Of course Ball did not escape censure and the penalty of law during his missionary years. He was excommunicated and cast into prison by three Archbishops of Canterbury, Islip, Simon Langham, and Simon Sudbury, for teaching “errors, schisms, and scandals against the popes, archbishops, bishops, and clergy,” and he was only released from prison, from Archbishop Sudbury’s gaol at Maidstone, by the rough hands of the men of Kent when the rising had begun. The “errors” of John Ball were civil and social rather than theological. The notion that Ball and his fellow socialists of the fourteenth century were mixed up with Wycliff and the Lollards has really no foundation in fact.[61] Wycliff’s unorthodox views on the sacraments and his attacks on the habits of the clergy were of no interest to the social revolutionists, and John of Gaunt, the steady friend of Wycliff, was hated above all other men in the realm by the leaders of the revolt. Wycliff expressed as little sympathy with the Peasant Revolt of his day as Luther later in Germany did with the Peasant War, or Cranmer with the Norfolk rising under Ket in 1549. John Ball’s sermons were all on one text--“In the beginning of the world there were no bondmen, all men were created equal. Servitude of man to man is contrary to God’s will.” He declared that “things will never go well in England so long as goods are not kept in common, and so long as there are villeins and gentlefolks.” He harped on the social inequalities of his age, quoting freely from Langland’s _Piers the Plowman_, and enlarging on the famous couplet: When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman? As years went by and the time grew ripe for revolt, there is a definite call to rise in Ball’s letters and speeches. “Let us go to the king, and remonstrate with him,” he declares, “telling him we must have it otherwise, or we ourselves shall find the remedy.” Richard II. was but eleven when he came to the throne in 1377. “He is young. If we wait on him in a body, all those who come under the name of serf or are held in bondage will follow us, in the hope of being free. When the king shall see us we shall obtain a favourable answer, or we must then ourselves seek to amend our condition.” Some of the rhymed letters Ball sent out, bidding his hearers “stand together manfully in the truth,” urge preparation for the coming conflict: John Ball greeteth you all, And doth to understand he hath rung your bell. Now with right and might, will and skill, God speed every dell. John the miller asketh help to turn his mill right: He hath ground small, small, The King’s Son of Heaven will pay for it all, Look thy mill go right, with its four sails dight.