The Wat Tyler insurrection proved disastrous in its effect on the work of Church reform which Wyclif was then pursuing. "Not only was the power of the Lancastrian party, on which Wyclif had relied, for the moment annihilated, but the quarrel between the Baronage and Church, on which his action had hitherto been grounded, was hushed in the presence of a common danger. Much of the odium of the outbreak, too, fell on the Reformer. ... John Ball, who had figured in the front rank of the revolt, was claimed as one of his adherents. ... Whatever belief such charges might gain, it is certain that from this moment all plans for the reorganization of the Church were confounded in the general odium which attached to the projects of the socialist peasant leaders." _J. R. Green, Short History of the English People, chapter 5, section 3._ "When Parliament assembled it proved itself as hostile as the crown to the conceding any of the demands of the people; both were faithful to all the records of history in similar cases; they would have belied all experience if, being victorious, they had consented to the least concession to the vanquished. The upper classes repudiated the recognition of the rights of the poor to a degree, which in our time would be considered sheer insanity. The king had annulled, by proclamation to the sheriffs, the charters of manumission which he had granted to the insurgents, and this revocation was warmly approved by both Lords and Commons, who, not satisfied with saying that such enfranchisement could not be made without their consent, added, that they would never give that consent, even to save themselves from perishing altogether in one day. There was, it is true, a vague rumour about the propriety and wisdom of abolishing villanage; but the notion was scouted, and the owners of serfs showed that they neither doubted the right by which they held their fellow-creatures in a state of slavery, nor would hesitate to increase the severity of the laws affecting them. They now passed a law by which 'all riots and rumours, and other such things were turned into high treason'; this law was most vaguely expressed, and would probably involve those who made it in inextricable difficulties. It was self-apparent, that this Parliament acted under the impulses of panic, and of revenge for recent injuries. ... It might be said that the citizens of the municipalities wrote their charters of enfranchisement with the very blood of their lords and bishops; yet, during the worst days of oppression, the serfs of the cities had never suffered the cruel excesses of tyranny endured by the country people till the middle of the fifteenth century. And, nevertheless, the long struggles of the townships, despite the bloodshed and cruelties of the citizens, are ever considered and narrated as glorious