful French war, Parliament agreed to a new form of taxation ; namely, poll taxes which every one except absolute paupers had to pay, instead of the usual taxes levied upon land, merchandise, and other forms of property. When in addition these poll taxes were unjustly and un- systematically collected, the peasants, especially in south- eastern England, rose in revolt. They also had other griev- ances against both their feudal lords and the clergy. They succeeded in entering London, where the humbler artisans sympathized with them; they killed the Archbishop of Canterbury and some other high officials and did some plundering ; but then most of them dispersed to their homes when the boy king promised to abolish serfdom and to re- dress their other grievances. These promises were not kept ;
