During the Hundred Years’ War some important changes and events were taking place in England. While the king was busy with his wars, Parliament quickly developed towards its present form. The common people’s representatives got into the habit of meeting privately to discuss their business before they joined the lords. By 1350 they also had a Speaker, whose duty was to speak for them all and to express their agreed opinion to the lords. Within the next ten years the old Parliament divided into three parts: a House of Commons, a House of Lords and a small permanent council. The third body was composed of the king’s official advisers who met regularly, the others only met when Parliament was called. As the War was going on, Parliament was being constantly pressed for funds, so it met more often and gradually secured greater and greater control of the purse strings. As long as parliament supported his wars, Edward III was quite happy to increase its powers and give it complete control of the taxes.

Edward III also began to appoint Justices of the Peace. They were unpaid servants of the Crown given the local powers of the king’s sheriffs and judges.

A major event that took place soon after the accession of Richard II is known as the Wat Tyler rebellion, the Great Revolt (1381). This was a rising of the English underclass, the poor villains and wage-earners, who, unlike the other classes of society (lords, knights, squires, townspeople, freemen), weren’t represented in Parliament and whose voice couldn’t be heard in the government. The villains (or serfs) were tied to their lord’s manor and had to do feudal service on the lord’s land for three days of the week, receiving in return strips of land often scattered over several large fields. Most of them, however, weren’t satisfied with their position, willing to pay rent for their farms and objecting to feudal service. Besides, owing to the devastating effects of the Black Death, the plague that scourged the country around the middle of the 14th century, the population fell dramatically, labour became expensive, and villains, growing prosperous, could sometimes buy their freedom. Yet most were refused it and the result was bitter resentment. To make matters worse, in 1380 Parliament, to meet the cost of the French war, imposed what was called a poll-tax on the whole adult population. The amount was one shilling, to be paid by every man no matter how much he earned. This was unfair on the poor labourers, whose average monthly wage was just about a shilling. When it came to collecting the tax, there was widespread evasion. When government officials were sent into the shires to force the collection, the result was open revolt, for the tax proved to be the final straw in the list of grievances. The rebellion quickly spread throughout the country, the discontented massed in thousands, and soon their leaders emerged, Jack Straw in Essex and Wat Tyler in Kent. Everywhere the rebels went they released prisoners but above all burnt documents, anything that recorded serfdom. Landlords were seized and forced to give their villains charters of freedom. The rebellion was eventually crushed, but the ruling class had a narrow escape (several of the king’s ministers including the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Treasurer were killed) and learnt a bitter lesson. Gradually the lords gave up their claims to feudal service and accepted rent instead, which resulted in the emergence and rapid development of a class of yeoman farmers. The process accelerated with the arrival of sheep farming, for now the squire needed fewer hands and more money. Serfdom died a slow death through the following century. These changes signaled the beginning of the end of medieval England.