THE DIVINE RIGHT

I started out thinking nobody could be a worse villain than royal toady John Bampton, Minister of Parliament and Justice of the Peace. He descended on the little Essex village of Brentwood at the end of May 1381 to collect over due taxes and delivered neither justice nor peace. Within 48 hours Bampton's ministrations had set off a riot, gotten six of his own clerks and several loyal citizens beheaded by a mob and barely escaped himself, tail between his legs, back to London. Who could be a bigger villain than that?

The immediate answer was the arrogant royal toady Sir Simon de Burley. On Monday, 3 June, 1381, two sergeants dispatched by the villein de Burley entered the Thames side village of Gravesend, to arrest escaped Peasant Robert Belling. However Belling must have been more than a mere peasant because he offered to buy his own freedom. But Sir de Burely demanded his rights of lordship, and had Belling thrown into the dungeon of Rochester Castle. Three days later a mob showed up outside Rochester Castle and the warden thought it better to free Belling rather than have his tiny garrison murdered. Was this rebellion really caused by the villain Sir Simon de Burley?

Between the Black Death, which had killed over half of all English peasants during 1348-49, and the Hundred Years War with France (they were right in the middle of it) , the long suffering and few remaining peasants of England were, by 1381, fed up with having to feed and clothe and supply weapons and soldiers for their arrogant masters in the nobility In early June 60,000 peasants from Essex in the northeast, and 40,000 from Kent in the southeast, were marching on London, determined to have their complaints heard by the King himself.

The English nobility were shocked and stunned. Because of the war in France and the never ending Scottish threat, there were few soldiers left in England. And those that were, were not trustworthy, as the warden of Rochester Castle had shown. 

And worse, the King, chosen to rule by divine right , was the 14 year old Plantagenet blue blood Richard II, a tall and gangly youth with a “white, rounded and feminine” face. He was a smart lad, but had a nasty stammer, and his noble “handlers” were not sure he could lead them out of this crises, whoever was to blame for starting it..

The nobility's first nomination for the responsible villain was the “mad priest of Kent” the heretical Father John Ball. He had often challenged the very foundations of feudalism, asking , “When Adam dug and Eve spun, where was then a gentleman?”  Ball dared to argue “all men by nature were created alike.” It was not God who chose Kings, said Ball, but “naughty men.” 

Sir Simon Sudbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor of England, had locked up Ball in Rochester Castle (above).  As the Kent rebels moved west, they looted the Archbishop's properties in Canterbury, blaming him for the taxes piled upon them.  But this was also where a third villain joined the rebellion, who would give his name to the entire revolt: Wat Tyler. And once having reached Rochester, he freed both Berling and Father Ball.

Here was the nobility's real villain, then, and a proper villain too, being a free resident from a village. It was said Tyler was a member of the roof tiler's guild, or a blacksmith. It was said he had served in the King's army in France. And it was said a tax collector tried to strip his 13 year old daughter, to prove she was old enough to pay the 1 shilling poll tax, the third such tax in four years, laid on every person over 14. years of age. It was also said that Tyler then beat the tax collector's s brains out. 

Whatever the truth,  it is fact that on 7 June, 1381, Tyler was elected to lead the rebels up the Old Kent Road to London. And from that day the Peasant's Revolt became Wat Tyler's rebellion. Four days later, 11 June, 1381, the crowd reached the high ground at Blackheath, 3 miles southeast of London.

This “bleak site”, named for its dark soil, was a tradition camping spot, and young King Richard II's advisers had anticipated the rebels would pause there. They loaded their royal charge onto a barge, and with four barges of soldiers as escort, set out down the Thames to overawe the “rebels” and order them to disperse. Seeing 40,000 angry peasants armed with longbows and axes, the courtiers panicked. The King did not get off the boat (above),  and the royal forces did not stop rowing until they were all locked safely behind the walls of the Tower of London. 

Caught on the outside, the Lord Mayor William Walworth ordered the gate houses at both ends of the 900 foot long London Bridge, the only crossing over the Thames River, to be closed and its drawbridge raised. This should keep the peasants on the south bank.

On Wednesday, 12 June, 1381, when Wat Tyler and his 40,000 member “mob” approached London Bridge, Walter Sybyle, a fishmonger and city alderman, ordered the gates at both ends lifted and the drawbridge lowered. Pausing only to post their own men in the gatehouses, peasants streamed past the west door of St. Magnus-the-Matyr Cathedral and invaded the capital. 

Fleet and Newgate Prisons were raided and the prisoners were freed. Legal offices were ransacked, lawyers and clerks were butchered, and thousands of contracts, property records and mortgages were burned. The mobs also ransacked the homes of recent Flemish immigrants, and many were killed. And the Savoy Palace (above),  the ostentatious home of the arrogant and incompetent general John of Gaunt, was captured. “What could not be smashed or burned was thrown into the river. Jewelery was pulverized with hammers...” But a disciplined core of Tyler's force marched directly to Aldergate, in the eastern city wall. There the man entrusted by Mayor Walworth, Thomas Farington, threw that gate open as well.

Tyler's force advance a mile outside the city walls and camped in the open fields at Mile End. And there, on the following day, Thursday, 13 June, 1381, they were met by the larger force of peasants from Essex. A hundred thousand rebels, equal to London's population, had now occupied the capital, trapped the King and his ministers in the Tower, and accepted Wat Tyler as their sole leader..

The situation was unstable. Tyler must find food and water for his massive “army”. And so must the King's much smaller force in the tower. And with the daily markets disrupted, Mayor William Walworth must do the same for the city. The King's party panicked first, and asked for a meeting the next day, Friday 14 June 1381, at the rebel encampment at Mile End, to hear what Wat Tyler wanted.

Tyler wanted everything – the end to the slavery of serfdom, the right of peasants to buy the the land they worked, and to sell what they made and grew, the right to punish the royal advisers who had oppressed the people, and a general pardon for the peasant army. Grant these humble requests, said Tyler, and the peasant army would return to their villages. The King made a show of offering a few objections before agreeing to everything. It was the strategy Tyler expected, as he had no doubt Richard II meant to betray the promises. So Tyler had not waited for the King to betray his last promise.

While these “negotiations” were still going on,  400 rebels marched on The Tower. Again, the guards offered little more than token resistance. It was the first and last time the Tower of London fell to an invading force.

Chanting "Where is the traitor to the kingdom?” the rebels dragged their number one villain, the fat Archbishop of Canterbury, Sir Simon Sudbury,  and a dozen of other royal advisers, outside The Tower's Walls, to Tower Hill, where they were all beheaded. 

It took 8 blows to carve through Sudbury's thick neck, as his battered skull still shows.. When Richard II saw his adviser's head being paraded on a pike,  the King abandoned The Tower, and hurried instead to his apartments in Blackfriars, in south-west London.

That night, while the heads of the murdered royal advisers were bobbing atop the southern gatehouse of London Bridge, Mayor William Walworth came to the Richard with good news. First, a large part of the Peasant army had already started for home, trusting the King to fulfill his promises.  And second, the merchants of London had raised a militia of 5,000 armed men, whose loyalty could be trusted. In the morning, Saturday 15 June, 1381, Richard sent word he wanted to meet again with Tyler, to seal their agreement. But this time, he asked, the meeting be held at at Smithfields, where he felt safer.

For 800 years Smithfields, north west of the city walls, bordered by the Fleet River and shaded by elm trees, had been the open air livestock market for the city, and occasionally an execution place for rebels like Scotsman William Wallace. But being from out of town, Wat Tyler was probably unaware of this last purpose. Late that afternoon, Wat Tyler and a few followers crossed the Fleet River, leaving his peasant army on the eastern shore, and rode to meet the King and his 200 supporters..

Was Tyler drunk? Had he gone mad? Or did he sense, with the loss of most of his men, how this story was destined to end?  Richard II asked why the peasants had not all gone home. Tyler responded they were waiting for the promised laws to be signed by the King.  A valet named Ralph Standish then called Tyler a thief. At the insult the Kentish villain drew his only weapon, a knife.  The Mayor drew his sword. Tyler slashed out, but the Mayor was wearing armor, as was the King. Tyler was not. Whereupon Standish ran Tyler through with his sword. 

While the struggled continued the young King spurred his horse across the Fleet River, and addressed the rebels directly, calling them his friends. He invited them to follow guides to Clerkenwell Green, where they would be fed. Trusting their King, and not being able to see what was happening to Wat Tyler, the peasants followed.

It was a trap. The peasants arrived in Clerkenwell to find themselves hemmed in by run down apartment buildings and narrow streets, all escape routes guarded by the Mayor's militia.  As darkness approached, the King appeared, followed by Wat Taylor's head atop a spike.  It had been 9 days since Wat Tylor had been elected leader of the rebellion, and with his death the shrunken army of the poor lost heart.  The peasants fell to their knees and begged forgiveness. The King granted it, but withdrew his promises to end serfdom and grant freedoms. He also knighted Mayor Wentworth and Ralph Standish. He then ordered the peasants to be escorted back across London Bridge, and allowed to return home. And then he unleashed his anger..

John Ball, whose words would inspire Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, was executed at St. Albans. His final words were, addressed not to the the King who was there to witness his agony, but to his “fellow citizens”.  He advised them to “...stand firm while you may, and fear nothing for my punishment since I die in the cause of liberty.”  

He was then hung until almost dead, taken down and slowly drawn and quartered. Over the next five years around England some 5000 rebels would be hung for their uprising. The increasingly tyrannical Richard would sneered at his subjects, “Rustics you were and rustics you are still. You will remain in bondage, not as before, but incomparably harsher” But there would not be another poll tax in England, until the 20^th century.

Sir William Walworth, Lord Mayor of London, would die four years later, in December of 1385. In his will he left his wife all the income from his rents, including those of the whore houses he owned on the south shore of the Thames, rebuilt after Way Tyler's rebels burned them down. 

Seven years after the death of Wat Tyler, the arrogant Sir Simon de Burley was impeached for treason by Parliament, and executed by beheading. 

And in the 22nd year of his reign, Richard II, King of England by divine right, would be betrayed by a cousin, and would die of starvation as a prisoner in February of 1400. His death was barely noted, and he was almost completely forgotten by both the nobles and peasants of his kingdom..

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MY GOD, GEORGE MALLORY

“Gradually, very gradually, we saw the great mountain...far higher in the sky than imagination had dared to suggest, the white summit of Everest appeared......a prodigious white fang excrescent from the jaw of the world.”

George Mallory - 1921

I remain mesmerized by the eyes of George Herbert Leigh Mallory, a century after his mysterious death. Writer Lytton Strachey described him as having “the mystery of Botticeilli, the refinement and delicacy of a Chinese print.” 

Mallory was aware of his beauty and had no inhibition at displaying his naked 6 foot tall, muscular frame for the camera. But he was not a statue, but a living man, possessing “...vivacity and a love of adventure...”. He was also known as impetuous, “charismatic and endearingly absent-minded.” Being the greatest climber of his age, it was inevitable that George Mallory should face the greatest mountain..

“The highest of the world's great mountains, it seems, has to make but a single gesture of magnificence to be lord of all, vast in unchallenged and isolated supremacy...other mountains are visible... giants between 23,000 and 26,000 feet high...beside Everest they escape notice.”

George Mallory - 1922

Sixty million years ago the 1 ½ million square miles of the Indian subcontinent began to plow into the 16 million square miles of Asia at 6 inches a year. This massive slow motion collision shoved the one million square miles of the Tibetan Plateau 14,00 feet into the air, and crumpled the land between into the 1,500 mile long 200 mile wide Himalayan mountains (above). In this crumple zone stand nine of the world's ten tallest peaks, including the highest, over five miles above sea level: Mount Everest..

“My mind is in a state of constant rebellion. I believe that will always be so.”

George Mallory

After service in World War One, George Mallory returned to his passionate loves, his wife, Ruth and their two daughters. But his teaching career was not his passion. As Robert Graves noted, “He was wasted..” In 1921 the lure of the distant Himalayans called to George, and he joined the first expedition to explore the approaches to Everest. But these were different mountains than Mallory had known in Europe.

“In watching George at work one was conscious not so much of physical strength as of suppleness and balance.”

Climber Harry Tyndale

George learned his art in the Alps, climbing the highest peak in Europe, Mount Blanc, (White Mountain) at 15, 771 feet (above). It had first been “peaked” in 1788, by local hunter Jacques Balmat escorting physician Michel-Gabrial Paccard, who had been trying for five years to take a barometer reading on the summit. It was “an amazing feat of endurance and sustained courage, carried through by these two men...unroped and without ice axes.” Having accomplished his goal, Dr. Paccard never again challenged the mountains so boldly. The egotist Balmat never stopped. He died at the age of 72, falling off a cliff, while searching for gold. 

“Have we vanquished an enemy? None but ourselves. Have we gained success? That word means nothing here. Have we won a kingdom? No. . . and yes.”

George Mallory

Justifiably suspicious of their intentions, the tiny mountainous nation of Nepal refused permission for the British surveyors to cross their border. So the British were forced to measure the Himalayans from 100 miles away, making adjustments for haze, temperature and curvature of the earth. Only in 1852, after thousands of field observations had been compiled and compared in deary offices, did Indian mathematician Radhanath Sikdar, realize the distant blur labeled Peak XV was at 29,000 feet, the tallest mountain in the world. So astonished was Andrew Waugh, British Surveyor General of India, he insisted on more observations. Having confirmed Sikdar's work, Waugh decided to name the mountain after his predecessor, George Everest, giving its height as 29,002 feet, to make clear the measurement was an estimate. Thus Andrew Waugh was the first person to put “two feet on top of Everest.”

“He would set his foot high against any angle of smooth surface, fold his shoulder to his knee, and flow upward and upright again on an impetuous curve. Whatever may have happened unseen the while between him and the cliff ... the look, and indeed the result, were always the same – a continuous undulating movement so rapid and so powerful that one felt the rock must yield, or disintegrate.”

Climber Geoffrey Winthrop Young

The 1922 British expedition made two attempts at “summitting” without oxygen, but were forced back each time, reaching only 26, 980 feet. The team physician, Dr. Tom Longstaff, warned the oxygen starved climbers could no longer trust their own judgement. But George Mallory was determined to make a third attempt, and on 7 June, 1922, he lead 4 other Brits and 14 Sherpa porters up the north “col” (a ridge between two peaks) above 27,000 feet. In the still clear air George was breaking a path through the previous night's fresh snow, when he saw a snow slope above him give way.

”He was so rhythmical and harmonious...in any steep place ... that his movements appeared almost serpentine in their smoothness.”

Writer and Climber Robert Graves

The avalanche engulfed the first tethered group - Mallory, Colin Crawford and Howard Somervell – but they managed to keep their feet. Behind them nine Sherpa porters were swept 40 feet down the slope and into a 60 foot deep ice crevasse. The Europeans struggled to save two of the Sherpas, but six were found dead, and the seventh was lost forever. Longstaff blamed George's impetuousness for the tragedy, and George agreed. He wrote to Ruth, 'The consequences of my mistake are so incredible. It seems impossible to believe it has happened for ever and that I can do nothing to make good. There is no obligation that I have wanted so much to honor as that of taking care of those men.” The expedition arraigned to pay the family of each Sherpa $13 , in quarterly instalments.

“This forms the nub of a dilemma that every Everest climber eventually comes up against: in order to succeed you must be exceedingly driven, but if you're too driven you're likely to die.”

Author and Climber Jon Krakauer

Decades later Canadian Wade Davis wondered who were these first humans to die on Everest. “Sherpas, “ he wrote, “were not born to climb. In their language there is not even a word for mountain summit. They were farmers, descendants of ethnic Tibetans who had settled...on the southern approaches to Everest, in the 15th century. As Buddhists, the idea of risking one’s life, this vital incarnation, in order to crawl over ice and rock into nothingness was for them the epitome of ignorance and delusion.” The Sherpas were climbing, and are still climbing Everest, to provide for their families - nothing more and nothing less.

“There are men for whom the unattainable has a special attraction....Determination and faith are their strongest weapons. At best such men are regarded as eccentric; at worst, mad.”

Author Walt Unsworth

It proved impossible to raise money for another attempt in 1923, in part because the greatest climber in the world, George Mallory (above), showed little enthusiasm. 

By a year later George had grown aware that at 37, this would probably be his last chance at the peak.  He wrote his father, “I have to look at it from the point of view of loyalty to the expedition, and of carrying through a task begun.” . He added, "To refuse the adventure is to run the risk of drying up like a pea in its shell.” 

And so in early 1924, “With faith and hubris, woefully under-equipped for a battle at high altitude, armed with little more than a length of rope, a straight-picked ax and hobnailed boots,” George Mallory left his wife, his young son John and his two daughters, and headed back to Tibet.

“People ask me, 'What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?' and my answer must at once be, 'It is of no use.' There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever... What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life.”

George Mallory

George wrote to Ruth from Base camp, “It is almost unthinkable with this plan that I shant get to the top...I feel strong for the battle, but I know every ounce of strength will be wanted.” But the first attempt by Mallory and Geoffrey Bruce failed, and while a second managed to get above 28,000 feet, it too was also forced to turn back. Most of the climbers were ill. The Sherpas were exhausted. There was strength and determination for just one more try. 

And, of course, George would be in the lead, with 22 year old geologist, Andrew "Sandy" Irvine (above) on his rope.

“If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go.”

George Mallory

On 7 June, 1924 Mallory and Irvine set out from Camp 5, carrying several canisters of oxygen, to establish camp 6, before trying for the summit the next day. .Irvine carried a camera and Mallory a photo of Ruth to leave behind, as proof they had summited. Noel Odell snapped a photo as they set off (above). He and three Sherpas were to follow, bringing up more oxygen to the 26,000 foot level.

“Everest has always been a magnet for kooks, publicity seekers, hopeless romantics and others with a shaky hold on reality.”

Author Jon Krakauer

After a night spent at Camp Six. at the Mushroom Rock,  the path to the summit for Mallory and Irvine was a 2, 000 foot vertical climb (above). First there was a steep hike over crumbly yellow limestone slabs on "The Yellow Band". Then there was a 100 foot high vertical wall of harder rock – the First Step. This was followed by a gently sloping ridge, ending in another 100 foot high wall – the Second Step. This led to an easy slope and an easy Third Step, the pyramid and then a  walk to the summit itself. Both men had made far more difficult climbs before. But this one was at 28,000 feet above sea level, in the “death zone”.

“One comes to bless the absolute bareness, feeling that here is a pure beauty of form, a kind of ultimate harmony.”

George Mallory – Letter to Ruth

Just before one in the afternoon of 9 June, before setting out from Camp 5 , Noel Odell would see “...a sudden clearing of the atmosphere, and the entire summit ridge and final peak of Everest were unveiled. My eyes became fixed on one tiny black spot silhouetted on a small snow-crest beneath a rock-step in the ridge (the Second Step) ; the black spot moved. Another black spot became apparent and moved up the snow to join the other on the crest. The first then approached the great rock-step and shortly emerged at the top; the second did likewise. Then the whole fascinating vision vanished, enveloped in cloud once more. There was but one explanation. It was Mallory and his companion...”

At that moment Mallory and Irvine were within 800 vertical feet of the summit of the world.

"After nearly twenty years' knowledge of Mallory as a mountaineer, I can say that difficult as it would have been for any mountaineer to turn back... to Mallory it would have been an impossibility."

Climber Geoffrey Winthrop Young

Certain Mallory was going to succeed, Odell and the Sherpas set out with the additional oxygen, expecting to celebrate with Mallory and Irvine at Camp 6. After several ardours hours Odell and the Sherpas made it, but found the single tent empty. When a snow squall blew up, Odell ventured 200 feet higher, calling and whistling, trying to lead the summit team back to safety. There was no answer. There never would be. In a few hours Odell and the Sherpas were forced to return to Camp 6, and the next day all the way down to Camp 4. Neither Andrew Irvine nor George Mallory were ever seen alive again.

"Anyone who had climbed with George is convinced that he got to the summit."

Robert Graves

At 7:30 on the evening of 19 June, 1924 a telegram arrived at Mallory's home in Cambridge. The next morning Ruth (above) invited all three children into her bed, and only then told them together their father had died. They all cried together. No one in that house ever asked the question if Mallory or Irvine had made it to the summit or not. But with time, and with failure after failure to summit Everest, the question would be asked: Had they made it?

“It is obvious to any climber that they got up....”

Climber Dr. Tom Longstaff

Everest was not challenged again until 1933, when three attempts at the summit were made: all failed. However an empty oxygen tank was found at 27,760 feet, just 200 yards below the First Step, and a distinctive ice axe, known to have belonged to Andrew Irvine, was found nearby. After the Second World War another post war generation was drawn to challenge the mountain. And in 1949, Nepal opened its borders for one expedition each year. Now the far easier southern route to the summit could be attempted. 

In May of 1953 New Zealander Edmund Hillery and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay (above) reached the summit of Mt Everest, “together, as a team.”

“Mon dieu!—George Mallory!”

Writer Lytton Strachey

The mystery of George Mallory endured for 72 years, until 1 May 1998, when an expedition found George Herbert Leigh Mallory's mummified corpse frozen into the 30 degree broken rock slope, 1,000 feet below where Irvine's ax had been found 60 years earlier. From his injuries it seemed George had fallen while roped to Irvine. In the plunge Mallory broke both bones in his right leg. The rope connecting him to Andrew Irvine had bruised his waist before snapping under the strain. 

Mallory's powerful arms were raised above his head, his fingers and ice ax scraping across the broken slope to slow his fall.  Then the ax caught on a stone for a moment, before recoiling back, driving the spiked tail into his forehead. His descent slowed and stopped. “Pain and hypothermia rapidly take over. Within minutes, Mallory is dead.” Irving must have died shortly there after, and still lies undiscovered, frozen into the mountain. But we still do not know if Mallory got to the top.

“Now, they will never grow old and I am very sure they would not change places with any of us.”

Climber Dr. Tom Longstaff

Everest has become a character of the mountain George Mallory was drawn to challenge. It is now littered with discarded oxygen tanks, abandoned tents, medical waste, trash bags, bags of human poop, the residue of 4,000 climbers, over 700 of whom summit and the bodies of dead on the upper slopes, left where they fell.  Until 1987 climbers on Everest had a 37% death rate. But improvements in clothing and equipment, and preparation work on the trails by Sherpas have dropped that death rate to less than 1% in 2012. Over half of all climbers now summit, so that even the rich but untrained can be “guided” to the top of the world. .

“To me, the only way you achieve a summit is to come back alive. The job is only half done if you don't get down again”.

John Mallory – George Mallory's son

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