[8] We have a very remarkable proof of the popularity of Piers Ploughman with the lower orders (among whom probably parts of it were repeated by memory), and of its influence on the insurrections of the peasantry in the reign of Richard II., in the seditious letter of John Ball to the commons of Essex, preserved by Thomas Walsingham (_Hist. Angl._ p. 275). I am not sure if "John _Schep_" may not contain an allusion to the opening of the poem; but the second passage, here printed in Italics, refers evidently to Passus VI. and VII., and the third is an allusion to the characters of Do-well and Do-best. "John _Schep_ sometime Seint Mary priest of Yorke, and now of Colchester, graeteth well John Namelesse, and John the Miller, and John Carter, and biddeth them that they beware of guyle in borough, and stand together in Gods name, and biddeth _Piers Plowman goe to his werke_, and chastise well Hob the robber, and take with you John Trewman, and all his fellows, and no moe. John the Miller hath y-ground, smal, small, small. The kings sonne of heaven shal pay for all. Beware or ye be woe, know your frende fro your foe. Have ynough, and say hoe: _And do well and better_, and flee sinne, and seeke peace and holde you therin, and so biddeth John Trewman and all his fellowes." [9] The mention of Wycliffe and of Walter Brute and other circumstances, fix the date of Piers Ploughman's Creed with tolerable certainty in the latter years of the reign of Richard II. It was probably written very soon after the year 1393, the date of the persecution of Walter Brute at Hereford; and from the particular allusion to that person we may perhaps suppose that like the Vision it was written on the Borders of Wales. [10] Different circumstances connected with this poem (which also appears to have been proscribed, for we have no early manuscript of it) lead me to suppose that it was written in the reign of Henry IV., when the _burning_ of heretics came into fashion, which is alluded to in the following stanza:-- "Were Christ on earth here, eftsoone These would damne him to die: All his hestes they han for-done, And saine his sawes ben heresie: And ayenst his commaundements they crie, And _damne all his to be brende_; For it liketh not hem such losengerie, God almighty hem amend!" In another passage, the writer of this poem alludes to the Creed of Piers Ploughman as though he were the author of it, and as a piece then known to everybody. "And all such other counterfaitours, Chanons, canons, and such disguised, Been Gods enemies and traitours, His true religion han foule despised. Of _freres_ I have told before, In a _making of a Crede_; And yet I could tell worse and more, But men would werien it to rede." Perhaps, however, the writer only claims the authorship of the Creed in his allegorical character, as the representative of that class of satirical writers who were then attacking the monastic orders.