The names of the seventeen men, here named “Leaders of the People,” are for the most part familiar in our mouths as household words. Those who triumphed, like Anselm and Stephen Langton; or whose cause triumphed, like Simon of Montfort, Eliot, Pym, and Hampden, are beyond any loss of fame. Those who in high place quitted themselves like men and died game (if the phrase may be permitted), as did Thomas Becket and Sir Thomas More, have, for all time, deservedly their reward. The unsuccessful rebels, FitzOsbert (called Longbeard), Wat Tyler, Jack Cade, and Robert Ket, are hard put to get rid of the obloquy heaped upon them by contemporary authority; while the later rebels, equally unsuccessful, Lilburne, Winstanley, Major Cartwright, and Ernest Jones, relying on the pen rather than the sword, escaped the hangman, and in so doing narrowly escaped oblivion. Good Bishop Grosseteste, living out his long life, thwarted often, but unmartyred enjoys the reputation commonly awarded to conscientious public servants who die in harness.
