Now! Then! John de Erghom and others in service of the Beverley oligarchy murder William Haldane and throw him in a pit on Walker Lane

6 July 1381: John de Erghom and others in service of the Beverley oligarchy murder William Haldane and throw him in a pit on Walker Lane

André Réville. 1898. Le soulèvement des travailleurs d’Angleterre en 1381. Paris: A. Picard. Get it:

Excerpt

They also submit that John de Erghom of Beverley and others, on the sabbath day after the feast of St. Swithun, in the fifth year of the reign of King Richard II, at Beverley, at night and with premeditated malice, feloniously murdered and wickedly slew William Haldene, lying in ambush for the aforesaid William Haldene as he passed along the street and falling on him with one poleaxe and two sparths [battleaxes], six swords, two forks [weapon format] and other arms, smiting William on his head, so that, with his head torn open, the brains of the same William de Haldene were spilled on the ground, and the aforesaid William, as already stated, was feloniously murdered and wickedly slain and cast into a pit called Le Bek in Walker Lane.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.
Abbreviations:

ER: East Riding
GM: Greater Manchester
NR: North Riding
NY: North Yorkshire
SY: South Yorkshire
WR: West Riding
WY: West Yorkshire

Comment

Charles Oman has a good go at explaining events that were to some degree simultaneous with, but also distinct from, the Peasants’ Revolt:

The case of Beverley was rather worse than that of Scarborough. The long and tedious documents which set forth the progress of the troubles in this little town of 4,000 souls, the commercial centre of the East Riding, show that there had been for many years a venomous quarrel between the local oligarchs, the ‘probiores et magis sufficientes burgenses’ and the commonalty. The magnates were accused of having levied taxes unfairly, of selling public property for their private profit, of using municipal justice as a means to crush their enemies with heavy fines. In especial we are informed that they had taken advantage of the secret murder of a certain William Haldane by fathering it upon the leaders of their political opponents, who were in no way guilty, and getting them cast into the King’s prison. The beginning of these accusations runs back as far as 1368, far into the reign of Edward III. If half what is related by John Erghom, the leading spirit among these strangely-named ‘probiores viri.’ is true, he must have been a sort of Critias in little.

It must not be supposed, however, that the ‘viri mediocres.’ who formed the party of opposition in Beverley, were passive victims of the oligarchs. Long before the great rebellion began they had bound themselves in a league to resist their oppressors. On May 7, three weeks before the first outbreak in Essex, a mob had broken into the Guildhall of the town, stolen and divided £20 in hard cash, and made off with the town seal and a quantity of its charters.

This outrage had been condoned, and the leaders had received the King’s pardon, apparently because of the provocation that they had received, when in the end of June the news of Tyler’s doings reached Beverley. The ‘mediocres viri’ saw their opportunity, and rose in force, adopting like their fellows at Scarborough a common uniform of white hoods. Headed by one Thomas Preston, a skinner, and by two tilers named John and Thomas Whyte, they beset all their adversaries, and forced them ‘by rough threats, by the imprisoning of their bodies, and by other irrational and unheard of methods, to acknowledge themselves debtors, and to sign bonds for large sums.’ Apparently these were the sums which the oligarchs were supposed to have been illegally exacting from the town during the last ten or fifteen years. Both parties appealed to the King when order was restored, and each set forth the misdeeds of the other. After mature consideration, Richard and his council resolved to side with the ‘probiores viri.’ as was perhaps natural under the circumstances. They were pardoned for their illegal doings on paying a small fine, but the community of Beverley was saddled with a contribution of no less than 1,100 marks, by a royal ordinance issued in the year following the revolt.
(Oman 2001 (1906))

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Original

Item presentant quod Johannes de Erghom de Beverlaco et alii, die sabbati proxima post festum sancti Swithini, anno regni regis Ricardi secundi quinto, apud Beverlacum, noctanter, ex malicia precogitata, felonice murdraverunt et nequiter interfecerunt Willelmum Haldene, videlicet insidiando predictum Willelmum per regiam stratam transeuntem, irruentes super predictum Willelmum Haldene, cum uno pollax et duobus sparthes, sex gladiis, duobus forkes et aliis armis, ipsum Willelmum super capud suum percuscientes, ita quod, scisso capite suo, cerebra ipsius Willelmi de Haldene fudebantur super terram, et predictum Willelmum, sicut predicitur, felonice murdratum et nequiter interfectum, projecerunt in foveam vocatam le Bek in Walkerlane.

101 words.