Earl of Winchester marched into the county at the head of an army of foreign mercenaries, levied by the tyrant John, and laid siege to Colchester. Hearing, however, that the baronial troops were hastening from London to its relief, he withdrew to Bury. John obtained possession of the town soon afterwards, and in the same year besieged and captured Hedingham Castle. For some time the county was exposed to the ravages of both king and barons, and the death of John did not end the people's troubles. Louis of France, whom the barons had called to their aid, was unwilling to withdraw his troops, which over-ran the county, and besieged and captured Colchester and Hedingham Castle. The victories of the Earl of Pembroke in other quarters obliged him to withdraw soon afterwards, and Essex enjoyed tranquillity until the spirit of freedom which had prompted the nobles to rebel against John spread downward to the rural labourers, who were then held in slavery, and brought about the insurrection with which the name of Wat Tyler is associated. Local traditions assign the well-known story of the slaying of the ruffianly tax-collector by Tyler to Brentwood, but better authorities place the

incident at Dartford, in Kent. It is certain, however, that the insurrection was prepared for in Essex by the preaching of John Ball, a priest of Colchester, who had imbibed the doctrines of Wickcliffe, and combined with them much of the Socialism of the present day. The rising in Essex was simultaneous with that in Kent, and the flame of revolt spread quickly into all the eastern counties. The Essex men mustered to the number of many thousands, and marched through Romford and Stratford to Mile End, where they encamped in the fields, and there Richard II., accompanied by several of the nobility, rode forth to meet them. He was alarmed by their turbulent aspect, however, and fled to the Tower, whence he issued a proclamation conceding all their demands and granting a general pardon. The insurgents then dispersed, and they had no sooner done so than the King recalled the proclamation and marched an army into Essex to suppress the revolt. The insurgents made a stand at Billericay, but their numbers failed to compensate for their want of discipline and military skill, and they were routed with great slaughter. Some sought refuge in the woods; others fled to Colchester, where shelter

was refused them, and they were all killed or taken prisoners. A "bloody assize" followed at Chelmsford, and hundreds of the victims of the monarch's bad faith were hanged with all the barbarous accompaniments of the death penalty for treason, which remained on the statute book down to our own time.

No events of sufficient importance to be recorded here occurred in Essex during the reigns of Henry IV. and his successor. The serfs rose in revolt again when they heard of the march of the Kentish men upon London in the reign of Henry VI., and again they assembled at Mile End; but they dispersed on Cade's defeat, and re-assumed the galling yoke they longed to throw off. During the sanguinary civil strife between the Yorkist and Lancastrian factions, the possessions of many of the nobility and gentry became forfeited to the crown, participating in the changing fortunes of the rival claimants of the throne, the partisans of the Duke of York being so fortunate, however, as to have their estates restored to them on the accession of Edward IV. They held them but for a short time in most cases, for those who adhered to the elder branch of the royal family

were again deprived of them when the chances of war placed on the throne the usurper Henry VII. Lord Lovel and others fled to Colchester after the battle of Bosworth, and found an asylum there for nearly a year. When Henry made a journey northward, they sallied from their retreat at the head of three thousand men, in the hope of surprising him; but the enterprise was frustrated, and some of the conspirators were captured and executed. Lovel escaped to the continent, but returned to support the imposter Simnel, and is supposed to have fallen in the retreat from Stoke.

Henry VIII. was a frequent visitor to Essex, and many old mansions are known to have been, or have the traditional repute of having been, places to which he occasionally retreated from the Court, or resorted to enjoy the society of his mistresses. Chigwell and Havering were frequently his temporary residences during the hunting season, and he is known to have been an occasional visitor at Terling Place. Shenfield, in the parish of Margaretting, the old priory house at Blackmore, and Newland Hall, a venerable mansion on the road from Boyton Cross to Margaret Roothing, are said to have been houses

to which the visits of the amorous king were made more secretly.

Essex seems to have regarded the Reformation with scant favour. The social results of the suppression of monasteries led to tumults in this and other counties. Twice in 1549, a year of dearth, tumultuous mobs wandered through Essex, breaking down fences, and attacking the houses of the promoters of the new order of things, in which they were encouraged by the high.bailiff of Romford, who, on the suppression of these disorders, was arrested and executed. The number of persons burned for their adherence to the Reformed Church in the reign of Mary shows, however, that the feeling in the county against the Reformation was not general. Those who can derive any satisfaction from the perusal of the records of the terrible persecution to which those who had embraced the doctrines of Luther and Calvin were exposed, may find the grim narrative in all its horrible details in the martyrology of Foxe. It must suffice here that the fires kindled by religious bigotry and intolerance blazed at Brentwood, Horndon-on-the Hill, Rayleigh, Maldon, Braintree, Colchester, Rochford, Coggeshall, Chelmsford, Manningtree,