_My friends and unhappy countrymen, whom the laws of England have worthily condemned unto death for your open and unnatural rebellion against your lawful sovereign and anointed prince, I am sent unto you from the king's most excellent majesty, to give you to understand that, notwithstanding this violence which you have offered to yourselves, in running furiously into the danger of the law, as mad and frantic men upon an edged sword: yet, notwithstanding, I say, that you have gathered rods to scourge your own selves, following desperately your lewd and misgoverned heads, which have haled you on to this wretched and shameful end, which is now imminent over you all, that must in strangling cords die like dogs, and finish your lives in this miserable, reproachful sort, because ye would not live like men: but far unlike yourselves, unlike Englishmen, degenerate from your natural obedience and nature of your country, that by kind bringeth forth none such, or at least brooketh none such, but spits them out for bastards_ _and recreants: notwithstanding, I say, this torment wherein ye now live, looking every hour to suffer such a shameful and most detestable death, as doth commonly belong to such horrible offenders, yet it hath pleased the king of his accustomed goodness to give you your lives, and freely to forgive you your faults, sending by me general pardon to you all, excepting one only accursed and seditious priest, that so far swerved from the truth and his allegiance to his prince, and one Wat Tyler, whose outrage hath been noted so outrageous in all his actions as, for ensample to all Englishmen hereafter, his majesty hath thought good to account him and this parson (first stirrers in this tumult and unnatural rebelling) the greatest offenders that now live to grieve his majesty; and thus I have delivered the message of the king, which is in effect general pardon to you all, and a sentence of death unto the two arch rebels, John Ball and Wat Tyler. For which great grace, if you think yourselves anything bound to his highness (as infinitely you are), let it appear as far forth hereafter as you may, either by outward signs of duty, or inward loyalty of hearts expressed: and to begin the same, in sign of your thankfulness, say all, God save the king!_ CRY ALL. _God save the king!_ W. T. Well, then, we know the worst; He can but hang us, and that is all. Were Jack Straw alive again, And I in as good possibility as ever I was, I would lay a surer trump Ere I would lose so fair a trick.