So let us get the
collar on their necks again, and make their day's work longer and
their bever-time shorter, as the good statute of the old king bade.
And good it were if the Holy Church were to look to it (and the
Lollards might help herein) that all these naughty and wearisome
holidays were done away with; or that it should be unlawful for any
man below the degree of a squire to keep the holy days of the church,
except in the heart and the spirit only, and let the body labour
meanwhile; for does not the Apostle say, 'If a man work not, neither
should he eat'? And if such things were done, and such an estate of
noble rich men and worthy poor men upholden for ever, then would it be
good times in England, and life were worth the living."
All this were the lords at work on, and such talk I knew was common
not only among the lords themselves, but also among their sergeants
and very serving-men. But the people would not abide it; therefore,
as I said, in Essex they were on the point of rising, and word had
gone how that at St. Albans they were wellnigh at blows with the Lord
Abbot's soldiers; that north away at Norwich John Litster was wiping
the woad from his arms, as who would have to stain them red again, but
not with grain or madder; and that the valiant tiler of Dartford had
smitten a poll-groat bailiff to death with his lath-rending axe for
mishandling a young maid, his daughter; and that the men of Kent were
on the move.
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