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<\/p>\nPaul Greengrass\u2019 new film stars Andrew Garfield as a fictionalized, unnamed farmer who leads a rebellion against unfair taxes and the system of serfdom<\/p>\n
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Meilan Solly<\/a><\/p>\n | Senior Associate Digital Editor, History<\/p>\n September 9, 2026 1:10 p.m.<\/p>\n L to R: Thomas McKenzie as Alyce, Jamie Bell as John Ball and Andrew Garfield as the Ploughman in\u00a0The Uprising, a new film by Paul Greengrass The Tower of London<\/a> has protected England\u2019s capital since it was first built in the 1070s, withstanding medieval sieges<\/a> and World War II bombing raids<\/a> alike. On a June day in 1381, however, rebels breached the Tower for the first and only <\/a>time<\/a> in its history. Once inside the fortress, the insurgents exacted revenge on their enemies, dragging some of the kingdom\u2019s most powerful<\/a> men<\/a> out to an execution block and chopping off their heads.<\/p>\n This unprecedented act of violence took place at the height of the Peasants\u2019 Revolt<\/a>, a mass uprising sparked by the imposition of a poll tax<\/a>\u2014the third of its kind in four years. England had been at war<\/a> with France for nearly five decades, and officials needed more money to pay for the kingdom\u2019s armies and defenses.<\/p>\n The tax was \u201can unevenly distributed one,\u201d asking more of the lower classes than the wealthy, and it was \u201cvery badly administered,\u201d Andrew Prescott<\/a>, a historian at the University of Glasgow, tells Smithsonian magazine. \u201cThat poor administration helped trigger the revolt,\u201d which ultimately evolved from a protest against unfair taxes into a broader push for a more equitable society.<\/p>\n A late 15th-century depiction of the Tower of London and its keep, the White Tower<\/p>\n Public domain via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p>\n The insurgents\u2019 demands ranged from the abolition of serfdom<\/a> to the redistribution<\/a> of the church\u2019s riches. Although the rebellion failed to achieve<\/a> any of its stated goals, it inspired subsequent \u201clarge-scale popular<\/a> uprisings<\/a> with a political aim,\u201d Prescott says. As Dan Jones<\/a>, author of Summer of Blood: England\u2019s First Revolution<\/a>, tells Smithsonian, after 1381, it became \u201cif not impossible, then highly inadvisable, to ignore the effects of policy on ordinary people.\u201d<\/p>\n A new film by Paul Greengrass<\/a>, a veteran director of tense action films including Captain Phillips<\/a> and The Bourne Ultimatum, reimagines the Peasants\u2019 Revolt from the perspectives of those who participated in it. Titled The Uprising<\/a>, the movie stars Andrew Garfield as the Ploughman, a fictionalized everyman who takes up arms against the corrupt politicians advising England\u2019s 14-year-old king, Richard II<\/a>. Greengrass follows the Ploughman and his fellow insurgents as they make their way to London for a climactic face-to-face meeting with the young monarch.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t want to tell [this story] through the names we remember,\u201d like rebel leader Wat Tyler<\/a> (played by Cosmo Jarvis<\/a>) and his comrade, the bombastic priest John Ball<\/a> (Jamie Bell), Greengrass says in a director\u2019s statement. Instead, he wanted to focus on \u201csomeone history never named at all: a farmer, the first man to raise his hand in Essex. \u2026 I wanted him to stand for all the ordinary people who actually rose up and paid the price for it.\u201d<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what you need to know about the real history behind The Uprising ahead of the film\u2019s arrival in theaters across the United States on September 10.<\/p>\n THE UPRISING – Official Trailer [HD] – Only In Theaters September 10<\/p>\n The inspiration behind The Uprising<\/p>\n Greengrass first learned about the Peasants\u2019 Revolt as a schoolchild. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he saw parallels between the ongoing crisis and the Black Death<\/a>, which killed an estimated 30<\/a> to 50 percent<\/a> of England\u2019s population just a few decades before the uprising.<\/p>\n The bubonic plague contributed to a growing sense of dissatisfaction in the country in the mid-14th century. At the time, all property in England legally belonged<\/a> to the king, who granted lesser lords the right to lease land to tenants \u201cin return for certain services and restrictions on their freedom,\u201d Prescott says. Some tenants were villeins<\/a> (the English name for serfs) unable to leave their land without explicit permission from their lord, let alone sell or bequeath this property. Others were free to travel where they wished or resell their land, but they still owed rent and obligations to their landlords.<\/p>\n The Black Death created a severe labor shortage<\/a> in England. Realizing that they could now demand higher pay, many remaining workers left home in search of more lucrative employment. (Serfs who absconded without permission could be subjected to harsh punishments, but some did so anyway, enticed by the prospect of a better life.) To shift the balance of power back in the lords\u2019 favor, Parliament passed a 1351 statute<\/a> freezing wages at their pre-epidemic levels.<\/p>\n The Dark and Deadly History of the Plague<\/p>\n The plague looms large in The Uprising. Garfield\u2019s Ploughman is the sole surviving member of his family, haunted by all that he has lost. When tax collectors arrive in his village with increasingly relentless demands for payment, the Ploughman declares that he and his peers have had enough. \u201cThe land is broken,\u201d Garfield says in a trailer<\/a> for the movie. \u201cWe are forced to work beyond what our souls can take.\u201d In the film\u2019s telling, this act of resistance serves as the spark for the revolt, instigating bloody takedowns of tax collectors across the kingdom. As one of the rebels tells the Ploughman, his loved ones \u201cwant you to fight this injustice, as they cannot.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Prescott, \u201cthe film reflects what you might call a miserabilist<\/a> view of the uprising, where the demands and the oppression become so great that one just has to lash out and deal with the people who are oppressing you.\u201d He and his colleagues at the People of 1381<\/a>, an ongoing research project centered on the revolt, take a broader view, suggesting that the rebels were driven by several ambitions: \u201cto have more land, to have land more cheaply and easily, to trade more cheaply and easily.\u201d Prescott adds, \u201cIt\u2019s a revolt as much about that as it is about feeling oppressed to the level where life becomes impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n In the weeks leading up to The Uprising\u2019s release, the movie made<\/a> headlines<\/a> for seemingly rebranding itself as a Robin Hood<\/a> origin story. Jones, who served as the film\u2019s historical consultant, doesn\u2019t suggest that the Ploughman is supposed to be the fabled hero himself. He does, however, argue that Robin Hood, who was immortalized in outlaw ballads<\/a> during the 14th century, \u201cwould not have been out of place at all in the Peasants\u2019 Revolt.\u201d Jones says, \u201cYou have a character, a yeoman, an ordinary guy who\u2019s in a world in which the law seems to have been corrupted, and the spirit of justice is no longer present within the law. In order for these things to be brought back together, Robin has to fight. He has to take vengeance. He has to be violent.\u201d<\/p>\n Need to know: The legend of Robin Hood<\/p>\n
The early days of the Peasants\u2019 Revolt<\/p>\n Historians generally agree that the Peasants\u2019 Revolt began on May 30, 1381, when villagers<\/a> in Essex<\/a>, a county northeast of London, resisted arrest<\/a> by commissioners sent to collect tax payments. The uprising quickly gained traction, with \u201crunners and riders\u201d dispatched to identify \u201clike-minded men\u201d across the region, Jones writes in Summer of Blood. On June 2, representatives from neighboring villages convened<\/a> to discuss the nascent rebellion. They pledged<\/a> to destroy the corrupt officials surrounding the king \u201cand to have no law in England except only those they themselves moved to be ordained.\u201d<\/p>\n This meeting \u201creflected the model of rebel organization\u2014sworn chapters or companies of men banded together by oath, led by the natural leaders of village society, in close communication with other bands of rebels and working to a common timetable\u2014which revolved around strategic, coordinated strikes on selected targets,\u201d Jones writes. \u201cAs such, the rural revolt can be seen not as a spontaneous, itinerant riot, but a carefully choreographed orgy of violence and retribution.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite its name, the Peasants\u2019 Revolt involved rebels from all walks of life, \u201cdrawing people at almost every level below the aristocracy,\u201d Prescott says. The insurgents included servants, laborers, craftspeople, artisans, wealthy farmers, and even members of the landed gentry<\/a> who had much to lose and little to gain from their participation.<\/p>\n An illustration of Richard II’s coronation in 1377, at age 10<\/p>\n Public domain via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p>\n Although men made up the majority of the rebels, women<\/a> took part in the uprising, too. Joanna Ferrour<\/a> of Kent, for example, reportedly led the destruction<\/a> of the Savoy Palace<\/a>, the London home of Richard II\u2019s unpopular uncle John of Gaunt<\/a>, Duke of Lancaster. She also personally ordered the beheadings of two of the king\u2019s chief counselors. (The Uprising acknowledges women\u2019s contributions to the revolt through Thomasin McKenzie\u2019s character, an invented rebel named Alyce.)<\/p>\n \u201cWe know the names of thousands of the people who took part in the revolt, and this is because there are extensive prosecutions of various sorts afterward,\u201d Prescott says. The People of 1381 database<\/a> contains some 28,000 records<\/a> identifying rebels and their victims, jurors who decided criminal cases, and loved ones who paid the insurgents\u2019 bail, among other individuals affected by the uprising. \u201cWhen you take events like revolts and you look at the actual people who participated, when you start to see them at an individual level and stop thinking of them as a mob, the social categorization becomes much more nuanced and much more complex,\u201d Prescott explains.<\/p>\n Men and women from Kent<\/a>, a county directly south of Essex, joined the uprising soon after it began, choosing Tyler<\/a>\u2014a craftsman<\/a> of unknown origins\u2014as their leader on June 7. The rebel forces then traveled to London, stopping in Rochester and Canterbury along the way. Their modus operandi was much the same wherever they went: To fight back against \u201call the machinery of royal and civic government,\u201d historian Juliet Barker<\/a> writes in 1381: The Year of the Peasants\u2019 Revolt<\/a>, they burned administrative records, freed criminals detained in prisons, attacked local officials, and sacked properties owned by the wealthy and powerful. (John Ball<\/a>, a priest who\u2019d been imprisoned for preaching radical sermons, was one of the individuals released by the rebels.)<\/p>\n Contrary to the popular image of Tyler leading an army of rebels toward London, \u201cmarching on foot and swelling their ranks with new recruits in every place through which they passed,\u201d much of the violence that took place en route to the capital was instigated by locals who seized on the uprising as a chance to settle personal scores, Barker writes. This trend continued after Tyler\u2019s forces finally reached the outskirts of London on June 12.<\/p>\n An illustration of Richard II preparing to meet the rebels during the Peasants’ Revolt<\/p>\n Public domain via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p>\n Bloodshed in London<\/p>\n As the rebels converged on the capital, Richard and his chief advisers took refuge in the Tower. Although the young king agreed to travel by boat to meet the rebel leaders on the morning of June 13, his councilors convinced him to back out after seeing thousands of insurgents swarming the banks of the River Thames. (Estimates of the rebel forces\u2019 size vary, with contemporary chroniclers suggesting that as many as 200,000 gathered in London; Barker now estimates the group\u2019s numbers at fewer than 10,000.)<\/p>\n Angered by Richard\u2019s reversal, the rebels stormed London<\/a>, apparently entering the city via London Bridge, whose keeper had lowered the drawbridge after realizing that resistance was futile. One of the crowd\u2019s first targets was John of Gaunt<\/a>\u2019s Savoy Palace. The duke was the de facto leader of the kingdom during Richard\u2019s youth, but he\u2019d lost support<\/a> in London after clashing with local merchants and the city\u2019s bishop. He wasn\u2019t in the capital at the time of the uprising, so the rebels took their revenge on his property.<\/p>\n \u201cThey took all the torches they could find and lighted them, and burnt all the cloths, coverlets and beds, as well as all the very valuable headboards,\u201d the 14th-century Anonimalle Chronicle<\/a> states. When one of the men attempted to steal some of these riches for himself, in direct defiance of Tyler\u2019s ban on looting, his comrades threw him into the flames as punishment.<\/p>\n Although the rebels framed the attack on London as a way of taking justice into their own hands and ferreting out traitors, their unified approach gave way to \u201csmaller, pettier, more private acts of retribution\u201d as the day went on, Jones writes. In addition to freeing people held in London\u2019s prisons and demolishing houses owned by London lawyers, rebels burned down the priory<\/a> of the Knights Hospitaller, whose prior, England\u2019s Lord High Treasurer Robert Hales<\/a>, was hiding out in the Tower with the king.<\/p>\n An illustration of John Ball encouraging the rebels, with Wat Tyler shown at left, in red<\/p>\n Public domain via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p>\n With few remaining options, Richard called on the rebels to meet him at Mile End<\/a>, on the eastern edge of London, on the morning of June 14. The conference \u201cwas a seminal moment in the revolt and an extraordinary one in the course of English history because, having listened to their demands, the king granted the rebels all their requests,\u201d including rent limits and freedom from servitude, Barker writes.<\/p>\n Why did Richard agree to these concessions? Barker suggests that the king genuinely sympathized with the rebels\u2019 plight and acted in good faith. Jones, however, tells Smithsonian that Richard might have been \u201cslightly drunk on the flattery of the rebels, and when they made their demands, the sugar hit of saying yes to everything is entrancing, bewitching to him.\u201d<\/p>\n In Summer of Blood, Jones posits that Richard was \u201cat Mile End not as a true negotiator, but as a lure,\u201d propped up by his advisers to appease the crowd by any means necessary. Much to these older men\u2019s detriment, however, the king went one step further, telling the rebels that they \u201ccould go through all the realm of England and catch all traitors\u201d in his name, according to the Anonimalle Chronicle.<\/p>\n Emboldened, a band of rebels attacked the Tower, where Hales remained holed up alongside Simon of Sudbury<\/a>, archbishop of Canterbury, and Henry Bolingbroke<\/a>, John of Gaunt\u2019s eldest son. Exactly how these insurgents managed to access the fortress remains unclear, but Barker writes that \u201cthe only feasible answer is that [they] were let in,\u201d perhaps by sympathizers inside the Tower or well-meaning guards who saw that they bore Richard\u2019s royal standard, gifted at Mile End.<\/p>\n A 15th-century depiction of the executions of Simon of Sudbury and Robert Hales<\/p>\n Public domain via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p>\n Once inside, the rebels targeted Hales, Sudbury and three less prominent figures whom they deemed guilty of treason. (Bolingbroke, who would succeed Richard as Henry IV<\/a> in 1399, escaped thanks to the intervention of a man who agreed to hide him from the mob.) Taken to an execution block, Sudbury was \u201cfirst struck severely but not fatally in the neck,\u201d one chronicler wrote<\/a>. Repeated strikes failed to kill Sudbury, who only died after the eighth blow.<\/p>\n After the five victims were beheaded, the rebels put their heads on spikes and paraded them through the streets, kicking off a day of indiscriminate violence. No longer did the crowd reserve its vigilante justice for the rich and powerful. Londoners in particular took advantage of the chaos to target Flemish merchants<\/a> whom they viewed as competition, dragging them out of places of refuge<\/a> and beheading them by the dozens.<\/p>\n As the situation rapidly spiraled out of control, Richard issued yet another proclamation to the rebels, instructing them to meet him<\/a> at Smithfield, in northwestern London, on the afternoon of June 15. Tyler rode out to present an updated list<\/a> of demands that went much further than the requests outlined at Mile End. \u201cThere should be no more outlawry, and no lordship of any sort, except for that of the king,\u201d the rebel leader decreed, according to Summer of Blood. He also called for the abolition of the church\u2019s hierarchy, perhaps voicing a vision first expressed by Ball.<\/p>\n Multiple chroniclers indicate that Tyler acted disrespectfully during the encounter: According to one report<\/a>, he started speaking \u201cthreateningly to [Richard and] seizing the bridle of the king\u2019s horse with unparalleled audacity.\u201d London Mayor William Walworth<\/a>, who had accompanied Richard to Smithfield, responded to Tyler\u2019s insolence by declaring that he would arrest him. Tyler tried to stab Walworth but failed to pierce his armor; he was soon brought down by a series of sword strikes, and though he managed to flee Smithfield, he was tracked down and beheaded.<\/p>\n An illustration of the killing of Wat Tyler<\/p>\n Public domain via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p>\n The insurgents had trouble processing the scene unfolding in front of them. With few other options, Richard decided to seize control of the situation. \u201cThe king, seeing that there was a danger that there might be a terrible riot, \u2026 shouted out, \u2018I will be your leader! Follow me!\u2019 and led the rebels<\/a> away to a point where they could all be rounded up,\u201d Prescott says.<\/p>\n Although The Uprising suggests that Richard sprung a trap for the rebels, guiding them to a field where all but a few (the Ploughman among them) were massacred, in truth, the king simply told the crowd that their leader was dead and allowed them to disperse, \u201cassured of his pardon if they went peaceably,\u201d according to Barker.<\/p>\n The legacy of the Peasants\u2019 Revolt<\/p>\n The revolt didn\u2019t begin or end with \u201ca march of deprived peasants on London,\u201d Prescott says. \u201cIts danger almost arises from the fact that it covers such a large geographical area<\/a> in such a dispersed form,\u201d drawing rebels from more than half of England\u2019s counties. Local uprisings continued well into July<\/a>, with mobs dispensing their own form of justice as far as Yorkshire to the north and Gloucester<\/a> to the west.<\/p>\n Andrew Garfield as the Ploughman in\u00a0The Uprising<\/p>\n Courtesy of Focus Features \u00a9 2026<\/p>\n To quell the unrest, Richard\u2014reversing course on his earlier promises\u2014authorized a commission to punish rebels \u201ceither according<\/a> to the law of our kingdom of England or by other ways and methods, by beheadings and the mutilations of limbs as seems to you most expeditious and sensible.\u201d<\/p>\n The king\u2019s men tracked down and executed surviving rebel leaders, including Ball, brutally suppressing any hint of dissent. As Jones writes in Summer of Blood, \u201cRichard was restoring his royal power not through reform or assertion of the rule of law, but by a barely legal terror in which viciousness had replaced wisdom, and blind fear stalked the troubled land.\u201d It was only in November 1381 that the king agreed to offer a general pardon<\/a> to those who had risen up against him, aside from 287 individuals deemed \u201cprincipal instigators.\u201d<\/p>\n The rebels had failed to secure the reforms they so desperately wanted, but their efforts weren\u2019t for naught. Poll taxes remained deeply unpopular in Britain, with efforts to impose them sparking protests as recently as 1990<\/a>. Though the revolt \u201cdidn\u2019t end feudalism \u2026 it paved the way for its decline,\u201d warning landowners that their serfs could rise up at any time\u2014a hard truth that \u201cin turn [led] to fairer treatment of the working classes\u201d and less regulation of wages, historian Helen Carr<\/a> writes for HistoryExtra<\/a>.<\/p>\n Woody Norman as Richard II in\u00a0The Uprising<\/p>\n Courtesy of Focus Features \u00a9 2026<\/p>\n As for Richard himself, the king seemingly emerged from the revolt with a sense that he enjoyed \u201cdivine favor,\u201d Prescott says. This belief could have led him \u201cto take high-risk political maneuvers later in his reign, which ultimately contributed\u201d to his deposition<\/a> as a tyrant in 1399.<\/p>\n![\"L](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/uprising.png\")
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\n\tThe first known literary reference to\u00a0Robin Hood<\/a>\u00a0appears in\u00a0Piers Plowman<\/a>, an allegorical narrative poem\u00a0written<\/a>\u00a0around 1380. Prior to this point, Robin\u2019s story was shared mainly through\u00a0oral tradition<\/a>.
\n\tAccording to\u00a0Encyclopedia Britannica<\/a>, 14th-century \u201cRobin Hood ballads were the poetic expression of popular aspirations in the north of England during a turbulent era of baronial rebellions and agrarian discontent, which culminated in the Peasants\u2019 Revolt.\u201d
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