Edward III. covered England with a mantle of military glory, for which she had to pay dearly later. He elevated the kingship to a more dazzling height, for which there have also been some expensive reckonings since. He introduced a new and higher dignity into nobility by the title of Duke, which he bestowed upon his sons; the great landholders or barons, having until that time constituted a body in which all were peers. He has been the idol of heroic England. But he awoke the dream of French conquest, and bequeathed to his successors a fatal war, which lasted for 100 years. The "Black Prince" died, and the "Black Death," a fearful pestilence, desolated a land already decimated by protracted wars. The valiant old King, after a life of brilliant triumphs, carried a sad and broken heart to the grave, and Richard II., son of the heroic Prince Edward, was king. [Sidenote: Richard II.,1377-1399. Wat Tyler's Rebellion 1381.] This last of the Plantagenets had need of great strength and wisdom to cope with the forces stirring at that time in his kingdom, and was singularly deficient in both. The costly conquests of his grandfather, were a troublesome legacy to his feeble grandson. Enormous taxes unjustly levied to pay for past glories, do not improve the temper of a people. A shifting of the burden from one class to another arrayed all in antagonisms against each other, and finally, when the burden fell upon the lowest order, as it is apt to do, they rose in fierce rebellion under the leadership of Wat Tyler, a blacksmith (1381). Concessions were granted and quiet restored, but the people had learned a new way of throwing off injustice. There began to be a new sentiment in the air. Men were asking why the few should dress in velvet and the many in rags. It was the first revolt against the tyranny of wealth, when people were heard on the streets singing the couplet "When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?" As in the times of the early Saxon kings, the cause breeding destruction was the widening distance between the king and the people. In those earlier times the people unresistingly lapsed into decadence, but the Anglo-Saxon had learned much since then, and it was not so safe to degrade him and trample on his rights. [Sidenote: John Wickliffe, 1324-1384.] Then, too, John Wickliffe had been telling some very plain truths to the people about the Church of Rome, and there was developing a sentiment which made Pope and Clergy tremble. There was a spirit of inquiry, having its centre at Oxford, looking into the title-deeds of the great ecclesiastical despotism. Wickliffe heretically claimed that the Bible was the one ground of faith, and he added to his heresy by translating that Book into simple Saxon English, that men might learn for themselves what was Christ's message to man.