CHAPTER V.

 THE 1NSURIECTION--THE MARCH TO LONDON-WHAT
 HAPPENED ON THE WAY--THE BURNING OF THE
 PALACE, AND ENTRY INTO THE CITY.

 THE news of the rising spread fast and far through
 the land, and soon in Norfolk and Suffolk, Cambridge-
 shire, Essex, and parts of the adjoining counties, the
 villans all left the domains and estates on which they
 had worked as bondmen from the days of their birth,
 and betook themselves by tens and twenties, and hun-
 dreds, to the appointed meeting-places, where they
 assembled in such multitudes as to number tens of
 thousands. Most of them had never before been ten
 miles away from their little cottage-homes, and were
 ignorant of everything except the simple tasks and
 duties which formed their daily occupation; they
 knew how to labour, and would fight when their
 masters took them away in troops to the wars; but
 none of the light of instruction which now over-
 spreads the land had then shone upon them. It is
 not surprising, therefore, if they showed the usual
 consequences of ignorance; many were lazy, many
 vicious and cruel, many cunning and revengeful, and
 all of them superstitious. They believed in lucky
 and unlucky days, and in witches, and when any
 calamity overtook them, they thought it was caused
 by an unlucky day, or by some poor old woman who
 might have the reputation of being a witch. And yet
 these same bondmen could be brave in presence of
 real danger, and at times endure severe hardships
 without a murmur. They were a rude, sunburnt,
hard-handed multitude; speaking a strong rustic