Jack Straw (rebel leader)

Jack Straw (probably the same person as ''John Rakestraw'' or ''Rackstraw'') was one of the three leaders (together with John Ball and Wat Tyler) of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, a major event in the history of England.

Biography

Little is known of the revolt's leaders. It has been suggested that Jack Straw may have been a preacher. Some have argued that the name was in fact a pseudonym for Wat Tyler or one of the other peasants' leaders; all of them appear to have used pseudonyms, adding to the confusion.See Brie, F. W. 'Wat Tyler and Jack Straw', in ''The Historical Review'', v.21, 81 (January, 1906). Brie states that "the Continuator of Knighton held this view ..and that two or three ballads and several fifteenth-century chroniclers ..speak of Jakke Straw being killed by Walworth at Smithfield .e. in the same manner as Wat Tyler"

Several chroniclers, including Henry Knighton, mention Straw, though Knighton erroneously confuses him with Tyler.
Thomas Walsingham stated that Straw was a priest and was the second-in-command of the rebels from Bury St Edmunds and Mildenhall.Preest, D. (ed., transl.) ''The Chronica Maiora of Thomas Walsingham, 1376-1422'', Boydell, 2005, p.148 This story is most likely a result of confusion with a John Wrawe, an unbeneficed priest who was formerly the vicar of Ringsfield near Beccles in Suffolk, and who seems to have led the Suffolk insurgency.Walsingham, p.142 Walsingham also states that Straw and his followers murdered both notable local figures in Bury and, after reaching the capital, several of its Flemish residents, an accusation also made by Froissart. However, according to information in the church of St Mary in Great Baddow, in Essex, England, Jack Straw led an ill-fated crowd from the churchyard there to the risings, and he is elsewhere referred to as the leader of the men from Essex (as opposed to Tyler, who led the rebels from Kent).

Straw is generally supposed to have been executed in 1381 along with the other main figures of the Revolt. Froissart states that after Wat Tyler's death at Smithfield, Straw (along with John Ball) was found "in an old house hidden, thinking to have stolen away", and beheaded.
The Chronicles of Froissart
' ed. Macaulay, transl. Bourchier, p.82 Walsingham gives a lengthy (and most likely invented) confession in which Straw states that the insurgents' plans were to kill the king, "all landowners, bishops, monks, canons, and rectors of churches", set up their own laws, and set fire to London.Walsingham, pp.147-148

The later chronicles of Raphael Holinshed and John Stow, in addition to detailing the confession, repeat a story, originating in the 15th-century account of Richard Fox, that Jack Straw, alias John Tyler, was provoked into his actions by an assault perpetrated on his daughter by a tax collector.Archer, I. W. 'Discourses of History in London', in Kewes, P. (ed) ''The Uses of History in Early Modern England'', University of California Press, 2006, p.218

Jack Straw in English culture

Whether Straw was a real person, a pseudonym for Tyler, or simply a result of confusion on the part of chroniclers remote from the events they were describing, he went on to become a part of the popular narrative of the revolt.
Jack Straw and the other rebel leaders are introduced in John Gower's ''Vox Clamantis'' Book I Chapter XI. The defeat of the rebels is covered in Chapter IXX. Macaulay's notes to ''Vox'' include Thomas Fuller's translation of the Chapter XI passage.

Gower's lines were parodied by Geoffrey Chaucer. Straw is mentioned in ''The Nun's Priest's Tale'' of ''The Canterbury Tales'', as the leader of a mob targeting foreign workers:Geoffrey Chaucer, ''The Canterbury Tales'' (Penguin Classics, 2005), p. 618.

Straw was central to an anonymous 1593 play dramatising the events of the Rising, '' The Life and Death of Jack Straw''. In the modern era, the rather confused reporting of events was briefly satirised in Sellar and Yeatman's parody of Edwardian-era popular history, ''1066 and All That'', stating that the peasants revolted "in several reigns under such memorable leaders as Black Kat, Straw Hat, John Bull and What Tyler?", with objectives including "to find out ..which of them was the Leader of the Rebellion".p. 43. The names are presumably a humorous garbling of those of 15th-century rebel Jack Cade, Straw, John Ball, and Wat Tyler.

Straw was commemorated in the name of a pub on the edge of Hampstead Heath, London, which closed in 2002. The Jack Straw's Castle, reputed to be the highest pub in London, took its name from a story that Straw addressed groups of rebels on the Heath from a hay wagon which became known as "Jack Straw's Castle".
Full Pint Issue 6
'', CAMRA North London. Retrieved 21-10-08.

The British politician Jack Straw (born John Whitaker Straw, 1946) adopted the name "Jack", allegedly after the rebel leader.O' Grady, S.
Jack Straw: Diplomatic hard man
' (para 8), ''The Independent'', 29-09-01.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Straw, Jack
1381 deaths
14th-century English people
English rebels
English revolutionaries
Peasants' Revolt
People whose existence is disputed
Year of birth unknown