They are our people, and everything they are doing is for our benefit."
Whereupon it was deemed necessary to have the gates opened by force; the people flooded in, all of them ravenous, and made a beeline for houses well stocked with provisions where they installed themselves to drink and eat. Nothing was refused them, rather everyone was prepared to make them welcome and provide food and drink to satisfy them. After that, the captains
John Ball,
Jack Straw and
Wat Tyler marched through
London, with over thirty thousand men in their company, to the
Savoy Palace, a magnificent residence on the
Thames and home to the
duke of Lancaster, on the way to the king's palace at
Westminster. They broke in without delay, killed the guards and put it to fire and flame.
After committing this outrage they did not stop, but went to the house of the
Knights Hospitaller of St John of Jerusalem, called
St John's of Clerkenwell 28, and set fire to the house, the hospital, the church and everything else. After all that, they went from street to street, slaying every Fleming they came across in the churches, minsters and houses all over, and none were spared. They forced entry into many homes of the
Lombards, robbing them of their goods as they pleased, for nobody dared to stand in their way. In the city they killed a rich man named
Richard Lyons.
Wat Tyler had once been his varlet in
France during the wars, but
Richard Lyons had beaten his varlet on one occasion. He remembered this and led his men there, and had his head struck off in front of him, stuck on a spear, and paraded through the streets of
London.
Thus did these wicked people behave like wild and furious men, and that Thursday they caused much disorder throughout
London.
SHF 2-218 syncWhen evening came, they all found quarters around a square known as
Saint Katharine's, just outside the
Tower and fortress of London, saying that they would not leave until they had bent the king to their will and he had granted them everything they demanded. They also said that they wished for an account from the
chancellor of England, to know what had become of the great sums which had been collected throughout the realm of
England over the past five years, and if he did not give a good account to meet their satisfaction, woe betide him. With that, after having sufficiently tormented the foreigners all day throughout
London, they lodged outside the
Tower. You may well suppose that this was a terrible situation for the
king and for those who were with him inside, for from time to time these wretched folk cried out so loudly that it seemed as though all the demons of hell were among them. That evening the
king was counselled by his brothers and lords who were in the
Tower with him, and by
Sir William Walworth, the
mayor of London and some prominent and wealthy burgesses of
London, that in the middle of the night there should be an armed sweep through four of the streets of
London against these evil persons (who numbered a good sixty thousand or more) while they slept, for they would all be inebriated and be dropped like flies.
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