on to London Bridge.
There was a drawbridge in the middle, which WILLIAM WALWORTH the
Mayor caused to be raised to prevent their coming into the city;
but they soon terrified the citizens into lowering it again, and
spread themselves, with great uproar, over the streets. They broke
open the prisons; they burned the papers in Lambeth Palace; they
destroyed the DUKE OF LANCASTER’S Palace, the Savoy, in the Strand,
said to be the most beautiful and splendid in England; they set
fire to the books and documents in the Temple; and made a great
riot. Many of these outrages were committed in drunkenness; since
those citizens, who had well-filled cellars, were only too glad to
throw them open to save the rest of their property; but even the
drunken rioters were very careful to steal nothing. They were so
angry with one man, who was seen to take a silver cup at the Savoy
Palace, and put it in his breast, that they drowned him in the
river, cup and all.
The young King had been taken out to treat with them before they
committed these excesses; but, he and the people about him were so
frightened by the riotous shouts, that they got back to the Tower
in the best way they could. This made the insurgents bolder; so
they went on rioting away, striking off the heads of those who did
not, at a moment’s notice, declare for King Richard and the people;
and killing as many of the unpopular persons whom they supposed to
be their enemies as they could by any means lay hold of. In this
manner they passed one very violent day, and then proclamation was
made that the King would meet them at Mile-end, and grant their
requests.
The rioters went to Mile-end to the number of sixty thousand, and
the King met them there, and to the King the rioters peaceably
proposed four conditions. First, that neither they, nor their
children, nor any coming after them, should be made slaves any
more. Secondly, that the rent of land should be fixed at a certain
price in money, instead of being paid in service. Thirdly, that
they should have liberty to buy and sell in all markets and public
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places, like other free men. Fourthly, that they should be
pardoned for past offences. Heaven knows, there was nothing very
unreasonable in these proposals! The young King deceitfully
pretended to think so, and kept thirty clerks up, all night,
writing out a charter accordingly.
Now, Wat Tyler himself wanted more than this. He wanted the entire
abolition of the forest laws. He was not at Mile-end with the
rest, but, while that meeting was being held, broke into the Tower
of London and slew the archbishop and the treasurer, for whose
heads the people had cried out loudly the day before. He and his
men even thrust their swords into the bed of the Princess of Wales
while the Princess was in it, to make certain that none of their
enemies were concealed there.
So, Wat and his men still continued armed, and rode about the city.
Next morning, the King with a small train of some sixty gentlemen –
among whom was WALWORTH the Mayor – rode into Smithfield, and saw
Wat and his people at a little distance. Says Wat to his men,
‘There is the King. I will go speak with him, and tell him what we
want.’
Straightway Wat rode up to him, and began to talk. ‘King,’ says
Wat, ‘dost thou see all my men there?’
‘Ah,’ says the King. ‘Why?’
‘Because,’ says Wat, ‘they are all at my command, and have sworn to
do whatever I bid them.’
Some declared afterwards that as Wat said this, he laid his hand on
the King’s bridle. Others declared that he was seen to play with
his own dagger. I think, myself, that he just spoke to the King
like a rough, angry man as he was, and did nothing more. At any
rate he was expecting no attack, and preparing for no resistance,
when Walworth the Mayor did the not very valiant deed of drawing a