The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 (this page) was pivotal, after which the English elite were rocked by a long sequence of popular insurrections. Political power was being redistributed not simply from the king to the lords, but also from the elite to the people. These changes, together with the increasing constraints on the king’s power, made the emergence of a broad coalition opposed to absolutism possible and thus laid the foundations for pluralistic political institutions.
