The county at once rose in arms.
Canterbury, where "the whole town was of their mind," threw open its gates to the insurgents who plundered the Archbishop's palace and dragged John Ball from his prison.

A hundred thousand Kentishmen gathered round Walter Tyler of Essex and John Hales of Malling to march upon London.

Their grievance was mainly a political one.

Villeinage was unknown in Kent.

As the peasants poured towards Blackheath indeed every lawyer who fell into their hands was put to death; "not till all these were killed would the land enjoy its old freedom again," the Kentishmen shouted as they fired the houses of the stewards and flung the rolls of the manor-courts into the flames.