With right and with might, with skill and with will, And let the post stand in steadfastness, Let right help might, and skill go before will, Then shall our mill go aright. But if might go before right, and will go before skill, This is our mill mis-a-dight. Beware ere ye be woe, Know your friend from your foe, Take enough and cry ‘Ho!’ And do well and better and flee from sin, And seek out peace and dwell therein, So biddeth John Trueman and all his fellows. In other letters he greets John Nameless, John the Miller, and John Carter, and bids them stand together in God’s name; and bids Piers Plowman “go to his work and chastise well Hob the Robber (Sir Robert Hales, the king’s treasurer); and take with you John Trueman and all his fellows, and look that you choose one head and no more.” These letters and the preaching did their work; the peasants were organised; men of marked courage and ability were found in various counties; and “the one head and no more” was ready in Kent to lead the army of revolt to the king when the signal should be given. Litster, Grindcobbe, and Wraw were at their posts. In every county from Somerset to York the peasants flocked together, “some armed with clubs, rusty swords, axes, with old bows reddened by the smoke of the chimney corner, and odd arrows with only one feather.” John Ball had rung his bell, and at Whitsuntide, at the end of May, 1381, came the great uprising, the “Hurling-Time of the Peasants.” The fire was all ready to be kindled, and a poll-tax, badly ordered, set the country ablaze. The poll-tax was first levied, in 1377, on all over fourteen years of age. Two years later it was graduated, from 4d. on every man and woman of the working class to £6 13s. 4d. on a duke or archbishop. Even this with a further tax on wool was found insufficient. So early in 1381 John of Gaunt called the parliament together at Northampton, and declared that £160,000 must be raised. Parliament refused to find more than £100,000, and the clergy, owning at that time one-third of the land, promised £60,000. Again a poll-tax was demanded. This time everybody over fifteen was required to pay 1s., but in districts where wealthy folks lived it was held sufficient that the amount collected in every parish averaged 1s. per head; only the rich were not to pay less than £1 per household, nor the poor less than 8d. In parishes where all were needy the full shilling was demanded without exception. It soon appeared that the money was not to be raised. In many parts the returns as to the population liable to the tax were not even filled in with any attempt at accuracy, and numbers avoided liability by leaving their homes--to escape a tribute, which to the struggling peasant meant ruin. Of the £100,000 required only £22,000 was forthcoming.