Now behold the great fortune. If they might have come to their
intents, they would have destroyed all the noblemen of England, and
thereafter all other nations would have followed the same and have
taken foot and ensample by them and by them of Gaunt and Flanders, who
rebelled against their lord. The same year the Parisians rebelled in
like wise and found out the mallets of iron, of whom there were more
than twenty thousand, as ye shall hear after in this history; but
first we will speak of them of England.
When these people thus lodged at Rochester departed, and passed the
river and came to Brentford, alway keeping still their opinions,
beating down before them and all about the places and houses of
advocates and procurers, and striking off the heads of divers persons.
And so long they went forward till they came within a four mile of
London, and there lodged on a hill called Blackheath; and as they
went, they said ever they were the king's men and the noble commons of
England:[1] and when they of London knew that they were come so near
to them, the mayor, as ye have heard before, closed the gates and kept
straitly all the passages.
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