Vox Meditantis

The Tower of London – 14th June, 1381

I have lived through many years since that June morning when the world turned upon its head, yet still I find myself drawn back to those moments when everything I believed about order and station crumbled like poorly mortared stone. Folk oft ask me to speak of terrors witnessed, of blood spilt upon ancient stones, of the screams that echoed through corridors where kings had walked. But when they press me for my truest recollection—that moment which remains most vivid in my mind’s eye—I surprise them with my answer.

My favourite moment came not in victory nor defeat, but in the space between them, when a peasant girl with mud beneath her fingernails showed me what courage truly meant.

I was barely seventeen that fourteenth day of June, in the year of our Lord 1381, standing guard at the great Tower with hands that trembled more from youth than fear. The morning had dawned with an ominous stillness, as though the very air held its breath. We had heard whispers of unrest spreading across the realm like wildfire through dry thatch—tales of peasants rising against their betters, of tax collectors fleeing for their lives, of ancient bonds of servitude being cast aside like worn-out garments.

Yet none of us truly believed the rabble would dare approach the Tower itself. This was the fortress of kings, the symbol of royal might, its walls thick enough to withstand any siege. What could a mob of farmers and craftsmen hope to achieve against stones laid by William the Conqueror himself?

How foolish we were in our certainty.

The first sign came not as a roar but as a murmur—distant voices carried on the Thames breeze, growing stronger like an approaching storm. I stood upon the battlements beside Thomas Whitmore, a lad from Kent whose father served in the royal household. Thomas was attempting to appear stalwart, though I could see his knuckles white where he gripped his pike.

“They wouldn’t dare,” he muttered, more to himself than to me. “Not here. Not the Tower.”

But even as he spoke, we could see them emerging from the narrow streets like water bursting through a cracked dam. Hundreds upon hundreds of common folk, their faces drawn with hunger and hardship, their clothes rough-spun and patched, yet their bearing somehow transformed by purpose. They moved not as a rabble but as an army, and at their head walked men who carried themselves with the authority of those who had found their voice at last.

The great gates, which should have remained barred against any threat, stood open. Whether through treachery or simply the paralysis of those within, I know not, but the rebels poured through as easily as pilgrims entering a cathedral. No arrows flew from our battlements, no pitch boiled in the cauldrons. We simply watched, transfixed, as the natural order we had known crumbled before our eyes.

I should have felt terror—and indeed, part of me did. My heart hammered against my ribs like a caged bird, and my mouth had gone dry as summer dust. Yet alongside the fear came something unexpected: a strange exhilaration, as though I were witnessing not destruction but revelation.

The rebels spread through the Tower grounds with remarkable discipline. They seemed to know precisely where they wished to go and what they sought to accomplish. Some headed directly for the White Tower, where we kept the realm’s most important prisoners. Others made for the royal apartments, their voices raised in demands for justice. But it was neither of these groups that would grant me my most treasured memory.

She could not have been more than fifteen summers, this girl who appeared at the base of my tower as though materialised from the very stones. Her hair, the colour of autumn wheat, hung loose about her shoulders in a manner that would have scandalised any lady of quality. Her kirtle was rough brown wool, mended in a dozen places, and her feet were bare save for leather strips bound about them. Yet she moved with a grace that spoke of strength earned through honest labour, and when she raised her face to look up at me, her eyes held a clarity that put me in mind of still water reflecting starlight.

“You there,” she called, her voice carrying despite its softness. “Come down.”

I should have laughed at such presumption from one so lowly. I should have raised my pike or called for reinforcement. Instead, I found myself descending the narrow stone steps as though compelled by forces beyond my understanding.

She waited at the bottom, neither advancing nor retreating, her hands clasped before her in a gesture that seemed almost prayer-like. Around us, the Tower grounds echoed with the sounds of revolution—shouting voices, running feet, the crash of doors being forced—yet in the small space between us, an odd peace prevailed.

“You’re very young,” she observed, tilting her head to study my face. There was no mockery in her tone, merely a statement of fact delivered with gentle curiosity.

“Old enough to serve the Crown,” I replied, though my voice lacked conviction. The words felt hollow, like prayers recited without faith.

She smiled then, and it transformed her entire countenance. “Aye, no doubt you are. But are you old enough to serve justice?”

“What know you of justice?” The question escaped before I could stop it, tinged with the arrogance of my station. “You who come here with weapons drawn, threatening lawful authority?”

Her smile never wavered, though something deeper entered her eyes—not anger, but a profound sadness that seemed far too mature for her years. “I know that my father died of hunger last winter whilst our lord feasted in his hall. I know that my brother was hanged for taking a rabbit from lands his own sweat had tilled. I know that we have begged for mercy from those who would see us perish before surrendering a single coin of their hoard.”

She stepped closer, and I caught the scent of woodsmoke and wild herbs that clung to her simple garments. “What I know of justice, young guardsman, is that it must sometimes be taken when it will not be given.”

“And what of order?” I challenged, though my voice had grown uncertain. “What of the bonds that hold our realm together?”

“Bonds?” She laughed, but there was no mirth in the sound. “You speak of bonds to one who has watched her people bound in chains of want and servitude? What order is there in children starving whilst granaries overflow? What sacred bond demands that we accept such suffering as God’s will?”

I had no answer for her questions. Indeed, they stirred thoughts within me that I had scarce dared acknowledge—doubts that had crept into my mind during long watches, when I observed the vast disparity between those who ruled and those who served.

“You guard this place,” she continued, her voice growing softer yet somehow more compelling, “but do you truly serve those within? Or do you, like us, serve masters who have forgotten that their power comes not from divine right but from the consent of those they govern?”

Before I could respond, a commotion erupted from the direction of the White Tower. Shouts of triumph mingled with cries of terror, and I knew that the rebels had reached their primary targets. The girl’s attention turned toward the sound, her expression growing grave.

“It begins now,” she murmured, and for the first time since our encounter began, I heard uncertainty in her voice.

“What begins?” I asked, though part of me already understood.

“The reckoning.” She looked back at me, and I saw that her eyes had filled with tears she would not allow to fall. “We have come for Sudbury and Hales—those who have grown fat on our misery, who have turned God’s church and the King’s treasury into instruments of oppression. They must answer for their crimes.”

“And after?” I found myself asking. “What comes after the reckoning?”

She was quiet for a long moment, her gaze turning inward. When she spoke again, her words carried the weight of one who had pondered deeply on matters of consequence. “That depends upon whether those with power learn to wield it with wisdom, or whether they choose to meet mercy with vengeance.”

From somewhere in the distance came the sound I had been dreading—the roar of a crowd baying for blood. The executions had begun. The girl’s face went pale, but she did not flinch from the sound.

“You could leave,” I said suddenly, surprising myself with the urgency in my voice. “Slip away before—before things turn worse.”

She shook her head. “I came here with my people. I shall leave with them, whatever the cost.”

“Even if it means your death?”

“Even so.” She smiled again, that same transforming expression that had first captured my attention. “Some things matter more than the drawing of breath, young guardsman. Sometimes we must risk everything to prove that we are more than beasts to be herded and slaughtered at our masters’ whim.”

It was then that I understood why this moment would remain forever etched in memory—not for its drama or its terror, but for the revelation it brought. Here stood a girl scarce older than myself, born to station far below my own, yet possessing a nobility of spirit that put my petty fears to shame. She faced possible death not for personal gain but for a principle: that all souls possessed inherent worth, regardless of the circumstances of their birth.

“What is your name?” I asked, though I knew it was a question no guard should pose to a rebel.

“Margaret,” she replied simply. “Margaret of Blackheath. And yours?”

“William. William Ashford.”

She nodded gravely, as though filing this intelligence away for future use. “Remember this day, William Ashford. Remember that we came not as destroyers but as those who would build something better from the ruins of injustice.”

The sounds of violence were growing closer now, and I could see other rebels beginning to gather in our vicinity. Our strange interlude was drawing to its close, yet I found myself reluctant to see her go.

“Will we meet again?” I asked.

Her smile turned wistful. “Perhaps. If God wills it, and if you choose to stand on the side of right when next such a day comes.”

She began to turn away, then paused. “The world is changing, William. Those who would survive the coming storm must learn to change with it. Remember that when you next stand guard over injustice.”

With that, she was gone, melting back into the crowd of rebels as though she had never been. I watched until I could no longer distinguish her slight figure among the mass of humanity that had claimed the Tower for their own.

The rest of that day passed in a blur of blood and chaos. Sudbury and Hales met their grisly ends, their heads displayed upon London Bridge as testament to the rebels’ fury. Young King Richard, little more than a boy himself, would eventually restore order through a mixture of cunning and treachery, promising pardons he would later revoke and hanging hundreds who had dared to dream of freedom.

Yet through all the subsequent horrors, I held fast to that moment of connection with Margaret of Blackheath. In her courage, I glimpsed what humanity might become if we could learn to see past the artificial divisions of birth and station. In her questions, I found the seeds of doubts that would eventually lead me to abandon my post and seek a different path through life.

I never saw Margaret again, though I searched for word of her fate in the terrible months that followed. Perhaps she escaped the King’s vengeance and found a quiet life somewhere beyond London’s reach. Perhaps she perished on the scaffold with so many of her companions. I know not, and perhaps it matters little.

What matters is that in those few precious moments, a peasant girl showed a Tower guard that true nobility lies not in blood or station but in the courage to stand for what is right, regardless of the cost. That lesson has shaped every choice I have made since, every stand I have taken against injustice, every moment when I have chosen compassion over convenience.

Folk often wonder at my answer when they ask for my favourite memory of that day of revolution. They expect tales of heroism or horror, of great deeds done in desperate times. Instead, I speak of a conversation with a girl whose name they will never find in any chronicle, whose face appears in no portrait, whose grave bears no marker.

Yet she changed the world—at least, she changed mine. And sometimes, in the end, that is enough.

The walls of the Tower were rebuilt stronger than before, but the walls in men’s hearts—those proved far more difficult to restore. The seeds of change, once planted, grow in their own season. Margaret of Blackheath taught me that, and for that lesson above all others, she shall forever hold my gratitude.

Even now, in my dotage, when summer evenings grow long and memory turns to that distant day, I can still see her face upturned in the morning light, still hear her voice speaking truths that power would prefer remain unspoken. She was my favourite moment in a day of infamy—not because she was extraordinary, but because she showed me that the extraordinary lies hidden within us all, waiting only for courage to call it forth.

The End

Bob Lynn | © 2025 Vox Meditantis. All rights reserved.

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