The Peasants’ Revolt - England on the Brink

In the summer of 1381, thousands of ordinary people marched on London and forced a fourteen-year-old king to negotiate.

England was still reeling from plague, war, and economic collapse. Labour laws had frozen wages, taxes were enforced with growing brutality, and authority was exercised through officials who no longer feared those they governed. When resistance spread across the countryside, it did not take the form of riot or chaos, but of coordinated action with clear demands.

At Smithfield, King Richard II promised sweeping reforms. Serfdom would end. Justice would be restored. Order would be rebuilt on fairer terms.

Days later, those promises were withdrawn. The leaders were executed. The movement was dismantled.

In this episode of History Declassified, we examine the Peasants’ Revolt not as a failed uprising, but as a moment when power hesitated — and revealed how it survives. A story of pressure, concession, and retraction, and of how close medieval England came to a different path.