14thcentury
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Famine, disease and the Peasants' Revolt
The great famine of 1314 and 1315 affected Bedfordshire farmers as it did farmers across the country. In Bedfordshire, this had a knock-on effect for at least another three years. Food for livestock was in such short supply that cows and sheep were too weak to resist infection and died in large numbers. Regrettably, the weak government of Edward II offered little help.
In 1327, Edward II died and his son, Edward III became King of England. Edward III's son, also called Edward and often referred to as the Black Prince, sadly died in 1376 after a long wasting illness now commonly believed to have been cancer. Tragically, Edward III died just a few months later and his grandson, Richard, was now the heir to the throne. King Richard II was crowned in 1377, but as he was mearly eleven years old, a council was put in place to take control of England.
The resulting confusion was one of the contributing factors to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. A scribe at Dunstable Priory recorded the following text:
that it was June 17th when the men of St. Albans returned from London;
that it was market day and that some of the Dunstable traders were at the market;
that they returned to Dunstable led by 'Thomas Hobbes, the worthless mayor [leading burgess] who accosted ... Thomas Marshal, the Prior to whom he had previously never spoken';
that Hobbes pretended that he carried a message from King Richard ordering the Prior to 'grant the townspeople a charter of liberty as they had from Henry I';
that reluctantly the Prior thought that the safest thing to do was to replace their charter but that once he heard that the revolt in St. Albans had been cruelly broken, he took it back.
A tax assessment in 1309 shows Dunstable as a wealthy and prosperous town. By 1332, this had dropped sharply and Dunstable was in decline. The unusually-good weather had come to an end and the farming trade in Dunstable was in disarray.
In 1349, up to a third of Dunstable's population was lost to the Black Death. It was recorded that the townspeople 'made themselves a bell and called it Mary'. This bell still exists today and is mounted on the inside wall of the church.
Dunstable plays host to Tournaments
In 1308, Sir Giles Argentein of Wymondham, Hertfordshire, challenged 'allcomers' to meet him at Dunstable for a Tournament. Approximately two hundred and fifty knights took part in the Tournament with over two thousand spectators coming to see it. At this time, Dunstable probably only had around 1,600 residents, so the Tournament would have more than doubled Dunstable's population, albeit briefly. The Tournament is detailed in one of two Dunstable Rolls still in existence and currently held in the British Museum.
By June 1309, all Tournaments were forbidden by King Edward II. Many Tournaments, however, continued to be arranged, though forbidden. The two most notable Tournaments were in 1312 and 1319. When Edward II died in September 1327 (he had abdicated in the January of that year), his son, Edward III, a keen supporter of Tournaments, quickly reinstated the pastime and staged many of them in the form of what we now think of as medieval jousts. A surviving account of a Tournament in 1341 states:
'a great juste [was] kept by King Edward at the towne of Dunstable with other counterfeited feats of warre, at the request of diverse young lords and gentlemen whereat both the king and queene were present with the more part of the lords and ladies of the land.'
Miscellany
In 1311 and 1312, Dunstable was asked to send two representatives to Parliament as MPs. The town declined due to the high costs involved and the belief that doing so would be politically dangerous. Ever since, Dunstable has never had its own representatives in Parliament.
In the 14th century, part of Priory House (now the museum) was the town's main hostel. Before long, Priory House was no longer big enough. As a result, the Saracen's Head inn was built next door. Another inn was built off the end of High Street North, extending into the crossroads and running down East Street (Church Street). This inn was known as The White Swan until the 17th century when it became The Red Lion.
