AK Blakemore turns to the Peasants' Revolt in Doom Painting
AK Blakemore's third novel, Doom Painting, retells the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. The historical novel, meaning an invented story set in a real past, stays closely with the rebellion across its 16 days. It is scheduled for publication on 24 September 2026. The Guardian The Bookseller
That rebellion was a rising against a poll tax. A poll tax means a flat charge on every person, the same sum whether rich or poor. For readers new to the history, that single detail explains much of the anger. The protest pitted the Commons, the ordinary men and women who refused to pay, against the court around the young king Richard II.
The title comes from church art. A doom painting was a picture of the Last Judgment painted on the wall of a medieval church. The Last Judgment, in Christian teaching, is the final weighing of souls. The phrase gives the novel a frame of judgment and punishment that its medieval characters would have known well.
The story is told from many points of view. On one side are Richard II and his courtiers. On the other are members of the rebellious Commons. Then the lens widens further to a porpoise and a runaway horse, placing human politics beside animal life. The Guardian
At the centre of the human action is Wat Tyler, the rebel leader. In this telling he is not a folk hero in simple form. He is written as a mercenary, a hired soldier, who has been traumatised and brutalised by the wars in France. He carries that violence back into England with him.
The method is deliberately modern. Doom Painting is described as a work of historical fiction that breaks the fourth wall. The Observer That is the term for the moment when a story stops pretending the reader is not there and speaks out directly. The device closes the distance between the fourteenth century and now.
What makes this stand out for a general reader is the mix. Palace intrigue sits beside rebellion, and both sit beside unexpected animal eyes. Sixteen days is a short span. Here it has to hold a king, a revolt and an idea of judgment.
