Again, in the following year (1389), a new statute reproves the custom of “artificers, labourers, servants,” etc., who keep for their own use harriers and other dogs, and on “feast days, when good Christians are at church hearing Divine service,” get into the parks and warrens of the nobility and destroy the game. Much more, they avail themselves of these occasions when they meet together armed, without fear of being disturbed, to “hold their assemblies, conversations, and conspiracies, to rise against and disobey their allegience.” The thickets of the seignorial forests must have sheltered many a meeting of this kind during church services on the eve of the great revolt of 1381;[379] in such retreats no doubt were brought forth some of the living and stirring ideas which, transported from place to place by the wanderers, made the people of different counties understand that they were the same people, suffering from a variety of abuses, longing for relief. In a revolt like this, the part played by the wandering class is considerable, and the historian should not neglect it. If we do not take this element into account, it is hard to explain the extent and importance of a movement which came near having consequences comparable to those of the French Revolution. “I had lost my heritage and the kingdom of England,” said Richard II {277} on the evening of the day when his presence of mind had saved him, and he was right. Why was the French Jacquerie a commonplace, powerless rising compared to the English revolt? The reasons are manifold, but one of the chief was the absence of a class of wayfarers as strong, active, and numerous as that of England. This class served to unite all the people: by its means those of the South learnt the ideas of those of the North, what each suffered and desired; the sufferings and wishes were not always identical, but it was enough to know that all had reforms to demand. Thus, when the news came that the revolt had begun, the people rose on all sides, and while it was apparent that the desires of each were not absolutely similar, yet the basis of the contention being the same, and all wishing for more independence, they went forth together without being otherwise acquainted than by the intermediary of the wayfarers. The kings of England, indeed, had perceived the danger, and on different occasions had promulgated statutes bearing especially on the talk indulged in by these wanderers about the nobles, prelates, judges, and all the depositaries of public power. Edward I had said in one of his laws: