England was at this time affected more than at any other by the fashions of chivalry. This was a military enthusiasm, which for some centuries pervaded all Christian Europe. It prompted, as one of its first principles, a heedless bravery in encountering all kinds of danger. Its votaries were expected to be particularly bold in behalf of the fair sex, insomuch that a young knight would sometimes challenge to mortal combat any one who denied his mistress to be the loveliest in the world. Tournaments were held, at which knights clad in complete armor would ride against each other at full speed with leveled lances, merely to try which had the greatest strength and skill; and many were killed on these occasions. It was a system full of extravagance, and tending to bloodshed; but nevertheless it maintained a certain courtesy towards females, and a romantic principle of honor, which we may be glad to admire, considering how rude was almost every other feature of the age. Edward III was succeeded by his grandson, RICHARD II, then a boy of eleven years of age, and who proved to be a person of weak and profligate character. The Commons took advantage of the irregularity of his government to strengthen their privileges, which they had with difficulty sustained during the more powerful rule of his predecessor. Early in this reign they assumed the right, not only of taxing the country, but of seeing how the money was spent. Indignant at the severity of a tax imposed upon all grown-up persons, the peasantry of the eastern parts of England rose, in 1381, under a person of their own order, named Wat Tyler, and advanced, to the number of 60,000, to London, where they put to death the chancellor and primate, as evil counselors of their sovereign. They demanded the abolition of bondage, the liberty of buying and selling in fairs and markets, a general pardon, and the reduction of the rent of land to an equal rate. The king came to confer with them at Smithfield, where, on some slight pretense, Walworth, mayor of London, stabbed Wat Tyler with a dagger――a weapon which has since figured in the armorial bearings of the metropolis. The peasants were dismayed, and submitted, and no fewer than fifteen hundred of them were hanged. Wat Tyler’s insurrection certainly proceeded upon a glimmering sense of those equal rights of mankind which have since been generally acknowledged; and it is remarkable, that at the same time the doctrines of the reformer Wickliffe were first heard of. This learned ecclesiastic wrote against the power of the Pope, and some of the most important points of the Romish faith, and also executed a translation of the Bible into English. His writings are acknowledged to have been of material, though not immediate effect, in bringing about the reformation of religion.