And in the city with the mayor there
were twelve aldermen, whereof nine of them held with the king and the
other three took part with these ungracious people, as it was after
well known, the which they full dearly bought.
And on the Friday in the morning the people, being at Saint
Katharine's near to the Tower, began to apparel themselves and to cry
and shout, and said, without the king would come out and speak with
them, they would assail the Tower and take it by force, and slay all
them that were within. Then the king doubted these words and so was
counselled that he should issue out to speak with them: and then the
king sent to them that they should all draw to a fair plain place
called Mile-end, whereas the people of the city did sport them in the
summer season, and there the king to grant them that they desired; and
there it was cried in the king's name, that whosoever would speak with
the king let him go to the said place, and there he should not fail to
find the king. Then the people began to depart, specially the commons
of the villages, and went to the same place: but all went not thither,
for they were not all of one condition; for there were some that
desired nothing but riches and the utter destruction of the noblemen
and to have London robbed and pilled; that was the principal matter of
their beginning, the which they well shewed, for as soon as the Tower
gate opened and that the king was issued out with his two brethren and
the earl of Salisbury, the earl of Warwick, the earl of Oxford, sir
Robert of Namur, the lord of Vertaing, the lord Gommegnies and divers
other, then Wat Tyler, Jack Straw and John Ball and more than four
hundred entered into the Tower and brake up chamber after chamber, and
at last found the archbishop of Canterbury, called Simon, a valiant
man and a wise, and chief chancellor of England, and a little before
he had said mass before the king.
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