[Sidenote: The Cornish rising]

The defence of England against invading Scots was a matter of much
importance to the northern counties, but lacked personal interest in
Cornwall. Year after year the King had been receiving subsidies to arm for
impending wars, borrowing, and levying benevolences. When a hostile France
was the excuse, the population might murmur but was quite as willing to pay
as could reasonably be expected. But the Scots had never invaded Cornwall,
and the Cornishmen felt that it was time to protest. They would march to
London--peaceably, of course--to demand according to custom the removal of
the King's evil counsellors; Morton and Bray, to wit, who probably used
their influence in reality to mitigate rather than intensify the royal
demands. The insurgent leaders were a blacksmith, Joseph, and a lawyer,
Flamock--appropriate chiefs for working men trying honestly enough to
formulate what they had been led to regard as a grievance of what we should
now call an unconstitutional character. With bills and bows, some thousands
of them started on their march; preserving their peaceable character, till
at Taunton the appearance of a commissioner for collecting the tax proved
too much for their self-restraint, and the man was killed. A little later
they were joined by Lord Audley, who became their leader. They expected the
men of Kent, who of old had risen under Wat Tyler and again under Jack
Cade, to take up the cause: but Kent did not recognise the similarity of
the present conditions and gave them no welcome.

[Sidenote: The suppression (June)]

Meantime, Henry had not been idle; but he saw that the insurgents were not
rousing the country as they progressed, and therefore he judged that the
further they were drawn away from their own country the better. Except for
a slight skirmish at Guildford, the Cornishmen were not actively interfered