The City was still at this time torn by internal dissensions. The party headed by John of Northampton, representing the popular cause of the craft guilds, was always striving after more power and always meeting with the most determined resistance; it is also certain that a new and very important spirit had been introduced into the City, which was teaching new ideas concerning personal holiness, the riches of priest and monk, the true teaching of Christ as set forth in the Gospels, and spread abroad by Wyclyf’s preachers. The other side, headed by Philpot and Brembre, represented the old aristocratic party with the great guilds of distribution, import and export. The Duke of Lancaster, for reasons of his own, gave his support to John of Northampton and the popular party. In this he was joined by his brother Thomas of Woodstock, Earl of Buckingham, who three times accused Brembre before the Parliament: first of connivance in a riotous attack upon his house, and next of treason. The Earl showed his resentment still further by withdrawing from the City with all his following and all his friends. He must have had a great many friends, because the blow to trade was so sorely felt that the richer merchants subscribed and bribed him to come back again. The history of the City factions will be found in another place. In 1379 a poll tax was imposed. Every man had to pay according to his rank and station. The Mayor of London was assessed as an Earl and paid £4. The Aldermen, assessed as barons, paid £2 each. The lowest workmen had to pay a groat—fourpence. The poll tax of the City amounted to no more than £700. It is estimated that there was a population of about 46,000. But the expenses of collection are not included. In the taxation of the whole population, man, woman, and child, there must have been a great number of clerks and collectors. Perhaps 25 per cent was spent in the work. That would give us a population of 56,000. Next year the poll tax was again imposed; but this time the smallest sum to be paid was three groats, and that by every man, woman, and child over the age of fifteen. What would this tax mean at the present day? It would mean that every working man would have to pay half-a-crown for himself, half-a-crown for his wife, and half-a-crown for every one in his house over fifteen years of age, say four half-crowns, or ten shillings in all. How long would a Government last which should impose such a tax? The tax produced in London alone no more than £1000. It was a fatal impost for the country, for it proved the cause of the rebellion, the most formidable rising of the peasantry which this country ever had to encounter, that named after Wat Tyler. The history of this insurrection belongs to the history of England rather than that of London, but the later and more dramatic part of it took place in the City. Perhaps I cannot do better than transcribe the short and graphic contemporary account given in Riley’s _Memorials_ (p. 449):—