It was by this process that the way was prepared for the insurrection which I am now to describe. The whole country for fifty miles about London was in a very sullen and angry mood, ready for an outbreak the moment that any incident should occur to put the excitement in motion. This incident was furnished by an occurrence which took place in the family of Walter the Tiler.
It seems that a personal tax had been levied by the government, the amount of which varied with the age of the individual assessed. Children paid so much. Young men and young women paid more. The line between these classes was not clearly defined, or, rather, the tax-gatherers had no means of determining the ages of the young people in a family, if they suspected the parents reported them wrong. In such cases they were often very insolent and rude, and a great many quarrels took place, by which the people were often very much incensed. The tax-gatherer came one day into Walter's house to collect the tax. Walter himself was away, engaged at work tiling a house nearby. The only persons that were at home were his wife and a young daughter just growing to womanhood. The tax-gatherer said that the girl was full-grown, and that they must pay the higher tax for her. Her mother said, "No, she is not full-grown yet; she is only a child." The tax-gatherer then said he would soon find out whether she was a woman or not, and went to her to take hold of her, offering her rudeness and violence of the worst possible character. The poor girl screamed and struggled to get away from him. Her mother ran to the door, and made a great outcry, calling for help. Walter, hearing the cries, seized for a club a heavy implement which he used in tiling, and ran home. As soon as he entered the house, he demanded of the officer, who had now left his daughter and came forward to meet him, what he meant by conducting in so outrageous a manner in his house. The officer replied defiantly, and advanced toward Walter to strike him. Walter parried the stroke, and then, being roused to perfect phrensy by the insult which his daughter had received and the insolence of the tax-gatherer, he brought his club down upon the tax-gatherer's head with such a blow as to break his skull and kill him on the spot. The blow was so violent that the man's brains were scattered all about the floor.