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, Then is our mill mis-a-dight." Sometimes it is under the signature of John Trueman that John Ball writes: "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." A more definite note was struck when it seemed to Ball and his colleagues that the time was ripe for revolution, and the word was given that appeal must be made to the boy-king--Richard was only eleven years old when he came to the throne in 1377. "Let us go to the King, and remonstrate with him, telling him we must have it otherwise, or we ourselves shall find the remedy. 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." In another letter John Ball greets John Nameless, John the Miller, and John Carter, and bids them stand together in God's name, and beware of guile: he 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 were accepted by willing minds. John Ball was in prison--in the jail of Archbishop Sudbury at Maidstone--in the spring of 1381, but the peasants were organised and ready to revolt. If Wat Tyler is the recognised leader of the rebel forces--"the one head"--John Ball's was the work of preparing the uprising. The vagrant priest had rung his bell to some purpose. 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." At Whitsuntide, early in June, 1381, the great uprising began--the Hurling time of the peasants--long to be remembered with horror by the governing classes. A badly ordered poll-tax was the match that kindled the fire.